Glucose and Auxin Signaling Interaction in Controlling Arabidopsis thaliana Seedlings Root Growth and Development

Background: Plant root growth and development is highly plastic and can adapt to many environmental conditions. Sugar signaling has been shown to affect root growth and development by interacting with phytohormones such as gibberellins, cytokinin and abscisic acid. Auxin signaling and transport has been earlier shown to be controlling plant root length, number of lateral roots, root hair and root growth direction. Principal Findings: Increasing concentration of glucose not only controls root length, root hair and number of lateral roots but can also modulate root growth direction. Since root growth and development is also controlled by auxin, whole genome transcript profiling was done to find out the extent of interaction between glucose and auxin response pathways. Glucose alone could transcriptionally regulate 376 (62%) genes out of 604 genes affected by IAA. Presence of glucose could also modulate the extent of regulation 2 fold or more of almost 63 % genes induced or repressed by IAA. Interestingly, glucose could affect induction or repression of IAA affected genes (35%) even if glucose alone had no significant effect on the transcription of these genes itself. Glucose could affect auxin biosynthetic YUCCA genes family members, auxin transporter PIN proteins, receptor TIR1 and members of a number of gene families including AUX/IAA, GH3 and SAUR involved in auxin signaling. Arabidopsis auxin receptor tir1 and response mutants, axr2, axr3 and slr1 not only display a defect in glucose induced change in root length, root hair elongation and lateral root production but also accentuat

Stroke mortality: predictive value of simple laboratory tests and acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation III scoring system: a hospital based study

Background: Acute stroke is a heterogeneous condition with respect to prognosis. This study was undertaken with the aim to evaluate the significance of routine simple blood parameters and APACHE (acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation) III scoring system as methods of prediction of 1-month mortality in stroke patients and to assess the sensitivity and specificity of APACHE III scoring system in predicting short term outcome in critically ill patients having stroke.Methods: Patients of stroke presenting within 48 hours of onset were included in the study irrespective of age, sex or type of stroke. The clinical evaluation, neuroimaging and blood investigations were performed. APACHE III scoring system was applied for each patient to calculate the score for each one. The outcome of the patients at the end of one month was determined as survivors and expired.Results: Among the total 120 cases in the study, 54.16% (n=65) patients survived at the end of one month. The mean APAPCHE III Score among the survivors was 45.3 and in expired patients it was 88.6. Taking a cut-off value of 50, APACHE III Score was significantly associated in predicting the mortality in stroke patients (P-value<0.0001).Conclusions: The study concluded that a low GCS at the time of admission and increased serum creatinine were independent predictors of mortality among patients presenting to the hospital within 48 hours with first time acute stroke.  APACHE III scoring system was found to be sensitive and reasonably specific in predicting short term outcome in patients having cerebral stroke.

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Multiple Operations for Secure Multicast Communication

Group key management is a critical task to make the secure multicast application. Group manager is responsible for changing and re-distributing (rekeying) the group key whenever it deems necessary. Many applications will require a security infrastructure that ensures multiple levels of access control for group members and also require very fast rekeying so that it is not disruptive to their performance. We use a multi-operation key management scheme that achieves hierarchical group access control. Particularly, we use an integrated key graph that maintains keying material for all members with different access privileges. It also incorporates new functionalities that are not present in conventional multicast key management, such as user relocation on the key graph. We use the ECC-GKM elliptic curve cryptosystem for the key exchange and we show the multiple operations such as joining, leaving and switching for multiple levels of access control

Ursolic acid: A natural preventive aesculapian for environmental hepatic ailments

Hepatic diseases are a major problem of worldwide proportions, and liver damage is very common since the liver has to encounter several toxic substances during their metabolism. Pollution is also one of the major causes of hepatic dysfunctioning, high level of pollutant in blood enhances the risk for abnormal liver enzyme level. Increased industrialization has prone workers to confront the several harmful chemicals in their day-to-day life that affect liver adversely; several studies have been published in the evidence of this fact; people cannot avoid their exposure to such environmental conditions but can counter with its harmful effects. Thus, to overcome this loophole, there is a demand of such agents that has the capability to fight against such toxins and pollutants. Ursolic acid (UA), a natural pentacyclic triterpenoid carboxylic acid, has established its identity as a very potent hepatoprotective agent in recent years. It is one of the strongest natural healers that are present in several medicinal plants. Its antioxidant effect makes it a potent antihepatotoxic agent as it modulates mitogen-activated protein kinases and nuclear factor-kappa B signaling pathway. UA has anticholestatic property that enhances its effectiveness somewhere equal to or in some cases better than silymarin (a well-known potent hepatoprotective agent). In recent years, it has attracted considerable attention due to its double-edged sword effect on the liver, defined in terms of prevention and cures both

Stroke mortality: predictive value of simple laboratory tests and acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation III scoring system: a hospital based study

Background: Acute stroke is a heterogeneous condition with respect to prognosis. This study was undertaken with the aim to evaluate the significance of routine simple blood parameters and APACHE (acute physiology, age, chronic health evaluation) III scoring system as methods of prediction of 1-month mortality in stroke patients and to assess the sensitivity and specificity of APACHE III scoring system in predicting short term outcome in critically ill patients having stroke.Methods: Patients of stroke presenting within 48 hours of onset were included in the study irrespective of age, sex or type of stroke. The clinical evaluation, neuroimaging and blood investigations were performed. APACHE III scoring system was applied for each patient to calculate the score for each one. The outcome of the patients at the end of one month was determined as survivors and expired.Results: Among the total 120 cases in the study, 54.16% (n=65) patients survived at the end of one month. The mean APAPCHE III Score among the survivors was 45.3 and in expired patients it was 88.6. Taking a cut-off value of 50, APACHE III Score was significantly associated in predicting the mortality in stroke patients (P-value&lt;0.0001).Conclusions: The study concluded that a low GCS at the time of admission and increased serum creatinine were independent predictors of mortality among patients presenting to the hospital within 48 hours with first time acute stroke.  APACHE III scoring system was found to be sensitive and reasonably specific in predicting short term outcome in patients having cerebral stroke.