Sameer Honwad, Assistant Professor of STEM Education, travels to Bhutan

Assistance from the CIE development grant helped me travel to Bhutan, in order to continue my ongoing work on environmental decision-making and formal curriculum design to support sustainable decision-making processes among youth in Bhutan. The trip was also meant to build partnerships with the environmental science faculty in Bhutan and to explore the possibility of designing a cross-cultural collaborative learning environment for undergraduate students at UNH and the Royal Thimpu College in Bhutan

Conceptual review of Ghrita w.s.r. to its Medhya Karma

“Ghrita” obtained from Ksheera and Dadhi is considered to be Snehottama, having many good effects on human body and mind. One among being the Medhya Karma which is considered to be power of grasping and retention. Ghrita is being considered as Ajasrika Rasayana can be consumed on daily basis, therefore nourishing the Saptadhatu and Ojas which is important for proper functioning of body and mind. The effects are said to increase many folds when processed with other specified Dravyas. Ghrita is also known best for its Medhya Karma where the fat crosses the blood brain barrier thus helps in better absorption of Dravyas which will help in improving the higher mental functions

A Novel PHOX/CD38/MCOLN1/TFEB Axis Important For Macrophage Activation During Bacterial Phagocytosis [preprint]

Macrophages are a key and heterogenous class of phagocytic cells of the innate immune system, which act as sentinels in peripheral tissues and are mobilized during infection. Macrophage activation in the presence of bacterial cells and molecules entails specific and complex programs of gene expression. How such triggers elicit the gene expression programs is incompletely understood. We previously discovered that transcription factor TFEB is a key contributor to macrophage activation during bacterial phagocytosis. However, the mechanism linking phagocytosis of bacterial cells to TFEB activation remained unknown. In this article, we describe a previously unknown pathway that links phagocytosis with the activation of TFEB and related transcription factor TFE3 in macrophages. We find that phagocytosis of bacterial cells causes an NADPH oxidase (PHOX)-dependent oxidative burst, which activates enzyme CD38 and generates NAADP in the maturing phagosome. Phago-lysosome fusion brings Ca2+ channel TRPML1/MCOLN1 in contact with NAADP, causing Ca2+ efflux from the lysosome, calcineurin activation, and TFEB nuclear import. This drives TFEB-dependent expression of important pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1α, IL-1β, and IL-6. Thus, our findings reveal that TFEB activation is a key regulatory event for the activation of macrophages. These findings have important implications for infections, cancer, obesity, and atherosclerosis

Pharmaceutico – Analytical Study of Chitraka Kwatha w.s.r. to different reduction criteria

Harita has explained seven types of Kwatha. Among the seven types of Kwatha 1/10th reduction and ½ reduction are said to be having Deepana and Pachana action respectively. The study is planned to study the concept of Deepana and Pachana Kwatha as explained by Harita. For this study, a well known Deepana- Pachana drug i.e. Chitraka is selected and the Kwatha is prepared. In the present study, the Deepana Kwatha (1/10th reduction), Pachana Kwatha(1/2 reduction) are compared with that of the Kwatha prepared by the 3/4th reduction in terms of analytical parameters and the findings were analysed

Effects of Forest Fragment Area on Interactions Between Plants and Their Natural Enemies: Consequences for Plant Diversity at Multiple Spatial Scales

Density-dependent interactions between plants and their natural enemies, including fungal pathogens and insect herbivores, help maintain plant species coexistence and diversity at local scales (α-diversity). However, turnover in plant species composition across space also contributes to biodiversity at larger spatial scales (β-diversity). Despite mounting evidence that enemies can maintain α-diversity, we know little about their contributions to β-diversity. Additionally, in the light of widespread habitat fragmentation and potentially modified insect and pathogen communities in forest fragments, the effects of fragment area on their diversity-maintaining roles are largely unknown. We carried out a field experiment to investigate how natural enemies in impact tree α and β-diversity in a fragmented rainforest landscape in the Western Ghats, India. In 21 rainforest fragments, we suppressed insects and fungi/oomycetes with pesticides, and examined changes in the diversity of tree seedlings. We found that fungicide had no effect on α-diversity, but significantly decreased β-diversity (species turnover among plots). The facilitative effects of fungi and oomycetes on β-diversity, however, weakened as fragments decreased in area, indicating that certain specialized plant-pathogen interactions may be lost when fragments become smaller. Insecticide, in contrast, increased α-diversity but tended to decrease β-diversity between distant plots. In summary, we found that interactions between plants and their natural enemies help maintain β-diversity in large forest fragments but not in small fragments. Small fragments are often viewed as future reservoirs of biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes, but our findings suggest that modified interactions with natural enemies may result in the erosion of this diversity over time

Weaving strands of knowledge: Leaning about environmental change in the Bhutan Himalayas

Climate change is a complex phenomenon, so much so that even those with expert knowledge on the scientific data struggle to understand the impacts of climate change on their everyday lives. Contradictions across systems of knowledge make clear that climate change is not just a problem of scientific understanding but is also simultaneously a problem of global coordination as well as a sociopolitical problem of connecting domains of knowledge that are seldom valued equitably. The project described in this paper is a prototype effort to put knowledge from community members in two culturally distinct rural areas of the world at equal footing with scientific knowledge. The overarching project aim was to design partnership-based inquiry into environmental and climate change that coordinated the aforementioned three facets of climate change (a) scientific understanding, (b) cross-cultural coordination among globally dispersed communities, and (c) sociopolitical equity in bringing nondominant perspectives to the table

Experimental evaluation of Deepana and Pachana Activity of Chitraka Kwatha w.s.r. to different Reduction Criteria

Kashaya Kalpana, also called as Kwatha Kalpana is the third one among the Kashaya Kalpana. It is prepared by boiling the drug in water and reducing it to specific quantity. Different authors have explained different ratio for drug and water and the quantity of reduction also differs according to the purpose used. Acharya Harita and Bhoja have explained Kwatha according to the ratio of reduction and attributed different therapeutic properties according to the ratio of reduction. As per Harita, although the drug and quantity of water used are same for the preparation of Kwatha, if the reduction is different, each reduction will have different therapeutic actions and can be used for different disease conditions. Among the seven types of Kwatha 1/10th reduction and ½ reduction are said to be having Deepana and Pachana action respectively. The Deepana and Pachana action was assesed experimentally in albino rats by adopting some modern parameters. These parameters were logically selected by keeping the modern explaination of digestion and metabolism in mind. When the data obtained by above study is analysed, suggestive of moderate to good effect of Pachana and mild to moderate Deepana action is noted

Can We Picture Equity? Critically Examining Cross-Cultural Short-Term Project Collaborations

This paper explores equity challenges common to short-term cross-cultural research partnerships. We focus on a project-based activity in which U.S. undergraduate students and college faculty taught middle-school students in Goa, India how to make podcasts about complex environmental problems. Project team members conducted a collaborative auto-ethnography focused on questions of power, leadership, collaboration, and equity, and examined exit-interview photo elicitation data to identify the core challenges of ethical and equitable short-term cross-cultural research and programming. Our use of photographs as conversation prompts helped to highlight contradictions and asymmetries along axes of power, cultural imperialism, knower-knowledge, age, race/ethnicity, social class, and gender. We reflect on possibilities for educational research that rejects a “voluntourism” model and moves, if imperfectly, toward more equitable international collaborations