The efficacy and sustainability of the CIMBAA transgenic Cry1B/Cry1C Bt cabbage and cauliflower plants for control of lepidopteran pests

In 2003 the Collaboration on Insect Management for Brassicas in Asia and Africa (CIMBAA) public/private partnership selected the Cry1B/Cry1C Bt protein combination as having the potential to provide effective and sustainable control of diamondback moth (DBM), Plutella xylostella. Following transformations and extensive plant selection, insect efficacy trials were undertaken in 2008 to 2010 in north India (Murthal near New Delhi) and south India (near Bengaluru) in large scale screen-house experiments using artificial infestations on the best performing (Elite Event) plant lines and on hybrids produced from them. Plant damage was scored on a scale of 0 (no visible damage) to 4 (plant effectively destroyed). For DBM, cabbage cluster caterpillar (Crocidolomia binotalis), cabbage webworm (Hellula undalis) and semi-looper (Trichoplusia ni) there was zero insect survival and a zero damage score on the Elite Event lines and on their hybrids, while control plants had 50 to 100% insect survival (depending on species, life stage and trials) and damage scores of 3.3 to 4. Cabbage white (Pieris brassicae) and common army worm (Spodoptera litura) showed some larval survival and damage scores up to 1.4 (especially in early trials) but no survival to pupation. Screening of DBM populations worldwide (inc. 18 populations for Cry1B and 13 for Cry1C from India) showed mean LC50s close to that of international susceptible strains. To date F2 screening has not identified the presence of resistance genes in DBM in the field. Cry1B resistance was slowly developed artificially in the laboratory but 1C resistance and resistance to the Cry1B/1C combination was harder to develop and had higher fitness costs. The ‘resistant’ lines showed some extended survival of stunted DBM larvae on dual gene Bt plants but no survival to pupation. There was no cross-resistance between Cry1B and Cry1C. Resistance to both genes was autosomal and recessive. Beneficial insects were demonstrated to have the potential to provide additional mortality on rare surviving insects in Bt fields. Aphids were well controlled for the first 40 days post-transplanting using imidacloprid pelleted onto seed and, if necessary, by 1-2 Verticillium lecanii sprays thereafter. Surviving S. litura and Helicoverpa armigera in Bt sprayed fields were well controlled by one or two application

Enhance Crawler For Efficiently Harvesting Deep Web Interfaces

Scenario in web is varying quickly and size of web resources is rising, efficiency has become a challenging problem for crawling such data. The hidden web content is the data that cannot be indexed by search engines as they always stay behind searchable web interfaces. The proposed system purposes to develop a framework for focused crawler for efficient gathering hidden web interfaces. Firstly Crawler performs site-based searching for getting center pages with the help of web search tools to avoid from visiting additional number of pages. To get more specific results for a focused crawler, projected crawler ranks websites by giving high priority to more related ones for a given search. Crawler accomplishes fast in-site searching via watching for more relevant links with an adaptive link ranking. Here we have incorporated spell checker for giving correct input and apply reverse searching with incremental site prioritizing for wide-ranging coverage of hidden web sites

Separation and characterization of biosurfactant from P.aeruginosa sp1 isolated from oil mill area MIDC, Parbhani (M.S.)

Biosurfactant are an amphiphilic compound that reduces surface and interfacial tensions by accumulating at the interface of immiscible fluids and increase the surface areas of insoluble compounds leading to increased mobility. The extraction of the biosurfactant from the cell free supernatant using the solvent extraction procedure and the quantitative analysis has been discussed. The application of the biosurfactant includes biomedical, cosmetics and bioremediation rhamnolipid biosurfactant produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa sp showed significant applications in the bioremediation of hydrocarbon in gasoline spilled oil and petroleum oily sludge in this review we discuss the potential roles and applications of biosurfactant, mainly focusing on areas such as food and food related industries, biomedicine and therapeutics

Screening and optimization of biosurfactant producing bacteria from oil mill area MIDC, Parbhani (M.S.)

Biosurfactant are amphiphilic compounds produced on living surfaces, mostly on microbial cell surfaces. They are biodegradable non- toxic and ecofreindly materials. Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from oil mill area produced biosurfactant at 370C at pH 7 on YPG medium and mineral salt medium. The biosurfactant production depends on the fermentation conditions, environmental factors and nutrient availability. The extraction of the biosurfactant from the cell free supernatant using the solvent extraction procedure & the qualitative and quantitative analysis has been discussed with appropriates equipment details

Processing of Beach Sand Minerals of Maharastra Coast

In the present paper, an attempt has been to bene-ficiate beach sand minerals of Maharastra coast. For this purpose, beach sand mineral samples were collected from two different coastal places namely; Pirawadi and Kother-wadi area. The samples obtained were subjected for chara-cterization & beneficiation studies. The characterization studies were mainly carried out by mineralogical analyses. The mineralogical analyses indicated 12-15% Ilmenite, 5-7% Magnetite and 65-70% Quartz in Pirawadi sample. Similarly Kotherwadi sample showed the presence of 10-12% Ilmanite along with 40-45% quartz. The studies also indicated the increased heavy mineral concentration in finer size (-75 11) fractions. Further, the beneficiation studies were carried out using Perm roll magnetic separator using different variables such as particle size, magnetic inte-nsity, roll speed, splitter position etc. From the studies it was possible to recover 80-85% magnetic minerals under different conditions

Performance Comparison of Different Load Balancing Algorithms in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing offers economical, scalable, and instantaneous computing resources to enterprises, allowing them to manage substantial traffic volumes and cater to a multitude of users. But the need for effective load balancing techniques has grown significantly as cloud computing becomes more and more popular. To guarantee the best possible performance, availability, and dependability of apps and services, load balancing is a crucial component of cloud computing. This paper offers a comparative study of different cloud computing technologies and load balancing strategies. We present a performance comparison of software-based load balancing; our analysis compares various service broker policies, such as closest distance, optimized, and reconfigurable, with algorithms such as round robin, throttled, and equally spread. Overall, this paper helps readers understand load balancing mechanisms in cloud computing

NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE ROLE OF UNC-6/NETRIN IN GROWTH CONE PROTRUSION, POLARITY AND CYTOSKELETAL ORGANIZATION

The formation of complex neuronal circuits is crucial for the proper development of the central nervous system. The wiring structure of the nervous system underlies its function in sensation and movement, and higher order functions such as learning, memory, and cognition. Disruption of this wiring leads to a number of neurodevelopmental disorders such as developmental disability syndromes, autism, and schizophrenia. Axon guidance is an important aspect in this process of development, as neurons are not born with axons but must actively extend these wires in the developing nervous system to reach their appropriate synaptic targets. The developing axons are led by growth cones, dynamic actin-based structures that sense and respond to extracellular guidance cues that drive the forward motion of the axon. Growth cones contain a dynamic lamellipodial body ringed by filopodial protrusions, both important in guiding the axon to its target destination. Motility and guidance behaviors of the growth cone are regulated by its actin and microtubule (MT) cytoskeleton through the modulatory influence of axon guidance cues, such as UNC-6/Netrin and its guidance receptors UNC-40/DCC and UNC-5 that are present at the leading edge of the growth cone. Netrin is a secreted guidance cue that acts as both an axon attractant and repellant in different receptor contexts. Though the role of Netrin and its receptors in axon pathfinding has been extensively studied, very little is known about how Netrin regulates growth cone behavior and morphology in vivo. Caenorhabditis elegans is a useful system to study axon pathfinding and growth cone development in vivo due to its simple, well-characterized nervous system, transparency and fully sequenced genome. The VD and DD motor neurons reside along the ventral nerve cord of the animal, and their axons normally extend straight dorsally to the dorsal nerve cord to form commissures. Though the DD axons develop during embryogenesis, the VD neurons develop post-embryonically in a well-described and stereotypical manner, making them great candidates to study in vivo growth cone development. After a brief introduction to axon guidance and growth cone morphology in chapter I, chapter II describes a novel role for the C. elegans flavin-containing monooxygenase (FMOs) genes in Netrin-mediated axon guidance and growth cone protrusion. We show that the FMO genes are required for VD/DD motor axon guidance and to restrict growth cone filopodial protrusions downstream of the Netrin receptors UNC-40 and UNC-5 and the Rac GTPases CED-10 and MIG-2 in Netrin-mediated growth cone repulsion. In chapter III we present new roles for UNC-6/Netrin in regulating the polarity and extent of growth cone protrusion through its receptors UNC-40 and UNC-5. We demonstrate that UNC-5 signaling regulates three aspects of growth cone morphology during growth away from UNC-6: (i) inhibition of growth cone protrusion (ii) dorsal leading-edge polarization of F-actin and (ii) restriction of MT entry into the growth cone, possibly via the cytoskeletal interacting protein UNC-33/CRMP. We also find that UNC-6 and UNC-40 can stimulate VD growth cone protrusion at the dorsal leading-edge, independent of dorsal F-actin polarity and growth cone MT plus-end accumulation. The characterization of the small GTPases RHO-1 and its guanine nucleotide exchange factor RHGF-1 in modulating growth cone protrusion and microtubule accumulation is detailed in chapter IV. We show that RHO-1 and RHGF-1 are required to prevent MT plus-ends from entering the growth cone as well as limiting excessive filopodial protrusions downstream of UNC-6/Netrin signaling. Chapter V provides new insights into the building blocks of MTs, the tubulins and their importance in MT organization and stability with respect to growth cone morphology. We show that certain missense mutations in the C. elegans alpha and beta-tubulin genes, tba-1 and tbb-1, have different effects on MT stability and in turn growth cone morphology. Mutations that lead to MT destabilitization inhibited growth cone protrusivity, while mutations that lead to the formation of hyperstable MTs caused excess protrusions. This reveals a causal relationship between MT organization and growth cone structure. To address whether other guidance systems cooperate with UNC-6/Netrin to regulate protrusion and directed growth cone migration, chapter VI demonstrates the role of the guidance receptor SAX-3/Robo in dorsal axon guidance and VD growth cone protrusion. We show that sax-3 is required for the guidance of dorsally-directed VD/DD axons and inhibits growth cone protrusion through the Rac GEF UNC-73/Trio. In summary, the results contained here provide new insights into the mechanisms by which Netrin signaling regulates several aspects of growth cone protrusion during the process of axon pathfinding. By studying established and novel genes in repulsion and growth cone inhibition, and by defining their effects on the growth cone cytoskeleton, we are starting to understand how these signaling pathways shape the morphological characteristics of the growth cone during directed migration in vivo

RHO-1 and the Rho GEF RHGF-1 interact with UNC-6/Netrin signaling to regulate growth cone protrusion and microtubule organization in Caenorhabditis elegans

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.UNC-6/Netrin is a conserved axon guidance cue that directs growth cone migrations in the dorsal-ventral axis of C. elegans and in the vertebrate spinal cord. UNC-6/Netrin is expressed in ventral cells, and growth cones migrate ventrally toward or dorsally away from UNC-6/Netrin. Recent studies of growth cone behavior during outgrowth in vivo in C. elegans have led to a polarity/protrusion model in directed growth cone migration away from UNC-6/Netrin. In this model, UNC-6/Netrin first polarizes the growth cone via the UNC-5 receptor, leading to dorsally biased protrusion and F-actin accumulation. UNC-6/Netrin then regulates protrusion based on this polarity. The receptor UNC-40/DCC drives protrusion dorsally, away from the UNC-6/Netrin source, and the UNC-5 receptor inhibits protrusion ventrally, near the UNC-6/Netrin source, resulting in dorsal migration. UNC-5 inhibits protrusion in part by excluding microtubules from the growth cone, which are pro-protrusive. Here we report that the RHO-1/RhoA GTPase and its activator GEF RHGF-1 inhibit growth cone protrusion and MT accumulation in growth cones, similar to UNC-5. However, growth cone polarity of protrusion and F-actin were unaffected by RHO-1 and RHGF-1. Thus, RHO-1 signaling acts specifically as a negative regulator of protrusion and MT accumulation, and not polarity. Genetic interactions are consistent with RHO-1 and RHGF-1 acting with UNC-5, as well as with a parallel pathway, to regulate protrusion. The cytoskeletal interacting molecule UNC-33/CRMP was required for RHO-1 activity to inhibit MT accumulation, suggesting that UNC-33/CRMP might act downstream of RHO-1. In sum, these studies describe a new role of RHO-1 and RHGF-1 in regulation of growth cone protrusion by UNC-6/Netrin.NIH R01NS040945NIH R56NS095682NIH P20GM103638NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440)NIH GM103418University of Kansas Center for Undergraduate Researc