Modelling the Encroachment of Farmhouse Culture on Private Village Pastures and Its Environmental Fall-Out in Northern Western Ghats, India

Tropical India harbours numerous pasturelands across small landholdings ranging up to few hectares which are covered with grass that is suitable as fodder. These grazing lands are commonly known as ‘Gairan’ in urbanised northern Western Ghats mountain tract in Western India). Such grasslands comprise about 20% of the total area of a village (Jodha, 1986), support livestock and supplement the agro-economy of the village. These pasturelands are being replaced by fenced ‘farmhouses’ of the urban elite, resulting in land use changes that caused drastic qualitative and quantitative changes in terms of area, fodder species composition and livestock they support (Patwardhan et al., 2003). The study area has faced large changes in the last few decades with increases in the area under settlement by 240%s as well as a decrease in the area of agriculture land and grasslands-scrub vegetation by 31 % and 39 % respectively (Nalavade, 2003). The present paper documents socio-cultural, economic and environmental changes in private village pastures across the Mumbai-Pune urban belt

Pleural Sepsis Associated with High Mortality in Orthotopic Liver Transplantation Recipients

Background: Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is currently the only definitive treatment for patients with acute liver failure and end-stage liver cirrhosis. Pulmonary complications are a leading cause of post-operative morbidity and mortality. Post-transplant pleural effusions have been reported in the immediate post-operative period reported in about 32 – 47 % of effusion. Methods: From a database of 1517 patients who presented at our medical center with pleural effusions from 2010 – 2015, we identified 21 patients who had liver transplants using ICD code 50.59. We performed chart reviews to assess the occurrence of the pleural effusion in relation to their liver transplant and determined the impact this had on survival. Results: Mean age was 60 years (± 7), 71 % were men, and the mean MELD score was 21 (± 8). There were 5 patients who developed pleural effusions after OLT resulting in an incidence rate of 23.8%. Four out of the 5 patients had a positive pleural fluid culture. The most common isolate was Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3 patients) while the other two had Klebsiella pneumonia and Candida glabarata respectively. Mortality rate in the 5 year period was 42.9 %; and was higher in patients with sepsis (71 vs. 28.5 %, p= 0.06). In multivariate cox regression analysis, pleural sepsis was the strongest predictor of mortality (HR 9.2 95 % CI 1.2-66, p 0.03). Conclusions: Pleural effusions are a common post-operative complication in OLT patients with an increased mortality associated with pleural space infections. OLT patients who present with pleural effusions must therefore undergo pleural aspiration with a view to diagnose and treat these infections promptly in order to improve survival. Our study is limited by a small sample size and retrospective design selecting for patients who may have had a higher risk of mortality in the first instance

Quantum information and quantum simulation of neutrino physics

In extreme astrophysical environments such as core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers, neutrinos play a major role in driving various dynamical and microphysical phenomena, such as baryonic matter outflows, the synthesis of heavy elements, and the supernova explosion mechanism itself. The interactions of neutrinos with matter in these environments are flavor-specific, which makes it of paramount importance to understand the flavor evolution of neutrinos. Flavor evolution in these environments can be a highly nontrivial problem thanks to a multitude of collective effects in flavor space, arising due to neutrino-neutrino ($\nu$-$\nu$) interactions in regions with high neutrino densities. A neutrino ensemble undergoing flavor oscillations under the influence of significant $\nu$-$\nu$ interactions is somewhat analogous to a system of coupled spins with long-range interactions among themselves and with an external field ('long-range' in momentum-space in the case of neutrinos). As a result, it becomes pertinent to consider whether these interactions can give rise to significant quantum correlations among the interacting neutrinos, and whether these correlations have any consequences for the flavor evolution of the ensemble. In particular, one may seek to utilize concepts and tools from quantum information science and quantum computing to deepen our understanding of these phenomena. In this article, we attempt to summarize recent work in this field. Furthermore, we also present some new results in a three-flavor setting, considering complex initial states.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Invited review for the Eur. Phys. J. A special issue on "Quantum computing in low-energy nuclear theory

RAPD Analysis for Determination of Components in Herbal Medicine

In this study, the RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) technique was employed for determination of the components in an Ayurvedic herbal prescription, Rasayana Churna. One-hundred-and-twenty decamer oligonucleotide primers were screened in the RAPD analysis to identify three Ayurvedic medicines, dried stem of Tinospora cordifolia, dried fruit of Emblica officinalis and dried fruit of Tribulus terestris, the Ayurvedic prescription. Primer OPC-6 simultaneously generated three distinct amplicons, each specific to one component. The marker with 600 bp is specific to Tinospora cordifolia; the marker 500 bp is specific to Emblica officinalis and the remaining marker >1000 bp was present in Tribulus terestris. Presence of three herbal medicines was determined when RAPD reaction with OPC-6 was performed. The technique was proved to contribute to the identification of components in Ayurvedic herbal preparation and thus helping to serve as a complementary tool for quality control

Designing a Mobile Application to Support the Indicated Prevention and Early Intervention of Childhood Anxiety

This paper presents the design of an mHealth application for prevention and early intervention of childhood anxiety. The application is based on REACH, a preventative-early intervention protocol for childhood anxiety. This paper describes the multidisciplinary design process, sharing lessons learned in developing an effective mHealth application. This mHealth application is unique due to participant age, preventive-early intervention focus, and utilization of mobile technology in a situated manner. A design process inspired by user-centered leveraging key informant interviews was used to identify application features, including game based strategies and an animated motivational avatar. Validation was performed through external review and a usability study performed with target end users of the application. Results suggest overall satisfaction, ease of use, and increased motivation

Cassia auriculata: Aspects of Safety Pharmacology and Drug Interaction

Safety pharmacology studies help in identifying preclinical adverse drug reactions. We carried out routine safety pharmacology with focus on cardiovascular variables and pharmacokinetic herb-drug interaction studies on rats fed with standardized traditional hydro-alcoholic extract and technology-based supercritical extract of Cassia auriculata for 12 weeks. Our studies indicate that both these extracts are pharmacologically safe and did not show any significant adverse reactions at the tested doses. The traditional hydro-alcoholic extract did not show any significant effect on pharmacokinetics; however, the technology-based supercritical extract caused a significant reduction in absorption of metformin. Our results indicate the need to include pharmacokinetic herb-drug interaction studies as evidence for safety especially for technology-based extracts

Spectral analysis of resting cardiovascular variables and responses to oscillatory LBNP before and after 6 degree head dowm bedrest

A major focus of our research program is to develop noninvasive procedures for determining changes in cardiovascular function associated with the null gravity environment. We define changes in cardiovascular function to be (1) the result of the regulatory system operating at values different from 'normal' but with an overall control system basically unchanged by the null gravity exposure, or (2) the result of operating with a control system that has significantly different regulatory characteristics after an exposure. To this end, we have used a model of weightlessness that consisted of exposing humans to 2 hrs. in the launch position, followed by 20 hrs. of 6 deg head down bedrest. Our principal objective was to use this model to measure cardiovascular responses to the 6 deg head down bedrest protocol and to develop the most sensitive 'systems identification' procedure for indicating change. A second objective, related to future experiments, is to use the procedure in combination with experiments designed to determine the degree to which a regulatory pathway has been altered and to determine the mechanisms responsible for the changes

ValiDichro: a website for validating and quality control of protein circular dichroism spectra

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is widely used in structural biology as a technique for examining the structure, folding and conformational changes of proteins. A new server, ValiDichro, has been developed for checking the quality and validity of CD spectral data and metadata, both as an aid to data collection and processing and as a validation procedure for spectra to be included in publications. ValiDichro currently includes 25 tests for data completeness, consistency and quality. For each test that is done, not only is a validation report produced, but the user is also provided with suggestions for correcting or improving the data. The ValiDichro server is freely available at http://valispec.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/circularDichroism/ValiDichro/upload.html