Biophysical Properties of the Watermelon Mosaic Virus-1 Causing Mosaic in Watermelon

Watermelon mosaic viruse-1 (WMV) is synonymous of papaya ring spot virus strain W. It is considered to be economically important filamentous virus of Indian sub-continent among the top ten viruses of watermelon .It causes severe mosaic mottling, blistering and malformation of leaves of watermelon. Watermelon mosaic virus-1 is a member of potyviridae. The virus contains ribonucleic acid (RNA) with filamentous particles measuring 760-800 x 12 nm size. The Thermal Inactivation Point of WMV-1 is 50-550C, Dilution End Point between 10-3 to 10-4 and longevity 24 hrs at room temperature only and remove the at 8 days  at 10-12°C.Watermelon mosaic viruse-1 was transmitted through sap and insect vectors in a non persistent manner. Three species of aphids (Aphis craccivora, Myzus persicae  and Aphis gossypii ) have been found to transmit this virus. Aphis gossypii and Myzus persicae could transmit all the isolates of WMV-1 and A. gassypii was the most efficient vector. It was not transmitted through seeds and soil. Key words: Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus L.), Watermelon mosaic virus-1 TIP, DEP and LIV N.K. Sharma. Biophysical Properties of the Watermelon Mosaic Virus-1 Causing Mosaic in Watermelon. J Phytol 2/9 (2010) 21-24

Search for lepton flavor violating decays of a heavy neutral particle in p-pbar collisions at root(s)=1.8 TeV

We report on a search for a high mass, narrow width particle that decays directly to e+mu, e+tau, or mu+tau. We use approximately 110 pb^-1 of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab from 1992 to 1995. No evidence of lepton flavor violating decays is found. Limits are set on the production and decay of sneutrinos with R-parity violating interactions.Comment: Figure 2 fixed. Reference 4 fixed. Minor changes to tex

Racism, anti-racist practice and social work: articulating the teaching and learning experiences of Black social workers

In the mid 1990s a Black practice teacher programme was established in Manchester and Merseyside with the primary aim to increase the number of Black practice teachers in social work organisations, and in turn provide a supportive and encouraging learning environment for Black student social workers whilst on placement. In the north‐west of England research has been undertaken, to establish the quality of the practice teaching and student learning taking place with Black practice teachers and students. This paper is an exploration of the ideas generated within the placement process that particularly focused on the discourse of racism and ant‐racist practice. Black students and practice teachers explain their understanding of racism and anti‐racist practice within social work. From the research, the paper will critique some of the ideas concerning anti‐racism. In particular, it will question whether anti‐racist social work practice needs to be re‐evaluated in the light of a context with new migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. It will concluded, by arguing that whilst the terms anti‐racism, Black and Minority Ethnic have resonance as a form of political strategic essentialism, it is important to develop more positive representations in the future

A qualitative study of the experiences and expectations of women receiving in-patient postnatal care in one English maternity unit

Background Studies consistently highlight in-patient postnatal care as the area of maternity care women are least satisfied with. As part of a quality improvement study to promote a continuum of care from the birthing room to discharge home from hospital, we explored women’s expectations and experiences of current inpatient care. Methods For this part of the study, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analysed using content analyses to identify issues and concepts. Women were recruited from two postnatal wards in one large maternity unit in the South of England, with around 6,000 births a year. Results Twenty women, who had a vaginal or caesarean birth, were interviewed on the postnatal ward. Identified themes included; the impact of the ward environment; the impact of the attitude of staff; quality and level of support for breastfeeding; unmet information needs; and women’s low expectations of hospital based postnatal care. Findings informed revision to the content and planning of in-patient postnatal care, results of which will be reported elsewhere. Conclusions Women’s responses highlighted several areas where changes could be implemented. Staff should be aware that how they inter-act with women could make a difference to care as a positive or negative experience. The lack of support and inconsistent advice on breastfeeding highlights that units need to consider how individual staff communicate information to women. Units need to address how and when information on practical aspects of infant care is provided if women and their partners are to feel confident on the woman’s transfer home from hospital

Sex differences and heritability of two indices of heart rate dynamics: A twin study.

We investigated whether women show larger heart rate variability (HRV) than men after controlling for a large number of health-related covariates, using two indices of HRV, namely respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and approximate entropy (ApEn). In a twin design, the heritability of both indices was examined. The covariation between RSA and ApEn, a measure of heart rate dynamics derived from nonlinear dynamical systems theory, was decomposed into genetic and environmental components. Subjects were 196 male and 210 female middle-aged twins. Females showed larger HRV than men before (ApEn: p <.001; RSA: p = .052) and after adjustment for covariates (ApEn: p <.001; RSA: p = .015). This sex difference was confirmed by significant intrapair differences in the opposite-sex twin pairs for both ApEn (p <.001) and RSA (p = .03). In addition to sex, only heart period and age (both p <.001) were found to be independent predictors of ApEn, whereas RSA was also influenced by respiration rate and smoking (both p <.001). Age explained 16% and 6% of the variance in FSA and ApEn, respectively. Oral contraceptive use and menopausal status had no effect on HRV. Genetic model fitting yielded moderate heritability estimates for RSA (30%) and ApEn (40%) for both males and females. The correlation between RSA and ApEn (r = .60) could be attributed to genetic factors (48%), environmental factors (36%) and age (16%). The present study found support for a gender difference in HRV with women having greater HRV than men even after controlling for a large number of potential confounders. Indices of heart rate dynamics derived from nonlinear dynamical systems theory are moderately heritable and may be more sensitive than traditional indices of HRV to reveal subtle sex differences with important implications for health and disease

The Molecular Basis of Monopolin Recruitment to the Kinetochore

The monopolin complex is a multifunctional molecular crosslinker, which in S. pombe binds and organises mitotic kinetochores to prevent aberrant kinetochore-microtubule interactions. In the budding yeast S. cerevisiae, whose kinetochores bind a single microtubule, the monopolin complex crosslinks and mono-orients sister kinetochores in meiosis I, enabling the biorientation and segregation of homologs. Here, we show that both the monopolin complex subunit Csm1 and its binding site on the kinetochore protein Dsn1 are broadly distributed throughout eukaryotes, suggesting a conserved role in kinetochore organisation and function. We find that budding yeast Csm1 binds two conserved motifs in Dsn1, one (termed Box 1) representing the ancestral, widely conserved monopolin binding motif and a second (termed Box 2-3) with a likely role in enforcing specificity of sister kinetochore crosslinking. We find that Box 1 and Box 2-3 bind the same conserved hydrophobic cavity on Csm1, suggesting competition or handoff between these motifs. Using structure-based mutants, we also find that both Box 1 and Box 2-3 are critical for monopolin function in meiosis. We identify two conserved serine residues in Box 2-3 that are phosphorylated in meiosis and whose mutation to aspartate stabilises Csm1-Dsn1 binding, suggesting that regulated phosphorylation of these residues may play a role in sister kinetochore crosslinking specificity. Overall, our results reveal the monopolin complex as a broadly conserved kinetochore organiser in eukaryotes, which budding yeast have co-opted to mediate sister kinetochore crosslinking through the addition of a second, regulatable monopolin binding interface

What do we know the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education? An empirical case study evidencing contested engagement and transformative learning

In social work education there have been very few attempts to empirically capture and measure how professional training programmes prepare students to work with ‘race’ equality and cultural diversity issues. This paper interrogates the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education and evaluates the pedagogic relevance and practice utility of teaching social work students about ‘race’, racism and anti-racism. The data presented in this paper suggests that it is possible to discover the situated experiences of learning about anti-racism and measure how this teaching can affect and lead to knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The triangulated mixed methods evidence presented in this paper combines nomothetic and idiographic approaches with quantitative data for a matched pair sample of 36 social work students and uses non-parametric statistical tests to measure at two time intervals (before and after teaching); knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The paper explores how anti-racist social work education enables students to move from ‘magical consciousness ’, where racism and racial oppression is invisible and thereby left unchallenged and maintained, to more critical and reflexive level of awareness where it is named, challenged and no longer shrouded in a culture of professional denial and silencing

Conceptualizing pathways linking women's empowerment and prematurity in developing countries.

BackgroundGlobally, prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. Many efforts have focused on clinical approaches to improve the survival of premature babies. There is a need, however, to explore psychosocial, sociocultural, economic, and other factors as potential mechanisms to reduce the burden of prematurity. Women's empowerment may be a catalyst for moving the needle in this direction. The goal of this paper is to examine links between women's empowerment and prematurity in developing settings. We propose a conceptual model that shows pathways by which women's empowerment can affect prematurity and review and summarize the literature supporting the relationships we posit. We also suggest future directions for research on women's empowerment and prematurity.MethodsThe key words we used for empowerment in the search were "empowerment," "women's status," "autonomy," and "decision-making," and for prematurity we used "preterm," "premature," and "prematurity." We did not use date, language, and regional restrictions. The search was done in PubMed, Population Information Online (POPLINE), and Web of Science. We selected intervening factors-factors that could potentially mediate the relationship between empowerment and prematurity-based on reviews of the risk factors and interventions to address prematurity and the determinants of those factors.ResultsThere is limited evidence supporting a direct link between women's empowerment and prematurity. However, there is evidence linking several dimensions of empowerment to factors known to be associated with prematurity and outcomes for premature babies. Our review of the literature shows that women's empowerment may reduce prematurity by (1) preventing early marriage and promoting family planning, which will delay age at first pregnancy and increase interpregnancy intervals; (2) improving women's nutritional status; (3) reducing domestic violence and other stressors to improve psychological health; and (4) improving access to and receipt of recommended health services during pregnancy and delivery to help prevent prematurity and improve survival of premature babies.ConclusionsWomen's empowerment is an important distal factor that affects prematurity through several intervening factors. Improving women's empowerment will help prevent prematurity and improve survival of preterm babies. Research to empirically show the links between women's empowerment and prematurity is however needed

Theory of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute gases in traps is reviewed from a theoretical perspective. Mean-field theory provides a framework to understand the main features of the condensation and the role of interactions between particles. Various properties of these systems are discussed, including the density profiles and the energy of the ground state configurations, the collective oscillations and the dynamics of the expansion, the condensate fraction and the thermodynamic functions. The thermodynamic limit exhibits a scaling behavior in the relevant length and energy scales. Despite the dilute nature of the gases, interactions profoundly modify the static as well as the dynamic properties of the system; the predictions of mean-field theory are in excellent agreement with available experimental results. Effects of superfluidity including the existence of quantized vortices and the reduction of the moment of inertia are discussed, as well as the consequences of coherence such as the Josephson effect and interference phenomena. The review also assesses the accuracy and limitations of the mean-field approach.Comment: revtex, 69 pages, 38 eps figures, new version with more references, new figures, various changes and corrections, for publ. in Rev. Mod. Phys., available also at http://www-phys.science.unitn.it/bec/BEC.htm

Differences in risk factors for children with special health care needs (CSHCN) receiving needed specialty care by socioeconomic status

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting CSHCN's receiving needed specialty care among different socioeconomic levels. Previous literature has shown that Socioeconomic Status (SES) is a significant factor in CHSHCN receiving access to healthcare. Other literature has shown that factors of insurance, family size, race/ethnicity and sex also have effects on these children's receipt of care. However, this literature does not address whether other factors such as maternal education, geographic location, age, insurance type, severity of condition, or race/ethnicity have different effects on receiving needed specialty care for children in each SES level.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were obtained from the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs, 2000–2002. The study analyzed the survey which studies whether CHSCN who needed specialty care received it. The analysis included demographic characteristics, geographical location of household, severity of condition, and social factors. Multiple logistic regression models were constructed for SES levels defined by federal poverty level: < 199%; 200–299%; ≥ 300%.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For the poorest children (,199% FPL) being uninsured had a strong negative effect on receiving all needed specialty care. Being Hispanic was a protective factor. Having more than one adult in the household had a positive impact on receipt of needed specialty care but a larger number of children in the family had a negative impact. For the middle income group of children (200–299% of FPL severity of condition had a strong negative association with receipt of needed specialty care.</p> <p>Children in highest income group (> 300% FPL) were positively impacted by living in the Midwest and were negatively impacted by the mother having only some college compared to a four-year degree.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Factors affecting CSHCN receiving all needed specialty care differed among socioeconomic groups. These differences should be addressed in policy and practice. Future research should explore the CSHCN population by income groups to better serve this population</p