Management of Rhizome Rot Disease of Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.)

Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.) is an important spice crop belonging to family Zingiberaceae. Rhizome rot of ginger, caused by Pythium aphanidermatum (Edson) Fitz, is a major constraint for the production of healthy rhizome, sometimes causing total failure of crop. Chemical control of this pathogen is not economical because of high cost of chemicals, breake down of resistance, environmental pollution, deleterious effect to non target beneficial soil micro-organism and ultimately the choice of the consumer for a organic product. Thus the treatment with plant products (Boerhaavia diffusa root extract) may offer a practical and economical alternative for eco-friendly management of this disease. Rhizomes dipped overnight in the suspension of 10.00 per cent crude root extract  followed by 3 foliar sprays of the same proved quite effective in the management of the disease. Results indicated a gradual decrease in disease incidence with the corresponding increase in number of sprays and rhizome treatment with B. diffusa root extract.Key words: Ginger, Pythium aphanidermatum, rot of gingerA. K. Pandey et al. Management of Rhizome Rot Disease of Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.). J Phytol 2/9 (2010) 18-20

Entrepreneurship Development in Agriculture through Agro Processing Centre: a Case Study of Almora District in NW Himalaya

This study was conducted by Vivekananda Institute of Hill Agriculture, Almora (India) to enhance entrepreneurship in the unemployed educated youths in North-Western Himalayas, who otherwise are migrating from hills in search of employment and livelihood. An agro-processing centre (APC) was established with the institutional support and was operational through an entrepreneur. The establishment cost of INR 2,19,000 was borne by the institute. The entrepreneur invested INR 1,66,255 for purchasing raw food grains. Total annual cost (Operational cost + Rental value of APC and storage building) was INR 27956. Annual income of INR 95,145/- was generated from sale of the processed products in brand name of “HIMRAJ” apart from generating income of INR 27,867 by providing processing service to the nearby farmers. This way he earned the INR 1,23,012 as gross income, where as net income was INR 81,356 per annum. This case study shows that if an entrepreneur maintains the APC in effectively, he can generate sufficient income from processing and value-addition of food grains. As a result of this, youths in hills can be self-employed and will not migrate from hills in search of employment and livelihood security

The model for self-dual chiral bosons as a Hodge theory

We consider (1+1) dimensional theory for a single self-dual chiral boson as classical model for gauge theory. Using Batalin-Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) technique the nilpotent BRST and anti BRST symmetry transformations for this theory have been studied. In this model other forms of nilpotent symmetry transformations like co-BRST and anti co-BRST which leave the gauge-fixing part of the action invariant, are also explored. We show that the nilpotent charges for these symmetry transformations satisfy the algebra of de Rham cohomological operators in differential geometry. The Hodge decomposition theorem on compact manifold is also studied in the context of conserved charges.Comment: 19 pages, No figures, Revtex, Final version to appear in EPJ

Poplar phyllosphere harbors disparate isoprene-degrading bacteria

The climate-active gas isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene) is released to the atmosphere in huge quantities, almost equaling that of methane, yet we know little about the biological cycling of isoprene in the environment. Although bacteria capable of growth on isoprene as the sole source of carbon and energy have previously been isolated from soils and sediments, no microbiological studies have targeted the major source of isoprene and examined the phyllosphere of isoprene-emitting trees for the presence of degraders of this abundant carbon source. Here, we identified isoprene-degrading bacteria in poplar tree-derived microcosms by DNA stable isotope probing. The genomes of isoprene-degrading taxa were reconstructed, putative isoprene metabolic genes were identified, and isoprene-related gene transcription was analyzed by shotgun metagenomics and metatranscriptomics. Gram-positive bacteria of the genus Rhodococcus proved to be the dominant isoprene degraders, as previously found in soil. However, a wider diversity of isoprene utilizers was also revealed, notably Variovorax, a genus not previously associated with this trait. This finding was confirmed by expression of the isoprene monooxygenase from Variovorax in a heterologous host. A Variovorax strain that could grow on isoprene as the sole carbon and energy source was isolated. Analysis of its genome confirmed that it contained isoprene metabolic genes with an identical layout and high similarity to those identified by DNA-stable isotope probing and metagenomics. This study provides evidence of a wide diversity of isoprene-degrading bacteria in the isoprene-emitting tree phyllosphere and greatly enhances our understanding of the biodegradation of this important metabolite and climate-active gas

WISDOM-II: Screening against multiple targets implicated in malaria using computational grid infrastructures

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite continuous efforts of the international community to reduce the impact of malaria on developing countries, no significant progress has been made in the recent years and the discovery of new drugs is more than ever needed. Out of the many proteins involved in the metabolic activities of the <it>Plasmodium </it>parasite, some are promising targets to carry out rational drug discovery.</p> <p>Motivation</p> <p>Recent years have witnessed the emergence of grids, which are highly distributed computing infrastructures particularly well fitted for embarrassingly parallel computations like docking. In 2005, a first attempt at using grids for large-scale virtual screening focused on plasmepsins and ended up in the identification of previously unknown scaffolds, which were confirmed in vitro to be active plasmepsin inhibitors. Following this success, a second deployment took place in the fall of 2006 focussing on one well known target, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), and on a new promising one, glutathione-S-transferase.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In silico drug design, especially vHTS is a widely and well-accepted technology in lead identification and lead optimization. This approach, therefore builds, upon the progress made in computational chemistry to achieve more accurate <it>in silico </it>docking and in information technology to design and operate large scale grid infrastructures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>On the computational side, a sustained infrastructure has been developed: docking at large scale, using different strategies in result analysis, storing of the results on the fly into MySQL databases and application of molecular dynamics refinement are MM-PBSA and MM-GBSA rescoring. The modeling results obtained are very promising. Based on the modeling results, <it>In vitro </it>results are underway for all the targets against which screening is performed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The current paper describes the rational drug discovery activity at large scale, especially molecular docking using FlexX software on computational grids in finding hits against three different targets (PfGST, PfDHFR, PvDHFR (wild type and mutant forms) implicated in malaria. Grid-enabled virtual screening approach is proposed to produce focus compound libraries for other biological targets relevant to fight the infectious diseases of the developing world.</p

Heartbeats in the Wild: A Field Study Exploring ECG Biometrics in Everyday Life

This paper reports on an in-depth study of electrocardiogram (ECG) biometrics in everyday life. We collected ECG data from 20 people over a week, using a non-medical chest tracker. We evaluated user identification accuracy in several scenarios and observed equal error rates of 9.15% to 21.91%, heavily depending on 1) the number of days used for training, and 2) the number of heartbeats used per identification decision. We conclude that ECG biometrics can work in the wild but are less robust than expected based on the literature, highlighting that previous lab studies obtained highly optimistic results with regard to real life deployments. We explain this with noise due to changing body postures and states as well as interrupted measures. We conclude with implications for future research and the design of ECG biometrics systems for real world deployments, including critical reflections on privacy.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, CHI'2

Gene probing reveals the widespread distribution, diversity and abundance of isoprene-degrading bacteria in the environment

Background: Approximately 500 Tg of isoprene are emitted to the atmosphere annually, an amount similar to that of methane, and despite its significant effects on the climate, very little is known about the biological degradation of isoprene in the environment. Isolation and characterisation of isoprene degraders at the molecular level has allowed the development of probes targeting isoA encoding the α-subunit of the isoprene monooxygenase. This enzyme belongs to the soluble diiron centre monooxygenase family and catalyses the first step in the isoprene degradation pathway. The use of probes targeting key metabolic genes is a successful approach in molecular ecology to study specific groups of bacteria in complex environments. Here, we developed and tested a novel isoA PCR primer set to study the distribution, abundance, and diversity of isoprene degraders in a wide range of environments. Results: The new isoA probes specifically amplified isoA genes from taxonomically diverse isoprene-degrading bacteria including members of the genera Rhodococcus, Variovorax, and Sphingopyxis. There was no cross-reactivity with genes encoding related oxygenases from non-isoprene degraders. Sequencing of isoA amplicons from DNA extracted from environmental samples enriched with isoprene revealed that most environments tested harboured a considerable variety of isoA sequences, with poplar leaf enrichments containing more phylogenetically diverse isoA genes. Quantification by qPCR using these isoA probes revealed that isoprene degraders are widespread in the phyllosphere, terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. Specifically, soils in the vicinity of high isoprene-emitting trees contained the highest number of isoprene-degrading bacteria. Conclusion: This study provides the molecular ecology tools to broaden our knowledge of the distribution, abundance and diversity of isoprene degraders in the environment, which is a fundamental step necessary to assess the impact that microbes have in mitigating the effects of this important climate-active gas

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Kinetic and molecular analyses reveal isoprene degradation potential of Methylobacterium sp.

Efforts were made to isolate and characterize bacteria capable of growing on methane and organic compounds, and to achieve the simultaneous degradation of more than one pollutant. Among the methanotrophs, species of Methylobacterium was able to catabolize a variety of hydrocarbons, including the branched-chain alkenes. Therefore, laboratory incubations experiments were carried out in batch mode to assess the potential of Methylobacterium sp. PV1 for degrading isoprene, the low-molecular-weight alkene, the most abundant non-methane volatile hydrocarbon present in the environment. Methylobacterium sp. PV1, isolated from paddy field soil, was characterized by pmoA and 16S rRNA gene sequencing and FAME analysis, and used for isoprene degradation. The kinetics of biodegradation is studied using the Michaelis-Menten model. The optimum degradation (80) with maximum average relative degradation rate was observed at 150 ppm isoprene. The degradation products were also analyzed using FTIR. © 2017 Elsevier Lt