Chitosan from shrimp shell (Crangon crangon) and fish scales (Labeorohita): Extraction and characterization Suneeta

Chitosan is a naturally available biopolymer. It has been prepared by alkaline N deacetylation process of shrimp (Crangon crangon) chitin and fish (Labeorohita) chitin. The physico-chemical properties such as the degree of deacetylation (DD), solubility, water binding capacity, fat binding capacity and chitosan yield have indicated that shrimp shell and fish scale waste are good sources of chitosan. The deacetylation value of shrimp shell chitosan, fish scales and commercial chitosan was found to be 76, 80 and 84%, respectively. The crystalline index (CrI) of fish and shrimp shell was 84 and 82%. Fat binding capacity of fish chitosan, shrimp chitosan and commercial chitosan was found to be 226, 246 and 446%, respectively. Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra presented a detailed structure of α-chitin with O-H, N-H and CO stretching movements. Structural differences between shrimp chitosan and fish chitosan were studied by using FTIR, thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), Xray powder diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FTIR spectra were used to determine the chitosan degree of deacetylation (DD). Characteristic properties of extracted chitosan were found to depend upon the source of origin and degree of deacetylation.Keywords: Chitosan, fish scales, shrimp shel

Instrument development for organisational health

This study establishes the factors influencing Organisational Health (OH), leading to the development of an empirical measurement instrument.Despite the fact that a few firms have understood the significance of measuring health, they mostly do not know precisely what to measure, because of an absence of understanding of what constitutes a set of organisational health dimensions.This study used a mixed method through literature review, expert opinion and a quantitative pilot survey with 123 supervisory staff from a telecommunication company in India. The instrument was further tested for standardisation in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.The study identified an OH measurement model consisting three constructs such as Change Capacity, Goal Alignment and Competitive Advantage.There are 29 items which collectively influence the degree of OH in an Organisation. By proposing, creating, and validating a multi-dimensional, operational measure of the organisational health, and by showing its viability in enhancing organisational performance, the present study gives practitioners a handy instrument for assessing the extensiveness of their current OH initiatives.The experts while interacting for the study expressed a uniform opinion regarding the OH constructs and its factors.We believe that developing an objective measurement instrument for organisational health is a significant contribution to the body of knowledge

Removal of hexavalent chromium using chitosan prepared from shrimp shells

Contamination of the aqueous environment by heavy metals and due to the discharge of metal containing effluents into the water bodies is one of the environmental issues of the century. Thus, in this work, the main concern has been the preparation of chitin and chitosan from the raw materials of shrimp shells and the characterization of the prepared chitosan by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The work was then shifted to investigate the potentiality of Cr+6 adsorption with the prepared chitosan. The controlled parameters of adsorption process were studied. The percentage of Cr+6 removal using the shrimp chitosan was 64.29%.Keywords: Shrimp shells, chitosan, adsorption, chiti

Anticipatory competence building: Towards a measurement model

Identification of resources that will be a source of competitive advantage is not a simple task for today’s firms, since many of the characteristics attributed to them can only be intuitively perceived. The available competence frameworks capture the competence requirements for a family of clear and present jobs.In a fast moving business world of new products and technology, companies are grappling with the requirement to generate, acquire and internalize newer competence required for future products. This study examines Anticipatory Competence Building (ACB) as an essential moderator between Technology Competence Obsolescence (TCO) and Organisational Health (OH) in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.In this paper, we argue that ACB can be developed into a measurement model with five distinct dimensions, namely Competence obsolescence, Future competence, Technology research, Market orientation and Competence renewal.The data is consolidated using the Delphi technique with the opinions of experts from diverse fields within Malaysia. The study ratified an ACB model consisting second order constructs with 17 factors which collectively influence the degree of TCO and OH in an Organization.These factors are itemized to convert the model into a survey based instrument of measure.The model gives practitioners a refreshed look at the current competency framework to be wary about the imminent and essential future competencies

Impact of innovation capacity and anticipatory competence on organizational health: A resource based study of Nokia, Motorola and Blackberry

Analysts cite several reasons for the decline of Nokia, Motorola & Blackberry which include wrong product strategy, market mis-alignment, improper customer orientation, untimely investment etc. However, looking at from the Resource-Based View (RBV), the researchers identify few catalytic elements, which arguably augmented an unfavorable situation for these companies to be decimated gradually by the quick and the smart in the marketplace.The study was conducted through the analytical research of the literature available on the three companies.From the RBV perspective, the researchers identify Collective Competence Deficiency (CCD) as a common factor in the companies which resulted in decline of the organizational health.The study acknowledges the role of disruptive technology in making internal competence obsolete faster than the usual in Information and Communication Technology sector. The researchers further explore the moderating role of Innovation Capacity (IC) and Anticipatory Competence Building (ACB), in defining the degree of competence deficiency created by the fast changing technology.Through the case studies of Nokia, Motorola and Blackberry and from the content analysis of literature around technology companies, there emerge the measurement models of IC and ACB.Researchers consolidated 7 dimensions and 21 factors for IC and 6 dimensions and 17 factors for ACB. HRD practitioners and scholars should further explore these relationships, especially in the high tech industry sector where the competition drives out established companies from the marketplace for want of innovation and competence, a right mix of vitamins to maintain theOrganizationalHealth (OH)

Relationship between fish and otolith dimensions of flathead sillago Sillaginopsis panijus (Hamilton, 1822) (Perciformes: Sillaginidae) in the north-western Bay of Bengal

The present study established the fish body and otolith dimension relationships of flathead sillago Sillaginopsis panijus (Hamilton, 1822), to assist the interpretation of growth. A total of 413 specimens were collected fortnightly from September 2018 to August 2019 off north-western Bay of Bengal. The samples ranged between 142–394 mm in total length and16-413.1 g in total weight. With fish growth, positive correlation was observed between the fish and otolith morphometric parameters. The highest coefficient of determination (R2) was observed between total length and otolith weight (R2=0.9198), followed by otolith weight and otolith width (R2=0.896). These results provide baseline information on the dimensional relationship between fish length and otolith size of this species in Indian waters, which will be helpful in future study on the food and feeding habits, growth and stock structure. Keywords: Coefficient of determination, Correlation, Growth rings, Life history, Morphometry, Sagitt

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2–4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570