Morphometrics and distribution of antennal sensillae of both sexes of Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, is a devastating invasive pest persisting as a menace hampering the progress of Indian agriculture. The morphometrics and distribution of antennal sensilla of both sexes of S. frugiperda were investigated in the study. The antenna was filiform for both sexes and was composed of scape, pedicel and flagellum. Male antennas had more subsegments (65-71) in the flagellum than female (56-70) antennas. Male and female S. frugiperda antennae possessed eight types of sensilla: sensilla trichoidea, sensilla chaetica, sensilla coeloconica, sensilla styloconica, sensilla basiconica, sensilla auricillica, sensilla squamiformia and Bӧhm’s bristles. Sensilla trichoidea was the most abundant sensilla found in the antenna of both sexes and was more abundant in males than in females. It was also noticed that male antenna was longer than the female antenna. The results of the present study helps to assess alternative management strategies with an electrophysiological response of the pest towards sex pheromones and in combination with plant info chemicals for monitoring and management of S. frugiperda in agricultural ecosystems.

Crystal structure of 2-methylamino-3-nitro-4-p-tolylpyrano[3,2-c]chromen-5(4H)-one

The authors thank Dr Babu Varghese, SAIF, IIT, Chennai, India, for the data collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Measuring tuberculosis patient perceived quality of care in public and public-private mix settings in India: an instrument development and validation study.

BACKGROUND At present, there are no validated quantitative scales available to measure patient-centred quality of care in health facilities providing services for tuberculosis (TB) patients in India and low-income and middle-income countries. METHODS Initial themes and items reflective of TB patient's perceived quality of care were developed using qualitative interviews. Content adequacy of the items were ascertained through Content validity Index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR). Pilot testing of the questionnaire for assessing validity and reliability was undertaken among 714 patients with TB. Sampling adequacy and sphericity were tested by Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett's test, respectively. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken to test validity. Cronbach's α and test-retest scores were used to test reliability. RESULTS A 32-item tool measuring patient-perceived quality of TB distributed across five domains was developed initially based on a CVI and CVR cut-off score of 0.78 and cognitive interviews with patients with TB. Bartlett's test results showed a strong significance f (χ=3756 and p1 which accounted for 60.9% of the total variance of items. Correlation (z-value >1.96) between items and factors was highly significant and Cronbach's α was acceptable for the global scale (0.76) for the four factors. Intraclass correlation coefficient and the test retest scores for four factors were (<0.001) significant. CONCLUSION We validated a measurement tool for patient-perceived quality of care for TB (PPQCTB) which measured the patient's satisfaction with healthcare provider and services. PPQCTB tool could enrich quality of care evaluation frameworks for TB health services in India

Whole-Genome Sequencing to Identify Missed Rifampicin and Isoniazid Resistance Among Tuberculosis Isolates—Chennai, India, 2013–2016

India has a high burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR TB) and many cases go undetected by current drug susceptibility tests (DSTs). This study was conducted to identify rifampicin (RIF) and isoniazid (INH) resistance associated genetic mutations undetected by current clinical diagnostics amongst persons with DR TB in Chennai, India. Retrospectively stored 166 DR TB isolates during 2013–2016 were retrieved and cultured in Löwenstein-Jensen medium. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) and MGIT DST for RIF and INH were performed. Discordant genotypic and phenotypic sensitivity results were repeated for confirmation and the discrepant results considered final. Further, drug resistance-conferring mutations identified through WGS were analyzed for their presence as targets in current WHO-recommended molecular diagnostics. WGS detected additional mutations for rifampicin and isoniazid resistance than WHO-endorsed line probe assays. For RIF, WGS was able to identify an additional 10% (15/146) of rpoB mutant isolates associated with borderline rifampicin resistance compared to MGIT DST. WGS could detect additional DR TB cases than commercially available and WHO-endorsed molecular DST tests. WGS results reiterate the importance of the recent WHO revised critical concentrations of current MGIT DST to detect low-level resistance to rifampicin. WGS may help inform effective treatment selection for persons at risk of, or diagnosed with, DR TB

EpiNet as a way of involving more physicians and patients in epilepsy research: validation study and accreditation process

Objective EpiNet was established to encourage epilepsy research. EpiNet is used for multicenter cohort studies and investigator‐led trials. Physicians must be accredited to recruit patients into trials. Here, we describe the accreditation process for the EpiNet‐First trials. Methods Physicians with an interest in epilepsy were invited to assess 30 case scenarios to determine the following: whether patients have epilepsy; the nature of the seizures (generalized, focal); and the etiology. Information was presented in two steps for 23 cases. The EpiNet steering committee determined that 21 cases had epilepsy. The steering committee determined by consensus which responses were acceptable for each case. We chose a subset of 18 cases to accredit investigators for the EpiNet‐First trials. We initially focused on 12 cases; to be accredited, investigators could not diagnose epilepsy in any case that the steering committee determined did not have epilepsy. If investigators were not accredited after assessing 12 cases, 6 further cases were considered. When assessing the 18 cases, investigators could be accredited if they diagnosed one of six nonepilepsy patients as having possible epilepsy but could make no other false‐positive errors and could make only one error regarding seizure classification. Results Between December 2013 and December 2014, 189 physicians assessed the 30 cases. Agreement with the steering committee regarding the diagnosis at step 1 ranged from 47% to 100%, and improved when information regarding tests was provided at step 2. One hundred five of the 189 physicians (55%) were accredited for the EpiNet‐First trials. The kappa value for diagnosis of epilepsy across all 30 cases for accredited physicians was 0.70. Significance We have established criteria for accrediting physicians using EpiNet. New investigators can be accredited by assessing 18 case scenarios. We encourage physicians with an interest in epilepsy to become EpiNet‐accredited and to participate in these investigator‐led clinical trials

A cross-layer payload-dropping scheme for improving CSMA/CA throughput in interference-limited co-channel cells

Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) is still the de facto contention-based Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol in many of today’s Wireless Local (WLAN) and Personal Area Network (WPAN) standards such as the IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ad, IEEE 802.15.3, IEEE 802.15.4, and ECMA 387. While CSMA/CA is efficient in single cell scenarios, in multi-cell scenarios it suffers a severe MAC-level co-channel interference problem which affects its spatial reusability. Known as the exposed node problem, it prevents nodes in different cells within carrier-sensing range from sharing a channel even though the cells are interference-limited. To mitigate this problem, many schemes have been proposed, of which schemes combining carrier sensing threshold (CST) and transmit power control (TPC) stand out in terms of practicality. Unfortunately, such schemes require features that may not be available in simpler transceivers. Also, for CST to work, transceivers must use a carriersensing mode that can lead to poor detection rates especially for wideband signals. In this thesis, we propose an alternative scheme to overcome this issue: the Payload-Dropping CSMA/CA (PD-CSMA/CA). This special variant of the CSMA/CA protocol incorporates a MAC/PHY cross-layer mechanism which aborts the reception of the payload portions of frames from co-channel cells in interference-limited multi-cell deployments, based on a cell identifier embedded in the frame’s header. For transceivers which do not support CST, PD-CSMA/CA adequately mitigates the exposed node problem, thereby allowing nodes to enjoy nearly the maximum throughput as provided by CSMA/CA in the single cell scenario. To evaluate this new scheme, we incorporated it into the IEEE 802.11’s CSMA/CA protocol and tested its performance in three different indoor spatial re-use scenarios using the ns-2 simulator. From the simulation results, it can be seen that in deployments where either cell spacings or partitions are used to limit the co-channel interference, better throughputs are achieved when PD-CSMA/CA is used instead of CSMA/CA. The results also show that, under exactly the same deployment scenario and propagation environment, and using exactly the same TPC and CST settings, the throughput for PDCSMA is more than the throughput for CSMA/CA, and the increase in the throughput for PD-CSMA/CA is larger than the increase of the throughput for CSMA/CA as the fade margin (employed to combat lognormal shadowing) for both protocols is increased in equal amount. We also developed analytical formulations for the throughput of PD-CSMA/CA in two co-channel interference-limited cells using the Markov chain modeling approach. For comparison, the throughput model for CSMA/CA in the same setup was also developed. Compared to simulations results, these models are very accurate. Although limited to the fixed frame size and fixed contention window case, these models shed light on the throughput trends of PD-CSMA/CA with respect to the contention window length, number of nodes and header to frame length ratio of transmitted frames, and demonstrates its throughput gains over normal CSMA/CA theoretically. As a by-product of the effort to develop the analytical model for PD-CSMA/CA, we also developed formulations for the idle period distribution of single-cell CSMA/CA. This model passed the Pearson’s Chi-squared test for a wide range of contention window sizes and numbers of nodes. Although limited to fixed contention windows, we feel it is an important first step towards developing a more general expression for CSMA/CA with exponentially increasing windows.DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (SCE

Rollover Dynamics of a Narrow Tilting Three-Wheeled Vehicle

A narrow-track vehicle possesses many advantages like fuel efficiency and reduced road footprint among others. But the main drawback of this model stems from the fact that they tend to rollover more easily due to their narrow base area. In order to overcome this rollover instability, these vehicles are made to tilt to obtain increased virtual base area. The focus of this paper is to analyse the minimum lean angle necessary for a narrow three-wheeled vehicle under lateral acceleration to negotiate a curve safely. In addition, the influence of the horizontal positions of the centre of mass of the vehicle over the rollover speeds is studied