Migratory Sheep and Goat Production System: The Mainstay of Tribal Hill Economy in Himachal Pradesh

The migratory and socio-economic aspects of sheep and goat flock-owners have been studied to examine yield, cost, income and employment in migratory sheep and goat production system in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh for the year 2001-02. A direct relation has been revealed between flock-size and resource endowments. Human labour has been found as the major cost component in the maintenance of this production system. Although, the contribution of sheep-rearing has been found higher to gross income, rearing of goats generates markedly higher income than of sheep on per animal basis. The flock business and family labour income in this system have been observed impressive and net income has been rated meagre for small flock-owners and nominal for large ones. This system has provided enough employment opportunities to family as well as hired labour. The existing breeds have been found good in terms of quality and quantity of meat, disease resistance and reproduction. The disease management technologies have been reported satisfactory, but medical facilities are not available at higher altitudes. The fodder availability at foothills and in plains during the winter season has been perceived as a major constraint, while the other constraints have been lack of marketing and processing infrastructure, low prices of output, high morbidity rate and wild animal attack. To enhance the profitability and sustainability of this system in the long-run, the study has suggested that the flock-owners need to be educated about the importance of timely vaccination and feeding of concentrate, roughages and feed supplements to the animals, specially during the winter season.Agricultural and Food Policy,

UL 54 foscarnet mutation in an hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient with cytomegalovirus disease

We present a case of foscarnet ( FOS ) resistance arising from a UL 54 mutation after a short duration of FOS exposure, which has not been previously described in a stem cell transplant recipient, to our knowledge. We discuss the use of FOS to treat other viral infections and the implications this may have for the development of resistance mutations and treatment of cytomegalovirus disease.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106875/1/tid12200.pd

Design of Interface Hardware and Software for DNC System

This paper describes in detail an indigenous state-of-the-art DNC system designed, developed, fabricated and installed at DRDL NC Centre. It describes the hardware and software interfaces designed and developed in-house. At present, it supports a total of 16 CNC machines, 8 in serial port and the balance in parallel port. This system has the capability of extension up to 64 machines. During last one year of its installation and working it has been found to be extremely reliable

The rationale for heart team decision-making for patients with stable, complex coronary artery disease

Stable complex coronary artery disease can be treated with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), or medical therapy. Multidisciplinary decision-making has gained more emphasis over the recent years to select the most optimal treatment strategy for individual patients with stable complex coronary artery disease. However, the so-called 'Heart Team' concept has not been widely implemented. Yet, decision-making has shown to remain suboptimal; there is large variability in PCI-to-CABG ratios, which may predominantly be the consequence of physician-related factors that have raised concerns regarding overuse, underuse, and inappropriate selection of revascularization. In this review, we summarize these and additional data to support the statement that a multidisciplinary Heart Team consisting of at least a clinical/non-invasive cardiologist, interventional cardiologist, and cardiac surgeon, can together better analyse and interpret the available diagnostic evidence, put into context the clinical condition of the patient as well as consider individual preference and local expertise, and through shared decision-making with the patient can arrive at a most optimal joint treatment strategy recommendation for patients with stable co

Assessment of cytomegalovirus-specific cell-mediated immunity for the prediction of cytomegalovirus disease in high-risk solid-organ transplant recipients: a multicenter cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease remains an important problem in solid-organ transplant recipients, with the greatest risk among donor CMV-seropositive, recipient-seronegative (D(+)/R(-)) patients. CMV-specific cell-mediated immunity may be able to predict which patients will develop CMV disease. METHODS: We prospectively included D(+)/R(-) patients who received antiviral prophylaxis. We used the Quantiferon-CMV assay to measure interferon-γ levels following in vitro stimulation with CMV antigens. The test was performed at the end of prophylaxis and 1 and 2 months later. The primary outcome was the incidence of CMV disease at 12 months after transplant. We calculated positive and negative predictive values of the assay for protection from CMV disease. RESULTS: Overall, 28 of 127 (22%) patients developed CMV disease. Of 124 evaluable patients, 31 (25%) had a positive result, 81 (65.3%) had a negative result, and 12 (9.7%) had an indeterminate result (negative mitogen and CMV antigen) with the Quantiferon-CMV assay. At 12 months, patients with a positive result had a subsequent lower incidence of CMV disease than patients with a negative and an indeterminate result (6.4% vs 22.2% vs 58.3%, respectively; P < .001). Positive and negative predictive values of the assay for protection from CMV disease were 0.90 (95% confidence interval [CI], .74-.98) and 0.27 (95% CI, .18-.37), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This assay may be useful to predict if patients are at low, intermediate, or high risk for the development of subsequent CMV disease after prophylaxis. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT00817908

Track A Basic Science

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138319/1/jia218438.pd

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Migratory Sheep and Goat Production System: The Mainstay of Tribal Hill Economy in Himachal Pradesh

The migratory and socio-economic aspects of sheep and goat flock-owners have been studied to examine yield, cost, income and employment in migratory sheep and goat production system in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh for the year 2001-02. A direct relation has been revealed between flock-size and resource endowments. Human labour has been found as the major cost component in the maintenance of this production system. Although, the contribution of sheep-rearing has been found higher to gross income, rearing of goats generates markedly higher income than of sheep on per animal basis. The flock business and family labour income in this system have been observed impressive and net income has been rated meagre for small flock-owners and nominal for large ones. This system has provided enough employment opportunities to family as well as hired labour. The existing breeds have been found good in terms of quality and quantity of meat, disease resistance and reproduction. The disease management technologies have been reported satisfactory, but medical facilities are not available at higher altitudes. The fodder availability at foothills and in plains during the winter season has been perceived as a major constraint, while the other constraints have been lack of marketing and processing infrastructure, low prices of output, high morbidity rate and wild animal attack. To enhance the profitability and sustainability of this system in the long-run, the study has suggested that the flock-owners need to be educated about the importance of timely vaccination and feeding of concentrate, roughages and feed supplements to the animals, specially during the winter season

Do Household Scanner Panel Data Provide Representative Inferences from Brand Choices

The authors investigate whether household scanner data provide rep- resentative inferences about brand choice behavior. They show the (ana- lytical) equivalence of the homogeneous brand choice logit and the multi- nomial store sales models. Then, they determine how results for the homogeneous logit model estimated with actual household data deviate from results for the multinomial model estimated with actual store data from the same community. They also perform this comparison using model specifications that provide average estimated parameters while accommodating unobserved household heterogeneity. The authors find statistical support for the hypothesis that panelist households are not rep- resentative, whether household heterogeneity is or is not accommodated. Substantively, however, the average estimated price elasticities are close for the household and store data analyzed, if the household data are selected on the basis of purchase selection. An alternative selection pro- cedure, called household selection, which is used for the analysis of com- plete household purchase records, provides results that strongly differ from the purchase selection re

False‐positive Aspergillus galactomannan assay in solid organ transplant recipients with histoplasmosis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91195/1/tid675.pd