Widespread occurrence of lysine methylation in Plasmodium falciparum proteins at asexual blood stages

Post-transcriptional and post-translational modifications play a major role in Plasmodium life cycle regulation. Lysine methylation of histone proteins is well documented in several organisms, however in recent years lysine methylation of proteins outside histone code is emerging out as an important post-translational modification (PTM). In the present study we have performed global analysis of lysine methylation of proteins in asexual blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum development. We immunoprecipitated stage specific Plasmodium lysates using anti-methyl lysine specific antibodies that immunostained the asexual blood stage parasites. Using liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry analysis, 570 lysine methylated proteins at three different blood stages were identified. Analysis of the peptide sequences identified 605 methylated sites within 422 proteins. Functional classification of the methylated proteins revealed that the proteins are mainly involved in nucleotide metabolic processes, chromatin organization, transport, homeostatic processes and protein folding. The motif analysis of the methylated lysine peptides reveals novel motifs. Many of the identified lysine methylated proteins are also interacting partners/substrates of PfSET domain proteins as revealed by STRING database analysis. Our findings suggest that the protein methylation at lysine residues is widespread in Plasmodium and plays an important regulatory role in diverse set of the parasite pathways

Chop & Learn: Recognizing and Generating Object-State Compositions

Recognizing and generating object-state compositions has been a challenging task, especially when generalizing to unseen compositions. In this paper, we study the task of cutting objects in different styles and the resulting object state changes. We propose a new benchmark suite Chop & Learn, to accommodate the needs of learning objects and different cut styles using multiple viewpoints. We also propose a new task of Compositional Image Generation, which can transfer learned cut styles to different objects, by generating novel object-state images. Moreover, we also use the videos for Compositional Action Recognition, and show valuable uses of this dataset for multiple video tasks. Project website: https://chopnlearn.github.io.Comment: To appear at ICCV 202

An experimental study to evaluate the anti-inflammatory effect of moringa oleifera leaves in animal models

Background: Inflammatory diseases are a major cause of morbidity and disability of work force throughout the world. The treatment of inflammation with standard steroidal and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs shares the risk of toxicity on various organ systems. Moringa oleifera, an herbal plant has been claimed to be effective in the treatment of various types of inflammatory conditions. However, there is lack of scientific studies to ratify these claims. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to explore the anti-inflammatory activity of aqueous extract of leaves of Moringa oleifera (AEMO) in experimentally induced inflammation in albino rats.Methods: The study was commenced after obtaining approval from Institutional Animal Ethical Committee using AEMO leaves in Albino wistar rats (150-200 gm) of either sex. The anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated using carrageenan induced paw edema model, cotton pellet induced granuloma method and formaldehyde induced paw edema method. For each set of experiment, animals were divided in three groups of six animals each. In each experiment, 1st group was given normal saline (5 ml/kg/day), 2nd group was given standard anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone (0.5 mg/kg/day) and 3rd group was given Moringa oleifera (200 mg/kg/day).Results: Aqueous extract of Moringa oleifera leaves at dose of 200 mg/kg, p.o. exhibited the significant anti-inflammatory effect in all the models used in this study.Conclusions: It can be concluded from our study that aqueous extracts of Moringa oleifera leaves possess anti-inflammatory activity

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Implementation of Total Productive Maintenance Approach: Improving Overall Equipment Efficiency of a Metal Industry

Quality has become one of the most crucial criteria in an institution’s success and survival as there is nothing more than what an era of globalization and intensity demands. Successful businesses recognize that consumer reliability may have a severe influence on their bottom lines. As a result, several competitive companies are constantly raising their quality requirements. Competitive companies think that improving quality is the best way to recover, and most authors have specified various procedures relevant to their processes. The majority of automobile assembly sectors are looking for high-quality requirements in their manufacturing techniques and are executing a quality system known as total productive maintenance (TPM). The study’s goal is to deploy the TPM program inside the metal forming industry to improve metal industry workstations. The overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) for various workstations such as rolling, bending, cutting, and die punching for the fiscal year 2018–2019 has been evaluated. In addition to the other reasons, inefficient resource utilization is a significant component that diminishes the factory’s OEE. In the financial year 2019–2020, the TPM approach was adopted in the enterprise. As a result, there has been an improvement in overall performance

Impact of false data injection attacks in wide area damping control

Wide area measurement based damping controllers are used to mitigate the inter-area oscillations in a large geographically distributed power system. The performance of wide area damping control (WADC) heavily relies on cyber and physical infrastructure. As the measured input signals used in WADC are transferred to the controller location via a communication channel, it is prone to cyber-attacks. The attacker can inject malicious data into the WADC measurements and/or control signals. This paper focuses on modeling and analyzing the impact of different types of false data injection (FDI) attacks on the WADC control signals, namely, sinusoidal attack, triangular attack, saw-tooth attack, ramp attack, pulse attack, random attack, and replay attack. The control architecture for analyzing these attacks consists of power system stabilizers placed on each generator for damping of local modes and an H2/H∞ based WADC controller for damping of inter-area modes in Kundur’s 4-machine 2-area test system. Different types of attacks were compared for their severity, and it has been found that a sinusoidal attack has the highest severity of all the analyzed FDI attacks. The results obtained in this paper will be useful in implementing the cyber-attack detection and mitigation algorithms

A prospective randomized single-blind study comparing alprazolam vs clonidine and pregabalin as preanaesthetic medication in patients undergoing elective lower limb surgeries

Objective To study comparison of alprazolam versus clonidine and pregabalin as preanaesthetic medication in patients undergoing elective lower limb surgeries   Materials and Methods The present study was undertaken to compare the effects of Alprazolam 0.5 mg, clonidine 100 µg and pregabalin 75 mg as premedicant drugs for reduction in preoperative anxiety. 90 patients of ASA grade I and II, between 18 - 60 years, of either sex, undergoing elective lower limb surgery were divided into 3 groups of 30 patients each. Baseline anxiety level and level after 2 hour of drug was assessed. Side effects due to drugs were noted before going to OT (Post drug i.e. 2 hours after drug administration), after the completion of surgery and at 24 hrs.   Results There is significant post drug reduction in s-STAI score, t-STAI and CGI score when compared to baseline values in all the group A, C and P. Side-effects were mild and there were no serious adverse effects observed in all 3 groups. In group A, 10% patients complained of fatigue while in group C, 13.3% patients complained of dryness of mouth and 10% patients complained of headache 2 hours post drug administration but in group P, no side effect was noted. Conclusion Premedication with 0.5 mg alprazolam, 100 μg clonidine and 75mg pregabalin for control of preoperative anxiety was comparable though pregabalin offered significant advantage in term of less side effects

A comparison of effects of dexmedetomidine versus midazolam-fentanyl on post-operative recovery, sedation, analgesia and hemodynamic parameters in patients undergoing middle ear surgery under local anesthesia

Background Middle ear surgeries are usually done under local anesthesia with sedation to make surgery very comfortable for the patient, anesthesiologist and the surgeon. An ideal sedative agent should be fast acting, have less impact on normal physiological and physical functions and produce faster recovery with lesser side effects. In search of a better sedative agent we conducted this study comparing Dexmedetomidine versus midazolam and fentanyl combination. Materials and Methods 72 patients were randomly divided into two equal groups - Group D (dexmedetomidine) and Group MF (midazolam & fentanyl). Intra operative heart rate, mean blood pressure, respiratory rate, and SPO2 were recorded every 15 minutes for the 1st 30 minutes and then at every 30 minutes interval till the end of the surgery. In post-operative period, hemodynamic parameters, Aldrete score & pain were assessed at every 30 minutes till the patient was discharged from PACU. Post-operative sedation of the patient was checked at 1 hour, 2 hour, 4 hour and 8 hours. Observations Midazolam & fentanyl combination caused more fall in Aldrete scores as compared to dexmedetomidine initially, but readiness to discharge from PACU was similar in both the groups. Patients of MF group had significantly higher sedation scores at post op 2 hours, but overall duration of sedation was similar in both the groups. Post-op pain was significantly more in MF group patients, as compared to dexmedetomidine patients at 1.5 hours. More number of patients of MF group demanded rescue analgesia in PACU. Both group of drugs caused similar changes in hemodynamic parameters during surgery but in post-op period, dexmedetomidine produced less decline in respiratory rate and oxygen saturation as compared to midazolam and fentanyl combination. Conclusion The present study concluded that dexmedetomidine seems to be a better alternative to the combination of midazolam plus fentanyl sedation for patients undergoing middle ear surgeries done under local anesthesia due to better analgesia & lesser derangement of haemodynamic parameters in post-operative period

Development of real time PCR assay for detection and quantification of teliospores of <i>Tilletia indica </i> in soil

549-554Tilletia indica, commonly called Karnal bunt, is an internationally quarantined wheat fungal pathogen which affects commercial seed trading as well as the quality of wheat grain for consumption. The teliospores of Tilletia indica surviving in soil serve as the primary source of inoculum and play a major role in disease development. Proper identification and detection of T. indica teliospores based on morphological features and germination of teliospores is time consuming and tedious. In this study, we validated PCR based species-specific primer which amplified 570 bp fragments using ITSKB primers. Further, the real time PCR assay was developed and standardized for detection and quantification of teliospores in soil. The (R2) correlation coefficient (0.994) between CT values and DNA concentrations showed the accuracy of qPCR based quantification. The sensitivity of qPCR marker was 100 fg. Thirteen field soil samples were assessed by qPCR for quantification of teliospore DNA. Low fungal DNA (15135.61 fg) was detected in field soil (K10) from Karnal, Haryana, India while high DNA concentration (3.31 ng) was detected in field soil from IARI, New Delhi (K4). The qPCR assay was done to correlate DNA concentration and number of teliospores per gram soil. The 125.89 fg DNA concentration of T. indica detected corresponding limit of 14 teliospores. Minimum detection limit in terms of teliospores count was 14. The teliospores recovered from Karnal and IARI farm soils by centrifugation method were 450 and 1341, respectively while the qPCR assay based analysis detected higher number of teliospores ranging 1762 to 368332 teliospores. Thus, the developed qPCR diagnostic marker could be used for accurate, reliable and rapid detection of teliospores in soil which would further help in monitoring, quantifying teliosporic load and threshold level of inoculum in soil

Unveiling the Significance of FGF8 Overexpression in Orchestrating the Progression of Ovarian Cancer

The asymptomatic nature, high rate of disease recurrence, and resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy highlight the need to identify and characterize novel target molecules for ovarian cancer. Fibroblast growth factor 8 (FGF8) aids in the development and metastasis of ovarian cancer; however, its definite role is not clear. We employed ELISA and IHC to examine the expression of FGF8 in the saliva and tissue samples of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients and controls. Furthermore, various cell assays were conducted to determine how FGF8 silencing influences ovarian cancer cell survival, adhesion, migration, and invasion to learn more about the functions of FGF8. In saliva samples, from controls through low-grade to high-grade EOC, a stepped overexpression of FGF8 was observed. Similar expression trends were seen in tissue samples, both at protein and mRNA levels. FGF8 gene silencing in SKOV3 cells adversely affected various cell properties essential for cancer cell survival and metastasis. A substantial reduction was observed in the cell survival, cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix, migration, and adhesion properties of SKOV3 cells, suggesting that FGF8 plays a crucial role in the development of EOC. Conclusively, this study suggests a pro-metastatic function of FGF8 in EOC