322 research outputs found
Improvement of Grazing Lands for Better Livestock Production--A Case Study from Chitradurga District in India
Chitradurga is a highly drought prone district in the central dry zone of Karnataka, India, with a normal rainfall of 530 mm per annum. Over 85 per cent of cultivable area is rainfed and the livestock plays a vital role in rural income generation in this district. Improper management and overgrazing have resulted in most of the grazing resources declining to a poor, degraded condition. Regeneration of pasture land was vital in the villages due to three reasons - a) people\u27s livelihood dependency on livestock was considerable b) small ruminants played a vital role for landless farmers and c) lack of adequate fodder was a prime factor for low livestock productivity. To improve the livelihood of livestock farmers, a few interventions were made under World Bank funded National Agricultural Innovation Project through consortium approach in 10 project villages. Frequent interactions were held with the local livestock farmers to discuss about the importance of increasing the fodder resources in the villages to improve the income and to sustain their livelihood. They realized the importance of fodder and came forward to take up cultivation of perennial fodders and also, for the revitalization of grazing lands, locally known as kavals. The primary survey in the villages indicated that about 90 to 96 per cent of the small ruminant holders are dependent on these common property grazing resources for the fodder needs. The High Level Panel of Experts on food security and nutrition, constituted by FAO, has emphasized the importance of extending appropriate technologies and inputs, providing the needed credit and ensuring assured and remunerative marketing opportunities to the smallholders (HLPE, 2013). Such measures are also essential for revitalizing the degraded grasslands in this region
Prevalence of hepatitis-B surface antigen among population of inmates in Tihar Jail, New Delhi
Background: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), a DNA virus with a human only reservoir, is a worldwide public health problem. Unlike other countries especially Europe and America, there is scarcity of published data on HBV infection among prison inmates in India despite its tremendous importance in public heath formulation compared to the general population. The present study was designed to investigate the prevalence of Hepatitis B surface antigen among population of Jail inmates (convicts).Methods:The study population comprised of all the 1102 prison inmates who were screened for Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) status using one step immunochromatographic array [INSTACHK Hepatitis-B]. Seroprevalence rate of seropositive was calculated and stratified by age and sex. The seropositives were further subjected to HBeAg and anti-HBe detection, HIV status, anti HCV status, HBV-DNA levels and Liver function tests (LFTs) and the patients were then classified into three groups based on HBV-DNA levels and alanine amino transferase (ALT) levels.Results:Out of 1102 inmates screened, 30 (2.72%) were HBsAg positive. Slightly higher percentage prevalence of HBsAg was found among males i.e., 3.19% (or 27/844) than females i.e., 1.16% (or 3/258). Out of 30 HBsAg positive cases, 16 were HBeAg negative, 8 were HBeAg positive and 6 refused to get investigated further. Ten of the 16 HBeAg negative cases were further subjected to anti HBe detection. Half of these cases (5) were reactive for anti-HBe. Based on HBV DNA levels and ALT levels, 8 patients were categorized as HBeAg positive chronic hepatitis-B patients, 12 patients were categorized as HBeAg negative chronic Hepatitis-B patients and 4 patients as inactive HBsAg carriers.Conclusion:HBsAg prevalence among Tihar Jail inmates is comparable to that among the non-incarcerated general population in India.
Discrete Point Flow Networks for Efficient Point Cloud Generation
Generative models have proven effective at modeling 3D shapes and their
statistical variations. In this paper we investigate their application to point
clouds, a 3D shape representation widely used in computer vision for which,
however, only few generative models have yet been proposed. We introduce a
latent variable model that builds on normalizing flows with affine coupling
layers to generate 3D point clouds of an arbitrary size given a latent shape
representation. To evaluate its benefits for shape modeling we apply this model
for generation, autoencoding, and single-view shape reconstruction tasks. We
improve over recent GAN-based models in terms of most metrics that assess
generation and autoencoding. Compared to recent work based on continuous flows,
our model offers a significant speedup in both training and inference times for
similar or better performance. For single-view shape reconstruction we also
obtain results on par with state-of-the-art voxel, point cloud, and mesh-based
methods.Comment: In ECCV'2
Protein phosphatase complement in rice: genome-wide identification and transcriptional analysis under abiotic stress conditions and reproductive development
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein phosphatases are the key components of a number of signaling pathways where they modulate various cellular responses. In plants, protein phosphatases constitute a large gene family and are reportedly involved in the regulation of abiotic stress responses and plant development. Recently, the whole complement of protein phosphatases has been identified in <it>Arabidopsis </it>genome. While PP2C class of serine/threonine phosphatases has been explored in rice, the whole complement of this gene family is yet to be reported.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>In silico </it>investigation revealed the presence of 132-protein phosphatase-coding genes in rice genome. Domain analysis and phylogenetic studies of evolutionary relationship categorized these genes into PP2A, PP2C, PTP, DSP and LMWP classes. PP2C class represents a major proportion of this gene family with 90 members. Chromosomal localization revealed their distribution on all the 12 chromosomes, with 42 genes being present on segmentally duplicated regions and 10 genes on tandemly duplicated regions of chromosomes. The expression profiles of 128 genes under salinity, cold and drought stress conditions, 11 reproductive developmental (panicle and seed) stages along with three stages of vegetative development were analyzed using microarray expression data. 46 genes were found to be differentially expressing in 3 abiotic stresses out of which 31 were up-regulated and 15 exhibited down-regulation. A total of 82 genes were found to be differentially expressing in different developmental stages. An overlapping expression pattern was found for abiotic stresses and reproductive development, wherein 8 genes were up-regulated and 7 down-regulated. Expression pattern of the 13 selected genes was validated employing real time PCR, and it was found to be in accordance with the microarray expression data for most of the genes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Exploration of protein phosphatase gene family in rice has resulted in the identification of 132 members, which can be further divided into different classes phylogenetically. Expression profiling and analysis indicate the involvement of this large gene family in a number of signaling pathways triggered by abiotic stresses and their possible role in plant development. Our study will provide the platform from where; the expression pattern information can be transformed into molecular, cellular and biochemical characterization of members belonging to this gene family.</p
3D-printing: An emerging and a revolutionary technology in pharmaceuticals
© 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA. One of the novel and progressive technology employed in pharmaceutical manufacturing, design of medical device and tissue engineering is three-dimensional (3D) printing. 3D printing technologies provide great advantages in 3D scaffolds fabrication over traditional methods in the control of pore size, porosity, and interconnectivity. Various techniques of 3D-printing include powder bed fusion, fused deposition modeling, binder deposition, inkjet printing, photopolymerization and many others which are still evolving. 3D-printing technique been employed in developing immediate release products, various systems to deliver multiple release modalities etc. 3D printing has opened the door for new generation of customized drug delivery with built-in flexibility for safer and effective therapy. Our mini-review provides a quick snapshot on an overview of 3D printing, various techniques employed, applications and its advancements in pharmaceutical sciences
Wire width and density dependence of the crossover in the peak of the static structure factor from in one-dimensional paramagnetic electron gases
We use the variational quantum Monte Carlo (VMC) method to study the wire
width () and electron density () dependences of the ground-state
properties of quasi-one-dimensional paramagnetic electron fluids. The onset of
a quasi-Wigner crystal phase is known to depend on electron density, and the
crossover occurs in the low density regime. We study the effect of wire width
on the crossover of the dominant peak in the static structure factor from
to . It is found that for a fixed electron
density, in the charge structure factor the crossover from the dominant peak
occurring at to occurs as the wire width decreases.
Our study suggests that the crossover is due to interplay of both
and . The finite wire width correlation effect is reflected in
the peak height of the charge and spin structure factors. We fit the dominant
peaks of the charge and spin structure factors assuming fit functions based on
our finite wire width theory and clues from bosonization, resulting in a good
fit of the VMC data. The pronounced peaks in the charge and spin structure
factors at and , respectively, indicate the
complete decoupling of the charge and spin degrees of freedom. Furthermore, the
wire width dependence of the electron correlation energy and the
Tomonaga-Luttinger parameter is found to be significant
Antisense expression of a gene encoding a calcium-binding protein in transgenic tobacco leads to altered morphology and enhanced chlorophyll
Entamoeba histolytica contains a novel calcium-binding protein like calmodulin, which was discovered earlier, and we have reported the presence of its homologue(s) and a dependent protein kinase in plants. To understand the functions of these in plants, a cDNA encoding a calcium-binding protein isolated from Entamoeba histolytica (EhCaBP) was cloned into vector pBI121 in antisense orientation and transgenic tobacco plants were raised. These plants showed variation in several phenotypic characters, of which two distinct features, more greenness and leaf thickness, were inherited in subsequent generations. The increase in the level of total chlorophyll in different plants ranged from 60% to 70%. There was no major change in chloroplast structure and in the protein level of D1, D2, LHCP and RuBP carboxylase. These morphological changes were not seen in antisense calmodulin transgenic tobacco plants, nor was the calmodulin level altered in EhCaBP antisense plants
Defects in coding joint formation in vivo in developing ATM-deficient B and T lymphocytes
Ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM)–deficient lymphocytes exhibit defects in coding joint formation during V(D)J recombination in vitro. Similar defects in vivo should affect both T and B cell development, yet the lymphoid phenotypes of ATM deficiency are more pronounced in the T cell compartment. In this regard, ATM-deficient mice exhibit a preferential T lymphopenia and have an increased incidence of nontransformed and transformed T cells with T cell receptor α/δ locus translocations. We demonstrate that there is an increase in the accumulation of unrepaired coding ends during different steps of antigen receptor gene assembly at both the immunoglobulin and T cell receptor loci in developing ATM-deficient B and T lymphocytes. Furthermore, we show that the frequency of ATM-deficient αβ T cells with translocations involving the T cell receptor α/δ locus is directly related to the number of T cell receptor α rearrangements that these cells can make during development. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that ATM deficiency leads to broad defects in coding joint formation in developing B and T lymphocytes in vivo, and they provide a potential molecular explanation as to why the developmental impact of these defects could be more pronounced in the T cell compartment
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