In vitro growth characteristics of Fusarium langsethiae isolates recovered from oats and wheat grain in the UK

Fusarium langsethiae is a fungus that has recently been implicated in the contamination of small-grain cereal crops such as oats, wheat and barley with high levels of HT-2 and T-2 toxins in many European countries. The epidemiology of this fungus is not well known and may therefore be a bigger problem than currently thought to be. A study was carried out investigating the in vitro growth characteristics of F. langsethiae isolates from contaminated oats and wheat at various temperatures; 15, 20, 25 and 30 °C. Results indicated similar growth trends of oats and wheat isolates of F. langsethiae. Wheat isolates grew significantly (p<0.001) faster than oat isolates although this difference may have been confounded by the age of cultures, with oat isolates collected one year earlier. The estimated optimum growth temperature for all isolates was 24 °C. Isolates were macro-morphologically categorized as having lobed or entire colony margins, and either possessing one of the following colony colours: white, orange or purple. Since the estimated optimum growth temperature of F. langsethiae is typical in temperate summers when small-grain cereals are flowering, it is possible that this species can infect, colonise and possibly contaminate the developing grains with HT-2 and T-2 toxins which are of food safety concern

Arsenic Contamination in Food-chain: Transfer of Arsenic into Food Materials through Groundwater Irrigation

Arsenic contamination in groundwater in Bangladesh has become an additional concern vis-à-vis its use for irrigation purposes. Even if arsenic-safe drinking-water is assured, the question of irrigating soils with arsenic-laden groundwater will continue for years to come. Immediate attention should be given to assess the possibility of accumulating arsenic in soils through irrigation-water and its subsequent entry into the food-chain through various food crops and fodders. With this possibility in mind, arsenic content of 2,500 water, soil and vegetable samples from arsenic-affected and arsenic-unaffected areas were analyzed during 1999–2004. Other sources of foods and fodders were also analyzed. Irrigating a rice field with groundwater containing 0.55 mg/L of arsenic with a water requirement of 1,000 mm results in an estimated addition of 5.5 kg of arsenic per ha per annum. Concentration of arsenic as high as 80 mg per kg of soil was found in an area receiving arsenic-contaminated irrigation. A comparison of results from affected and unaffected areas revealed that some commonly-grown vegetables, which would usually be suitable as good sources of nourishment, accumulate substantially-elevated amounts of arsenic. For example, more than 150 mg/kg of arsenic has been found to be accumulated in arum (kochu) vegetable. Implications of arsenic ingested in vegetables and other food materials are discussed in the paper

Comparative study of syndromic and etiological diagnosis of reproductive tract infections/sexually transmitted infections in women in Delhi

SummaryBackgroundThe adequacy of the World Health Organization's syndromic approach for the diagnosis and management of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially at primary health centers (PHCs) and at other levels, is still debatable in different settings in India and requires validation.ObjectivesA cross-sectional study was carried out in women attending the peripheral government clinics of Delhi in order to (1) enumerate their self-reported reproductive tract infection (RTI)/sexually transmitted infection (STI) symptoms; (2) assess their clinical status; (3) determine the syndromic diagnosis of RTI/STI in symptomatic women and etiological diagnosis in both symptomatic and asymptomatic women; and (4) compare the level of agreement between self-reporting of morbidity and syndromic and etiological diagnosis.Materials and methodsThe study was conducted over 26 months in 4090 women attending peripheral government healthcare centers, both rural and urban, in four zones of Delhi. They were recruited into four different study groups: group I, non-pregnant, reporting with symptoms of RTI/STI; group II, with a bad obstetric history or infertility; group III, pregnant women in any trimester attending the antenatal clinic; and group IV, the control group. Gynecological examination, followed by the collection of genital specimens and blood, were performed after informed and written consent was obtained. Every symptomatic patient was managed on the basis of algorithms of the syndromic approach as recommended by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), India. All specimens were transported to the STD Reference Laboratory, Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi and processed by standard methods to diagnose the various STDs. Laboratory reports were sent to the clinicians and appropriate treatment was instituted. Data were analyzed by applying statistical methods.ResultsOverall, self-reporting of morbidity was 65.0%. However, the percentage of women with some STD-related syndrome was 71.4%. The rural women were observed to have significantly more STD syndromes than their urban counterparts. The etiological diagnosis could be established in only 32.2% of cases.ConclusionsThis study highlights the wide variation between self-reporting of morbidity and syndromic- and etiology-based diagnosis in women from both rural and urban settings. This has implications for the syndromic approach to STI case management. These observations call for a review of the diagnostic policy for RTIs/STIs by national authorities in order to avoid the overuse of antimicrobials. The study also highlights the need for the introduction and/or strengthening of facilities for simple diagnostic tests for RTIs/STIs, especially at the peripheral healthcare level

Is the Black-widow Pulsar PSR J1555-2908 in a Hierarchical Triple System?

The 559 Hz black-widow pulsar PSR J1555-2908, originally discovered in radio, is also a bright gamma-ray pulsar. Timing its pulsations using 12 yr of Fermi-Large Area Telescope gamma-ray data reveals long-term variations in its spin frequency that are much larger than is observed from other millisecond pulsars. While this variability in the pulsar rotation rate could be intrinsic "timing noise,"here we consider an alternative explanation: the variations arise from the presence of a very-low-mass third object in a wide multiyear orbit around the neutron star and its low-mass companion. With current data, this hierarchical-triple-system model describes the pulsar's rotation slightly more accurately than the best-fitting timing noise model. Future observations will show if this alternative explanation is correct. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Mechanical versus thermodynamical melting in pressure-induced amorphization: the role of defects

We study numerically an atomistic model which is shown to exhibit a one--step crystal--to--amorphous transition upon decompression. The amorphous phase cannot be distinguished from the one obtained by quenching from the melt. For a perfectly crystalline starting sample, the transition occurs at a pressure at which a shear phonon mode destabilizes, and triggers a cascade process leading to the amorphous state. When defects are present, the nucleation barrier is greatly reduced and the transformation occurs very close to the extrapolation of the melting line to low temperatures. In this last case, the transition is not anticipated by the softening of any phonon mode. Our observations reconcile different claims in the literature about the underlying mechanism of pressure amorphization.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Neutrino Masses, Mixing and Oscillations

Basics of neutrino oscillations is discussed. Importance of time-energy uncertainty relation is stressed. Neutrino oscillations in the leading approximation and evidence for neutrino oscillations are briefly summarized.Comment: A report at the International School of Nuclear Physics ``Neutrino in Cosmology, in Astro, Particle and Nuclear Physics'' Erice, Italy, Sept. 16-24, 200

Analytical Treatment of the Oscillating Yukawa Potential

Using a suitable Laguerre basis set that ensures a tridiagonal matrix representation of the reference Hamiltonian, we were able to evaluate in closed form the matrix elements of the generalized Yukawa potential with complex screening parameter. This enabled us to treat analytically both the cosine and sine-like Yukawa potentials on equal footing and compute their bound states spectrum as the eigenvalues of the associated analytical matrix representing their Hamiltonians. Finally we used a carefully designed complex scaling method to evaluate the resonance energies and compared our results satisfactorily with those obtained in the literature.Comment: 8 pages 2 table

Arsenic Contamination in Food-chain: Transfer of Arsenic into Food Materials Through Groundwater Irrigation

Arsenic contamination in groundwater in Bangladesh has become an additional concern vis-\ue0-vis its use for irrigation purposes. Even if arsenic-safe drinking-water is assured, the question of irrigating soils with arsenic-laden groundwater will continue for years to come. Immediate attention should be given to assess the possibility of accumulating arsenic in soils through irrigation-water and its subsequent entry into the food-chain through various food crops and fodders. With this possibility in mind, arsenic content of 2,500 water, soil and vegetable samples from arsenic-affected and arsenic-unaffected areas were analyzed during 1999-2004. Other sources of foods and fodders were also analyzed. Irrigating a rice field with groundwater containing 0.55 mg/L of arsenic with a water requirement of 1,000 mm results in an estimated addition of 5.5 kg of arsenic per ha per annum. Concentration of arsenic as high as 80 mg per kg of soil was found in an area receiving arsenic-contaminated irrigation. A comparison of results from affected and unaffected areas revealed that some commonly-grown vegetables, which would usually be suitable as good sources of nourishment, accumulate substantially-elevated amounts of arsenic. For example, more than 150 mg/kg of arsenic has been found to be accumulated in arum (kochu) vegetable. Implications of arsenic ingested in vegetables and other food materials are discussed in the paper

A 350-MHz GBT Survey of 50 Faint Fermi Gamma-ray Sources for Radio Millisecond Pulsars

We have used the Green Bank Telescope at 350MHz to search 50 faint, unidentified Fermi Gamma-ray sources for radio pulsations. So far, these searches have resulted in the discovery of 10 millisecond pulsars, which are plausible counterparts to these unidentified Fermi sources. Here we briefly describe this survey and the characteristics of the newly discovered MSPs.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in AIP Conference Proceedings of Pulsar Conference 2010 "Radio Pulsars: a key to unlock the secrets of the Universe", Sardinia, October 201