BACKGROUND: The evolving legal landscape for medical aid-in-dying (AID) in the USA raises clinical and public health challenges and concerns regarding how health care providers will accommodate AID while expanding access to high-quality end-of-life care. OBJECTIVE: To describe Vermont health care providers' experiences practicing under the BPatient Choice and Control at End of Life^Act. DESIGN: Qualitative semi-structured interviews analyzed using grounded theory. PARTICIPANTS: The larger study included 144 health care providers, terminally ill patients, caregivers, policy stakeholders, and other Vermont residents working in 10 out of Vermont's 14 counties. This article reports on a subset of 37 providers who had clinical experience with the law. MAIN MEASURES: Themes from interviews. KEY RESULTS: Physicians were roughly split between hospital and community-based practices. Most were women (68%) and the largest subgroup specialized in internal or family medicine (53%). Most of the nurses and social workers were women (89%) and most worked for hospice and home health agencies (61%). We identified five domains in which participants engaged with AID: (1) clinical communication and counseling; (2) the Act 39 protocol; (3) prescribing medication; (4) planning for death; and (5) professional education. How providers experienced these five domains of clinical practice depended on their practice setting and the supportive resources available. CONCLUSION: Health care providers' participation in AID involves clinical tasks outside of responding to patients' requests and writing prescriptions. Research to identify best practices should focus on all domains of clinical practice in order to best prepare providers.

Backfilling of mine voids is mandatory to avoid subsequent ground stability problems in the form of subsidence. River sand and mill tailings have been widely used since a long time as backfilling materials. However, with a strict regulation banning river sand mining in India, research for developing alternative engineering materials substituting sand has gained importance. In the present study four fly ash composite materials (FCMs) was developed from the fly ash obtained from a captive thermal unit of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP). The main constituent of the composite were fly ash, lime and gypsum. Detailed physical, and engineering properties were determined for the FCMs. Significant increases in the compressive strength were obtained after 56 days of curing time. A detailed SEM studies was undertaken to account for the increase in strength with time. The fly ash composite developed from RSP has potential to be used as substitute to sand for backfilling the mine voids.

In general, the lockdown to prevent the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a better quality of air across the world. The concentrations of both particulate and majority of gaseous pollutants were decreased drastically due to total shutdown of outdoor activities in the initial phase. This has resulted in up to 50% reduction in the air quality index (AQI) over South Asian megacities. A significant reduction was observed over most polluted ranked cities in South Asia like Delhi (41%), Dhaka (16%), Kathmandu (32%), Colombo (33%) including Islamabad and Kabul. A major decrease was also observed in the gaseous pollutants like CO, NO2, and SO2. The strict lockdown provided an opportunity to the relevant authorities to reassess the large-scale transport and industrial sectors to avoid undue emissions of harmful pollutants. The present analysis suggests that there is a need of controlled emissions of air pollutants with reference to the lockdown values of `New Normal', and to switch over to the cleaner fuel technology options at the earliest possible. There is a need to constitute an Inter-state agency to monitor transboundary and long-range transport of pollution across south Asia. Finally, a holistic approach for maintaining balance between `need and greed' for energy and resource consumption is needed which can provide us the sustainable atmosphere and healthy air quality throughout the region.