Prospects of Grouper Culture in India

The "Groupers" of the genus Epinephelus are excellent marine food fishes in the Indo Pacific and Carribean regions and have assumed importance for commercial culture in recent year

The plasma nitric oxide and homocysteine levels and their association with insulin resistance in South Indian women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Background: Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) exhibit features of the metabolic syndrome apart from low-grade chronic inflammation and endothelial dysfunction and may be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The Nitric oxide (NO) and Homocysteine (Hcy) are important plasma markers of endothelial dysfunction, an early marker of atherosclerosis. There are no Indian studies on NO and Hcy levels in women with PCOS and their association with Insulin Resistance (IR). Therefore the present study is to estimate plasma levels of NO and Hcy in south Indian women with PCOS and association with insulin resistance.Methods: 104 women with PCOS and 95 healthy age matched control subject were enrolled in the study. Standard physical methods and Chemiluminescent Immunoassay technique were employed for estimation of Anthropometric parameter and plasma sex hormones respectively. Fasting insulin, glucose, NO and Hcy were measured by standard methods. Insulin resistance was evaluated by using Homeostasis Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA- IR)Results: Women with PCOS had significantly higher insulin resistance (P<0.01), Hcy (p<0.05) and lower NO levels (P<0.05), IR was positively correlated with Hcy (r= 0.610, p<0.01) and negatively correlated with NO (r= -0.285; p<0.01)Conclusions: Our data revealed that South Indian women with PCOS had elevated IR and homocyeteine and lowered NO levels

Implementation of Fault-tolerant Quantum Logic Gates via Optimal Control

The implementation of fault-tolerant quantum gates on encoded logic qubits is considered. It is shown that transversal implementation of logic gates based on simple geometric control ideas is problematic for realistic physical systems suffering from imperfections such as qubit inhomogeneity or uncontrollable interactions between qubits. However, this problem can be overcome by formulating the task as an optimal control problem and designing efficient algorithms to solve it. In particular, we can find solutions that implement all of the elementary logic gates in a fixed amount of time with limited control resources for the five-qubit stabilizer code. Most importantly, logic gates that are extremely difficult to implement using conventional techniques even for ideal systems, such as the T-gate for the five-qubit stabilizer code, do not appear to pose a problem for optimal control.Comment: 18 pages, ioptex, many figure

MR texture analysis in differentiating renal cell carcinoma from Lipid-poor angiomyolipoma and oncocytoma

OBJECTIVES: To assess the utility of Magnetic resonance texture analysis (MRTA) in differentiating renal cell carcinoma (RCC) from lipid-poor angiomyolipoma (lpAML) and oncocytoma. METHODS: After ethical approval, 42 patients with 54 masses (34 RCC, 14 lpAML and six oncocytomas) who underwent MRI on a 1.5 T scanner (Avanto, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) between January 2011 and December 2012 were retrospectively included in the study. MRTA was performed on the TexRAD research software (Feedback Plc., Cambridge, UK) using free-hand polygonal region of interest (ROI) drawn on the maximum cross-sectional area of the tumor to generate six first-order statistical parameters. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to look for any statically significant difference. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was done to select the parameter with the highest class separation capacity [area under the curve (AUC)] for each MRI sequence. RESULTS: Several texture parameters on MRI showed high class separation capacity (AUC > 0.8) in differentiating RCC from lpAML and oncocytoma. The best performing parameter in differentiating RCC from lpAML was mean of positive pixels (MPP) at SSF 2 (AUC: 0.891) on DWI b500. In differentiating RCC from oncocytoma, the best parameter was mean at SSF 0 (AUC: 0.935) on DWI b1000. CONCLUSIONS: MRTA could potentially serve as a useful non-invasive tool for differentiating RCC from lpAML and oncocytoma. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: There is limited literature addressing the role of MRTA in differentiating RCC from lpAML and oncocytoma. Our study demonstrated several texture parameters which were useful in this regard

Multi-serotype pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage prevalence in vaccine naïve Nepalese children, assessed using molecular serotyping.

Invasive pneumococcal disease is one of the major causes of death in young children in resource poor countries. Nasopharyngeal carriage studies provide insight into the local prevalence of circulating pneumococcal serotypes. There are very few data on the concurrent carriage of multiple pneumococcal serotypes. This study aimed to identify the prevalence and serotype distribution of pneumococci carried in the nasopharynx of young healthy Nepalese children prior to the introduction of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine using a microarray-based molecular serotyping method capable of detecting multi-serotype carriage. We conducted a cross-sectional study of healthy children aged 6 weeks to 24 months from the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal between May and October 2012. Nasopharyngeal swabs were frozen and subsequently plated on selective culture media. DNA extracts of plate sweeps of pneumococcal colonies from these cultures were analysed using a molecular serotyping microarray capable of detecting relative abundance of multiple pneumococcal serotypes. 600 children were enrolled into the study: 199 aged 6 weeks to <6 months, 202 aged 6 months to < 12 months, and 199 aged 12 month to 24 months. Typeable pneumococci were identified in 297/600 (49.5%) of samples with more than one serotype being found in 67/297 (20.2%) of these samples. The serotypes covered by the thirteen-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine were identified in 44.4% of samples containing typeable pneumococci. Application of a molecular serotyping approach to identification of multiple pneumococcal carriage demonstrates a substantial prevalence of co-colonisation. Continued surveillance utilising this approach following the introduction of routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccinates in infants will provide a more accurate understanding of vaccine efficacy against carriage and a better understanding of the dynamics of subsequent serotype and genotype replacement

Bark beetle population dynamics in the Anthropocene: Challenges and solutions

Tree-killing bark beetles are the most economically important insects in conifer forests worldwide. However, despite N200 years of research, the drivers of population eruptions and crashes are still not fully understood and the existing knowledge is thus insufficient to face the challenges posed by the Anthropocene. We critically analyze potential biotic and abiotic drivers of population dynamics of an exemplary species, the European spruce bark beetle (ESBB) (Ips typographus) and present a multivariate approach that integrates the many drivers governing this bark beetle system. We call for hypothesis-driven, large-scale collaborative research efforts to improve our understanding of the population dynamics of this and other bark beetle pests. Our approach can serve as a blueprint for tackling other eruptive forest insects

Determination of Cr, Pb and Ni in water, sludge and plants from settling ponds of a sewage treatment works

Wastewater from a sewage treatment works is channelled through a series of inter-connected settling ponds into a stream. Furthermore, leachates from a domestic and industrial landfill site are disposed into the first pond. From the variety of plants growing in the ponds, A. sessilis, P. stratiotes, R. steudelii and T. capensis were investigated for their ability to uptake chromium, lead and nickel (these metals are toxic to humans while nickel is also involved in plant growth). The levels of the metals in the water, plants and sludge were determined using an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). For the plants, the amounts of the metals in roots, stems and leaves were also measured. In general it was found that the plants accumulated up to 15% of the level of metals in the water and that accumulation depends on the plant species as well as on the organ of the plant. The concentrations of metals in the water in the last pond were found to be well within the limits set by the South African National Water Act of 1998 for discharge of water into rivers. Furthermore, the results of this study, which involved a real system, were compared with those from model studies where conditions of the system could be controlled by the investigator.Keywords: uptake, heavy metals, plants, wastewater treatmen

The role of ferrous clays in the interpretation of wettability – a case study

Clean sandstone, with minimal clay content, is expected to be strongly water wet once the rock has been through an effective cleaning process. Even samples containing significant clay minerals are usually expected to be water wet after appropriate cleaning. However, tests carried out on core samples from Fields in three different global locations show mixed indices, even for clean state samples where no aging with crude oil has taken place. A few hypotheses for this behaviour considered herein are: whether the cleaning method was adequate, whether wettability was altered by an external factor, or if wettability was due to mineral composition. This paper presents the results obtained from wettability studies on fresh, clean and restored state core plug samples from three different Fields. Wettability indices were obtained by using the combined Amott-USBM method. Petrography was performed on sample end-trims to investigate the possible presence of halite or barite in the clean state samples, thought to be from drilling fluid infiltration, which should have been removed by the methanol cleaning cycle. This showed no organic material or salt (halite), negating wetting change from inefficient cleaning. From a reactive clays [1] model perspective, these rock samples are considered clean-sand (i.e. illite/ smectites- as total clay content), determined by XRD analysis, are lower than 10%. SEM and XRD results showed the presence of grain-coating chlorite in one sample set and glauconite grains in the others. Only once the unusual wettability indices were obtained was the grain-coating chlorite identified as chamosite by SEM/EDX, which is an iron-rich form of chlorite. The presence of chamosite or glauconite appears to influence the wetting tendency. In summary, USBM vs Amott wettability indices of the analysed samples are consistent between both methods, showing a mixed to oil-wet tendency for all samples where chamosite was identified, regardless of the initial test condition. Samples with glauconite appeared to be more mixed wet after wettability restoration. The results suggest that iron rich clay/mineral content is the main contributor to the oil wet tendency of the evaluated rocks