598 research outputs found
Utilization of carbon and nitrogen sources by Streptomyces kanamyceticus M 27 for the production of an Anti bacterial antibiotic
We tested a number of carbon and nitrogen compounds for their effect on the production of an antibacterial antibiotic by Streptomyces kananmyceticus M27. Dextrose was found to be the most suitable carbon source, though maltose, sucrose, and soluble starch gave moderate yields. (NH4)H2PO4 and yeast extract were adequate nitrogen sources for antibiotic production. There was, however, no direct relation between the growth of the organism and antibiotic formation. The pH of the medium might be an important factor for antibiotic formation, as media giving high antibiotic yields showed an alkaline pH
Glassy magnetic phase driven by short range charge and magnetic ordering in nanocrystalline LaSrFeO: Magnetization, Mossbauer, and polarised neutron studies
The charge ordered LaSrFeO (LSFO) in bulk and
nanocrystalline forms are investigated using ac and dc magnetization,
M\"{o}ssbauer, and polarised neutron studies. A complex scenario of short range
charge and magnetic ordering is realized from the polarised neutron studies in
nanocrystalline specimen. This short range ordering does not involve any change
in spin state and modification in the charge disproportion between Fe
and Fe compared to bulk counterpart as evident in the M\"{o}ssbauer
results. The refinement of magnetic diffraction peaks provides magnetic moments
of Fe and Fe are about 3.15 and 1.57 for bulk, and
2.7 and 0.53 for nanocrystalline specimen, respectively. The
destabilization of charge ordering leads to magnetic phase separation, giving
rise to the robust exchange bias (EB) effect. Strikingly, EB field at 5 K
attains a value as high as 4.4 kOe for average size 70 nm, which is zero
for the bulk counterpart. A strong frequency dependence of ac susceptibility
reveals cluster-glass like transition around 65 K, below which EB
appears. Overall results propose that finite size effect directs the complex
glassy magnetic behavior driven by unconventional short range charge and
magnetic ordering, and magnetic phase separation appears in nanocrystalline
LSFO.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Fig. 1 available upon request or in
http://www.ffn.ub.es/oscar/Articles.html. Accepted in Phys. Rev.
Altered resistin and IL6 in Neonatal sepsis in patients admitted in a tertiary care teaching hospital at Eastern India
Background: Neonatal sepsis is a clinical syndrome followed by bacteraemia in the first month of life and appears to be one of the primary causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The study aim was to detect the levels of resistin, IL-6, CRP and hs-CRP in clinically suspected cases of neonatal sepsis and establish its association with the pathogenesis of the disease. Materials & Methods: The case control study consists of 78 neonates of whom 42 were clinically suspected case of sepsis admitted in NICU of Paediatric department and were taken as cases and 36 were normal healthy neonates taken as control subjects in a tertiary care teaching hospital, Durgapur, West Bengal. The cases as well as controls were within 28 days of age. Preterm and term neonates (< 28 days of age) of both sexes showing signs of both early and late onset sepsis and also blood culture positive were included in the study. Two ml of blood was collected without anticoagulant and serum was separated by centrifugation at 3500 rpm for 15-20 mins and was used for measurement of hs-CRP, resistin and IL 6. Serum hs-CRP levels was determined with a high-sensitivity nephelometric method while the serum level of IL-6 and Resistin were measured by immunoassay Kits (Raybiotech, USA). Results: Serum resistin levels were increased in sepsis cases as compared to controls and were statistically significant (38.96 ± 17.15 vs 15.49 ± 8.54 ng/ml; p < 0.0001). It was also observed that serum IL 6 levels were higher in sepsis cases as compared to controls which was statistically significant (58.19 ± 39.97 versus 8.48 ± 3.90 pg/ml; P < 0.0001). However, a weak positive correlation was observed between serum resistin with serum IL 6 level (r = 0.343; P = 0.025) among neonatal sepsis subjects while no correlation was seen in controls (r = 0.141; P = 0.411). Conclusion: The measurement of these sepsis markers is extremely important only in case of neonates with unclear infectious status. We have observed a significant rise in Resistin or IL 6 or hs-CRP which may be suggested as specific marker for the identification of neonatal sepsis. The combination of Resistin or IL 6 or CRP or hs-CRP could therefore be crucial for the diagnosis and would be better predictors of neonatal sepsis and may be crucial in the pathogenesis of the disease.
Keywords: Preterm neonates, neonatal sepsis, mortality and morbidity, serum resistin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), hs-CR
Laminar-turbulent transition in Raman fiber lasers:a first passage statistics based analysis
Loss of coherence with increasing excitation amplitudes and spatial size modulation is a fundamental problem in designing Raman fiber lasers. While it is known that ramping up laser pump power increases the amplitude of stochastic excitations, such higher energy inputs can also lead to a transition from a linearly stable coherent laminar regime to a non-desirable disordered turbulent state. This report presents a new statistical methodology, based on first passage statistics, that classifies lasing regimes in Raman fiber lasers, thereby leading to a fast and highly accurate identification of a strong instability leading to a laminar-turbulent phase transition through a self-consistently defined order parameter. The results have been consistent across a wide range of pump power values, heralding a breakthrough in the non-invasive analysis of fiber laser dynamics
Exchange bias effect in alloys and compounds
The phenomenology of exchange bias effects observed in structurally
single-phase alloys and compounds but composed of a variety of coexisting
magnetic phases such as ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic,
spin-glass, cluster-glass and disordered magnetic states are reviewed. The
investigations on exchange bias effects are discussed in diverse types of
alloys and compounds where qualitative and quantitative aspects of magnetism
are focused based on macroscopic experimental tools such as magnetization and
magnetoresistance measurements. Here, we focus on improvement of fundamental
issues of the exchange bias effects rather than on their technological
importance
Search for Higgs bosons of the Universal Extra Dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider
The Higgs sector of the Universal Extra Dimensions (UED) has a rather
involved setup. With one extra space dimension, the main ingredients to the
construct are the higher Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the Standard Model
Higgs boson and the fifth components of the gauge fields which on
compactification appear as scalar degrees of freedom and can mix with the
former thus leading to physical KK-Higgs states of the scenario. In this work,
we explore in detail the phenomenology of such a Higgs sector of the UED with
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in focus. We work out relevant decay branching
fractions involving the KK-Higgs excitations. Possible production modes of the
KK-Higgs bosons are then discussed with an emphasis on their associated
production with the third generation KK-quarks and that under the cascade
decays of strongly interacting UED excitations which turn out to be the only
phenomenologically significant modes. It is pointed out that the collider
searches of such Higgs bosons face generic hardship due to soft end-products
which result from severe degeneracies in the masses of the involved excitations
in the minimal version of the UED (MUED). Generic implications of either
observing some or all of the KK-Higgs bosons at the LHC are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures and 1 tabl
Effectiveness of a Yoga-Based Lifestyle Protocol (YLP) in Preventing Diabetes in a High-Risk Indian Cohort: A Multicenter Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial (NMB-Trial)
IntroductionThough several lines of evidence support the utility of yoga-based interventions in diabetes prevention, most of these studies have been limited by methodological issues, primarily sample size inadequacy. Hence, we tested the effectiveness of yoga-based lifestyle intervention against diabetes risk reduction in multicentre, large community settings of India, through a single-blind cluster-randomized controlled trial, Niyantrita Madhumeha Bharat Abhiyan (NMB). Research Design and MethodsNMB-trial is a multicentre cluster-randomized trial conducted in 80 clusters [composed of rural units (villages) and urban units (Census Enumeration Blocks)] randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to intervention and control groups. Participants were individuals (age, 20–70 years) with prediabetes (blood HbA1c values in the range of 5.7–6.4%) and IDRS ≥ 60. The intervention included the practice of yoga-based lifestyle modification protocol (YLP) for 9 consecutive days, followed by daily home and weekly supervised practices for 3 months. The control cluster received standard of care advice for diabetes prevention. Statistical analyses were performed on an intention-to-treat basis, using available and imputed datasets. The primary outcome was the conversion from prediabetes to diabetes after the YLP intervention of 3 months (diagnosed based upon HbA1c cutoff >6.5%). Secondary outcome included regression to normoglycemia with HbA1c <5.7%.ResultsA total of 3380 (75.96%) participants were followed up at 3 months. At 3 months post-intervention, overall, diabetes developed in 726 (21.44%) participants. YLP was found to be significantly effective in halting progression to diabetes as compared to standard of care; adjusted RRR was 63.81(95% CI = 56.55–69.85). The YLP also accelerated regression to normoglycemia [adjusted Odds Ratio (adjOR) = 1.20 (95% CI, 1.02–1.43)]. Importantly, younger participants (≤40 years) were found to regress to normoglycemia more effectively than the older participants Pinteraction<0.001. ConclusionBased on the significant risk reduction derived from the large sample size, and the carefully designed randomized yoga-based intervention on high-risk populations, the study is a preliminary but strong proof-of-concept for yoga as a potential lifestyle-based treatment to curb the epidemic of diabetes. The observed findings also indicate a potential of YLP for diabetes prevention in low/moderate risk profile individuals that needs large-scale validation.Trial RegistrationClinical Trial Registration Number: CTRI/2018/03/012804
Azimuthal Anisotropy of Photon and Charged Particle Emission in Pb+Pb Collisions at 158 A GeV/c
The azimuthal distributions of photons and charged particles with respect to
the event plane are investigated as a function of centrality in Pb + Pb
collisions at 158 A GeV/c in the WA98 experiment at the CERN SPS. The
anisotropy of the azimuthal distributions is characterized using a Fourier
analysis. For both the photon and charged particle distributions the first two
Fourier coefficients are observed to decrease with increasing centrality. The
observed anisotropies of the photon distributions compare well with the
expectations from the charged particle measurements for all centralities.Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. The manuscript has undergone a major revision.
The unwanted correlations were enhanced in the random subdivision method used
in the earlier version. The present version uses the more established method
of division into subevents separated in rapidity to minimise short range
correlations. The observed results for charged particles are in agreement
with results from the other experiments. The observed anisotropy in photons
is explained using flow results of pions and the correlations arising due to
the decay of the neutral pion
Women in medicine and dermatology: history and advances
The history of women in medicine has been marked by many challenges and achievements. Although the role of women in the "art of healing" can be traced back many centuries, only males are traditionally highlighted in history. Across antiquity, access to medical education was denied to females. Dermatology is a medical specialty in which women displayed particular skill and proficiency. Gradually, determination and competence allowed women to lay claim in an essentially male-dominated world. This article presents a brief review of the performance, progress and achievements of women in the history of medicine and dermatology
Multiplicity Distributions and Charged-neutral Fluctuations
Results from the multiplicity distributions of inclusive photons and charged
particles, scaling of particle multiplicities, event-by-event multiplicity
fluctuations, and charged-neutral fluctuations in 158 GeV Pb+Pb
collisions are presented and discussed. A scaling of charged particle
multiplicity as and photons as have been observed, indicating violation of naive wounded nucleon model.
The analysis of localized charged-neutral fluctuation indicates a
model-independent demonstration of non-statistical fluctuations in both charged
particles and photons in limited azimuthal regions. However, no correlated
charged-neutral fluctuations are observed.Comment: Talk given at the International Symposium on Nuclear Physics
(ISNP-2000), Mumbai, India, 18-22 Dec 2000, Proceedings to be published in
Pramana, Journal of Physic
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