A Simple Approach for Black Out Problem

Antennas surrounding by the plasma medium does not radiate for all the frequencies but only for those which are greater than the plasma frequency. Here we have proposed a cylindrical (axial magnetized) antenna system which radiates for all frequencies irrespective of plasma frequency and this is the solution for the black-out situation which occurs for certain frequencies

The melon fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae: A review of its biology and management

The melon fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is distributed widely in temperate, tropical, and sub-tropical regions of the world. It has been reported to damage 81 host plants and is a major pest of cucurbitaceous vegetables, particularly the bitter gourd (Momordica charantia), muskmelon (Cucumis melo), snap melon (C. melo var. momordica), and snake gourd (Trichosanthes anguina). The extent of losses vary between 30 to 100%, depending on the cucurbit species and the season. Its abundance increases when the temperatures fall below 32° C, and the relative humidity ranges between 60 to 70%. It prefers to infest young, green, soft-skinned fruits. It inserts the eggs 2 to 4 mm deep in the fruit tissues, and the maggots feed inside the fruit. Pupation occurs in the soil at 0.5 to 15 cm below the soil surface. Keeping in view the importance of the pest and crop, melon fruit fly management could be done using local area management and wide area management. The melon fruit fly can successfully be managed over a local area by bagging fruits, field sanitation, protein baits, cue-lure traps, growing fruit fly-resistant genotypes, augmentation of biocontrol agents, and soft insecticides. The wide area management program involves the coordination of different characteristics of an insect eradication program (including local area options) over an entire area within a defensible perimeter, and subsequently protected against reinvasion by quarantine controls. Although, the sterile insect technique has been successfully used in wide area approaches, this approach needs to use more sophisticated and powerful technologies in eradication programs such as insect transgenesis and geographical information systems, which could be deployed over a wide area. Various other options for the management of fruit fly are also discussed in relation to their bio-efficacy and economics for effective management of this pest

Mechanical versus thermodynamical melting in pressure-induced amorphization: the role of defects

We study numerically an atomistic model which is shown to exhibit a one--step crystal--to--amorphous transition upon decompression. The amorphous phase cannot be distinguished from the one obtained by quenching from the melt. For a perfectly crystalline starting sample, the transition occurs at a pressure at which a shear phonon mode destabilizes, and triggers a cascade process leading to the amorphous state. When defects are present, the nucleation barrier is greatly reduced and the transformation occurs very close to the extrapolation of the melting line to low temperatures. In this last case, the transition is not anticipated by the softening of any phonon mode. Our observations reconcile different claims in the literature about the underlying mechanism of pressure amorphization.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Meta-Analysis of the Relation of Body Mass Index to All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality and Hospitalization in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure

Clinical studies have indicated the existence of an "obesity paradox" in patients with chronic heart failure (HF), that is, reduced mortality in patients who have elevated body mass index (BMI) scores compared with normal-weight reference groups. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation of BMI with all-cause and cardiovascular (CV) mortality and hospitalization in patients with chronic HF though a systematic review and meta-analysis of published research. PubMed, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Central, Scopus, web of science and Embase were searched for studies reporting rates of total mortality, cardiac mortality, and risk for hospitalization in patients with HF in various BMI categories

Urinary active transforming growth factor ß in feline chronic kidney disease

The cytokine transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) has been widely implicated in the development and progression of renal fibrosis in chronic kidney disease (CKD) in humans and in experimental models. The aims of this study were to assess the association between urinary active TGF-β1 and (a) development of CKD in a cross-sectional study, (b) deterioration of renal function over 1 year in a longitudinal study, and (c) renal histopathological parameters in cats. A human active TGF-β1 ELISA was validated for use in feline urine. Cross-sectional analysis revealed no significant difference in urinary active TGF-β1:creatinine ratio (aTGF-β1:UCr) between groups with differing renal function. Longitudinally, non-azotaemic cats that developed CKD demonstrated a significant (P = 0.028) increase in aTGF-β1:UCr approximately 6 months before the development of azotaemia, which remained elevated (P = 0.046) at diagnosis (approximately 12 months prior, 8.4 pg/mg; approximately 6 months prior, 22.2 pg/mg; at CKD diagnosis, 24.6 pg/mg). In the histopathology study, aTGF-β1:UCr was significantly higher in cats with moderate (P = 0.02) and diffuse (P = 0.005) renal fibrosis than in cats without fibrosis. Cats with moderate renal inflammation had significantly higher urinary active aTGF-β1 concentrations than cats with mild (P = 0.035) or no inflammatory change (P = 0.004). The parameter aTGF-β1:UCr was independently associated with Log urine protein:creatinine ratio in a multivariable analysis of clinicopathological parameters and interstitial fibrosis score in a multivariable analysis of histopathological features. These results suggest that urinary aTGF-β1 reflects the severity of renal pathology. Increases in urinary aTGF-β1 followed longitudinally in individual cats may indicate the development of CKD

The influence of ionic strength on the adhesive bond stiffness of oral streptococci possessing different surface appendages as probed using AFM and QCM-D

Bacterial adhesion to surfaces poses threats to human-health, not always associated with adhering organisms, but often with their detachment causing contamination elsewhere. Bacterial adhesion mechanisms may not be valid for their detachment, known to proceed according to a visco-elastic mechanism. Here we aimed to investigate influences of ionic strength on the adhesive bond stiffness of two spherically shaped Streptococcus salivarius strains with different lengths of fibrillar surface appendages. The response of a Quartz-Crystal-Microbalance-with-Dissipation (QCM-D) upon streptococcal adhesion and changes in the ionic strength of the surrounding fluid indicated that the bond stiffness of S. salivarius HB7, possessing a dense layer of 91 nm long fibrils, was unaffected by ionic strength. Atomic-force-microscopic (AFM) imaging in PeakForce-QNM mode showed a small decrease in bond stiffness from 1200 to 880 kPa upon decreasing ionic strength from 57 to 5.7 mM, while Total-Internal-Reflection-Microscopy suggested a complete collapse of fibrils. S. salivarius HBV51, possessing a less dense layer of shorter (63 nm) fibrils, demonstrated a strong decrease in bond stiffness both from QCM-D and AFM upon decreasing the ionic strength, and a partial collapse of fibrils. Probably, the more hydrophobic and less negatively charged long fibrils on S. salivarius HB7 collapse side-on to the cell surface, while the more hydrophilic and negatively charged fibrils of S. salivarius HBV51 remain partially stretched. In summary, we demonstrate how a combination of different methods can yield a description of the structural changes occurring in the interfacial region between adhering, fibrillated streptococci and a substratum surface upon changing the ionic strengt