Metaplastic Carcinoma of the Left Breast with Extensive Chondroid Differentiation

Metaplastic breast carcinoma is very rare neoplasm which contains mixture of carcinomatous (epithelial) and sarcomatous (mesenchymal) elements in variable proportion. Metaplastic carcinoma with chondroid differentiation is even rarer. We report a case of metaplastic carcinoma with extensive chondroid differentiation as there is paucity of information regarding pathological features and clinical outcomes for these rare tumors. Tumor had characteristic definite areas of classic infiltrating duct carcinoma with abundant chondromyxoid matrix, focal areas of chondrosarcoma and cartilagenous metaplasia. Tumour cells were immunoreactive for S-100, ER, and PR. When pathologist encounter breast tumor with chondroid differentiation, careful gross sampling, histopathology and immunoreactivity for mesenchymal and epithelial component are most useful to differentiate metaplastic carcinoma from malignant phylloides tumors and malignant adenomyoepithelioma

Pollen germination studies in Giant Himalayan Lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum Wall.) a high value of ornamental plant in Western Himalayan region

Giant Himalayan lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum Wall.) is a perennial bulbiferous herb of Liliaceae and an endemic species in the eastern Himalayan region, which has become one of the new flower crops because of its high ornamental value. The present investigationwas conducted to study pollen morphologyi.e., fresh pollen grains size was measured in different media, viz., water, acetocarmine, glycerol and without any medium (dry). The pollen grains of Giant Himalayan lily exhibited the average size (length x width) of (22.64 x 19.72μ) in water suspension. The result revealed that in glycerine and dry condition shape of pollen grains was perprolate. However, in water and acetocarmine it looked was round in shape. The result also shown that highest pollen germination (54.70%, 63.69%) and pollen tube growth (89.24μ, 175.85μ) in 10% sucrose solution for 12 hours and 24 hours respectively. In control light treatments, red light was found to be best in pollen germination and pollen tube growth

Embracing new-generation 'omics' tools to improve drought tolerance in cereal and food-legume crops

Drought stress presents a considerable threat to the global crop production. As a dominant source of vegetarian diet, cereals and grain-legumes remain crucial to meeting the growing dietary demands worldwide. Therefore, breeding cultivars of these staple crops with enhanced drought tolerance stands to be one of the most sustainable solutions to enhance food production in changing climate. Given the context, a more focused survey of environment-defined germplasm sets is imperative to comprehend such adaptive traits. In parallel, uncovering the genetic architecture and the molecular networks that collectively contribute towards drought tolerance is urgently required through rationally combining large-scale genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data. Also, attention needs to be directed to reasonably quantify the epistatic as well as environmental influences, thereby warranting deployment of analyses like metaquantitative trait loci (QTL) that encompass multiple environments and diverse genetic backgrounds. Further, innovative techniques like genomic selection (GS) and genome wide association study (GWAS) would help to capture the quantitative variation underlying drought tolerance. Equally importantly, integration of physiological traits-based techniques with ever-evolving 'omics' technologies and the new-generation phenotyping platforms will be of immense importance in advancing our existing knowledge about the genetically-complex and poorly-understood phenomena, such as plant drought response, and a deeper understanding would likely to provide a great impetus to the progress of crop breeding for drought tolerance

Heavy rainfall episode over Mumbai on 26 July 2005: Assessment of NWP guidance

In the present work a qualitative assessment of guidance from NCMRWF operational global and regional Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems in the episode of unprecedented rainfall over Mumbai has been attempted. This also consolidates and examines the predictions that were provided by some of the leading global operational centres. Some hindcast runs were also made with different initial conditions. It reveals that the use of very high resolution global and regional models with advanced data assimilation techniques (4D Var), that optimally utilizes information from satellite observations, could significantly enhance the usefulness of NWP guidance

Study on Basic Mechanism of Reactive Armour

Two basic mechanisms which operate in the functioning of reactive armour are presented. Both the explosive effect and cutting of metal plates by a jet have been investigated. The angle of attack and the confinement of the explosive have been found most significant factors in reducing the penetrating power of the jet. The effect of detonating explosives has been investigated with radiography. Some of the significant effects, like detonation of explosive by the impact of the jet, expansion of covering plates, disturbance in coherence and reduction in the penetration of the jet have been observed. It is found that the jet penetration in a stack of mild steel plates is reduced to 30 per cent of its blank penetration in present set-ups. A theoretical model has been conceived to study the interaction of moving plates and the jet. The critical thickness and surface cut in plates have been calculated

Strategies for breeding, production and promotion of pigeonpea hybrids in India

With the release of GTH-1 the world’s first CMS hybrid in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.], the breeding of hybrids in this important pulse crop has become a reality. At present three early duration pigeonpea hybrids with yield advantage of >30% have been identified/released in India.This has been possible due to breeders’ success in developing stable cytoplsmic nuclear male sterility (CMS) system and selection of stable restorers. The large-scale hybrid seed production is facilitated by insect-aided natural out-crossing and hybrid yields of 1000-1500 kg /ha have been harvested by the growers. To sustain this breakthrough in pigeonpea it is necessary to identify, evaluate and maintain the perfect CMS line (A and B lines) along with good restorers on a regular basis. In this paper, an attempt has been made to consolidate strategies related to the development of new hybrids, their seed production technology and promotion in the country

Transcription factors and plants response to drought stress: Current understanding and future directions

Increasing vulnerability of plants to a variety of stresses such as drought, salt and extreme temperatures poses a global threat to sustained growth and productivity of major crops. Of these stresses, drought represents a considerable threat to plant growth and development. In view of this, developing staple food cultivars with improved drought tolerance emerges as the most sustainable solution toward improving crop productivity in a scenario of climate change. In parallel, unraveling the genetic architecture and the targeted identification of molecular networks using modern “OMICS” analyses, that can underpin drought tolerance mechanisms, is urgently required. Importantly, integrated studies intending to elucidate complex mechanisms can bridge the gap existing in our current knowledge about drought stress tolerance in plants. It is now well established that drought tolerance is regulated by several genes, including transcription factors (TFs) that enable plants to withstand unfavorable conditions, and these remain potential genomic candidates for their wide application in crop breeding. These TFs represent the key molecular switches orchestrating the regulation of plant developmental processes in response to a variety of stresses. The current review aims to offer a deeper understanding of TFs engaged in regulating plant’s response under drought stress and to devise potential strategies to improve plant tolerance against drought

Harnessing the Potential of Crop Wild Relatives through Genomics Tools for Pigeonpea Improvement

Cultivated pigeonpea germplasm has a narrow genetic base due to the bottlenecks caused by domestication and breeding from a small number of genotypes. Pigeonpea genetic improvement has witnessed a slow pace due to low genetic diversity and to the scarce genomics resources. To address these challenges, wild relatives of pigeonpea which represent an unexploited resource of vast genetic variation can be incorporated in breeding programmes facilitating the broadening of genetic base. Although interspecific hybridization has not been commercially successful in pigeonpea, it has played an important role in the development of the cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) system. Recent years however have witnessed the development of genomics resources at large scale in the crop which has remained untouched with genomics revolution in the past. These resources, together with advances in genomics platform such as high throughput genotyping assays and next generation sequencing technologies and modern genetics and breeding approaches will accelerate harnessing natural variation for pigeonpea improvement

Advances in Pigeonpea Genomics

Pigeonpea, a member of family Fabaceae, is one of the important food legumes cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. Due to its inherent properties to withstand harsh environments, it plays a critical role in ensuring sustainability in the subsistence agriculture. Furthermore, plasticity in the maturity duration imparts it a greater adaptability in a variety of cropping systems. In the post genomics era, the importance of pigeonpea is further evident from the fact that pigeonpea has emerged as first non-industrial legume crop for which the whole genome sequence has been completed. It revealed 605.78 Mb of assembled and anchored sequence as against the predicted 833 Mb genome consequently representing 72.8 % of the whole genome. In order to perform genetic and genomic analysis various molecular markers like random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP), simple sequence repeat (SSR), diversity array technology (DArT), single feature polymorphism (SFP), and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) were employed. So far four transcriptome assemblies have been constructed and different sets of EST-SSRs were developed and validated in a panel of diverse pigeonpea genotypes. Extensive survey of BAC-end sequences (BESs) provided 3,072 BES-SSRs and all these BES-SSRs were further used for linkage analysis and trait mapping. To make the available linkage information more useful, six intra-specific genetic maps were joined together into a single consensus genetic map providing map positions to a total of 339 SSR markers at map coverage of 1,059 cM. However, earlier very few linkage maps were available in the crop because of non-availability of genomic resources. Several quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with traits of agronomic interest including QTLs for sterility mosaic disease, fertility restoration, plant type and earliness have been identified and validated. To strengthen the traditional breeding, plenty of genomics tools and technologies are now available for integration in regular pigeonpea breeding schemes. This article presents the progress made in the area of pigeonpea genomics and outlines its applications in crop breeding for pigeonpea improvement

Interior Weyl-type Solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell Field Equations

Static solutions of the electro-gravitational field equations exhibiting a functional relationship between the electric and gravitational potentials are studied. General results for these metrics are presented which extend previous work of Majumdar. In particular, it is shown that for any solution of the field equations exhibiting such a Weyl-type relationship, there exists a relationship between the matter density, the electric field density and the charge density. It is also found that the Majumdar condition can hold for a bounded perfect fluid only if the matter pressure vanishes (that is, charged dust). By restricting to spherically symmetric distributions of charged matter, a number of exact solutions are presented in closed form which generalise the Schwarzschild interior solution. Some of these solutions exhibit functional relations between the electric and gravitational potentials different to the quadratic one of Weyl. All the non-dust solutions are well-behaved and, by matching them to the Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m solution, all of the constants of integration are identified in terms of the total mass, total charge and radius of the source. This is done in detail for a number of specific examples. These are also shown to satisfy the weak and strong energy conditions and many other regularity and energy conditions that may be required of any physically reasonable matter distribution.Comment: 21 pages, RevTex, to appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio