Design and Development of Cumin Destalker Machine

Cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.), a seed spice of family umbelliferae, is valued as aromatic, preservative, flavoring, and therapeutic agent in the food and pharmaceutical industry. The quality standards of cumin are closely associated with processing techniques. A tiny stalk attached to cuminis one of the major quality concerns in threshed and cleaned product. To remove this stalk, a centrifugal type mechanical cumin destalking unit was developed and evaluated. Developed unit consists of a frame, vibratory feeding assembly and discharge chute, horizontal plate type destalking assembly, and a drive unit. Feed rate (30, 50, and 70 kg/h), clearance between the plates (5, 8, and 11 mm), and speed of plate (550, 750, and 950 rpm) were taken as study variables and the performance of the destalker was evaluated in terms of destalking efficiency and broken percentage (damage). Performance was evaluated under single-pass and multi-pass conditions and also with and without pre-drying. Best performance was observed when cumin was destalked under multi-pass mode with pre-drying at a feed rate of 50 kg/h and plate speed of 750 rpm. At optimum operation conditions, the machine was found to have a destalking efficiency of 82.03% with 10.88% damage

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding approach in fisheries research in India

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is defined as the genetic material obtained from a water sample containing no distinguishing signs of source macroorganisms. The method utilizes DNA which is continuously excreted by organisms into the surrounding environment through mucus, gamates, faeces, blood and other cells, and captures, analyses and obtains the nucleotide sequence of this DNA based on an environmental sample. eDNA analysis has emerged as a potentially powerful tool to access aquatic community structures. Analysis of eDNA can give us information on the organisms, their abundance and biomass through two approaches – eDNA barcoding and eDNA metabarcoding. In the former, specific species are targeted in samples using standard or quantitative PCR, and using traditional Sanger sequencing method

Transcriptomic approach to study salinity tolerance in euryhaline cichlid, Etroplus suratensis (Bloch, 1790)

Increasing levels of salinity in coastal and freshwater environments as a result of rise in sea level is linked to climate change and it impacts fish growth adversely. Etroplus suratensis (Pearlspot) is the largest species among the indigenous cichlid which is essentially brackishwater fish that has become naturally acclimated to freshwater. Understanding the basis of tolerance and acclimatization to increased environmental salinity and freshwater condition can help the regional aqua-farmers to mitigate predicted impacts of climate change in that region. Technically the last decade contributed many methodologies to understand the salinity adaptation mechanisms; suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) library generation being one of them. In this study we performed SSH technique to identify genes involved in salinity adaptation and osmoregulation in gills of E. suratensis, generating from fishes exposed to seawater (SW-36 ‰) as compared to freshwater (FW-0 ‰). Here, SSH was used to identify alterations in gene transcription of E. suratensis after exposure to 36‰. A random 105 clones were selected and sanger sequenced from the subtractive c-DNA libraries which gave a total of 80 gene fragment sequences

Nicotine-induced survival signaling in lung cancer cells is dependent on their p53 status while its down-regulation by curcumin is independent

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lung cancer is the most lethal cancer and almost 90% of lung cancer is due to cigarette smoking. Even though nicotine, one of the major ingredients of cigarette smoke and the causative agent for addiction, is not a carcinogen by itself, several investigators have shown that nicotine can induce cell proliferation and angiogenesis. We observed that the proliferative index of nicotine is different in the lung cancer cell lines H1299 (p53-/-) and A549 (p53+/+) which indicates that the mode of up-regulation of survival signals by nicotine might be different in cells with and without p53.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While low concentrations of nicotine induced activation of NF-κB, Akt, Bcl2, MAPKs, AP1 and IAPs in H1299, it failed to induce NF-κB in A549, and compared to H1299, almost 100 times higher concentration of nicotine was required to induce all other survival signals in A549. Transfection of WT-p53 and DN-p53 in H1299 and A549 respectively, reversed the mode of activation of survival signals. Curcumin down-regulated all the survival signals induced by nicotine in both the cells, irrespective of their p53 status. The hypothesis was confirmed when lower concentrations of nicotine induced NF-κB in two more lung cancer cells, Hop-92 and NCI-H522 with mutant p53 status. Silencing of p53 in A549 using siRNA made the cells susceptible to nicotine-induced NF-κB nuclear translocation as in A549 DN-p53 cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The present study reveals a detrimental role of nicotine especially in lung cancer patients with impaired p53 status and identifies curcumin as a potential chemopreventive.</p

Quantum cobwebs: Universal entangling of quantum states

Entangling an unknown qubit with one type of reference state is generally impossible. However, entangling an unknown qubit with two types of reference states is possible. To achieve this, we introduce a new class of states called zero sum amplitude (ZSA) multipartite, pure entangled states for qubits and study their salient features. Using shared-ZSA state, local operation and classical communication we give a protocol for creating multipartite entangled states of an unknown quantum state with two types of reference states at remote places. This provides a way of encoding an unknown pure qubit state into a multiqubit entangled state. We quantify the amount of classical and quantum resources required to create universal entangled states. This is possibly a strongest form of quantum bit hiding with multiparties.Comment: Invited talk in II Winter Institute on FQTQO: Quantum Information Processing, held at S. N. Bose Center for Basic Science, Kolkata, during Jan 2-11, 2002. (To appear in Pramana-J. of Physics, 2002.

Wave forecasting and monitoring during very severe cyclone Phailin in the Bay of Bengal

Wave fields, both measured and forecast during the very severe cyclone Phailin, are discussed in this communication. Waves having maximum height of 13.54 m were recorded at Gopalpur, the landfall point of the cyclone. The forecast and observed significant wave heights matched well at Gopalpur with correlation coefficient of 0.98, RMS error of 0.35 m and scatter index of 14%. Forecasts were also validated in the open ocean and found to be reliable (scatter index &#60; 15%). The study also revealed the presence of Southern Ocean swells with a peak period of 20-22 sec hitting Gopalpur coast along with the cyclone-generated waves

Caecal metastasis from breast cancer presenting as intestinal obstruction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gastrointestinal metastsasis from the breast cancer are rare. We report a patient who presented with intestinal obstruction due to solitary caecal metastasis from infiltrating ductal carcinoma of breast. We also review the available literature briefly.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 72 year old lady with past history of breast cancer presented with intestinal obstruction due to a caecal mass. She underwent an emergency right hemicolectomy. The histological examination of the right hemicolectomy specimen revealed an adenocarcinoma in caecum staining positive for Cytokeratin 7 and Carcinoembryonic antigen and negative for Cytokeratin 20, CDX2 and Estrogen receptor. Eight out of 11 mesenteric nodes showed tumour deposits. A histological diagnosis of metastatic breast carcinoma was given.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of solitary metastasis to caecum from infiltrating ductal carcinoma of breast. Awareness of this possibility will aid in appropriate management of such patients.</p

Integrating transcriptomic and proteomic data for accurate assembly and annotation of genomes

© 2017 Wong et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Complementing genome sequence with deep transcriptome and proteome data could enable more accurate assembly and annotation of newly sequenced genomes. Here, we provide a proof-of-concept of an integrated approach for analysis of the genome and proteome of Anopheles stephensi, which is one of the most important vectors of the malaria parasite. To achieve broad coverage of genes, we carried out transcriptome sequencing and deep proteome profiling of multiple anatomically distinct sites. Based on transcriptomic data alone, we identified and corrected 535 events of incomplete genome assembly involving 1196 scaffolds and 868 protein-coding gene models. This proteogenomic approach enabled us to add 365 genes that were missed during genome annotation and identify 917 gene correction events through discovery of 151 novel exons, 297 protein extensions, 231 exon extensions, 192 novel protein start sites, 19 novel translational frames, 28 events of joining of exons, and 76 events of joining of adjacent genes as a single gene. Incorporation of proteomic evidence allowed us to change the designation of more than 87 predicted noncoding RNAs to conventional mRNAs coded by protein-coding genes. Importantly, extension of the newly corrected genome assemblies and gene models to 15 other newly assembled Anopheline genomes led to the discovery of a large number of apparent discrepancies in assembly and annotation of these genomes. Our data provide a framework for how future genome sequencing efforts should incorporate transcriptomic and proteomic analysis in combination with simultaneous manual curation to achieve near complete assembly and accurate annotation of genomes

Expression Profiling of CYP1B1 in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Counterintuitive Downregulation in Tumors

Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) has a very flagitious treatment regime. A prodrug approach is thought to aid in targeting chemotherapy. CYP1B1, a member of cytochrome P450 family, has been implicated in chemical carcinogenesis. There exists a general accordance that this protein is overexpressed in a variety of cancers, making it an ideal candidate for a prodrug therapy. The activation of the prodrug facilitated by CYP1B1 would enable the targeting of chemotherapy to tumor tissues in which CYP1B1 is specifically overexpressed as a result reducing the non-specific side effects that the current chemotherapy elicits. This study was aimed at validating the use of CYP1B1 as a target for the prodrug therapy in OSCC. The expression profile of CYP1B1 was analysed in a panel of 51 OSCC tumors, their corresponding normal tissues, an epithelial dysplasia lesion and its matched normal tissue by qRT-PCR, Western blotting and Immunohistochemistry. CYP1B1 was found to be downregulated in 77.78% (28/36) tumor tissues in comparison to their corresponding normal tissues as well as in the epithelial dysplasia lesion compared to its matched normal tissue at the transcriptional level, and in 92.86% (26/28) of tumor tissues at the protein level. This report therefore clearly demonstrates the downregulation of CYP1B1 at the transcriptional and translational levels in tumor tissues in comparison to their corresponding normal tissues. These observations indicate that caution should be observed as this therapy may not be applicable universally to all cancers and also suggest the possibility of a prophylactic therapy for oral cancer

A review of the catfish genus Pterocryptis (Siluridae) in Vietnam, with the description of two new species

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73958/1/j.1095-8649.2001.tb02367.x.pd