Marine Biodiversity Museum (A Designated National Repository) Catalogue

The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Cochin was recognized as a 'Designated National Repository' by the Government of India, in December 2007 in consultation with the National Biodiversity Authority under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. A Designated National Repository (DNR) is an Institution authorised to keep in safe custody specimens of different categories of biological material. The Museum offers a glimpse of the bioresources of the Indian seas. Currently the museum houses six holotype specimens, 878 finfish species, 136 crustaceans, 217 molluscs, 44 echinoderms, 162 corals, 12 sponges, 20 ascidians, 82 seaweeds and 8 seagrasses besides a dolphin and three Antarctic birds. The Museum is open to scientists, teachers, students and the general public. The fact that students form more than 85% of the visitors highlights the role played by the Museum in education. A catalogue of the specimens available in the Museum has been prepared as it is expected to be of immense use to those engaged in marine biodiversity studies. I sincerely thank Dr. G. Syda Rao, Director, CMFRI whose guidance and encouragement made this a reality

Study on the Diversity of Carangid Resources off Cochin, Kerala

The Family Carangidae includes diverse marine fishes that are ecologically and economically important species such as the jacks, scads, trevallies, pampano, amberjacks and queenfishes. Most are either deep bodied neretic bottom feeders or more slender neretic planktivores. A few species such as the rainbow runner and pilot fish are pelagic, typically found in the open ocean. Carangids are found in all tropical and subtropical marine waters of the world, and some occur In temperate regions. In India., fishes of the Family Carangidae are widely distributed along both coasts of India

First record of the Japanese bigeye Pristigenys niphonia (Cuvier & Valenciennes) (Perciforrnes: Priacanthidae) from the Indian seas

Eighteen species of priacanthids have currently been reported worldwide of which maximum diversity is recorded in the Indo-Pacific region. A new record of a priacanthid Pristigenys niphonia from Indian waters is described herewith. Morphometric grid meristic measurements of the two specimens of P. niphonia collected bear close resemblance to that reported by Smith (1966) from Algoa, Western Indian Ocean samples as well as to those of Fowler (1931) from Japan

Rare occurrence of Red bandfish Cepola macrophthalma (Linnaeus, 1758) (Perciformes; Cepolidae) from the Indian seas

Family Cepolidae or bandfishes comprise of benthic or suprabenthic fishes of which only three species have so far been reported from India. Bandfish are an important part of the diet of many oceanic predators. During a routine fish collection, a cepolid fish of total length 348 mm was obtained in the discards of a deep sea shrimp trawler unit at Kalamukku. The fish was later identified as Cepola macrophthalma. Since the fish is from a new locality, details are given herewith

Developing Non-Stationary Frequency Relationships for Greater Pamba River basin, Kerala India incorporating dominant climatic precursors

Global climate changes significantly contribute to increased frequency of hydrologic extremes. This significantly underestimates the hydrologic design parameters, bringing of hydro systems to increased failure risk. In order to address this concern, the current practice of development of hydrologic frequency tools need to be updated accounting for non-stationarity. This study first considered a diverse set of statistical tests to examine the trend, change points, non-stationarity and randomness of streamflow, rainfall and temperature time series of scales ranging from daily to annual. The annual maxima time series indicated non stationarity against the stationary behaviour of daily series of hydro-meteorological datasets of the basin. Subsequently, this study developed the Temperature Duration Frequency (TDF), Rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) and Flood Frequency (FF) curves of Greater Pamba river basin in Kerala India, the part of which was most severely affected by the near century return period flood event of 2018. The analysis was performed for a multitude of combinations of variations in distribution parameters with time and climatic drivers as physical covariates in the extreme value formulations. The study proposed a novel wavelet coherence (WC) based driver selection of most dominant combination of climatic precursors in developing FF and IDF relations of three locations of Kalloopara, Malakkara and Thumpamon and TDF curve of Kuttanad region in the basin, considering data of 1985–2015 period. The proposed WC framework considers bi-multi-and partial effects of climatic oscillations (COs) like El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in identifying potential drivers. The different WC formulations captured in-phase relationships of streamflows and rainfall with COs at intra-annual, annual and inter annual scales up to 4 years. The methods showed that addition of climatic precursors improved the NS estimates of flood and rainfall quantiles by more accurately capturing the magnitudes of extreme streamflows and rainfalls of 2018, 2021 than the time covariate formulations. However, the role of COs on extreme temperature is not found to be influential in developing TDF relationships, which needs further investigation.</p

New distributional record of the insular shelf beauty Symphysanodon typus Bleeker, 1878 (Family: Symphysanodontidae) from Indian waters

The family Symphysanodontidae comprises of small to medium sized bony fishes commonly known as banquelovelies, slopefishes and insular shelf beauties. They are caught in trawls operating in depths from 50 to 500 m, mainly on the continental shelf and slopes

Lead free heterogeneous multilayers with giant magneto electric coupling for microelectronics/microelectromechanical systems applications

Lead free magneto electrics with a strong sub resonant (broad frequency range) magneto electric coupling coefficient (MECC) is the goal of the day which can revolutionise the microelectronics and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) industry. We report giant resonant MECC in lead free nanograined Barium Titanate-CoFe (Alloy)-Barium Titanate [BTO-CoFe-BTO] sandwiched thin films. The resonant MECC values obtained here are the highest values recorded in thin films/multilayers. Sub-resonant MECC values are quite comparable to the highest MECC reported in 2-2 layered structures. MECC got enhanced by two orders at a low frequency resonance. The results show the potential of these thin films for transducer, magnetic field assisted energy harvesters, switching devices, and storage applications. Some possible device integration techniques are also discussed. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

COMBINATORIAL EFFECT OF D-AMINOACIDS AND TETRACYCLINE AGAINST PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA BIOFILM

Objective: The present study attempted to evaluate the anti-biofilm activity of D-amino acids (D-AAs) on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and determine if the combination of D-AAs with tetracycline enhances the anti-biofilm activity in vitro and ex vivo.Methods: Different D-AAs were tested for antibiofilm activity against wild type P. aeruginosa PAO1 and two multidrug resistant P. aeruginosa clinical strains in the presence of sub inhibitory concentrations of tetracycline using crystal violet microtitre plate assay. Results were further validated using in vitro wound dressing and ex vivo porcine skin models followed by cytotoxicity and hemocompatibility studies.Results: D-tryptophan (5 mmol) showed 61 % reduction in biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa. Interestingly combinatorial effect of 5 mmol D-tryptophan and 0.5 minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (7.5µg/ml) tetracycline showed 90% reduction in biofilm formation. 5 mmol D-methionine shows 28 % reduction and combination with tetracycline shows 41% reduction in biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa. D-leucine and D-tyrosine alone or in combination with tetracycline did not show significant anti-biofilm activity. D tryptophan-tetracycline combination could reduce 80 % and 77 % reduction in biofilm formation in two multi drug resistant P. aeruginosa clinical strains. D-tryptophan-tetracycline-combination could also reduce 76% and 66% reduction in biofilm formation in wound dressing model and porcine skin explant respectively. The cytotoxicity and hemocompatibility studies did not show significant toxicity when this combination was used.Conclusion: The results established the potential therapeutic application of D-tryptophan alone or in combination with tetracycline for treating biofilm associated clinical problems caused by P. aeruginosa

SARS-COV-ATE risk assessment model for arterial thromboembolism in COVID-19

Patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection are at an increased risk of cardiovascular and thrombotic complications conferring an extremely poor prognosis. COVID-19 infection is known to be an independent risk factor for acute ischemic stroke and myocardial infarction (MI). We developed a risk assessment model (RAM) to stratify hospitalized COVID-19 patients for arterial thromboembolism (ATE). This multicenter, retrospective study included adult COVID-19 patients admitted between 3/1/2020 and 9/5/2021. Among 3531 patients from the training cohort, 15.5% developed acute in-hospital ATE, including stroke, MI, and other ATE, compared to 13.4% in the validation cohort. The 16-item final score was named SARS-COV-ATE (Sex: male = 1, Age [40-59 = 2, \u3e 60 = 4], Race: non-African American = 1, Smoking = 1 and Systolic blood pressure elevation = 1, Creatinine elevation = 1; Over the range: leukocytes/lactate dehydrogenase/interleukin-6, B-type natriuretic peptide = 1, Vascular disease (cardiovascular/cerebrovascular = 1), Aspartate aminotransferase = 1, Troponin-I [\u3e 0.04 ng/mL = 1, troponin-I \u3e 0.09 ng/mL = 3], Electrolytes derangement [magnesium/potassium = 1]). RAM had a good discrimination (training AUC 0.777, 0.756-0.797; validation AUC 0.766, 0.741-0.790). The validation cohort was stratified as low-risk (score 0-8), intermediate-risk (score 9-13), and high-risk groups (score ≥ 14), with the incidence of ATE 2.4%, 12.8%, and 33.8%, respectively. Our novel prediction model based on 16 standardized, commonly available parameters showed good performance in identifying COVID-19 patients at risk for ATE on admission

RISK FACTORS OF ARTERIAL THROMBOEMBOLISM IN HOSPITALIZED COVID-19 PATIENTS: A MULTICENTER COHORT STUDY

Background: Endothelial cell dysfunction from infection by SARS-CoV-2 and inflammatory cytokines leading to hyperinflammatory and hypercoagulable state is thought to be the mechanism of arterial thromboembolism (ATE) in COVID-19 patients. COVID-19 infection is known to be an independent risk factor for acute stroke and myocardial infarction (MI). However, data on the risk factors of ATE in hospitalized COVID-19 patients is limited. Methods: This retrospective, multicenter cohort study included adult patients admitted to one quaternary care and three community hospitals with PCR-proven SARS-CoV-2 infection between 3/1/2020 and 12/31/2020. The composite outcome was in-hospital ATE events, including acute ischemic stroke, MI, and other ATE identified by ICD-10 codes. Student t-test was conducted for continuous variables and the Chi-square test for categorical variables. Multivariate logistic regression using forward selection was conducted. All statistical tests were 2-sided with an α level of 0.05. All data was analyzed using R version 4.0.4. Results: The cohort included 3531 patients with 371 (10.5%) patients who developed acute ATE. There were 398 ATE events: 270 patients had MI, 43 had stroke, 85 had other ATE, 12 had MI + stroke, 13 had MI + other ATE, and 2 had stroke + other ATE. The model suggested that initial systolic blood pressure (BP) \u3c90 mmHg and \u3e160 mmHg; elevated initial biomarkers including B-type natriuretic peptide (\u3e100 pg/mL), troponin-I (\u3e0.03 ng/mL), lactate dehydrogenase (\u3e192 U/L), creatine phosphokinase (male \u3e280 U/L and female \u3e155 U/L), C-reactive protein (\u3e0.5 mg/dL), leukocytes (\u3e11 K/uL), lactate (\u3e2.2 mmol/L), and aspartate aminotransferase (\u3e41 U/L); presenting hypoalbuminemia (\u3c3.5 g/dL) and hypomagnesemia (\u3c1.8 mg/dL); age \u3e60; male sex; and history of cerebrovascular accident (CVA), coronary artery disease (CAD), hyperthyroidism, and cigarette smoking were associated with an increased risk of ATE (all p\u3c0.05). Conclusion: Hypo or hypertension on admission, elevated inflammatory and cardiac markers, hypoalbuminemia, hypomagnesemia, smoking, and comorbidities including CAD and CVA are associated with ATE in hospitalized COVID-19 patients