3,453 research outputs found
Effect of vermicompost on manifestation of pesticide action on growth of Zinnia elegans
In order to asses the implication of endosulfan in the soil amended with vermicompost, Zinnia elegans (Family Asteraceae) was grown, under strict laboratory conditions. Seed germination, size of internode, total length of the plant, leaf area of the plant, tufts of rootlets, which emerged, were measured and recorded. Vermicompost at a concentration of 12.5% was used as source of amendment; treatment was made with endosulfan the concentration of which ranged from 2.5, 5 and 7.5% respectively. From the data obtained after 4 days of treatment, it appeared that the addition of endosulfan in plain soil (7.5%), affects germination to negative value. Reduced germination and plant growth even during prolonged treatment (up to 9 days) was noticed during treatment with 2.5 and 5% of endosulfan. In a soil amended with vermicompost, however, germination to total length of the plant was found to increase quite considerably. This trend has continued, even during extended period of treatment. The entire texture of the plant was found to change to a healthier look in the presence of vermicompost. Better growth of the plant, larger number of rootlets, and bigger leaf area, can be suggested to be additive role of vermicompost on growth and development of Zinnia elegans. This also indicated possible involvement of the plant in remediation of pesticide endosulfan. On this account, Z. elegans like related members of this family can be considered as a candidate involved in remediation of pesticides from polluted soilKey word: Vermicompost, endosulfan, Zinnia elegans
Commentary: the role of cytologic analysis of voided urine in the work-up of asymptomatic microhematuria
Microscopic hematuria is a common finding in patients presenting to both primary care doctors as well as urologists. Sources of microscopic hematuria include infection, stones, inflammatory disorders as well as cancer of the genitourinary tract, particularly urothelial cancer. A primary focus in the urologic workup of hematuria is to rule out cancer. This is done using radiographic studies as well as procedures such as cystoscopy and bladder biopsy. As the authors state in their article titled "The utility of serial urinary cytology in the initial evaluation of the patient with microscopic hematuria", cytologic analysis of voided urine, though attractive due to its noninvasive nature, has been found to have the neither the sensitivity, cost-effectiveness, nor the ease of administration necessary to replace more invasive diagnostics in the evaluation of microscopic hematuria
The co-occurrence of anemia and cardiometabolic disease risk demonstrates sex-specific sociodemographic patterning in an urbanizing rural region of southern India.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: To determine the extent and sociodemographic determinants of anemia, overweight, metabolic syndrome (MetS) and the co-occurrence of anemia with cardiometabolic disease risk factors among a cohort of Indian adults. SUBJECT/METHODS: Cross-sectional survey of adult men (n=3322) and nonpregnant women (n=2895) aged 18 years and older from the third wave of the Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study that assessed anemia, overweight based on body mass index, and prevalence of MetS based on abdominal obesity, hypertension and blood lipid and fasting glucose measures. We examined associations of education, wealth and urbanicity with these outcomes and their co-occurrence. RESULTS: The prevalence of anemia and overweight was 40% and 29% among women, respectively, and 10% and 25% among men (P<0.001), respectively, whereas the prevalence of MetS was the same across sexes (15%; P=0.55). The prevalence of concurrent anemia and overweight (9%), and anemia and MetS (4.5%) was highest among women. Household wealth was positively associated with overweight and MetS across sexes (P<0.05). Independent of household wealth, higher education was positively correlated with MetS among men (odds ratio (95% confidence interval): MetS: 1.4 (0.99, 2.0)) and negatively correlated with MetS among women (MetS: 0.54 (0.29, 0.99)). Similar sex-specific associations were observed for the co-occurrence of anemia with overweight and MetS. CONCLUSIONS: Women in this region of India may be particularly vulnerable to co-occurring anemia and cardiometabolic risk, and associated adverse health outcomes as the nutrition transition advances in India
Fitting Neutrino Physics with a U(1)_R Lepton Number
We study neutrino physics in the context of a supersymmetric model where a
continuous R-symmetry is identified with the total Lepton Number and one
sneutrino can thus play the role of the down type Higgs. We show that
R-breaking effects communicated to the visible sector by Anomaly Mediation can
reproduce neutrino masses and mixing solely via radiative contributions,
without requiring any additional degree of freedom. In particular, a relatively
large reactor angle (as recently observed by the Daya Bay collaboration) can be
accommodated in ample regions of the parameter space. On the contrary, if the
R-breaking is communicated to the visible sector by gravitational effects at
the Planck scale, additional particles are necessary to accommodate neutrino
data.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added, constraints updated,
overall conclusions unchange
Two-loop RGEs with Dirac gaugino masses
The set of renormalisation group equations to two loop order for general
supersymmetric theories broken by soft and supersoft operators is completed. As
an example, the explicit expressions for the RGEs in a Dirac gaugino extension
of the (N)MSSM are presented.Comment: 10 pages + 24 pages of RGEs in appendix; no figure
Neutrino Mass, Sneutrino Dark Matter and Signals of Lepton Flavor Violation in the MRSSM
We study the phenomenology of mixed-sneutrino dark matter in the Minimal
R-Symmetric Supersymmetric Standard Model (MRSSM). Mixed sneutrinos fit
naturally within the MRSSM, as the smallness (or absence) of neutrino Yukawa
couplings singles out sneutrino A-terms as the only ones not automatically
forbidden by R-symmetry. We perform a study of randomly generated sneutrino
mass matrices and find that (i) the measured value of is well
within the range of typical values obtained for the relic abundance of the
lightest sneutrino, (ii) with small lepton-number-violating mass terms
for the right-handed sneutrinos, random
matrices satisfying the constraint have a decent probability of
satisfying direct detection constraints, and much of the remaining parameter
space will be probed by upcoming experiments, (iii) the terms radiatively generate appropriately small Majorana neutrino
masses, with neutrino oscillation data favoring a mostly sterile lightest
sneutrino with a dominantly mu/tau-flavored active component, and (iv) a
sneutrino LSP with a significant mu component can lead to striking signals of
e-mu flavor violation in dilepton invariant-mass distributions at the LHC.Comment: Revised collider analysis in Sec. 5 after fixing error in particle
spectrum, References adde
Seasonal variations of nighttime D-region ionosphere in 2013 solar maximum observed from a low-latitude station
Severe postpartum sepsis with prolonged myocardial dysfunction: a case report
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Severe sepsis during pregnancy or in the postpartum period is a rare clinical event. In non obstetric surviving patients, the cardiovascular changes seen in sepsis and septic shock are fully reversible five to ten days after their onset. We report a case of septic myocardial dysfunction lasting longer than ten days. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of prolonged septic myocardial dysfunction in a parturient.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 24 year old Hispanic woman with no previous medical history developed pyelonephritis and severe sepsis with prolonged myocardial dysfunction after a normal spontaneous vaginal delivery.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Septic myocardial dysfunction may be prolonged in parturients requiring longer term follow up and pharmacologic treatment.</p
Low Scale Flavor Gauge Symmetries
We study the possibility of gauging the Standard Model flavor group. Anomaly
cancellation leads to the addition of fermions whose mass is inversely
proportional to the known fermion masses. In this case all flavor violating
effects turn out to be controlled roughly by the Standard Model Yukawa,
suppressing transitions for the light generations. Due to the inverted
hierarchy the scale of new gauge flavor bosons could be as low as the
electroweak scale without violating any existing bound but accessible at the
Tevatron and the LHC. The mechanism of flavor protection potentially provides
an alternative to Minimal Flavor Violation, with flavor violating effects
suppressed by hierarchy of scales rather than couplings.Comment: 24 pages + appendices; v2) Refs. added and numerical examples
improved. Results unchanged; v3) small typos in appendix B correcte
Evidence for directional selection at a novel major histocompatibility class I marker in wild common frogs (Rana temporaria) exposed to a viral pathogen (Ranavirus).
(c) 2009 Teacher et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Whilst the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is well characterized in the anuran Xenopus, this region has not previously been studied in another popular model species, the common frog (Rana temporaria). Nor, to date, have there been any studies of MHC in wild amphibian host-pathogen systems. We characterise an MHC class I locus in the common frog, and present primers to amplify both the whole region, and specifically the antigen binding region. As no more than two expressed haplotypes were found in over 400 clones from 66 individuals, it is likely that there is a single class I locus in this species. This finding is consistent with the single class I locus in Xenopus, but contrasts with the multiple loci identified in axolotls, providing evidence that the diversification of MHC class I into multiple loci likely occurred after the Caudata/Anura divergence (approximately 350 million years ago) but before the Ranidae/Pipidae divergence (approximately 230 mya). We use this locus to compare wild populations of common frogs that have been infected with a viral pathogen (Ranavirus) with those that have no history of infection. We demonstrate that certain MHC supertypes are associated with infection status (even after accounting for shared ancestry), and that the diseased populations have more similar supertype frequencies (lower F(ST)) than the uninfected. These patterns were not seen in a suite of putatively neutral microsatellite loci. We interpret this pattern at the MHC locus to indicate that the disease has imposed selection for particular haplotypes, and hence that common frogs may be adapting to the presence of Ranavirus, which currently kills tens of thousands of amphibians in the UK each year
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