Chemical control of blossom blight disease of sarpagandha caused byColletotrichum capsici

Sarpagandha (Rauvolfia serpentina Benth) is grown in different parts of India and its adjoining countries for its root which is the chief source of several important alkaloids like ajmalicine, ajmaline, isoajmaline, rauvolfinine, reserpine and serpentine. Blossom blight caused by Colletotrichum capsici is one of the most serious diseases of sarpagandha in the North Indian plains. Eight fungicides, namely Benomyl, Carbendazim, Chlorothalonil, Mancozeb, Metalaxyl-mancozeb, Propiconazole, Thiram and Thiophanatemethyl were evaluated against the spore germination and mycelial growth of Colletotrichum capsici under in vitro condition. The results indicated that Mancozeb, Metalaxyl-mancozeb, Propiconazole and Thiram inhibited percent spore germination at the dose of 2 - 10 g/ml, while Benomyl, Carbendazim and Thiophanate-Methyl were ineffective even at 250 g/ml concentration. Propiconazole, Carbendazim, Benomyl, Mancozeb and Metalaxyl-mancozeb were highly effective inhibiting 50% mycelial growth at 2.8, 4.6, 6.0, 9.3 and 11.2 μg/ml, respectively, while Thiophanate-methyl, Chlorothalonil and Thiram were relatively less effective showing 50% mycelial growth inhibition at 25.2, 27.2 and 31.3 μg/ml, respectively. The effective fungicides were further employed for the protection of sarpagandha from blossom blight disease in the field during the year 2006 and 2007. The results of the two years (2006 and 2007) of field experiments indicated that disease incidence was significantly reduced in all the treated plots over unsprayed control. The spray of Mancozeb and Carbendazim produced highest protection that is >80% in both the years against blossom blight disease and their treatments also produced healthy and highest seed yield per plant.Key words: Blossom blight, Colletotrichum capsici, fungicides, Rauvolfia serpentina, sarpagandha

Diclofenac Mouthwash as a potential therapy for reducing pain and discomfort in chemo-radiotherapy-induced oral mucositis

AIMS: Oral and/or oropharyngeal acute mucositis during and after chemo-radiotherapy (chemo-RT) for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) can be extremely painful, sometimes requiring nasogastric feeding to enable adequate nutrition. The MASCC/ISOO evidence- based guidelines recommend benzydamine mouthwash for mucositis prevention in RT (recently updated to include chemo-RT), and a Cochrane systematic review found other agents to be effective in prophylaxis. Diclofenac mouthwash is licenced for painful oral mucosal inflammatory conditions but to our knowledge has not been assessed in chemo-RT associated oral mucositis. METHOD: A clinical observation and service evaluation study in 10 patients undergoing chemo-RT for HNSCC to assess the potential value of diclofenac mouthwash (0.74mg/ml) in reducing symptoms. Patients used 20ml of mouthwash up to 4 times a day starting in week 3 (of a 6 week course of treatment), recording pain and discomfort scores using a visual analogue scale on days 0, 1,7 and 14 (until the end of week 4). As per our current clinical practice, oral mucositis was not clinically scored as an outcome. Statistical analysis was performed using a one-way ANOVA. RESULTS: Using diclofenac mouthwash, 9/10 patients experienced pain score reduction from day 0 (mean score 6.75 +/- SD 1.83) to day 2 (5.05 +/- SD 1.62) and day 14 (4.09 +/- SD 1.96). CONCLUSIONS: Diclofenac mouthwash may be beneficial for managing chemo-RT-induced oral mucositis. While a prospective randomised clinical trial is needed, it can be prescribed for this condition within its current licence

Designing a handwashing station for infrastructure-restricted communities in Bangladesh using the integrated behavioural model for water, sanitation and hygiene interventions (IBM-WASH).

BACKGROUND: In Bangladesh diarrhoeal disease and respiratory infections contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality. Handwashing with soap reduces the risk of infection; however, handwashing rates in infrastructure-restricted settings remain low. Handwashing stations--a dedicated, convenient location where both soap and water are available for handwashing--are associated with improved handwashing practices. Our aim was to identify a locally feasible and acceptable handwashing station that enabled frequent handwashing for two subsequent randomized trials testing the health effects of this behaviour. METHODS: We conducted formative research in the form of household trials of improved practices in urban and rural Bangladesh. Seven candidate handwashing technologies were tested by nine to ten households each during two iterative phases. We conducted interviews with participants during an introductory visit and two to five follow up visits over two to six weeks, depending on the phase. We used the Integrated Behavioural Model for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IBM-WASH) to guide selection of candidate handwashing stations and data analysis. Factors presented in the IBM-WASH informed thematic coding of interview transcripts and contextualized feasibility and acceptability of specific handwashing station designs. RESULTS: Factors that influenced selection of candidate designs were market availability of low cost, durable materials that were easy to replace or replenish in an infrastructure-restricted and shared environment. Water storage capacity, ease of use and maintenance, and quality of materials determined the acceptability and feasibility of specific handwashing station designs. After examining technology, psychosocial and contextual factors, we selected a handwashing system with two different water storage capacities, each with a tap, stand, basin, soapy water bottle and detergent powder for pilot testing in preparation for the subsequent randomized trials. CONCLUSIONS: A number of contextual, psychosocial and technological factors influence use of handwashing stations at five aggregate levels, from habitual to societal. In interventions that require a handwashing station to facilitate frequent handwashing with soap, elements of the technology, such as capacity, durability and location(s) within the household are key to high feasibility and acceptability. More than one handwashing station per household may be required. IBM-WASH helped guide the research and research in-turn helped validate the framework

Ferumoxytol-enhanced MRI in patients with prior cardiac transplantation.

Objectives: Ultra-small superparamagnetic particles of iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced MRI can detect cellular inflammation within tissues and may help non-invasively identify cardiac transplant rejection. Here, we aimed to determine the normal reference values for USPIO-enhanced MRI in patients with a prior cardiac transplant and examine whether USPIO-enhanced MRI could detect myocardial inflammation in patients with transplant rejection. Methods: Ten volunteers and 11 patients with cardiac transplant underwent T2, T2* and late gadolinium enhancement 1.5T MRI, with further T2* imaging at 24 hours after USPIO (ferumoxytol, 4 mg/kg) infusion, at baseline and 3 months. Results: Ten patients with clinically stable cardiac transplantation were retained for analysis. Myocardial T2 values were higher in patients with cardiac transplant versus healthy volunteers (53.8±5.2 vs 48.6±1.9 ms, respectively; p=0.003). There were no differences in the magnitude of USPIO-induced change in R2* in patients with transplantation (change in R2*, 26.6±7.3 vs 22.0±10.4 s-1 in healthy volunteers; p=0.28). After 3 months, patients with transplantation (n=5) had unaltered T2 values (52.7±2.8 vs 52.12±3.4 ms; p=0.80) and changes in R2* following USPIO (29.42±8.14 vs 25.8±7.8 s-1; p=0.43). Conclusion: Stable patients with cardiac transplantation have increased myocardial T2 values, consistent with resting myocardial oedema or fibrosis. In contrast, USPIO-enhanced MRI is normal and stable over time suggesting the absence of chronic macrophage-driven cellular inflammation. It remains to be determined whether USPIO-enhanced MRI may be able to identify acute cardiac transplant rejection. Trial registration number: NCT02319278349 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02319278) Registered 03.12.2014 EUDraCT 2013-002336-24

Early Detection of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy: A Focus on Small Nerve Fibres

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is the most common complication of both type 1 and 2 diabetes. As a result, neuropathic pain, diabetic foot ulcers and lower-limb amputations impact drastically on quality of life, contributing to the individual, societal, financial and healthcare burden of diabetes. DPN is diagnosed at a late, often pre-ulcerative stage due to a lack of early systematic screening and the endorsement of monofilament testing which identifies advanced neuropathy only. Compared to the success of the diabetic eye and kidney screening programmes there is clearly an unmet need for an objective reliable biomarker for the detection of early DPN. This article critically appraises research and clinical methods for the diagnosis or screening of early DPN. In brief, functional measures are subjective and are difficult to implement due to technical complexity. Moreover, skin biopsy is invasive, expensive and lacks diagnostic laboratory capacity. Indeed, point-of-care nerve conduction tests are convenient and easy to implement however questions are raised regarding their suitability for use in screening due to the lack of small nerve fibre evaluation. Corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) is a rapid, non-invasive, and reproducible technique to quantify small nerve fibre damage and repair which can be conducted alongside retinopathy screening. CCM identifies early sub-clinical DPN, predicts the development and allows staging of DPN severity. Automated quantification of CCM with AI has enabled enhanced unbiased quantification of small nerve fibres and potentially early diagnosis of DPN. Improved screening tools will prevent and reduce the burden of foot ulceration and amputations with the primary aim of reducing the prevalence of this common microvascular complication

Formyl Peptide Receptor as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Anxiety-Related Disorders

Formyl peptide receptors (FPR) belong to a family of sensors of the immune system that detect microbe-associated molecules and inform various cellular and sensorial mechanisms to the presence of pathogens in the host. Here we demonstrate that Fpr2/3-deficient mice show a distinct profile of behaviour characterised by reduced anxiety in the marble burying and light-dark box paradigms, increased exploratory behaviour in an open-field, together with superior performance on a novel object recognition test. Pharmacological blockade with a formyl peptide receptor antagonist, Boc2, in wild type mice reproduced most of the behavioural changes observed in the Fpr2/3(-/-) mice, including a significant improvement in novel object discrimination and reduced anxiety in a light/dark shuttle test. These effects were associated with reduced FPR signalling in the gut as shown by the significant reduction in the levels of p-p38. Collectively, these findings suggest that homeostatic FPR signalling exerts a modulatory effect on anxiety-like behaviours. These findings thus suggest that therapies targeting FPRs may be a novel approach to ameliorate behavioural abnormalities present in neuropsychiatric disorders at the cognitive-emotional interface

The Universal One-Loop Effective Action

We present the universal one-loop effective action for all operators of dimension up to six obtained by integrating out massive, non-degenerate multiplets. Our general expression may be applied to loops of heavy fermions or bosons, and has been checked against partial results available in the literature. The broad applicability of this approach simplifies one-loop matching from an ultraviolet model to a lower-energy effective field theory (EFT), a procedure which is now reduced to the evaluation of a combination of matrices in our universal expression, without any loop integrals to evaluate. We illustrate the relationship of our results to the Standard Model (SM) EFT, using as an example the supersymmetric stop and sbottom squark Lagrangian and extracting from our universal expression the Wilson coefficients of dimension-six operators composed of SM fields.Comment: 30 pages, v2 contains additional comments and corrects typos, version accepted for publication in JHE

Measurement of the Masses and Widths of the Sigma_c^++ and Sigma_c^0 Charmed Baryons

Using data recorded by the CLEO II and CLEO II.V detector configurations at CESR, we report new measurements of the masses of the Sigma_c^{++} and Sigma_c^0 charmed baryons, and the first measurements of their intrinsic widths. We find M(Sigma_c^{++}) - M(Lambda_c^+) = 167.4 +- 0.1 +- 0.2 MeV, Gamma(Sigma_c^{++}) = 2.3 +- 0.2 +- 0.3 MeV, and M(Sigma_c^0) - M(Lambda_c^+) = 167.2 +- 0.1 +- 0.2 MeV, Gamma(Sigma_c^0) = 2.5 +- 0.2 +- 0.3 MeV, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.Comment: 9 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS, submitted to PRD, Rapid Communications. Reference [13] correcte

Experimental Evidence for Reduced Rodent Diversity Causing Increased Hantavirus Prevalence

Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have become a major global environmental problem with important public health, economic, and political consequences. The etiologic agents of most emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, and anthropogenic environmental changes that affect wildlife communities are increasingly implicated in disease emergence and spread. Although increased disease incidence has been correlated with biodiversity loss for several zoonoses, experimental tests in these systems are lacking. We manipulated small-mammal biodiversity by removing non-reservoir species in replicated field plots in Panama, where zoonotic hantaviruses are endemic. Both infection prevalence of hantaviruses in wild reservoir (rodent) populations and reservoir population density increased where small-mammal species diversity was reduced. Regardless of other variables that affect the prevalence of directly transmitted infections in natural communities, high biodiversity is important in reducing transmission of zoonotic pathogens among wildlife hosts. Our results have wide applications in both conservation biology and infectious disease management