Alcohol and HIV Disease Progression: Weighing the Evidence

Heavy alcohol use is commonplace among HIV-infected individuals; however, the extent that alcohol use adversely impacts HIV disease progression has not been fully elucidated. Fairly strong evidence suggests that heavy alcohol consumption results in behavioral and biological processes that likely increase HIV disease progression, and experimental evidence of the biological effect of heavy alcohol on simian immunodeficiency virus in macaques is quite suggestive. However, several observational studies of the effect of heavy alcohol consumption on HIV progression conducted in the 1990s found no association of heavy alcohol consumption with time to AIDS diagnosis, while some more recent studies showed associations of heavy alcohol consumption with declines of CD4 cell counts and nonsuppression of HIV viral load. We discuss several plausible biological and behavioral mechanisms by which alcohol may cause HIV disease progression, evidence from prospective observational human studies, and suggest future research to further illuminate this important issue

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Not AvailableThe present study was carried out to evaluate the effects of microwave (MW) radiation on viability of wood decaying fungi. The white rot (Trametes versicolor) and brown rot (Rhodonia placenta) fungi were grown on bamboo culm-samples. The mycelium growths were observed in controlled as well as microwave treated samples. The results showed that the viability of fungi decreased according to the applied MW time. This study proved the ability of the microwaves and exposure time MW3 (180 seconds) to kill the fungal colonies and do not allow for the growth of fungal spores, means the rate of growth of fungal colonies is inversely proportional to time of microwave exposure.Not Availabl

Assessment of best performing genotypes of Ailanthus excelsa under arid climatic conditions

The present study was conducted to screen 19 genotypes of Mahaneem (Ailanthus excelsa Roxb.) and to identify the best performing genotypes under arid ecosystem of Haryana, India. Among the genotypes, ‘S-9’ and ‘S-18’ performed consistently with higher growth and carbon sequester as compared to other genotypes. The maximum plant height and girth at breast height was 9.91m and 65cm respectively, in ‘S-9’ after 8 years of planting, which was at par with 04 genotypes (‘S-4, S-6, S-11 and S-18’) over other selections. At 4 and 8 year after planting of A. excelsa, ‘S-9’ produced the highest biomass production i.e., 0.66 tones per tree over all the genotypes. The maximum mean values of dry matter accumulation/ plant were 0.52 tones/ tree recorded after 8 year of planting in S-9 genotypes. Similar results for CO2 equivalent, which was significantly higher in S-9 i.e., 0.96 tonnes per tree after 8 years of planting over other genotypes of A. excelsa. The overall results revealed that the genotypes ‘S- 9’ and ‘S- 18’ were identified as the best genotypes for multiplication in the field to increase the biomass production and CO2 equivalent for the arid regions