Modi@8: 'Aatmavishwas se AatmaNirbharta' - a step towards “Tech Driven Education”

".. this study conducted by the Public Policy Research Centre depicts the achievements of the Union Government wherein the researchers have tried to highlight the major interventions made by the Ministry of Education in last eight years under the visionary and dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, as it is the endeavour of the Union Government to build an education system that is technology driven, equitable, accessible and affordable.

Testicular cancer in mice: interplay between stem cells and endocrine insults

Abstract Background Incidence of type II germ cell tumors (T2GCT) has increased in young men possibly due to fetal/perinatal exposure to estrogenic compounds. Three-fold increased incidence of T2GCT was reported in men exposed in utero to diethylstilbestrol (DES). T2GCT is a development-related disease arising due to blocked differentiation of gonocytes into spermatogonia in fetal testes which survive as germ cell neoplasia in situ (GCNIS) and initiate T2GCT. In our earlier study, T2GCT-like features were observed in 9 out of 10 adult, 100-day-old mice testes upon neonatal exposure to DES (2 μg/pup/day on days 1–5). Neonatal DES exposure affected testicular very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) and spermatogonial stem cells and resulted in infertility, reduced sperm counts and tumor-like changes leading to our postulate that testicular dysgenesis syndrome possibly has a stem cell basis. The present study was undertaken to further characterize testicular tumor in mice testes. Methods DES-exposed mice pups (n = 70) were studied on D100 and after 12 months to understand how T2GCT progresses. Besides histological studies, a carefully selected panel of markers were studied by immuno-fluorescence and qRT-PCR. Results DES resulted in either atrophied or highly vascularized, big-sized testes and extra-testicular growth was also observed. GCNIS-like cells with big, vacuolated cytoplasm and increased expression of OCT-4, SSEA-1, SCA-1 and CD166 (cancer stem cells marker) along with reduced c-KIT, MVH and PTEN were evident. Global hypomethylation was found associated with altered expression of Dnmts, Igf2-H19 and Dlk-Meg3 imprinted genes along with reduced expression of Ezh2, cell cycle regulator p57KIP2 and Meg3; however, Pten remained unaltered. Increased expression of PCNA and Ki67 was observed in concert with complete lack of SOX-9 suggesting Sertoli cells independent proliferation. Conclusions Mouse model for T2GCT is described which will have immense potential to understand cancer initiation, cancer stem cells and also to develop effective therapies in future. T2GCT initiates from tissue-resident, pluripotent VSELs due to their altered epigenome. Neonatal exposure to DES blocks differentiation (spermatogenesis) and VSELs get transformed into CD166 positive cancer stem cells that undergo excessive self-renewal and initiate cancer in adult life challenging existing concept of fetal origin of T2GCT

Endogenous, tissue-resident stem/progenitor cells in gonads and bone marrow express FSHR and respond to FSH via FSHR-3

Abstract Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is secreted by the anterior pituitary and acts on the germ cells indirectly through Granulosa cells in ovaries and Sertoli cells in the testes. Extragonadal action of FSH has been reported but is still debated. Adult tissues harbor two populations of stem cells including a reserve population of primitive, small-sized, pluripotent very small embryonic-like stem cells (VSELs) and slightly bigger, tissue-specific progenitors which include ovarian stem cells (OSCs) in ovaries, spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) in testes, endometrial stem cells (EnSCs) in uterus and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the bone marrow. Data has accumulated in animal models showing FSHR expression on both VSELs and progenitors in ovaries, testes, uterus and bone marrow and eventually gets lost as the cells differentiate further. FSH exerts a direct action on the stem/progenitor cells via alternatively spliced FSHR-3 rather than the canonical FSHR-1. FSH stimulates VSELs to undergo asymmetrical cell divisions to self-renew and give rise to the progenitors that in turn undergo symmetrical cell divisions and clonal expansions followed by differentiation into specific cell types. Excessive self-renewal of VSELs results in cancer and this explains ubiquitous expression of embryonic markers including nuclear OCT-4 along with FSHR in cancerous tissues. Focus of this review is to compile published data to support this concept. FSHR expression in stem/progenitor cells was confirmed by immuno-fluorescence, Western blotting, in situ hybridization and by quantitative RT-PCR. Two different commercially available antibodies (Abcam, Santacruz) were used to confirm specificity of FSHR expression along with omission of primary antibody and pre-incubation of antibody with immunizing peptide as negative controls. Western blotting allowed detection of alternatively spliced FSHR isoforms. Oligoprobes and primers specific for Fshr-1 and Fshr-3 were used to study these alternately-sliced isoforms by in situ hybridization and their differential expression upon FSH treatment by qRT-PCR. To conclude, stem/progenitor cells in adult tissues express FSHR and directly respond to FSH via FSHR-3. These findings change the field of FSH-FSHR biology, call for paradigm shift, explain FSHR expression on cancer cells in multiple organs and provide straightforward explanations for various existing conundrums including extragonadal expression of FSHR

Study of methylene blue dye removal using biochar derived from leaf and stem of Lantana camara L.

Abstract The discharge of dye containing effluents into the water bodies has raised concern due to potential hazards related to their toxicity in the environment. The removal of dye from the aqueous solution can be efficiently performed using different kinds of adsorbents. The main objective of the current study is to determine the potential of biochar (BC) prepared from Lantana camara L. at 600 ℃ for the removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution as a function of contact time, pH (3–12), adsorbent dose (100–400 mg L−1), and the initial dye concentration (5–20 mg L−1). The BC prepared using leaf ( $${\text{BC}}_{\text{L}}600$$ BC L 600 ) and stem ( $${\text{BC}}_{\text{S}}{60}0$$ BC S 600 ) of Lantana was characterized for elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and zeta potential analysis. The results indicated that the pH of dye solution had highly influenced their absorption over the BC surfaces. The pseudo-second-order kinetics was able to explain the interaction of MB dye with both $${\text{BC}}_{\text{L}}600$$ BC L 600 and $${\text{BC}}_{\text{S}}600$$ BC S 600 , implying the multi-step characteristics of the adsorption process. It was also postulated through the thermodynamic analysis that the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic in nature. It implies that the adsorption mechanism was related to electrostatic, hydrogen bond, n-π, and π-π interactions, i.e., Lantana BC may be an effective bio-sorbent for the treatment of contaminated wastewater from the dye industries. Graphical Abstrac

Experimental evaluation of BATMAN and BATMAN-Adv routing protocols in a mobile testbed

BATMAN (Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking) routing protocol is one of the popular routing protocols for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks. In this paper, we have implemented a testbed containing mobile nodes and compared two flavors of this routing protocol, BATMAN and BATMAN-Adv. These two flavors differ in the layer (ISO/OSI model) in which they are implemented, where BATMAN is implemented in layer 3 of the ISO/OSI model, and BATMAN-Adv in layer 2. Due to this differentiation, there exists significant difference in their performance and stability.In this work, we have looked at Throughput, Jitter and Packet loss of these two flavors of BATMAN routing protocol in different scenarios including single-hop and multi-hop nodes. We find that BATMAN-Adv which is implemented in layer 2 of ISO/OSI model gives significant improvement in throughput as compared to BATMAN. This is especially seen in