Studies on the sterility mosaic disease of pigeon pea. III. Nitrogen metabolism of infected plants

A decrease in the chloroplastic protein and a slight increase in the cytoplasmic protein were seen in the diseased leaves. There was no appreciable quantitative difference in the amino-acid contents of proteins of healthy and diseased plants. The total nitrogen content of diseased leaves showed a progressive increase over healthy during the day starting from the morning till evening. The free amino-acids of diseased leaves showed variations both in quality and quantity. Alanine, asparagine, arginine and aspartic acid were found to be in higher concentrations in diseased leaves, the increase being proportional to the severity of disease symptoms. The presence of two unidentified amino-acids was detected only in diseased leaves. The amino-acids, alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid and arginine which were in very high concentrations in diseased leaves at 6 a.m. were observed to be either completely absent or present only in very small amounts at 6 p.m. A decrease in the C/N ratio resulted due to virus infection. This reduction could be attributed to the reduction in the carbohydrate content and increase in nitrogen content of diseased leaves

Temperature in nonequilibrium systems with conserved energy

We study a class of nonequilibrium lattice models which describe local redistributions of a globally conserved energy. A particular subclass can be solved analytically, allowing to define a temperature T_{th} along the same lines as in the equilibrium microcanonical ensemble. The fluctuation-dissipation relation is explicitely found to be linear, but its slope differs from the inverse temperature T_{th}^{-1}. A numerical renormalization group procedure suggests that, at a coarse-grained level, all models behave similarly, leading to a two-parameter description of their macroscopic properties.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, final versio

Hydrographic features off northeast coast and Andaman - Nicobar Islands in relation to demersal finfish resources

Temperature varied from 17.6 to 28.5°C, salinity values from 32.12 to 35.21 x 10"" and dissolved oxygen from 0.8 to 4.41 ml/1. No identifiable relationship could be established between these three parameters and the total fish abundance, probably because the catch was made up of many species having different requirements. Higher abundance of trawl catches was from January to May when bottom water temperature was relatively low. The highest level of abundance of 2764 kg/hr in February 1989 was recorded when the parameters were 26°C, 33.6 x 10" and 2.71 ml/1; and the lowest level of 43.2 kg/hr in July 1988 was when the parameters were 25.3°C, 34.48 x 10'^ and 1.6 ml/1

Occurrence and distribution of black pod rot of Cocoa (Theobromae cocoa L.) in southern transition zone of Karnataka

Straminipile genus Phytophthora cause significant disease losses to global cocoa production. Phytopthtora palmivora is one of the major constraints in cocoa production causes significant pod losses. P. palmivora has a complex disease cycle involving several sources of primary inoculum and several modes of dissemination of secondary inoculum. This results in explosive epidemics during favorable environmental conditions. Highest severity of Seedling blight was observed in raised bed nurseries as compared to poly bag nurseries in Shivamogga district (59.26%) followed by Chikkamagluru (53.85%) of the state Karnataka , respectively. Further, the highest incidence of 72.00, 70.83 and 70.00% of black pod rot disease was recorded in Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Shivamogga district followed by Chikkamagaluru (65.22%), Kodagu (64.00%) and Davanagere (55.56%) district respectively. Due to continuous rain fall or high moisture conditions and the crop was grown as intercrop with arecanut is vulnerable for the attack of pathogen due to the presence of pathogenic variability

Graphene-based photovoltaic cells for near-field thermal energy conversion

Thermophotovoltaic devices are energy-conversion systems generating an electric current from the thermal photons radiated by a hot body. In far field, the efficiency of these systems is limited by the thermodynamic Schockley-Queisser limit corresponding to the case where the source is a black body. On the other hand, in near field, the heat flux which can be transferred to a photovoltaic cell can be several orders of magnitude larger because of the contribution of evanescent photons. This is particularly true when the source supports surface polaritons. Unfortunately, in the infrared where these systems operate, the mismatch between the surface-mode frequency and the semiconductor gap reduces drastically the potential of this technology. Here we show that graphene-based hybrid photovoltaic cells can significantly enhance the generated power paving the way to a promising technology for an intensive production of electricity from waste heat.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Predicting optical coherence tomography-derived diabetic macular edema grades from fundus photographs using deep learning

Center-involved diabetic macular edema (ci-DME) is a major cause of vision loss. Although the gold standard for diagnosis involves 3D imaging, 2D imaging by fundus photography is usually used in screening settings, resulting in high false-positive and false-negative calls. To address this, we train a deep learning model to predict ci-DME from fundus photographs, with an ROC–AUC of 0.89 (95% CI: 0.87–0.91), corresponding to 85% sensitivity at 80% specificity. In comparison, retinal specialists have similar sensitivities (82–85%), but only half the specificity (45–50%, p < 0.001). Our model can also detect the presence of intraretinal fluid (AUC: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.81–0.86) and subretinal fluid (AUC 0.88; 95% CI: 0.85–0.91). Using deep learning to make predictions via simple 2D images without sophisticated 3D-imaging equipment and with better than specialist performance, has broad relevance to many other applications in medical imaging

Incursion of brown algae and sargassum fishes into the Cochin backwaters

An incursion of sea weeds like brown algae and reef fishes like Sargassum fishes was observed in the Cochin backwaters on 6-12-1991. It appears that the habitat disturbance caused by the human interference along the southern part of the west coast brought the reef fishes along with the marine algae into the backwaters being assisted by the strong northerly current prevailing during the season

An overview of the first 5 years of the ENIGMA obsessive–compulsive disorder working group: The power of worldwide collaboration

Abstract Neuroimaging has played an important part in advancing our understanding of the neurobiology of obsessive?compulsive disorder (OCD). At the same time, neuroimaging studies of OCD have had notable limitations, including reliance on relatively small samples. International collaborative efforts to increase statistical power by combining samples from across sites have been bolstered by the ENIGMA consortium; this provides specific technical expertise for conducting multi-site analyses, as well as access to a collaborative community of neuroimaging scientists. In this article, we outline the background to, development of, and initial findings from ENIGMA's OCD working group, which currently consists of 47 samples from 34 institutes in 15 countries on 5 continents, with a total sample of 2,323 OCD patients and 2,325 healthy controls. Initial work has focused on studies of cortical thickness and subcortical volumes, structural connectivity, and brain lateralization in children, adolescents and adults with OCD, also including the study on the commonalities and distinctions across different neurodevelopment disorders. Additional work is ongoing, employing machine learning techniques. Findings to date have contributed to the development of neurobiological models of OCD, have provided an important model of global scientific collaboration, and have had a number of clinical implications. Importantly, our work has shed new light on questions about whether structural and functional alterations found in OCD reflect neurodevelopmental changes, effects of the disease process, or medication impacts. We conclude with a summary of ongoing work by ENIGMA-OCD, and a consideration of future directions for neuroimaging research on OCD within and beyond ENIGMA

Stroke Factors Associated with Thrombolysis Use in Hospitals in Singapore and US: A Cross-Registry Comparative Study

Background and Objectives: This paper aims to describe and compare the characteristics of 2 stroke populations in Singapore and in St. Louis, USA, and to document thrombolysis rates and contrast factors associated with its uptake in both populations. Methods: The stroke populations described were from the Singapore Stroke Registry (SSR) in -Singapore and the Cognitive Rehabilitation Research Group Stroke Registry (CRRGSR) in St. Louis, MO, USA. The registries were compared in terms of demographics and stroke risk factor history. Logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with thrombolysis uptake. Results: A total of 39,323 and 8,106 episodes were recorded in SSR and CRRGSR, respectively, from 2005 to 2012. Compared to CRRGSR, patients in SSR were older, male, and from the ethnic majority. Thrombolysis rates in SSR and CRRGSR were 2.5 and 8.2%, respectively, for the study period. History of ischemic heart disease or atrial fibrillation was associated with increased uptake in both populations, while history of stroke was associated with lower uptake. For SSR, younger age and males were associated with increased uptake, while having a history of smoking or diabetes was associated with decreased uptake. For CRRGSR, ethnic minority status was associated with decreased uptake. Conclusions: The comparison of stroke populations in Singapore and St Louis revealed distinct differences in clinicodemographics of the 2 groups. Thrombolysis uptake was driven by nonethnicity demographics in Singapore. Ethnicity was the only demographic driver of uptake in the CRRGSR population, highlighting the need to target ethnic minorities in increasing access to thrombolysis