Immunoadjuvant potential of Azadirachta indica, Butea frondosa and Ficus religiosa against Swine flu vaccine antigen

Introduction: In general, primary or secondary metabolites derived from medicinal plant products might be responsible for stimulating or suppressing the immune system against specific protein antigens. The objective of this study was to evaluate the adjuvant potential of aqueous leaves extract of Azadirachta indica, Butea frondosa and Ficus religiosa against Swine flu vaccine antigen.Methods: In this study, our group evaluated the antibody (IgG) titre of Swine flu vaccine antigen (2 μg/mL) using variable doses (0.625–5 mg) of aqueous leaves extract of A. indica, B. frondosa and F. religiosa. In addition, Swiss mice were immunized subcutaneously (100 μL) on day 0 with Swine flu vaccine antigen (1:1000 dilution). Splenocytes were collected on day 7 and cultured with variable doses of aqueous leaves extract of A. indica, B. frondosa and F. religiosa pertaining to determine the total cellular content and splenocyte proliferation (Swine flu vaccine; Ovalbumin, OVA and Con A) assay. In addition, estimation of Th1 (IFN-gamma and TNF alpha) cytokines in cell culture supernatant containing swine flu vaccine antigen along with aqueous leaves extract were measured.Results: Aqueous leaves extract of A. indica, B. frondosa and F. religiosa showed anti-Swine flu titre at higher doses. In ex vivo animal model studies these three medicinal plants in the form of aqueous leaves extract enhanced total cellular content at higher doses but increased in splenocyte proliferation (Swine flu vaccine, OVA and Con A) assay at lower doses. Similarly, there was enhancement in Th1 cytokines (IFN-gamma, TNF alpha) with respect to swine flu vaccine antigen containing aqueous extract at lower doses as compared to control group.Conclusion: Aqueous leaves extract of A. indica, B. frondosa and F. religiosa showed adjuvant activity against Swine flu vaccine antigen and might be used in manufacturing active adjuvant for vaccine antigen

A Design and Implementation of an Ambulatory Electrocardiogram (ECG) Acquisition Circuit for Emergency Application

© 2018 IEEE. This paper presents the design and development of an ECG data acquisition circuit for emergency applications. The ECG signal extraction method and the design of the analogue front-end circuit are discussed. This design has been implemented in a printed circuit board (PCB), with comparable size to a 50 cent Australian coin. By applying the testing approach with this prototype, the output ECG trace quality is overall satisfactory with a clear display of QRS complex and certain robustness to motion artifacts

Влияние прямых иностранных инвестиций на производственный сектор: доказательства из индийской экономики

There is need for an additional source of finance in form of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Indian manufacturing sector due to its long-term engagement between the investors and the host country. Further FDI in the manufacturing sector is gaining importance because of the benefits the manufacturing sector reaps as a result of technology spillover brought through FDI. Therefore the objective of the study is to assess the impact of Foreign Direct Investment on the manufacturing sector output of the Indian economy for the period of 1991–2020. Methods such as bounds test, Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) and Granger causality are used to study the impact of FDI and the interaction of FDI and human capital as two different variables on the output of the manufacturing sector in the Indian economy. Also, the technology-enhancing effect of FDI is addressed in the current study. The results of the study reveal that the inflow of FDI leads to an increase in manufacturing sector output. Further, it concludes that the higher the level of education (human capital) and the greater the technology gap between host and home country, the more is the technology spillover, and hence more prominent is the impact of FDI on the output of the manufacturing sector.Существует потребность в дополнительном источнике финансирования в виде прямых иностранных инвестиций (ПИИ) в производственный сектор Индии из-за его долгосрочного взаимодействия между инвесторами и принимающей страной. Дальнейшее значение ПИИ в обрабатывающий сектор приобретает все большее значение из-за выгод, получаемых обрабатывающим сектором в результате распространения новых технологий посредством ПИИ. Поэтому целью исследования является оценка влияния прямых иностранных инвестиций на выпуск продукции производственного сектора индийской экономики за период 1991–2020 гг. Такие методы, как проверка границ, модель авторегрессионного распределенного запаздывания (ARDL) и причинно-следственная связь по Грейнджеру, используются для изучения влияния ПИИ и взаимодействия ПИИ и человеческого капитала как двух разных переменных на выпуск продукции производственного сектора в индийской экономике. Кроме того, рассматривается эффект ПИИ на улучшение технологий. Результаты исследования показывают, что приток ПИИ приводит к увеличению объема производства в обрабатывающей промышленности. Кроме того, делается вывод о том, что чем выше уровень образования (человеческого капитала) и чем больше технологический разрыв между принимающей страной и страной базирования, тем больше перетекание технологий и, следовательно, более заметно влияние ПИИ на выпуск продукции производственного сектора

Study of transmission and reflection from a disordered lasing medium

A numerical study of the statistics of transmission ($t$) and reflection ($r$) of quasi-particles from a one-dimensional disordered lasing or amplifying medium is presented. The amplification is introduced via a uniform imaginary part in the site energies in the disordered segment of the single-band tight binding model. It is shown that $t$ is a non-self-averaging quantity. The cross-over length scale above which the amplification suppresses the transmittance is studied as a function of amplification strength. A new cross-over length scale is introduced in the regime of strong disorder and weak amplification. The stationary distribution of the backscattered reflection coefficient is shown to differ qualitatively from the earlier analytical results obtained within the random phase approximation.Comment: 5 pages RevTex (twocolumn format), 5 EPS figures, considerably modifie

Reflection coefficient and localization length of waves in one-dimensional random media

We develop a novel and powerful method of exactly calculating various transport characteristics of waves in one-dimensional random media with (or without) coherent absorption or amplification. Using the method, we compute the probability densities of the reflectance and of the phase of the reflection coefficient, together with the localization length, of electromagnetic waves in sufficiently long random dielectric media. We find substantial differences between our exact results and the previous results obtained using the random phase approximation (RPA). The probabilty density of the phase of the reflection coefficient is highly nonuniform when either disorder or absorption (or amplification) is strong. The probability density of the reflectance when the absorption or amplification parameter is large is also quite different from the RPA result. We prove that the probability densities in the amplifying case are related to those in the absorbing case with the same magnitude of the imaginary part of the dielectric permeability by exact dual relationships. From the analysis of the average reflectance that shows a nonmonotonic dependence on the absorption or amplification parameter, we obtain a useful criterion for the applicability of the RPA. In the parameter regime where the RPA is invalid, we find the exact localization length is substantially larger than the RPA localization length.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure

Icing: Large-scale inference of immunoglobulin clonotypes

Immunoglobulin (IG) clonotype identification is a fundamental open question in modern immunology. An accurate description of the IG repertoire is crucial to understand the variety within the immune system of an individual, potentially shedding light on the pathogenetic process. Intrinsic IG heterogeneity makes clonotype inference an extremely challenging task, both from a computational and a biological point of view. Here we present icing, a framework that allows to reconstruct clonal families also in case of highly mutated sequences. icing has a modular structure, and it is designed to be used with large next generation sequencing (NGS) datasets, a technology which allows the characterisation of large-scale IG repertoires. We extensively validated the framework with clustering performance metrics on the results in a simulated case. icing is implemented in Python, and it is publicly available under FreeBSD licence at https://github.com/slipguru/icing

Dynamics of fully coupled rotators with unimodal and bimodal frequency distribution

We analyze the synchronization transition of a globally coupled network of N phase oscillators with inertia (rotators) whose natural frequencies are unimodally or bimodally distributed. In the unimodal case, the system exhibits a discontinuous hysteretic transition from an incoherent to a partially synchronized (PS) state. For sufficiently large inertia, the system reveals the coexistence of a PS state and of a standing wave (SW) solution. In the bimodal case, the hysteretic synchronization transition involves several states. Namely, the system becomes coherent passing through traveling waves (TWs), SWs and finally arriving to a PS regime. The transition to the PS state from the SW occurs always at the same coupling, independently of the system size, while its value increases linearly with the inertia. On the other hand the critical coupling required to observe TWs and SWs increases with N suggesting that in the thermodynamic limit the transition from incoherence to PS will occur without any intermediate states. Finally a linear stability analysis reveals that the system is hysteretic not only at the level of macroscopic indicators, but also microscopically as verified by measuring the maximal Lyapunov exponent.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, contribution for the book: Control of Self-Organizing Nonlinear Systems, Springer Series in Energetics, eds E. Schoell, S.H.L. Klapp, P. Hoeve

No severe and global X chromosome inactivation in meiotic male germline of Drosophila

This article is a response to Vibranovski et al

A ‘quiet revolution’? The impact of Training Schools on initial teacher training partnerships

This paper discusses the impact on initial teacher training of a new policy initiative in England: the introduction of Training Schools. First, the Training School project is set in context by exploring the evolution of a partnership approach to initial teacher training in England. Ways in which Training Schools represent a break with established practice are considered together with their implications for the dominant mode of partnership led by higher education institutions (HEIs). The capacity of Training Schools to achieve their own policy objectives is examined, especially their efficacy as a strategy for managing innovation and the dissemination of innovation. The paper ends by focusing on a particular Training School project which has adopted an unusual approach to its work and enquires whether this alternative approach could offer a more profitable way forward. During the course of the paper, five different models of partnership are considered: collaborative, complementary, HEI-led, school-led and partnership within a partnership

Role of N-Terminal Amino Acids in the Potency of Anthrax Lethal Factor

Anthrax lethal factor (LF) is a Zn+2-dependent metalloprotease that cleaves several MAPK kinases and is responsible for the lethality of anthrax lethal toxin (LT). We observed that a recombinant LF (LF-HMA) which differs from wild type LF (LF-A) by the addition of two residues (His-Met) to the native Ala (A) terminus as a result of cloning manipulations has 3-fold lower potency toward cultured cells and experimental animals. We hypothesized that the “N-end rule”, which relates the half-life of proteins in cells to the identity of their N-terminal residue, might be operative in the case of LF, so that the N-terminal residue of LF would determine the cytosolic stability and thereby the potency of LF. Mutational studies that replaced the native N-terminal residue of LF with known N-end rule stabilizing or destabilizing residues confirmed that the N-terminal residue plays a significant role in determining the potency of LT for cultured cells and experimental animals. The fact that a commercially-available LF preparation (LF-HMA) that is widely used in basic research studies and for evaluation of vaccines and therapeutics is 3-fold less potent than native LF (LF-A) should be considered when comparing published studies and in the design of future experiments