Effect of sowing date on growth, yield and its components of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (Burm) Walp) grown under coconut

An experiment was conducted with four sowing dates commencing from the onset of rains during the 1976/77 Maha season, to determine the optimum time of sowing the local cowpea variety, MI-35, under coconut at Kirimetiyana Estate, Kirimetiyana. The study indicated that plants attained the maximum vagetative and reproductive growth when seeds were sown with the onset of rains, as indicated by a reduction in plant height, weight of shoots, number of pods and number of seeds per pod with delayed sowing. Plants established with the onset of rains also gave the highest yield of seed and the low seed yield due to later sowing resulted mainly from a reduction in the number of pods per plant rather that a substantial seed yield could be obtained when seeds are sown within a period of three weeks from the onset of rains

Role of Gliricidia sepium on physical improvement of gravelly soil

The Andigama soil series, which is widespread in coconut lands, is known to have poor physical characters restricting palm growth and yield in the intermediate zone of Sri Lanka. This study was carried out to investigate the possibility of improving degraded soil conditions of Andigama series by intercropping with Gliricidia sepium under coconut. Gliricida sepium was established in a 45 year old coconut plantation in double rows of 2m x 1m and arranged in a Randomized Block design with four replicates. The effect on soil physical characters such as texture, bulk density, aeration capacity, moisture retention and root distribution pattern of Gliricidia sepium were studied. Results revealed that clay faction cemented with gravel significantly increased (P0.05)bulk density (1.62 +-0.07). it acts as a physical barrier and reduced readily available water fraction in B horizon. the available water fraction in A, AB and B horizons decreased by 66before reaching 1 bar (100 kPa) suction in 7, 9 and 11 days respectively during the dry period. Root proliferation of Gliricidia sepium through hard layers significantly reduced the buld density (P0.001) which resulted in improving aeration capacity, total and readily available water. Moreover, results showed that with the improved soil conditions by Gliricidia sepoum, coconut root growth also increased by 5.3per cent, 91per cent and 21 per cent in A, AB and B horizons repectively. These studies strongly suggested that gliricidia sepium plays a major role in improving physical characters of infertile gravelly soils

Comparison of Delay Distributions of Responses in a Home Area Network using Wi-Fi with and without in-network Data Aggregation

Smart Grid is divided into seven sub domains by NIST. The customer domain refers to the end users of electricity. In addition to the traditional role of consumer, they will also participate in generation as well as storage of energy. They would respond to signals coming from the grid and reduce or increase consumption and/or generation accordingly. For this purpose the customer premise should be equipped with an information network, which is called a Home Area Network. Architecture of a Home Area Network needs to be optimised in terms of time and energy. In this research the behaviour of a HAN in terms of time is studied. Delays of responses from the devices for the requests made by the central controller were measured for two most popular architectures, with and without in-network data aggregation. When the probability mass functions were plotted, it was evident that the delays in the two cases do not differ by much

Analysis of viral pathogens in children with community acquired pneumonia (CAP) at two selected teaching hospitals in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Background: Community acquired pneumonia is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Infection is caused by many different organisms and rational treatment depends on the identification of causative agents.Objectives: To describe the viral pathogens in community acquired pneumonia in children at two selected teaching hospitals in Colombo.Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out including 123 children, 3 months to 14 years of age admitted to two teaching hospitals with a clinical diagnosis of CAP. A nasopharyngeal sample was collected from each child and analyzed using multiplex real time PCR assay. FBC and CRP were done. Chest X-rays were blindly reported by a radiologist and categorized into 3 groups according to the WHO classification 1) Primary end-point consolidation/pleural effusion 2) Other consolidation/infiltrate 3) No consolidation/infiltrate/effusion.Results: Female to male ratio of this group was 1.5:1 and mean age was 40 months. The mean values for CRP and WBC were 51.41mg/L and 14.97/μL respectively. Out of123 samples one was negative for any organism. At least one virus was detected in 111 samples (90.2%). A single virus was present in the majority (60.4%) of cases and multiple viruses in the rest (39.6%). The commonest was Respiratory Syncytial virus (43.2%). Rhino, Parainfluenza and Adeno viruses were more abundant than Influenza A, Corona, Influenza B, Boca, Metapneumo, Entero and Parecho viruses. Both bacteria and viruses were detected in 77 samples. Ninety CXRs were reported in the group positive for viruses and category 2 was the commonest (55.6%).Conclusions: Viruses are predominant in paediatric CAP and co-infections with multiple viruses are fairly common.Acknowledgement: University Grant- ASP/01/RE/MED/2017/3

REGULATION OF THE BIOAVAILABILITY OF THIOREDOXIN IN THE LENS BY A SPECIFIC THIOREDOXIN-BINDING PROTEIN (TBP-2)

Thioredoxin (TRx) is known to control redox homeostasis in cells. In recent years, a specific TRx binding protein called thioredoxin binding protein-2 (TBP-2) was found in other cell types and it appeared to negatively regulate TRx bioavailability and thereby control TRx biological function. In view of the sensitivity of lens transparency to redox status, proper regulation of TRx bioavailability is of the utmost importance. This study was conducted to examine the presence and function of TBP-2 in human lens epithelial cells (HLE B3). We cloned human lens TBP-2 from a human cDNA library (GenBank accession number AY 594328) and showed that it is fully homologous to the human brain TBP-2 gene. The recombinant TBP-2 protein was partially purified and mass spectrometric analysis confirmed its sequence homology to that of brain TBP-2. Immunoprecipitates obtained from HLE B3 cells using anti-TRx and anti-TBP-2 antibodies showed the presence of TRx and TBP-2 in immunoprecipitates indicating the formation of a TRx-TBP-2 complex in vivo. Furthermore, under H2O2-stress conditions, TRx gene expression was transiently up-regulated while TBP-2 gene expression was inversely down-regulated as seen in both HLE B3 cells and in the epithelial cell layers from cultured pig lenses. Cells with overexpressed TBP-2 showed lower TRx activity, grew slower and were more susceptible to oxidative stress-induced apoptosis. This is the first report of the presence of a TRx-specific binding protein in the lens. Our data suggest that TBP-2 is likely a negative regulator for the bioavailability, and therefore, the overall function of TRx in the lens

Enhanced Characterization of Drug Metabolism and the Influence of the Intestinal Microbiome: A Pharmacokinetic, Microbiome, and Untargeted Metabolomics Study.

Determining factors that contribute to interindividual and intra-individual variability in pharmacokinetics (PKs) and drug metabolism is essential for the optimal use of drugs in humans. Intestinal microbes are important contributors to variability; however, such gut microbe-drug interactions and the clinical significance of these interactions are still being elucidated. Traditional PKs can be complemented by untargeted mass spectrometry coupled with molecular networking to study the intricacies of drug metabolism. To show the utility of molecular networking on metabolism we investigated the impact of a 7-day course of cefprozil on cytochrome P450 (CYP) activity using a modified Cooperstown cocktail and assessed plasma, urine, and fecal data by targeted and untargeted metabolomics and molecular networking in healthy volunteers. This prospective study revealed that cefprozil decreased the activities of CYP1A2, CYP2C19, and CYP3A, decreased alpha diversity and increased interindividual microbiome variability. We further demonstrate a relationship between the loss of microbiome alpha diversity caused by cefprozil and increased drug and metabolite formation in fecal samples. Untargeted metabolomics/molecular networking revealed several omeprazole metabolites that we hypothesize may be metabolized by both CYP2C19 and bacteria from the gut microbiome. Our observations are consistent with the hypothesis that factors that perturb the gut microbiome, such as antibiotics, alter drug metabolism and ultimately drug efficacy and toxicity but that these effects are most strongly revealed on a per individual basis

Structural, elastic and thermal properties of cementite (Fe3_3C) calculated using Modified Embedded Atom Method

Structural, elastic and thermal properties of cementite (Fe$_3$C) were studied using a Modified Embedded Atom Method (MEAM) potential for iron-carbon (Fe-C) alloys. Previously developed Fe and C single element potentials were used to develop an Fe-C alloy MEAM potential, using a statistically-based optimization scheme to reproduce structural and elastic properties of cementite, the interstitial energies of C in bcc Fe as well as heat of formation of Fe-C alloys in L$_{12}$ and B$_1$ structures. The stability of cementite was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations at high temperatures. The nine single crystal elastic constants for cementite were obtained by computing total energies for strained cells. Polycrystalline elastic moduli for cementite were calculated from the single crystal elastic constants of cementite. The formation energies of (001), (010), and (100) surfaces of cementite were also calculated. The melting temperature and the variation of specific heat and volume with respect to temperature were investigated by performing a two-phase (solid/liquid) molecular dynamics simulation of cementite. The predictions of the potential are in good agreement with first-principles calculations and experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure