India has witnessed some of the most severe historical droughts in the current decade, and severity, frequency, and areal extent of droughts have been increasing. As a large part of the population of India is dependent on agriculture, soil moisture drought affecting agricultural activities (crop yields) has significant impacts on socioeconomic conditions. Due to limited observations, soil moisture is generally simulated using land-surface hydrological models (LSMs); however, these LSM outputs have uncertainty due to many factors, including errors in forcing data and model parameterization. Here we reconstruct agricultural drought events over India

Purpose: To identify malnourished cases and determine their relationship with weaning time and socioeconomic factors in under-5 children inSwat, Pakistan. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Pediatric Ward and Outpatients Department (OPD), Saidu Teaching Hospital, Swat, Pakistan using case files from October to December 2011. Results: A total of 186 children were studied to identify malnutrition, out of which 101 (37.7 %) were male and 85 (32.0 %) female. Moreover, 95 (35.7 %) of the mothers were < 30 years of age and 91 (34.0 %) > 30 years. About 33.7 % of the children were weaned before the age of 4 months. The maternal age of 28.6 % of the malnourished children was < 20 years, and about 2l % of the malnourished children were not immunized against eight EPI (Expanded Program on Immunization) target diseases, viz, poliomyelitis, neonatal tetanus, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis-B, Hib pneumonia & meningitis, and childhood tuberculosis. Respondents from urban location 98 (36.7 %), while 88 (33.0 %). Based on Gomez's classification, out of 186 children, 19 (7.1 %) were victims of malnutrition; mothers of 35.6 % of the children were uneducated and 25.5 % had primary level (5 years) education. The number of siblings per mother was ≥ 5 in the case of 64.8 % of the malnourished children. More than half of the children were at risk of malnutrition. Conclusion: The incidence of malnutrition is about the same for both male and female children. Risk factors for malnutrition in the children include lack of education, teenage pregnancy, lack of immunization, and large family size.

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Aim:To assess the impact of diabetes mellitus (DM) on the cost of the tuberculosis (TB) treatment. Study Design: Prevalence based cohort Place and Duration of Study: Methods: Study patients were placed in the TB only, DM only, or DM-TB groups,with each group including 200 patients. Information related to demographics, chronic disease comorbidity, duration of hypertension (HTN) and DM, and economic variables were obtained from the patients' medical files both at the beginning and end of the study period. The economic burden of DM-TB patients was assessed from hospitalization periods, frequency of clinic visits, and diagnostic requests. Results: Durations of DM and HTN were 9.2 and 5.6 years, respectively, for the DMonly group compared to 5.3 and 1.1 years, respectively, for DM-TB subjects. For both diabetic groups, diabetes preceded HTN, with onset of HTN occurring approximately 4 years after patients were diagnosed diabetic. Approximately 86% of DM only subjects suffered additional comorbidity, and 44.5% had three or more coexisting chronic diseases compared to 56% and 11.4%, respectively, in the DM-TB group. The hospitalization period was 10.2 days for the DM-TB group compared to 7 and 4 days for the TB only Research Article1599 and DM only groups, respectively; however, 43% of TB only subjects needed surgical intervention compared to 17% in the DM-TB group. The total cost wasRM4530 (US$1234.3) for the DM-TB group compared to RM3082.8 (US$840) and RM6945.26 (US$1892.40) for theTB only and DM only groups, respectively. Conclusions: DM antedated HTN in our patients. Durations of both DM and HTNwere longer for the DM only group. The number of diagnosed chronic diseases and overall treatment cost was higher in the DM-TB group compared to TB only group, but lower compared to the DM only group. The TB only group required the most surgical intervention.

Abstract. India has witnessed some of the most severe droughts in the current decade and severity, frequency, and areal extent of droughts have been increasing. As a large population of India is dependent on agriculture, soil moisture droughts adversely affect agriculture and groundwater resources. Due to lack of observations, soil moisture is generally simulated using land surface hydrological models (LSMs), however, these LSMs have uncertainty due to model parameterization. Here 10 we reconstruct agricultural drought events during the period of 1951-2015 based on simulated soil moisture from three LSMs, the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), the Noah, and the Community Land Model (CLM). We find a higher uncertainty in soil moisture droughts over a large part of India during the major crop growing season (Rabi season, November to February: NDJF) than that of the monsoon season (June to September: JJAS). Moreover, uncertainty in drought estimates is higher for severe and localized droughts. Higher uncertainty in the soil moisture droughts is largely due 15to the difference in model parameterizations; resulting in different persistence of soil moisture simulated by the three LSMs.Our study highlights the importance of accounting for the LSMs uncertainty and consideration of multimodel ensemble for the real-time monitoring and prediction of drought over India.