BIO-RESIDUAL STUDIES AND TREATING GUNNY SACKS WITH COUMARINS EXTRACT ON SEED PROTECTION AGAINST COWPEA BEETLE, CALLOSOBRUCHUS MACULATUS (FAB.)

Cowpea beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (Fab.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), is the most important storage pest of cowpea. The quantification of cowpea losses through C. maculatus is very desirable. Coumarins possess controlling cowpea beetle. Both Ethanol and Chloroform extracts of Murraya, Kumquat and Celery plants were studied. Murraya ethanol extracts was more efficient than chloroform, as it induces higher percentage of reduction in the progeny, also protects cowpea seeds till 6 months when using the higher concentration (4%). Gunny sacks were treated with different extracts of the three of plants as an application method for protecting stored grain from infestation and ethanol extracts was a more effective than chloroform. The effect of the extracts on the weight loss of cowpea seeds was studied. The reduction percentage in weight increased from zero to 13% and 17.10% after nine months for both chloroform and ethanol kumquat extracts, respectively at the higher concentration used

BIO-RESIDUAL STUDIES AND TREATING GUNNY SACKS WITH COUMARINS EXTRACT ON SEED PROTECTION AGAINST COWPEA BEETLE, CALLOSOBRUCHUS MACULATUS (FAB.)

Cowpea beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (Fab.) (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), is the most important storage pest of cowpea. The quantification of cowpea losses through C. maculatus is very desirable. Coumarins possess controlling cowpea beetle. Both Ethanol and Chloroform extracts of Murraya, Kumquat and Celery plants were studied. Murraya ethanol extracts was more efficient than chloroform, as it induces higher percentage of reduction in the progeny, also protects cowpea seeds till 6 months when using the higher concentration (4%). Gunny sacks were treated with different extracts of the three of plants as an application method for protecting stored grain from infestation and ethanol extracts was a more effective than chloroform. The effect of the extracts on the weight loss of cowpea seeds was studied. The reduction percentage in weight increased from zero to 13% and 17.10% after nine months for both chloroform and ethanol kumquat extracts, respectively at the higher concentration used

In vitro digestibility and methane gas production of fodder from improved cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) varieties

Open Access JournalIn vitro substrate degradability and methane gas production of fodder from cowpea and groundnut plants were evaluated in this study. Duplicate samples and three batch replicates (n = 3) of three groundnut varieties (Samnut 22, Chinese and Samnut 23) and two cowpea varieties (Padi Tuya and Songotra) were incubated in a buffered rumen fluid. The crude protein (CP) concentration of Songotra and Padi Tuya varieties was in the range of 112 to 154 g kg−1 dry matter (DM), respectively. Both neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and acid detergent fiber (ADF) were found to be higher in Samnut 22 with the other varieties having values below 400 g kg−1 DM. Significant differences were found among treatments for all the in vitro kinetic parameters. The highest (P <0.05) DM and organic matter (OM) degradability were observed in cowpea variety Padi Tuya. Methane gas production expressed as ml g − 1 DM incubated and ml g − 1 DM degraded were both higher (P <0.05) in cowpea varieties Padi Tuya, Songotra and groundnut variety Chinese. Total volatile fatty acid and the ratio of acetate: propionate did not differ among the treatments. Pearson correlation showed a significant positive association between CP and metabolizable energy (ME) and a negative association between CP and methane. The association between NDF, ADF and methane production, IVOMD and IVDMD was found to be negative. It can be concluded from the study that the cowpea varieties possessed superior and efficient degradability compared to the groundnut varieties

Studies of annealing impact on the morphological, opto-dielectric and mechanical behaviors of molybdenum-doped CrN coatings

In the present study, molybdenum doped chromium nitride coatings deposited onto silicon substrates via unbalanced magnetron sputtering, in as-deposited and annealed conditions, at 500–800 °C in steps of 100 °C, were studied to reveal their temperature dependent structural, morphological, optical and mechanical behaviors. An analysis of these features was carried out using X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), ultraviolet visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, nanoindentation and finite element modeling (FEM) techniques. XRD results exhibited a significant improvement in the crystallinity of the Molybdenum (Mo)-doped chromium nitride (CrN) coatings along (111) and (200) diffraction planes, as the annealing temperatures increased. The lattice parameters gradually decreased from 4.20 to 4.12 Å as the temperature increased. The same tendency was also observed for lattice microstrains and residual stresses. Smooth grain-like surfaces were observed by FESEM imaging techniques. At an annealing temperature of 700 °C, the spectral absorptance of Mo:CrN films attained its peak value (86%), whereas the energy band-gaps were reduced from 2.48 to 1.14 eV. The other optical parameters such as complex dielectric constants, Urbach energy values, and steepness parameters of these coatings were also discussed. The hardness and elastic modulus of the as-deposited Mo:CrN films were estimated to be 18.4 and 287 GPa, respectively. At a film thickness of 1.0 μm, the highest stress of 20 GPa was evaluated, via FEM studies, at the interface between the film and the substrate. As the film thickness was enhanced, the stress level decreased. At higher annealing temperatures, both the mechanical hardness (H) and the elastic modulus (E) of Mo-doped CrN coatings dwindled

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Cancer testis antigen Sperm Protein 17 as a new target for triple negative breast cancer immunotherapy

Breast carcinoma is a major health issue for millions of women. Current therapies have serious side effects, and are only partially effective in patients with metastatic tumors. Thus, the need for novel and less toxic therapies is urgent. Moreover, hormonal and antibody therapies effective in other subtypes are not effective in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC). Immunotherapeutic strategies directed against specific tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) and mediated by specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) have been largely underexplored in this disease. Cancer-testis antigens (CTA) are a group of TAAs displaying the ideal characteristics of promising vaccine targets, i.e. strong immunogenicity and cancer specificity. The CTA, Sperm Protein 17 (SP17), has been found to be aberrantly expressed in different neoplasms, including ovarian and esophageal cancers, nervous system tumors and multiple myeloma, and has been suggested as a candidate target for immunotherapy. Here, we evaluated SP17 expression levels in breast cancer cell lines, invasive ductal breast carcinoma, including patients with TNBC, and adjacent non-neoplastic breast tissue, and determined whether SP17 was capable of generating SP17-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vitro. We showed that SP17 is expressed in breast cancer cell lines and primary breast tumors and importantly in TNBC subtype, but not in adjacent non-tumoral breast tissue or unaffected tissues, except in male germinal cells. Furthermore, we detected specific anti-SP17 antibodies in patients' sera and we generated SP17-specific, HLA class I-restricted, cytotoxic T lymphocytes capable of efficiently killing breast cancer cells

Population and fertility by age and sex for 195 countries and territories, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

This online publication has been corrected. The corrected version first appeared at thelancet.com on June 20, 2019BACKGROUND:Population estimates underpin demographic and epidemiological research and are used to track progress on numerous international indicators of health and development. To date, internationally available estimates of population and fertility, although useful, have not been produced with transparent and replicable methods and do not use standardised estimates of mortality. We present single-calendar year and single-year of age estimates of fertility and population by sex with standardised and replicable methods. METHODS:We estimated population in 195 locations by single year of age and single calendar year from 1950 to 2017 with standardised and replicable methods. We based the estimates on the demographic balancing equation, with inputs of fertility, mortality, population, and migration data. Fertility data came from 7817 location-years of vital registration data, 429 surveys reporting complete birth histories, and 977 surveys and censuses reporting summary birth histories. We estimated age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs; the annual number of livebirths to women of a specified age group per 1000 women in that age group) by use of spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression and used the ASFRs to estimate total fertility rates (TFRs; the average number of children a woman would bear if she survived through the end of the reproductive age span [age 10-54 years] and experienced at each age a particular set of ASFRs observed in the year of interest). Because of sparse data, fertility at ages 10-14 years and 50-54 years was estimated from data on fertility in women aged 15-19 years and 45-49 years, through use of linear regression. Age-specific mortality data came from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 estimates. Data on population came from 1257 censuses and 761 population registry location-years and were adjusted for underenumeration and age misreporting with standard demographic methods. Migration was estimated with the GBD Bayesian demographic balancing model, after incorporating information about refugee migration into the model prior. Final population estimates used the cohort-component method of population projection, with inputs of fertility, mortality, and migration data. Population uncertainty was estimated by use of out-of-sample predictive validity testing. With these data, we estimated the trends in population by age and sex and in fertility by age between 1950 and 2017 in 195 countries and territories. FINDINGS:From 1950 to 2017, TFRs decreased by 49·4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 46·4-52·0). The TFR decreased from 4·7 livebirths (4·5-4·9) to 2·4 livebirths (2·2-2·5), and the ASFR of mothers aged 10-19 years decreased from 37 livebirths (34-40) to 22 livebirths (19-24) per 1000 women. Despite reductions in the TFR, the global population has been increasing by an average of 83·8 million people per year since 1985. The global population increased by 197·2% (193·3-200·8) since 1950, from 2·6 billion (2·5-2·6) to 7·6 billion (7·4-7·9) people in 2017; much of this increase was in the proportion of the global population in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The global annual rate of population growth increased between 1950 and 1964, when it peaked at 2·0%; this rate then remained nearly constant until 1970 and then decreased to 1·1% in 2017. Population growth rates in the southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania GBD super-region decreased from 2·5% in 1963 to 0·7% in 2017, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth rates were almost at the highest reported levels ever in 2017, when they were at 2·7%. The global average age increased from 26·6 years in 1950 to 32·1 years in 2017, and the proportion of the population that is of working age (age 15-64 years) increased from 59·9% to 65·3%. At the national level, the TFR decreased in all countries and territories between 1950 and 2017; in 2017, TFRs ranged from a low of 1·0 livebirths (95% UI 0·9-1·2) in Cyprus to a high of 7·1 livebirths (6·8-7·4) in Niger. The TFR under age 25 years (TFU25; number of livebirths expected by age 25 years for a hypothetical woman who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) in 2017 ranged from 0·08 livebirths (0·07-0·09) in South Korea to 2·4 livebirths (2·2-2·6) in Niger, and the TFR over age 30 years (TFO30; number of livebirths expected for a hypothetical woman ageing from 30 to 54 years who survived the age group and was exposed to current ASFRs) ranged from a low of 0·3 livebirths (0·3-0·4) in Puerto Rico to a high of 3·1 livebirths (3·0-3·2) in Niger. TFO30 was higher than TFU25 in 145 countries and territories in 2017. 33 countries had a negative population growth rate from 2010 to 2017, most of which were located in central, eastern, and western Europe, whereas population growth rates of more than 2·0% were seen in 33 of 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, less than 65% of the national population was of working age in 12 of 34 high-income countries, and less than 50% of the national population was of working age in Mali, Chad, and Niger. INTERPRETATION:Population trends create demographic dividends and headwinds (ie, economic benefits and detriments) that affect national economies and determine national planning needs. Although TFRs are decreasing, the global population continues to grow as mortality declines, with diverse patterns at the national level and across age groups. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide transparent and replicable estimates of population and fertility, which can be used to inform decision making and to monitor progress. FUNDING:Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Christopher J L Murray ... Azmeraw T Amare ... Habtamu Abera Areri ... Peter S Azzopardi ... Bernhard T Baune ... Liliana G Ciobanu ... Garumma Tolu Feyissa ... Tiffany K Gill ... Ratilal Lalloo ... Zohra S Lassi ... Jean Jacques Noubiap ... Andrew T Olagunju ... Engida Yisma ... et al. (GBD 2017 Population and Fertility Collaborators

The COMPARE Data Hubs

Data sharing enables research communities to exchange findings and build upon the knowledge that arises from their discoveries. Areas of public and animal health as well as food safety would benefit from rapid data sharing when it comes to emergencies. However, ethical, regulatory and institutional challenges, as well as lack of suitable platforms which provide an infrastructure for data sharing in structured formats, often lead to data not being shared or at most shared in form of supplementary materials in journal publications. Here, we describe an informatics platform that includes workflows for structured data storage, managing and pre-publication sharing of pathogen sequencing data and its analysis interpretations with relevant stakeholders

Evaluating the relationship between ciprofloxacin prescription and non-susceptibility in Salmonella Typhi in Blantyre, Malawi: an observational study

Background: Ciprofloxacin is the first-line drug for treating typhoid fever in many countries in Africa with a high disease burden, but the emergence of non-susceptibility poses a challenge to public health programmes. Through enhanced surveillance as part of vaccine evaluation, we investigated the occurrence and potential determinants of ciprofloxacin non-susceptibility in Blantyre, Malawi. Methods: We conducted systematic surveillance of typhoid fever cases and antibiotic prescription in two health centres in Blantyre, Malawi, between Oct 1, 2016, and Oct 31, 2019, as part of the STRATAA and TyVAC studies. In addition, blood cultures were taken from eligible patients presenting at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, as part of routine diagnosis. Inclusion criteria were measured or reported fever, or clinical suspicion of sepsis. Microbiologically, we identified Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi (S Typhi) isolates with a ciprofloxacin non-susceptible phenotype from blood cultures, and used whole-genome sequencing to identify drug-resistance mutations and phylogenetic relationships. We constructed generalised linear regression models to investigate associations between the number of ciprofloxacin prescriptions given per month to study participants and the proportion of S Typhi isolates with quinolone resistance-determining region (QRDR) mutations in the following month. Findings: From 46 989 blood cultures from Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, 502 S Typhi isolates were obtained, 30 (6%) of which had either decreased ciprofloxacin susceptibility, or ciprofloxacin resistance. From 11 295 blood cultures from STRATAA and TyVAC studies, 241 microbiologically confirmed cases of typhoid fever were identified, and 198 isolates from 195 participants sequenced (mean age 12·8 years [SD 10·2], 53% female, 47% male). Between Oct 1, 2016, and Aug 31, 2019, of 177 typhoid fever cases confirmed by whole-genome sequencing, four (2%) were caused by S Typhi with QRDR mutations, compared with six (33%) of 18 cases between Sept 1 and Oct 31, 2019. This increase was associated with a preceding spike in ciprofloxacin prescriptions. Every additional prescription of ciprofloxacin given to study participants in the preceding month was associated with a 4·2% increase (95% CI 1·8–7·0) in the relative risk of isolating S Typhi with a QRDR mutation (p=0·0008). Phylogenetic analysis showed that S Typhi isolates with QRDR mutations from September and October, 2019, belonged to two distinct subclades encoding two different QRDR mutations, and were closely related (4–10 single-nucleotide polymorphisms) to susceptible S Typhi endemic to Blantyre. Interpretation: We postulate a causal relationship between increased ciprofloxacin prescriptions and an increase in fluoroquinolone non-susceptibility in S Typhi. Decreasing ciprofloxacin use by improving typhoid diagnostics, and reducing typhoid fever cases through the use of an efficacious vaccine, could help to limit the emergence of resistance. Funding: Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and National Institute for Health and Care Research (UK)