Soil phosphorus status in organic and conventional vegetable farms in Southeast Queensland, Australia

The soil phosphorus (P) status (0-10 cm) of two farming systems (organic (OF) and conventional (CF) vegetable farms) at two locations (Gatton and Stanthorpe) was examined amongst a suite of soil fertility indicators. The P status was similar between farming systems, in contrast to some broad-acre organic systems. Examination of farm management records revealed substantial overlap between P inputs at both localities with CF systems also receiving organic inputs, e.g. green manure and composts. A statistical analysis of the effects of different inputs also indicated that P fertility did not vary significantly between farms. Soil P levels were medium to high across farm types indicating a potential environmental risk for vegetable producers particularly in sandy well drained soils. The three methods of extraction Colwell, Olsen and Resin were well correlated with each other and produced similar results indicating the similar nutrient pools exist between farming system

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationTemporal reasoning denotes the modeling of causal relationships between different variables across different instances of time, and the prediction of future events or the explanation of past events. Temporal reasoning helps in modeling and understanding interactions between human pathophysiological processes, and in predicting future outcomes such as response to treatment or complications. Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBN) support modeling changes in patients' condition over time due to both diseases and treatments, using probabilistic relationships between different clinical variables, both within and across different points in time. We describe temporal reasoning and representation in general and DBN in particular, with special attention to DBN parameter learning and inference. We also describe temporal data preparation (aggregation, consolidation, and abstraction) techniques that are applicable to medical data that were used in our research. We describe and evaluate various data discretization methods that are applicable to medical data. Projeny, an opensource probabilistic temporal reasoning toolkit developed as part of this research, is also described. We apply these methods, techniques, and algorithms to two disease processes modeled as Dynamic Bayesian Networks. The first test case is hyperglycemia due to severe illness in patients treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). We model the patients' serum glucose and insulin drip rates using Dynamic Bayesian Networks, and recommend insulin drip rates to maintain the patients' serum glucose within a normal range. The model's safety and efficacy are proven by comparing it to the current gold standard. The second test case is the early prediction of sepsis in the emergency department. Sepsis is an acute life threatening condition that requires timely diagnosis and treatment. We present various DBN models and data preparation techniques that detect sepsis with very high accuracy within two hours after the patients' admission to the emergency department. We also discuss factors affecting the computational tractability of the models and appropriate optimization techniques. In this dissertation, we present a guide to temporal reasoning, evaluation of various data preparation, discretization, learning and inference methods, proofs using two test cases using real clinical data, an open-source toolkit, and recommend methods and techniques for temporal reasoning in medicine

FORMULATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF PAPAIN LOADED SOLID LIPID NANOPARTICLES AGAINST HUMAN COLORECTAL ADENOCARCINOMA CELL LINE

Objective: Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancer and also most common gastrointestinal malignancy with high prevalence rate in the younger population. Usually, cancer cells are surrounded by a fibrin coat which is resistant to fibrinolytic degradation. This fibrin coat is act as self-protective against natural killing mechanism. The main objective was to prepare papain-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (P-SLN) by melt dispersion-ultrasonication method and investigated the cytotoxic efficacy against colorectal adenocarcinoma (human colorectal adenocarcinoma [HCT 15]) cells.Methods: Optimized polymer ratio was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier-transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, entrapment efficiency, particle size and zeta potential analysis, in vitro drug release, and in vitro cytotoxicity studies on HCT-15 colorectal adenocarcinoma cells.Results: The results showed that the particle size, morphological character and zeta potential value of optimized batch P-SLN were 265 nm, spherical and −26.5 Mv, respectively. The in vitro drug profile of P-SLN exhibited that it produced sustain drug release, and the cell viability of HCT-15 against P-SLN shown better efficacy than pure papain enzyme.Conclusion: P-SLNs were successfully prepared and investigated the in vitro drug release and in vitro cell viability against HCT-15 cell line

The therapeutic potential of bacteriophages targeting gram-negative bacteria using Galleria mellonella infection model

All the datasets are presented in the main manuscript. The raw datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Protein L: a novel reagent for the detection of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) expression by flow cytometry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There has been significant progress in the last two decades on the design of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) for adoptive immunotherapy targeting tumor-associated antigens. Structurally CARs consist of a single chain antibody fragment directed against a tumor-associated antigen fused to an extracellular spacer and transmembrane domain followed by T cell cytoplasmic signaling moieties. Currently several clinical trials are underway using gene modified peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) with CARs directed against a variety of tumor associated antigens. Despite the improvements in the design of CARs and expansion of the number of target antigens, there is no universal flow cytometric method available to detect the expression of CARs on the surface of transduced lymphocytes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Currently anti-fragment antigen binding (Fab) conjugates are most widely used to determine the expression of CARs on gene-modified lymphocytes by flow cytometry. The limitations of these reagents are that many of them are not commercially available, generally they are polyclonal antibodies and often the results are inconsistent. In an effort to develop a simple universal flow cytometric method to detect the expression of CARs, we employed protein L to determine the expression of CARs on transduced lymphocytes. Protein L is an immunoglobulin (Ig)-binding protein that binds to the variable light chains (kappa chain) of Ig without interfering with antigen binding site. Protein L binds to most classes of Ig and also binds to single-chain antibody fragments (scFv) and Fab fragments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used CARs derived from both human and murine antibodies to validate this novel protein L based flow cytometric method and the results correlated well with other established methods. Activated human PBLs were transduced with retroviral vectors expressing two human antibody based CARs (anti-EGFRvIII, and anti-VEGFR2), two murine antibody derived CARs (anti-CSPG4, and anti-CD19), and two humanized mouse antibody based CARs (anti-ERBB2, and anti-PSCA). Transduced cells were stained first with biotin labeled protein L followed by phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated streptavidin (SA) and analyzed by flow cytometry. For comparison, cells were stained in parallel with biotin conjugated goat-anti-mouse Fab or CAR specific fusion proteins. Using protein L, all CAR transduced lymphocytes exhibited specific staining pattern ranging from 40 to 80% of positive cells (compared to untransduced cells) and staining was comparable to the pattern observed with anti-Fab antibodies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data demonstrate the feasibility of employing Protein L as a general reagent for the detection of CAR expression on transduced lymphocytes by flow cytometry.</p

Paddock Scale Water Quality Monitoring of Vegetable-Sugarcane and Legume-Sugarcane Farming Systems - Summary report 2010-2013 Burnett Mary Region

The project has delivered a number of key findings from what were years in which summer rainfall was 50‐100% greater than the long term average. These were as follows – - Sediment and nutrient losses during grain legume or vegetable rotations with sugarcane were dominated by losses occurring during the sugarcane crop. - The most sensitive period for soil and nutrient loss occurred during the transition period between crops in the rotation, and during the early stages of crop establishment. - Soil disturbance, the presence of groundcover (crop residues/trash/living mulch) and soil compaction were the major factors affecting runoff volumes and loads of sediment and total nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). The most effective management systems that ameliorated soil compaction, minimised soil disturbance and maintained ground cover reduced sediment and nutrient loads by 50‐60%. - Legume residues or legume companion crops were effective at providing groundcover and at reducing soil loss, but also tended to increase losses of the biologically active fractions of N (Dissolved Inorganic N) and P (Filterable Reactive P). - Runoff losses of DIN were relatively small in all systems tested (0.7‐ 2.7 kg DIN/ha), but leaching losses of nitrate‐N were estimated in excess of 140 kg N/ha from the current commercial practice intensive vegetable systems. This leached N was lost before being able to be recovered by the subsequent sugarcane crop and represents a risk to groundwater quality. - The risk of offsite losses from herbicides with long half‐lives in the field was illustrated by high concentrations of Diuron recorded in runoff that occurred more than 2.5 months after herbicide application. There was also concern about increased losses of Metribuzin when applied in systems with reduced tillage and surface residues/trash. - Similarly effective weed control during the plant cane crop could be achieved by reduced application rates of residual herbicides and/or the replacement of residual herbicides with less persistent knockdown products. However, excluding Diuron in the ratoon crop resulted in poor weed control and the need for additional herbicide applications. - The most substantial improvements in runoff (if not drainage) water quality were achieved at the expense of cropping system productivity – especially in the systems with intensive vegetables. The management strategies showing most promise involve strategic/zonal tillage, reduced nutrient inputs and reduced rates of residual herbicide use. These promising systems will need research attention to fine tune management so as to limit constraints to productivity and profitability

Carbon losses in terrestrial hydrological pathways in sugarcane cropping systems of Australia

Climate change and carbon (C) sequestration are a major focus of research in the twenty-first century. Globally, soils store about 300 times the amount of C that is released per annum through the burning of fossil fuels (Schulze and Freibauer 2005). Land clearing and introduction of agricultural systems have led to rapid declines in soil C reserves. The recent introduction of conservation agricultural practices has not led to a reversing of the decline in soil C content, although it has minimized the rate of decline (Baker et al. 2007; Hulugalle and Scott 2008). Lal (2003) estimated the quantum of C pools in the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems, and oceans and reported a “missing C” component in the world C budget. Though not proven yet, this could be linked to C losses through runoff and soil erosion (Lal 2005) and a lack of C accounting in inland water bodies (Cole et al. 2007). Land management practices to minimize the microbial respiration and soil organic C (SOC) decline such as minimum tillage or no tillage were extensively studied in the past, and the soil erosion and runoff studies monitoring those management systems focused on other nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P)

Ανάλυση και βελτιστοποίηση της επίδοσης cloud εφαρμογών σε διαμοιραζόμενα περιβάλλοντα με προσαρμοστική ανάθεση πόρων

Intensive tillage, high fertiliser inputs, and plastic mulch on the soil surface are widely used by vegetable growers. A field investigation was carried out to quantify the impact of alternate land management and fertiliser practices designed to improve offsite water quality on the productivity of vegetable rotations within a sugarcane farming system in a coastal region of subtropical northeast Australia. Successive crops of capsicum and zucchini were grown in summer 2010–2011 and winter 2011, respectively, using four different management practices. These were ‘Conventional’—the current conventional practice using plastic mulch, bare inter-rows, conventional tillage, and commercial fertiliser inputs; ‘Improved’—a modified conventional system using plastic mulch in the cropped area, an inter-row vegetative mulch, zonal tillage, and reduced fertiliser rates; ‘Trash mulch’—using cane trash or forage sorghum residues instead of plastic mulch, with reduced fertiliser rates and minimum or zero tillage; and ‘Vegetative mulch’—using Rhodes grass or forage sorghum residues instead of plastic mulch, with minimum or zero tillage and reduced fertiliser rates. During the second vegetable crop (zucchini), each management practice was split to receive either soil test-based nutrient inputs or a common, luxury rate of nutrient addition. The ’Trash mulch’ and ‘Vegetative mulch’ systems produced up to 43% lower capsicum and zucchini yields than either of the plastic mulch systems. The relative yield difference between trash systems and plastic mulch management systems remained the same for both the soil test-based and high nutrient application strategies, suggesting that factors other than nutrition (e.g., soil temperature) were driving these differences

Obstetric and perinatal outcome of elderly mothers aged 35 years and above: a comparative study

Background:Across the world, there is a rising trend among women towards delaying pregnancy and child birth. The wide educational and career choices available currently encourage women to pursue their professional goals relentlessly and many opt to delay pregnancy. Easy access to the wide range of modern contraceptive methods has enabled them to achieve better control of fertility.Methods: The study conducted in Chennai Medical College and Research Centre, Trichy over a period of 18 months compared pregnancy related complications, maternal and perinatal outcomes in elderly women, with non-elderly women as controls. Forty two elderly gravidae were compared with 50 non-elderly gravidae. Results: The mean age of women in study group was 37.1 and 27.6 in the control group. 14.3% in the study group of patients had assisted conception whereas all of patients in the control group conceived spontaneously. There were 4 (9.5%) miscarriages in the study group and none in the control group. The incidence of pre-gestational diabetes, gestational diabetes and preeclampsia was found to be higher in the study group and this was statistically significant (P Value <0.0001). Conclusion:This study analyzing the effect of advanced maternal age on pregnancy has shown favourable maternal and perinatal outcomes. The study showed a significant difference in the incidence of pre-gestational diabetes, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, miscarriage, antepartum hemorrhage, induction of labour, instrumental deliveries and caesarean section rates in elderly gravidae. But the risk of aneuploidy, malpresentations, placenta previa and prolonged labour were not found to be high. The incidence of low APGAR score was high in the study group, but it was attributable to specific causes like placental abruption. There were no perinatal deaths in both groups.