Studies on the intiation of callusing and regeneration of plantlets in three different basal media with varied plant growth regulators for the micropropagation of Anthurium scherzeriaum using leaf and spathe as explants

Anthurium scherzeriaum is one of the most common ornamentals used in floriculture industry. However, there is shortage of planting material supplied to the cultivators. To overcome this problem, many breeders adopted micropropagation techniques. The usage of high dosage of plant growth regulators in the media resulted in mutation and loss of potentiality in the regeneration. An attempt was made to derive a suitable medium and selection of proper explants to avoid undesirable results. Explants like young old leaf segments and spathe were used. Three different basal medias such as Murashige and Skoog (MS), Nitsch and White’ media were used with varying concentration of growth regulators. The obtained results indicated marked improvement in the growth pattern and morphological features of the plants obtained by culturing spathe segments in Nitsch’ medium.Key words: Anthurium scherzeriaum, tissue culture, floriculture, ornamental plant

Inter-cluster Thread-to-core Mapping and DVFS on Heterogeneous Multi-cores

Heterogeneous multi-core platforms that contain different types of cores, organized as clusters, are emerging, e.g. ARM's big.LITTLE architecture. These platforms often need to deal with multiple applications, having different performance requirements, executing concurrently. This leads to generation of varying and mixed workloads (e.g. compute and memory intensive) due to resource sharing. Run-time management is required for adapting to such performance requirements and workload variabilities and to achieve energy efficiency. Moreover, the management becomes challenging when the applications are multi-threaded and the heterogeneity needs to be exploited. The existing run-time management approaches do not efficiently exploit cores situated in different clusters simultaneously (referred to as inter-cluster exploitation) and DVFS potential of cores, which is the aim of this paper. Such exploitation might help to satisfy the performance requirement while achieving energy savings at the same time. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a run-time management approach that first selects thread-to-core mapping based on the performance requirements and resource availability. Then, it applies online adaptation by adjusting the voltage-frequency (V-f) levels to achieve energy optimization, without trading-off application performance. For thread-to-core mapping, offline profiled results are used, which contain performance and energy characteristics of applications when executed on the heterogeneous platform by using different types of cores in various possible combinations. For an application, thread-to-core mapping process defines the number of used cores and their type, which are situated in different clusters. The online adaptation process classifies the inherent workload characteristics of concurrently executing applications, incurring a lower overhead than existing learning-based approaches as demonstrated in this paper. The classification of workload is performed using the metric Memory Reads Per Instruction (MRPI). The adaptation process pro-actively selects an appropriate V-f pair for a predicted workload. Subsequently, it monitors the workload prediction error and performance loss, quantified by instructions per second (IPS), and adjusts the chosen V-f to compensate. We validate the proposed run-time management approach on a hardware platform, the Odroid-XU3, with various combinations of multi-threaded applications from PARSEC and SPLASH benchmarks. Results show an average improvement in energy efficiency up to 33% compared to existing approaches while meeting the performance requirements

Prediction of the Atomization Energy of Molecules Using Coulomb Matrix and Atomic Composition in a Bayesian Regularized Neural Networks

Exact calculation of electronic properties of molecules is a fundamental step for intelligent and rational compounds and materials design. The intrinsically graph-like and non-vectorial nature of molecular data generates a unique and challenging machine learning problem. In this paper we embrace a learning from scratch approach where the quantum mechanical electronic properties of molecules are predicted directly from the raw molecular geometry, similar to some recent works. But, unlike these previous endeavors, our study suggests a benefit from combining molecular geometry embedded in the Coulomb matrix with the atomic composition of molecules. Using the new combined features in a Bayesian regularized neural networks, our results improve well-known results from the literature on the QM7 dataset from a mean absolute error of 3.51 kcal/mol down to 3.0 kcal/mol.Comment: Under review ICANN 201

Antral resection versus antral preservation during laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy for severe obesity: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Although laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy is an established operation for severe obesity, there is controversy regarding the extent to which the antrum is excised. The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the effect on perioperative complications and medium-term outcomes of antral resecting versus antral preserving sleeve gastrectomy. MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were searched from 1946 to April 2017. Eligible studies compared antral resection (staple line commencing 2-3 cm from pylorus) with antral preservation (>5 cm from pylorus) in patients undergoing primary sleeve gastrectomy for obesity. Meta-analyses were performed with a random-effects model, and risk of bias within and across studies was assessed using validated scoring systems. Eight studies (619 participants) were included: 6 randomized controlled trials and 2 cohort studies. Overall follow-up was 94% for the specified outcomes of each study. Mean percentage excess weight loss was 62% at 12 months (7 studies; 574 patients) and 67% at 24 months (4 studies; 412 patients). Antral resection was associated with significant improvement in percentage excess weight loss at 24-month follow-up (mean 70% versus 61%; standardized mean difference .95; confidence interval .35-1.58, P<.005), an effect that remained significant when cohort studies were excluded. There was no difference in incidence of perioperative bleeding, leak, or de novo gastroesophageal reflux disease. According to the available evidence, antral resection is associated with better medium-term weight loss compared with antral preservation, without increased risk of surgical complications. Further randomized clinical trials are indicated to confirm this finding. Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Neuronavigation-assisted bedside placement of bolt external ventricular drains in the intensive care setting: a technical note

Background: The insertion of bolt external ventricular drains (EVD) on the intensive care unit (ICU) has enabled rapid cranial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) diversion. However, bolt EVDs tend to be perceived as a more challenging technique, particularly when dealing with small ventricles or when there is midline shift distorting the ventricular morphology. Furthermore, if neuronavigation guidance is felt to be necessary, this usually assumes a transfer to an operating theatre. In this technical note, we describe the use of electromagnetic neuronavigation for bolt EVD insertion on the ICU and assess the protocol’s feasibility and accuracy. / Methods: Case series of neuronavigation-assisted bolt EVD insertion in ICU setting, using Medtronic Flat Emitter for StealthStation EM. / Results: Neuronavigation-guided bolt EVDs were placed at the bedside in n = 5 patients on ICU. Their widest frontal ventricular horn diameter in the coronal plane ranged from 11 to 20 mm. No procedural complications were encountered. Post-procedural CT confirmed the optimal placement of the EVDs. / Conclusions: Electromagnetic neuronavigation is feasible at the ICU bedside and can assist the insertion of bolt EVDs in this setting. The preference for a bolt EVD to be inserted in ICU—as is standard practice at this unit—should not prohibit patients from benefitting from image guidance if required

A New Approach to Measuring Distances in Dense Graphs

The problem of computing distances and shortest paths between vertices in graphs is one of the fundamental issues in graph theory. It is of great importance in many different applications, for example, transportation, and social network analysis. However, efficient shortest distance algorithms are still desired in many disciplines. Basically, the majority of dense graphs have ties between the shortest distances. Therefore, we consider a different approach and introduce a new measure to solve all-pairs shortest paths for undirected and unweighted graphs. This measures the shortest distance between any two vertices by considering the length and the number of all possible paths between them. The main aim of this new approach is to break the ties between equal shortest paths SP, which can be obtained by the Breadth-first search algorithm (BFS), and distinguish meaningfully between these equal distances. Moreover, using the new measure in clustering produces higher quality results compared with SP. In our study, we apply two different clustering techniques: hierarchical clustering and K-means clustering, with four different graph models, and for a various number of clusters. We compare the results using a modularity function to check the quality of our clustering results

Clinico-epidemiological Profile of Incidentally Detected Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumours on Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: A Retrospective Study

Introduction: Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) are rare tumours, with the Gastrointestinal (GI) tract and the lung as the most common sites with indolent course. Endoscopists play a pivotal role in the diagnosis of GI-NETS because the majority of patients with NETs are asymptomatic and NETs are discovered during screening examinations. Since GI-NETs are less common than other cancers, their natural history, diagnosis, and treatment may not be completely understood. Aim: To estimate the prevalence and to characterize the clinical, endoscopic, and histological features of incidentally detected GI NETs in nodular/polypoidal/ulcerated lesions on GI endoscopy. Materials and Methods: This record-based retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Medical Gastroenterology of a tertiary care facility. The data belonged to the period between January 2018 to December 2020. Data belonged to the patients that underwent Oesophago- gastro duodenoscopy (OGD)/ Colonoscopy and were found to have nodular/ polypoidal lesions. Records on serum chromogranin, serum gastrin and radiological tests such as Ultrasonography(USG) or Computed Tomography (CT) scan were recorded. The histopathological with immunohistochemistry staining report was used to diagnose NETs. Continuous variables were analysed for normality by the Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Results: A total of 59 eligible patients were studied. The prevalence of GI NET tumours in 2018 was 17 (0. 32%), 19 (0. 33%) in 2019, and 23 (0. 41%) in 2020 with an overall rate of 59 (0. 36%) for all the three years. Total male participants were 35 (59.32%), and the mean age of the patients was 56.13 ±12.44 years. Majority had abdominal pain (32, 54.24%) and 35(59.32%) had tumours in the duodenum, 15 (25.42 %) in the stomach. The most common site was duodenum 35 (59.32%). As per World Health Organisation (WHO) NET, most tumours were Grade I (50, 45.76%). Majority of tumours had Synaptophysin (57, 96.61%), Chromogranin (49, 83.05%), and a Ki67 (Kiel-clone no.67) index≤ 2 (49, 83.05%), while 27 (84. 75 %) tumours were of size of <1 cm. Conclusion: GI-NETs are uncommon, and their biology, histopathology, and clinical behavior are distinct. Typically, they are slow-growing tumours, but their growth rate can fluctuate depending on the location, size, and grade of the tumour

Augmentation of HIV-specific T cell function by immediate treatment of hyperacute HIV-1 infection

Sustained viremia after acute HIV infection is associated with profound CD4+ T cell loss and exhaustion of HIV-specific CD8+ T cell responses. To determine the impact of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) on these processes, we examined the evolution of immune responses in acutely infected individuals initiating treatment before peak viremia. Immediate treatment of Fiebig stages I and II infection led to a rapid decline in viral load and diminished magnitude of HIV-specific (tetramer+) CD8+ T cell responses compared to untreated donors. There was a strong positive correlation between cumulative viral antigen exposure before full cART-induced suppression and immune responses measured by MHC class I tetramers, IFN-γ ELISPOT, and CD8+ T cell activation. HIV-specific CD8+ T responses of early treated individuals were characterized by increased CD127 and BCL-2 expression, greater in vitro IFN-γ secretion, and enhanced differentiation into effector memory (Tem) cells. Transcriptional analysis of tetramer+ CD8+ T cells from treated persons revealed reduced expression of genes associated with activation and apoptosis, with concurrent up-regulation of prosurvival genes including BCL-2, AXL, and SRC. Early treatment also resulted in robust HIV-specific CD4+ T cell responses compared to untreated HIV-infected individuals. Our data show that limiting acute viremia results in enhanced functionality of HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, preserving key antiviral properties of these cells

An Investigation into the Mediating Influence of Customer Expertise on the Antecedents and Consequences of Affect within Professional Service Markets

This study examines the mediating influence of consumer expertise on the antecedents and consequences of Affect within a professional services market context. Whilst there is increasing evidence to suggest an empirical link between Affect evoked and satisfaction within such contexts, previous research has largely ignored the role of consumer expertise as a mediating influence. Using a scenario based approach, the objective of the study was to test for multigroup invariance among competing structural models based on the ability of the respondents to form expectation and performance assessments about the service they are receiving. The results indicate that it is important to examine different levels of consumer expertise in detail to better understand how certain characteristics such as experience and qualifications influence the priority and functionality attached to service attributes when making satisfaction judgments within a professional service context. This may in turn have broader implications for our contextual understanding of services

Genetic Improvement of Rice for Multiple Stress Tolerance in Unfavorable Rainfed Ecology

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