Sex determination in ratite and non ratite birds by molecular method

In spite of number of methods for sex determination in birds, it is very difficult to distinguish sex especially in ratite birds due to lack of sexual dimorphism. Chromodomain helicase DNA binding 1 gene (CHD 1) is the choice of gene for gender differentiation using PCR based molecular method. In present study, non ratite CHD gene specific primers viz. 1237L/1272H, 2550F/2718R, P2/P8, P2/P3 and ratite bird specific primers viz.W5/ W7 and W1/ K7 were used for gender differentiation in ratite birds. The ratite bird specific primer W5/W7 was the only primer, which determined the sex in emu as well as ostrich successfully, while 1237L/1272H, 2550F/2718R, P2/ P8, P2/P3 primers were unable to discriminate sex in emu and ostrich but ratite and non ratite primers can be used to discriminate the sex in non-ratite bird, primarily in chicken. In an alternative approach of PCR-RFLP, the high resolution melting curve (HRM) analysis showed conflicting pattern in both sexes of ratite birds but in chicken HRM analysis showed clear cut differential melting temperature in both sexes, hence HRM can be used for gender differentiation successfully

Cellular Automata Applications in Shortest Path Problem

Cellular Automata (CAs) are computational models that can capture the essential features of systems in which global behavior emerges from the collective effect of simple components, which interact locally. During the last decades, CAs have been extensively used for mimicking several natural processes and systems to find fine solutions in many complex hard to solve computer science and engineering problems. Among them, the shortest path problem is one of the most pronounced and highly studied problems that scientists have been trying to tackle by using a plethora of methodologies and even unconventional approaches. The proposed solutions are mainly justified by their ability to provide a correct solution in a better time complexity than the renowned Dijkstra's algorithm. Although there is a wide variety regarding the algorithmic complexity of the algorithms suggested, spanning from simplistic graph traversal algorithms to complex nature inspired and bio-mimicking algorithms, in this chapter we focus on the successful application of CAs to shortest path problem as found in various diverse disciplines like computer science, swarm robotics, computer networks, decision science and biomimicking of biological organisms' behaviour. In particular, an introduction on the first CA-based algorithm tackling the shortest path problem is provided in detail. After the short presentation of shortest path algorithms arriving from the relaxization of the CAs principles, the application of the CA-based shortest path definition on the coordinated motion of swarm robotics is also introduced. Moreover, the CA based application of shortest path finding in computer networks is presented in brief. Finally, a CA that models exactly the behavior of a biological organism, namely the Physarum's behavior, finding the minimum-length path between two points in a labyrinth is given.Comment: To appear in the book: Adamatzky, A (Ed.) Shortest path solvers. From software to wetware. Springer, 201

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Coagulation profile and Hematological parameters in patients with Alcoholic Liver Disease and its association with the disease severity (A study of 230 cases)

Introduction: Alcoholic liver disease is a term that encompasses the liver manifestation of long-term alcohol consumption, including fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and liver cirrhosis. Abnormalities in hematological parameters are common in patients with alcoholic liver disease. The pathogenesis of abnormal hematological parameters in cirrhosis is multifactorial and includes portal hypertension-induced sequestration, alterations in bone marrow stimulating factors, viral- and toxin-induced bone marrow suppression. Excess alcohol intake itself causes direct bone marrow suppression leading to toxic effects on the cell lineages and cause hematological disturbances causing anemia, leucocytosis, leucopenia, and thrombocytopenia. Abnormalities in hematological parameters are associated with an increased risk of complications, including bleeding and infection. All three parameters determine a greater extent of morbidity and mortality in these patients.Materials and Methods: In the present study, patients were grouped into Group 1 to 5 based on the Model for End-stage Liver Disease scoring, and individual hematological parameters were studied. The onset of anemia, leucocytosis or leucopenia, and thrombocytopenia in the MELD group was studied so that corrective measures can be taken at the earliest.Results: Maximum number of patients fell into Group 2 of MELD score and hemoglobin, total count and platelets were studied in each group. Patients followed a pattern of reduced hemoglobin as the MELD score as well as group increased with significant p value and increase total count with increase in MELD group with significant p value.Concluison: The results obtained from the study have clear implications regarding the prediction of what the hematological spectrum does an individual patient has when he falls into a particular group of MELD score. This speculation could persuade the treating physicians to correct these hematological indices so that further disease progression could be delayed or nullified

<span style="font-size:21.5pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.5pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Regeneration of plantlets in <i><span style="font-size:21.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Sapindus trifoiatus </span></i><span style="font-size:21.5pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">L.</span></span>

1288-1292<span style="font-size: 15.5pt;mso-bidi-font-size:8.5pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman","serif""="">Continuous production of healthy plantlets of Sapindus trifoliatus L. was achieved via somatic embryos from long term cultures of an embryogenic mass (EM). A highly embryogenic culture of S. trifoliatus L. was obtained by recurrent embryogenesis from somatic embryos cultured on Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium supplemented with kinetin (2.3 μM) and benzyladenine (8.8 μM). The cultures could be maintained without reduction of embryogenic competence for more than 20 months by subculture at 4 week intervals. About 90% mature somatic embryos on transfer to basal MS medium. germinated to plant lets, of which more than 70% survived when transferred to a sand and soil mixture in green house. </span

Development and validation of a rapid and sensitive assay for simultaneous quantification of midazolam, 1′-hydroxymidazolam, and 4-hydroxymidazolam by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass-spectrometry

Midazolam is an ultra short acting benzodiazepine derivative and a specific probe for phenotyping cytochrome P450 (P450) 3A4/5 activity. A rapid, sensitive, and selective LC-MS/MS method was developed for simultaneous quantitation of midazolam and its metabolites (1′-hydroxymidazolam and 4-hydroxymidazolam). Deuterated (D5) analog of midazolam was utilized as an internal standard. Sample preparation either from human plasma (100 μL) or liver microsomal incubations involved a simple protein precipitation using acetonitrile (900 μL) with an average recovery of \u3e90% for all compounds. The chromatographic separation was achieved using Zorbax-SB Phenyl, Rapid Resolution HT (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 3.5 μm) and a gradient elution with 10 mM ammonium acetate in 10% methanol (A) and acetonitrile (B). The flow rate was 0.25 mL/min and total run time was 5.5 min. Calibration curves were linear over the concentration range of 0.100-250 ng/mL. The lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) was 0.1 ng/mL for all three analytes. The accuracy and precision, estimated at LLOQ and three concentration levels of quality control samples in six replicates, were within 85-115%. In conclusion, a robust, simple and highly sensitive analytical method was developed and validated for the analysis of midazolam and its metabolites. This method is suitable for characterizing the P450 3A4/5 activity in vitro or in human pharmacokinetic studies allowing administration of smaller doses of midazolam. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved