Digital Library of IIITM-K – Experiences of Next Generation resource centre

Digital Library has many features that make it distinct from traditional libraries. These features make it an excellent medium to address information and interaction services related to quality of education, and management of learning environments. While the paper libraries have become very expensive and are the prerogative of only a few well endowed institutions, Digital Libraries make these services and more at affordable costs. This will remove the digital divide between developed and developing nations in long run. Transversal E-Networks [TEN] a company under incubation at IIITM-K has developed an academic aggregation server concept in which several academic functions such as Course Management, Authoring, and collaborative group-work are built around their unique metadata standards compliant Digital Library implementation. This server called “ACADO” is being field-tested as central information server for Indian Institute of Information Technology – Kerala. The server has more than proven its effectiveness in increasing the productivity and quality of academic collaboration, management of learning environment and research in the institution. The same server can network itself with similar servers in other institutions and form as Information, Knowledge or Educational Grids across the different Digital Library spaces

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

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

The Role of Mannose Specific Antibodies in Innate Immunity

Program year: 1996/1997Digitized from print original stored in HDRThe innate immune system is a non-specific, first-line of defense against invaders. It works by mediating complement-dependent cell lysis. Components of innate immunity include macrophages, complement, natural killer cells, carbohydrate-specific antibodies, and mannose binding protein (MBP), Ca²⁺-dependent lectin. MBP has been shown to be important in preventing bacterial and viral infections. In addition to MBP, however, serum also has mannose-specific antibodies (MSA) whose role in innate immunity has not been characterized. This research sought to evaluate the respective roles of MBP and MSA in innate immunity by comparing relative amounts present in bovine sera. Inhibition assays with different sugar inhibitors showed yeast mannan to have the greatest inhibiting effect, suggesting MSA recognize a highly conformational epitope. Affinity chromatography using a mannan-conjugated matrix was then performed with elutions based on pH, charge, and Ca²⁺ interactions. SDS-PAGE showed a dominant presence of IgG and IgM. A 30 kDa lectin-like band was initially observed but was not subsequently confirmed. Elution with mannan provided the greatest protein yield, consistent with the previous characterization. Western blot analysis confirmed the presence of IgG and IgM. The biological effect was evaluated by agglutination with homogenized yeast particles. A positive result was achieved. Overall results did not show a strong presence of MBP in bovine sera. Mannose-specific antibodies were present in larger amounts, suggesting that they play a significant role in innate immunity

Digital Library of IIITM-K – Experiences of Next Generation resource centre

Digital Library has many features that make it distinct from traditional libraries. These features make it an excellent medium to address information and interaction services related to quality of education, and management of learning environments. While the paper libraries have become very expensive and are the prerogative of only a few well endowed institutions, Digital Libraries make these services and more at affordable costs. This will remove the digital divide between developed and developing nations in long run. Transversal E-Networks [TEN] a company under incubation at IIITM-K has developed an academic aggregation server concept in which several academic functions such as Course Management, Authoring, and collaborative group-work are built around their unique metadata standards compliant Digital Library implementation. This server called “ACADO” is being field-tested as central information server for Indian Institute of Information Technology – Kerala. The server has more than proven its effectiveness in increasing the productivity and quality of academic collaboration, management of learning environment and research in the institution. The same server can network itself with similar servers in other institutions and form as Information, Knowledge or Educational Grids across the different Digital Library spaces.Digital Library Knowledge Management

Trap Assisted Avalanche Instability and Safe Operating Area Concerns in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

This work reports the very first systematic study on the physics of avalanche instability and SOA concerns in AlGaN/GaN HEMT using sub-mu s pulse characterization, post stress degradation analysis, well calibrated TCAD simulations and failure analysis by SEM and TEM. Impact of electrical, as well as thermal effects on SOA boundary and avalanche instability are investigated. Trap assisted cumulative nature of degradation is studied in detail, which was discovered to be the root cause for avalanche instability in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. Post failure SEM/TEM analysis reveal distinct failure modes in presence and absence of carrier trapping