Writing a Life Between Gender Lines Conversations with A. Revathi about her autobiography The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story

A. Revathi was born physiologically male but felt and behaved like a girl - this is how she tells her story, as will be clear from the interview below. Nearly her whole childhood, spent in a village in Salem district of Tamil Nadu, was plagued by this deep and nagging unease of being trapped in the wrong body and by 'a growing sense of irrepressible femaleness'. But when she behaved like one of her girl-playmates, it only meant repeated humiliation and violence by her family and community. This affected her academic performance, and she had to drop out of school after failing the tenth grade. In a quest to be true to herself, Revathi, still in her teens, ran away from home and travelled to Delhi to join a house of hijras. Hijras are male-to-female transsexuals who undergo a surgical removal of the genitals (often performed surreptitiously and in unsanitary conditions) and comprise a distinct community across India with elaborate customs and regulations of their own. Hijras are given ritualistic importance by mainstream Indian society (for instance, their blessings are considered to bring good fortune) but at the same time they are easy targets for sexual crimes, discriminated against in public spaces, and have few options for livelihood apart from performing at social events, begging or prostitution. Revathi, now in her mid-forties, discusses all this with remarkable candour and courage in her autobiography The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story, translated into English from Tamil by V. Geetha and published by Penguin India Books in 2010. This autobiography is among the very first of its kind in India, uninhibited with regard to divisive gender lines, sexual hypocrisy of 'traditional' societies, and the dismal lack of public discourse on the rights of sexual minorities

Effect of immunostimulant on enhancement of the immune response of kuruma shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicus and its resistance against White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV)

An experiment of 45 days duration to test the efficacy of the Vibrio alginolyticus as an immunostimulant was conducted in Marsupenaeus japonicus against white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) infection, considered as one of the serious pathogens of shrimps. The shrimps were fed with the experimental diets coated with different concentrations of bacteria of 17 ml / kg feed and 10 % of animal body wt. They were challenged with WSSV to assess the increase in survival rate and growth if any due to immune enhancement. Another group of shrimp was used for drawing the haemolymph to estimate the increase in the level of prophenoloxidase activity. Samplings for the above said analysis were carried out at 15 days interval for a period of 45 days. The highest prophenoloxidase activity (39.78 with sand substrate-T1) and the highest survival rate (66.66 % with sand substrate-T1) and highest growth rate (7.04 % in 17ml/kg- with sand substrate-T1) were recorded in experimental diet (17 ml / kg feed). Hence the 17 ml / kg feed of Vibrio alginolyticus formalin killed added to the diet could be an eco-friendly and economically viable immunostimulant for penaeid shrimps

Design and Evaluation of Heterobivalent PAR1–PAR2 Ligands as Antagonists of Calcium Mobilization

A novel class of bivalent ligands targeting putative protease-activated receptor (PAR) heteromers has been prepared based upon reported antagonists for the subtypes PAR1 and PAR2. Modified versions of the PAR1 antagonist RWJ-58259 containing alkyne adapters were connected via cycloaddition reactions to azide-capped polyethylene glycol (PEG) spacers attached to imidazopyridazine-based PAR2 antagonists. Initial studies of the PAR1–PAR2 antagonists indicated that they inhibited G alpha q-mediated calcium mobilization in endothelial and cancer cells driven by both PAR1 and PAR2 agonists. Compounds of this novel class hold promise for the prevention of restenosis, cancer cell metastasis, and other proliferative disorders

Monte Carlo study on anomalous carrier diffusion in inhomogeneous semiconductors

We perform ensemble Monte Carlo simulations of electron diffusion in high mobility inhomogeneous InAs layers. Electrons move ballistically for short times while moving diffusively for sufficiently long times. We find that electrons show anomalous diffusion in the intermediate time domain. Our study suggests that electrons in inhomogeneous InAs could be used to experimentally explore generalized random walk phenomena, which, some studies assert, also occur naturally in the motion of animal foraging paths

Subclinical atherosclerosis and silent myocardial ischaemia in patients with type 2 diabetes: a protocol of a clinico-observational study

Introduction: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is a significant modifiable complication in patients with diabetes and subclinical atherosclerosis is considered a surrogate marker of future vascular events. The clustering of cardiometabolic-risk factors in patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease is increasingly being recognised. Recent evidence indicates that 20–50% of asymptomatic patients with diabetes may have silent coronary heart disease. However, the identification of subclinical atherosclerosis and silent myocardial ischaemia in patients with diabetes has been less well-explored, especially in low-resource population settings where cost-effective non-invasive clinical tools are available. The objective of this study is to identify patients with physician-diagnosed diabetes who are at risk of developing future cardiovascular events measured as subclinical atherosclerosis and silent myocardial ischaemia in an urban population of Eastern India.Methods and analysis This is a cross-sectional clinico-observational study. A convenience sampling of approximately 350 consecutive patients with type 2 diabetes based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria will be identified at an urban diabetes center. This estimated sample size is based on an expected prevalence of silent myocardial ischaemia of 25% (± 5%), we computed the required sample size using OpenEpi online software assuming an α level of 0.05 (95% CI) to be 289. On factoring 20% non-response the estimated sample size is 350. Previously validated questionnaire tools and well-defined clinical, anthropometric and biochemical measurements will be utilised for data collection. The two primary outcomes—subclinical atherosclerosis and silent myocardial ischaemia will be measured using carotid intima-media thickness and exercise tolerance testing, respectively. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression statistical techniques will be employed to identify ‘at risk’ patients with diabetes, and adjusted for potential confounders. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval was granted by the institutional review board of Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneshwar, India. Data will be presented at academic fora and published in peer-reviewed journals

Prediction of Thermal Protection System Material Permeability and Hydraulic Tortuosity Factor Using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo

Carbon preforms used in Thermal Protection System (TPS) materials are 80 to 90% porous, allowing for boundary layer and pyrolysis gases to flow through the porous regions. The bulk material properties such as permeability and hydraulic tortuosity factor affect the transport of the boundary layer gases. The use of Direct Simulation Monte Carlo along with the Klinkenberg permeability formulation allows us to compute the continuum permeability and Knudsen correction factor for flow in the transition regime. In this work, we have computed the permeability for two types of carbon preforms, namely, Morgan Felt and FiberForm, and assessed the effect of orientation on the permeability. Since both the materials are anisotropic, the permeability was found to depend on orientation, wherein, the materials are more permeable in the in-plane orientation than the through-thickness orientation. The through-thickness orientation was also more tortuous compared to the in-plane material orientation. Compared to Morgan Felt, FiberForm is less permeable, in both, through thickness and in-plane directions

Effect of tcdR Mutation on Sporulation in the Epidemic Clostridium difficile Strain R20291

Citation: Girinathan, B. P., Monot, M., Boyle, D., McAllister, K. N., Sorg, J. A., Dupuy, B., & Govind, R. (2017). Effect of tcdR Mutation on Sporulation in the Epidemic Clostridium difficile Strain R20291. Msphere, 2(1), 14. doi:10.1128/mSphere.00383-16Clostridium difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen and the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea. Antibiotic use is the primary risk factor for the development of C. difficile-associated disease because it disrupts normally protective gut flora and enables C. difficile to colonize the colon. C. difficile damages host tissue by secreting toxins and disseminates by forming spores. The toxin-encoding genes, tcdA and tcdB, are part of a pathogenicity locus, which also includes the tcdR gene that codes for TcdR, an alternate sigma factor that initiates transcription of tcdA and tcdB genes. We created a tcdR mutant in epidemic-type C. difficile strain R20291 in an attempt to identify the global role of tcdR. A site-directed mutation in tcdR affected both toxin production and sporulation in C. difficile R20291. Spores of the tcdR mutant were more heat sensitive than the wild type (WT). Nearly 3-fold more taurocholate was needed to germinate spores from the tcdR mutant than to germinate the spores prepared from the WT strain. Transmission electron microscopic analysis of the spores also revealed a weakly assembled exosporium on the tcdR mutant spores. Accordingly, comparative transcriptome analysis showed many differentially expressed sporulation genes in the tcdR mutant compared to the WT strain. These data suggest that regulatory networks of toxin production and sporulation in C. difficile strain R20291 are linked with each other. IMPORTANCE C. difficile infects thousands of hospitalized patients every year, causing significant morbidity and mortality. C. difficile spores play a pivotal role in the transmission of the pathogen in the hospital environment. During infection, the spores germinate, and the vegetative bacterial cells produce toxins that damage host tissue. Thus, sporulation and toxin production are two important traits of C. difficile. In this study, we showed that a mutation in tcdR, the toxin gene regulator, affects both toxin production and sporulation in epidemic-type C. difficile strain R20291

Ceftriaxone-Resistant Salmonella enterica Serotype Typhimurium Sequence Type 313 from Kenyan Patients Is Associated with the blaCTX-M-15 Gene on a Novel IncHI2 Plasmid

Multidrug-resistant bacteria pose a major challenge to the clinical management of infections in resource-poor settings. Although nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) bacteria cause predominantly enteric self-limiting illness in developed countries, NTS is responsible for a huge burden of life-threatening bloodstream infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, we characterized nine S. Typhimurium isolates from an outbreak involving patients who initially failed to respond to ceftriaxone treatment at a referral hospital in Kenya. These Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium isolates were resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, aztreonam, cefepime, sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim, and cefpodoxime. Resistance to β-lactams, including to ceftriaxone, was associated with carriage of a combination of blaCTX-M-15, blaOXA-1, and blaTEM-1 genes. The genes encoding resistance to heavy-metal ions were borne on the novel IncHI2 plasmid pKST313, which also carried a pair of class 1 integrons. All nine isolates formed a single clade within S. Typhimurium ST313, the major clone of an ongoing invasive NTS epidemic in the region. This emerging ceftriaxone-resistant clone may pose a major challenge in the management of invasive NTS in sub-Saharan Africa

Network of Earthquakes and Recurrences Therein

We quantify the correlation between earthquakes and use the same to distinguish between relevant causally connected earthquakes. Our correlation metric is a variation on the one introduced by Baiesi and Paczuski (2004). A network of earthquakes is constructed, which is time ordered and with links between the more correlated ones. Data pertaining to the California region has been used in the study. Recurrences to earthquakes are identified employing correlation thresholds to demarcate the most meaningful ones in each cluster. The distribution of recurrence lengths and recurrence times are analyzed subsequently to extract information about the complex dynamics. We find that the unimodal feature of recurrence lengths helps to associate typical rupture lengths with different magnitude earthquakes. The out-degree of the network shows a hub structure rooted on the large magnitude earthquakes. In-degree distribution is seen to be dependent on the density of events in the neighborhood. Power laws are also obtained with recurrence time distribution agreeing with the Omori law.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure