An inventory of multipurpose Avenue trees of Urban Chandigarh, India

Trees in urban ecosystems play a very significant role in environmental protection by checking air and noise pollntants, abating wind, and handling many other functions, in India, Chandigarh is the mosl modern and em,iromnentally safe city and qualifies to be called a GREEN CITY because of its rich tree component. This is so in spite of its high population density, currently over 9,443 people per square kin, perhaps the highest in the country. It has nearly 42,000 trees growing along the roads in a systematic manner. The drives are identified with the type of multipurpose tree species. Nearly 66 tree species (over half indigenous) are seen along the roadsides; these trees provide shade, timber, fuel, fodder, fruit, medicine, and other benefits. In addition, the city is decorated with 11 gardens harboring over 200 types of trees

Need to establish long-term ecological research network in India

The paper discusses the purpose, significance and need for establishing Long-Term Ecological Research in India. LTER was first established in 1980 by the National Science Foundation of USA. Its main mission was to understand ecological phenomena on long-term basis through cooperation and collaboration among scientists from different parts of the world. It also emphasizes on training, sharing research data and helping scientists to manage ecosystems throughout the world through personal visits and electronic linkages. Many countries have become member of the international LTER programme while many more are in the process of joining the network. In India, there is an urgent need of recognizing LTER sites as many ecosystems require long-term research and monitoring. A national meeting of ecologists held in December 2002 had discussed the objectives of LTER Network-India. Further, an ad-hoc Committee of ecologists was proposed under the leadership of Prof. J.S. Singh, during the national seminar at Kurukshetra in January 2004

Phytotoxicity of volatile oil from Eucalyptus citriodora against some weedy species

A study was undertaken to explore the phytotoxicity of volatile essential oil from Eucalyptus citriodora Hook. against some weeds viz. Bidens pilosa, Amaranthus viridis, Rumex nepalensis, and Leucaena leucocephala in order to assess its herbicidal activity. Dose-response studies conducted under laboratory conditions revealed that eucalypt oils (in concentration ranging from 0.0012 to 0.06 %) greatly suppress the germination and seedling height of test weeds. At 0.06 % eucalypt oil concentration, none of the seed of test weeds germinated. Among the weed species tested, A. viridis was found to be the most sensitive and its germination was completed inhibited even at 0.03%. Not only the germination and seedling growth, even the chlorophyll content and respiratory activity in leaves of emerged seedlings were severely affected. In A. viridis chlorophyll content and respiratory activity were reduced by over 51% and 71%, respectively, even at a very low concentration of 0.06%. These results indicated an adverse effect of eucalypt oils on the photosynthetic and energy metabolism of the test weeds. A strong negative correlation was observed between the observed effect and the concentration of eucalypt oil. Based on the study, it can be concluded that oil from E. citriodora possess strong inhibitory potential against weeds that could be exploited for weed management

Fungicidal effect of volatile oils from Eucalyptus citriodora and its major constituent citronellal

A study was undertaken to explore the effect of volatile oils fromEucalyptus citriodora and its major constituent citronellal against two well-known rice pathogens, Rhizoctonia solani and Helminthosporium oryzae. The radial growth and dry weight of both the test fungi were drastically reduced in response to the volatile oils. A complete inhibition of R. solani and H. oryzae was observed at 10 and 20 ppm, respectively. Citronellal alone was found to be more effective than eucalypt oils. Based on the study, it was concluded that eucalypt volatile oils have potential for the suppression of phytopathogenic fungi

Magneto-optical Kerr Effect Studies of Square Artificial Spin Ice

We report a magneto-optical Kerr effect study of the collective magnetic response of artificial square spin ice, a lithographically-defined array of single-domain ferromagnetic islands. We find that the anisotropic inter-island interactions lead to a non-monotonic angular dependence of the array coercive field. Comparisons with micromagnetic simulations indicate that the two perpendicular sublattices exhibit distinct responses to island edge roughness, which clearly influence the magnetization reversal process. Furthermore, such comparisons demonstrate that disorder associated with roughness in the island edges plays a hitherto unrecognized but essential role in the collective behavior of these systems.Comment: Physical Review B, Rapid Communications (in press

Phytotoxic potential of Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh. I. Comparative contribution of different parts

The aqueous leachates prepared from different parts of Populus deltoides retard the germination and growth of mung bean (Phaseolus anrenus) However, the impact varied depending upon concentration and tree part used. The leachates prepared from leaves exhibited strong inhibitory potential compared to other parts. viz. bark. buds. root and stem. Since diflerent parts possess different water contents. The leachates prepared from fresh tree parts were equalized on the basis of dry weights. The content of organic component of leachable allelochemics (aglycones) depict a great variability with maximum amount being extracted from leaves and least from Stem. The relative allelopathic potentiality of each part was concomitant with respective amounts of aglycones in each part

Vegetation exclusion under Casuarina equisetifolia L.: Does allelopathy play a role?

A study conducted to determine the ecological status of vegetation under a Casuarina equisetifolia L. plantation revealed that the number of species types, density and biomass of the understorey were drastically reduced compared to an adjoining grassland area. In general, vegetation under Casuarina was characterised by the presence of a few dominants with a trend towards homogeneity. On the other hand, the vegetation in the grassland was heterogeneous, with conspicuous spatial pattern and, thus, more stable. Indices of richness (indicating numerical strength), evenness (representing spatial distribution), and diversity (combining both richness and evenness) also indicated a marked difference in the vegetation between the two sites. The Shannon index, indices of richness and evenness, and Hill. s diversity measures were greater in grassland areas than in Casuarina plantation, thereby signifying a richer, more diverse and even vegetation in the grassland. In contrast, the Simpson index of dominance which shows an inverse relation with diversity, was greater under the Casuarina plantation. The reasons for the restrained vegetation under Casuarina were explored in terms of allelopathic interference of various tree parts (fresh as well as fallen) as one of the major factor. The leaf leachates collected under the canopy of Casuarina trees in the plantation were found to have deleterious effect on the growth of Medicago sativa and Ageratum conyzoides and were rich in phenolics. The extracts prepared from different tree parts such as needles, female cones and litter adversely affected the growth and dry weight accumulation in M. sativa and A. conyzoides. An appreciable amount of water-soluble phenolics, known phytotoxins, was estimated in the fog leachates and different plant parts under use. It is concluded that phenolics released from the green needles and litter of the tree adversely affect the understorey vegetation

Causal Effects of the Timing of Life-course Events Age at Retirement and Subsequent Health

In this article, we combine the extensive literature on the analysis of life-course trajectories as sequences with the literature on causal inference and propose a new matching approach to investigate the causal effect of the timing of life-course events on subsequent outcomes. Our matching approach takes into account pre-event confounders that are both time-independent and time-dependent as well as life-course trajectories. After matching, treated and control individuals can be compared using standard statistical tests or regression models. We apply our approach to the study of the consequences of the age at retirement on subsequent health outcomes, using a unique data set from Swedish administrative registers. Once selectivity in the timing of retirement is taken into account, effects on hospitalization are small, while early retirement has negative effects on survival. Our approach also allows for heterogeneous treatment effects. We show that the effects of early retirement differ according to preretirement income, with higher income individuals tending to benefit from early retirement, while the opposite is true for individuals with lower income

Three cachexia phenotypes and the impact of fat-only loss on survival in FOLFIRINOX therapy for pancreatic cancer

BACKGROUND: By the traditional definition of unintended weight loss, cachexia develops in ~80% of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Here, we measure the longitudinal body composition changes in patients with advanced PDAC undergoing 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin therapy. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of 53 patients with advanced PDAC on 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin as first line therapy at Indiana University Hospital from July 2010 to August 2015. Demographic, clinical, and survival data were collected. Body composition measurement by computed tomography (CT), trend, univariate, and multivariate analysis were performed. RESULTS: Among all patients, three cachexia phenotypes were identified. The majority of patients, 64%, had Muscle and Fat Wasting (MFW), while 17% had Fat-Only Wasting (FW) and 19% had No Wasting (NW). NW had significantly improved overall median survival (OMS) of 22.6 months vs. 13.0 months for FW and 12.2 months for MFW (P = 0.02). FW (HR = 5.2; 95% confidence interval = 1.5-17.3) and MFW (HR = 1.8; 95% confidence interval = 1.1-2.9) were associated with an increased risk of mortality compared with NW. OMS and risk of mortality did not differ between FW and MFW. Progression of disease, sarcopenic obesity at diagnosis, and primary tail tumours were also associated with decreased OMS. On multivariate analysis, cachexia phenotype and chemotherapy response were independently associated with survival. Notably, CT-based body composition analysis detected tissue loss of >5% in 81% of patients, while the traditional definition of >5% body weight loss identified 56.6%. CONCLUSIONS: Distinct cachexia phenotypes were observed in this homogeneous population of patients with equivalent stage, diagnosis, and first-line treatment. This suggests cellular, molecular, or genetic heterogeneity of host or tumour. Survival among patients with FW was as poor as for MFW, indicating adipose tissue plays a crucial role in cachexia and PDAC mortality. Adipose tissue should be studied for its mechanistic contributions to cachexia

Protein structure prediction using multiple deep neural networks in the 13th Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP13)

We describe AlphaFold, the protein structure prediction system that was entered by the group A7D in CASP13 Submissions were made by three free-modelling methods which combine the predictions of three neural networks. All three systems were guided by predictions of distances between pairs of residues produced by a neural network. Two systems assembled fragments produced by a generative neural network, one using scores from a network trained to regress GDT_TS. The third system shows that simple gradient descent on a properly constructed potential is able to perform on-par with more expensive traditional search techniques and without requiring domain segmentation. In the CASP13 free-modelling assessors' ranking by summed z-scores, this system scored highest with 68.3 vs 48.2 for the next closest group. (An average GDT_TS of 61.4.) The system produced high-accuracy structures (with GDT_TS scores of 70 or higher) for 11 out of 43 free-modelling domains. Despite not explicitly using template information, the results in the template category were comparable to the best performing template-based methods