An Economic Analysis of Public Interventions for Amelioration of Irrigation-Induced Soil Degradation

The study has reported the impact of public interventions for amelioration of soil degradation through subsurface drainage technology in the Tungabhadra Project area in Karnataka. The primary data, obtained from 105 farmers of TBP area, have been analysed using budgeting, discounted cash flow measures and gini ratio. The provision of subsurface drainage through public interventions, has increased the productivity of land appreciably (166 per cent) and has provided a source of regular income (Rs 13,636/ha from paddy) to resource-poor households. The technology has been found to be cost effective, socially acceptable and economically feasible. The equity analysis has indicated reduction in inequalities in income distribution during the post-drainage period. The study has suggested that the government should aim at encouraging and educating the affected farmers in adopting subsurface drainage technology on a large-scale.Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Equity Issues Relating to Irrigation-induced Soil Degradation under Left Bank Canal of Tungabhadra Project Area, Karnataka

The equity issues concerning soil degradation and soil reclamation have been analysed for Tungabhadra Project Area of the Karnataka state. The study is based on primary data obtained from 325 respondent farmers. The data gathered by survey method have been analysed using conventional and simple tabular method of analysis, Gini ratio, and Lorenz curve. The study has revealed that the small and marginal farmers are worst affected by soil degradation. The large farmers have also experienced the brunt of soil degradation but the effect has been marginal since they have alternative sources of livelihood. The study has further indicated that the extent of inequity is higher on degraded than normal soils. However, this can be reduced to a great extent by launching land reclamation programmes. Therefore, the study has suggested that the government should initiate land reclamation programmes on a large scale on long-term basis so that the fruits of land reclamation technologies could reach the vulnerable sections of the society.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Aberrant positioning of a central venous dialysis catheter to reveal a left-sided partial anomalous pulmonary venous connection

We describe the identification of a rare, left-sided, partial anomalous pulmonary venous connection during routine central venous catheterization. To our knowledge, this is the first report in the literature to describe this anomaly in a hemodialysis patient. A young man had anomalous connection of the veins draining the upper lobe of the left lung and left innominate vein. Our case demonstrates the importance of routine fluoroscopy during insertion of central venous catheters to detect these anomalies and minimize complications

Evaluation of Cardiac Dysfunction in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Heart failure (HF) is highly prevalent and associated with high mortality in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Although the cardiac structural alterations in CKD had been well studied, the pathophysiology of cardiac dysfunction in CKD, especially in the early asymptomatic stage, is not well understood. Identification of early cardiac dysfunction and an understanding of the pathophysiology of such dysfunction are vital in preventing the emergence and progression of HF in CKD. The hypothesis underlying this thesis is that CPOmax (peak cardiac power output) and cardiac functional reserve are impaired in asymptomatic CKD patients even in the absence of any known cardiac diseases or diabetes. Asymptomatic CKD patients without primary cardiac diseases or diabetes mellitus were tested. CPOmax, a direct indicator of cardiac performance, was measured non-invasively using specialised cardiopulmonary exercise test. In addition, the reversibility of subclinical cardiac dysfunction after kidney transplantation was evaluated. Furthermore, to obtain mechanistic insights, the relationship between subclinical cardiac dysfunction and serum uraemic toxin concentrations, and the direct effect of a prototype uraemic toxin on the mechanical properties of isolated rodent cardiomyocytes were also evaluated. Compared to healthy controls, the CKD patients showed a graded reduction in CPOmax across different stages of CKD. The impairment was found to be reversible with kidney transplantation. The impairment correlated with total and free serum concentrations of indoxyl sulphate (IXS), a protein bound uraemic toxin. Further in vitro evaluation showed that IXS had direct physiological effects on cardiomyocytes and was shown to act through pathway involving protein kinase-A akin to the mechanism of action of sympathomimetics. In conclusion, this reverse translational research has demonstrated for the first time that CKD per se causes impairment of peak cardiac power output and thereby cardiac functional reserve in vivo, and unravelled a novel mechanism of cardiotoxicity mediated by a protein-bound uraemic toxin in vitro

Effect of methanolic extract of Achyranthes aspera on allergy induced by potassium dichromate

Potassium dichromate and other Cr (vi) forms are found as potent allergen in metal industries, cement industries where constant contact and inhalation or ingestion occurs which tend cause severe allergy. Several medicinal plants have potent anti allergic effects and drugs from natural products are free from side effects. The present study was aimed to evaluate the utility of Achyranthes.aspera in treating allergies caused due to heavy metals, particularly dichromate in albino mice. The allergy was induced in mice by giving oral administration of K2Cr2O7 at a concentration of 200mg/kg body weight for the period of 10 days. The diagnosis of allergy was done by serum analysis of IgM and IgG antibodies, total Lymphocytic count and total WBC count. The methanolic extract of A.aspera (400mg/kg, 600mg/kg body wt) showed greater efficiency in reducing the effects of dichromate allergy induction

Temporally-oriented possession: A corpus for tracking possession over time

This abstract presents a new corpus for temporally-oriented possession or tracking concrete objects as they change hands over time. We annotate Wikipedia articles for 90 different well-known artifacts (paintings, diamonds, and archaeological artifacts), producing 799 artifact-possessor relations covering 735 unique possessors. Each possession relation is annotated with features capturing duration of possession, as well as the certainty of the possession according to textual evidence. A possession timeline is then produced for each artifact. This corpus provides a foundation for analysis of temporally-oriented possession, as well as work on automatic production of possession timelines

De novo assembly of a genome-wide transcriptome map of Vicia faba (L.) for transfer cell research

Vicia faba (L.) is an important cool-season grain legume species used widely in agriculture but also in plant physiology research, particularly as an experimental model to study transfer cell (TC) development. TCs are specialized nutrient transport cells in plants, characterized by invaginated wall ingrowths with amplified plasma membrane surface area enriched with transporter proteins that facilitate nutrient transfer. Many TCs are formed by trans-differentiation from differentiated cells at apoplasmic/symplasmic boundaries in nutrient transport. Adaxial epidermal cells of isolated cotyledons can be induced to form functional TCs, thus providing a valuable experimental system to investigate genetic regulation of TC trans-differentiation. The genome of V. faba is exceedingly large (ca. 13 Gb), however, and limited genomic information is available for this species. To provide a resource for future transcript profiling of epidermal TC differentiation, we have undertaken de novo assembly of a genome-wide transcriptome map for V. faba. Illumina paired-end sequencing of total RNA pooled from different tissues and different stages, including isolated cotyledons induced to form epidermal TCs, generated 69.5 M reads, of which 65.8 M were used for assembly following trimming and quality control. Assembly using a De-Bruijn graph-based approach generated 21,297 contigs, of which 80.6% were successfully annotated against GO terms. The assembly was validated against known V. faba cDNAs held in GenBank, including transcripts previously identified as being specifically expressed in epidermal cells across TC trans-differentiation. This genome-wide transcriptome map therefore provides a valuable tool for future transcript profiling of epidermal TC trans-differentiation, and also enriches the genetic resources available for this important legume crop species

Identification of candidate transcriptional regulators of epidermal transfer cell development in Vicia faba cotyledons

Transfer cells (TCs) are anatomically-specialized cells formed at apoplasmic-symplasmic bottlenecks in nutrient transport pathways in plants. TCs form invaginated wall ingrowths which provide a scaffold to amplify plasma membrane surface area and thus increase the density of nutrient transporters required to achieve enhanced nutrient flow across these bottlenecks. Despite their importance to nutrient transport in plants, little is known of the transcriptional regulation of wall ingrowth formation. Here, we used RNA-Seq to identify transcription factors putatively involved in regulating epidermal TC development in cotyledons of Vicia faba. Comparing cotyledons cultured for 0, 3, 9, and 24 h to induce trans-differentiation of epidermal TCs identified 43 transcription factors that showed either epidermal-specific or epidermal–enhanced expression, and 10 that showed epidermal-specific down regulation. Members of the WRKY and ethylene-responsive families were prominent in the cohort of transcription factors showing epidermal-specific or epidermal–enhanced expression, consistent with the initiation of TC development often representing a response to stress. Members of the MYB family were also prominent in these categories, including orthologs of MYB genes involved in localized secondary wall deposition in Arabidopsis thaliana. Among the group of transcription factors showing down regulation were various homeobox genes and members of the MADs-box and zinc-finger families of poorly defined functions. Collectively, this study identified several transcription factors showing expression characteristics and orthologous functions that indicate likely participation in transcriptional regulation of epidermal TC development in V. faba cotyledons

Potential Antibacterial and Antifungal Activity of Achyranthes aspera L.

Petroleum ether, Chloroform and Methanol extract of dried leaves of Achyranthes aspera Family: Amaranthaceae were obtained by infusion and maceration were screened for their antibacterial and antifungal activities. The extracts were tested against 5 different species of human pathogenic bacteria and 17 fungal strains by the agar-solid diffusion method. Most of the extracts were devoid of antifungal and antibacterial activities, except the methanolic ectracts of leaves of Achyranthes aspera obtained by infusion, which has showed a strong inhibitory activity against the Gram-positive bacteria Staphlyococcus aureus with a minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 5000 µl ml-1. The minimal inhibitory concentration values to dermatophyte strains were 2500 µl ml-1 against Trichophyton rubrum (LM-09, LM-13) and Microsporum canis. In conclusion, it appears that Achyranthes aspera has non-specific antimicrobial activity

Directed sequencing and annotation of three Dicentrarchus labrax L. chromosomes by applying Sanger- and pyrosequencing technologies on pooled DNA of comparatively mapped BAC clones

AbstractDicentrarchus labrax is one of the major marine aquaculture species in the European Union. In this study, we have developed a directed-sequencing strategy to sequence three sea bass chromosomes and compared results with other teleosts.Three BAC DNA pools were created from sea bass BAC clones that mapped to stickleback chromosomes/groups V, XVII and XXI. The pools were sequenced to 17–39x coverage by pyrosequencing. Data assembly was supported by Sanger reads and mate pair data and resulted in superscaffolds of 13.2Mb, 17.5Mb and 13.7Mb respectively. Annotation features of the superscaffolds include 1477 genes. We analyzed size change of exon, intron and intergenic sequence between teleost species and deduced a simple model for the evolution of genome composition in teleost lineage.Combination of second generation sequencing technologies, Sanger sequencing and genome partitioning strategies allows “high-quality draft assemblies” of chromosome-sized superscaffolds, which are crucial for the prediction and annotation of complete genes