“
“Background: Urban health is of global concern because the majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Although mental health Selleckchem Oligomycin A problems (e.g. depression) in developing countries are highly prevalent, such issues are not yet adequately addressed in the rapidly urbanising megacities of these countries, where a growing number of residents live in slums.

Little is known about the spectrum of mental well-being in urban slums and only poor knowledge exists on health promotive socio-physical environments in these areas. Using a geo-epidemiological approach, the present study identified factors that contribute to the mental well-being in the slums of Dhaka, which currently accommodates an estimated population of more than 14 million, including 3.4 million slum dwellers.\n\nMethods: The baseline data of a cohort study conducted in early 2009 in nine slums of Dhaka were used.

Data were collected from 1,938 adults (>= 15 years). All respondents were geographically marked based on their households using global positioning systems (GPS). Very high-resolution land cover information was processed in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to obtain additional exposure information. We used a factor analysis to reduce the socio-physical explanatory variables to a fewer set of uncorrelated linear combinations of variables. We then regressed these factors on the WHO-5 Well-being Index that was used as a proxy for self-rated mental see more wellbeing.\n\nResults: Mental well-being was significantly associated with various factors such as selected features of the natural environment, flood risk, sanitation, housing quality, sufficiency and durability. We further identified associations with population density, job satisfaction, and income generation while controlling for individual P005091 solubility dmso factors such as age, gender, and diseases.\n\nConclusions: Factors determining mental well-being were related to the socio-physical environment

and individual level characteristics. Given that mental well-being is associated with physiological well-being, our study may provide crucial information for developing better health care and disease prevention programmes in slums of Dhaka and other comparable settings.”
“In this first principles study, we report the high storage capacity exhibited by (5,5) single-walled carbon nanotube functionalized with BH(3) for two different coverages. Being light weight and hydrogen rich, BH(3) is able to adsorb H(2) molecules in the vicinity of carbon nanotube. While BH(3) is chemisorbed on the carbon nanotube, H(2) are physisorbed on the (CNT+BH(3)) complex. On half coverage of BH(3) molecules, single-walled carbon nanotube can adsorb 6.8 wt% of hydrogen and the wt% is increased to 11.5 for full coverage. In both cases each BH(3) can bind up to 4H(2) molecules with the binding energy in the range recommended for efficient hydrogen storage medium. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V.