On the variability and increasing trends of heat waves over India

Over India, heat waves occur during the summer months of April to June. A gridded daily temperature data set for the period, 1961–2013 has been analyzed to examine the variability and trends in heat waves over India. For identifying heat waves, the Excess Heat Factor (EHF) and 90th percentile of maximum temperatures were used. Over central and northwestern parts of the country, frequency, total duration and maximum duration of heat waves are increasing. Anomalous persistent high with anti-cyclonic flow, supplemented with clear skies and depleted soil moisture are primarily responsible for the occurrence of heat waves over India. Variability of heat waves over India is influenced by both the tropical Indian Ocean and central Pacific SST anomalies. The warming of the tropical Indian Ocean and more frequent El Nino events in future may further lead to more frequent and longer lasting heat waves over India

Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency following gastrectomy and quality of life in patients undergoing gastric resection for malignancy

BACKGROUND: Gastrectomy for adenocarcinoma stomach is a major procedure that causes significant morbidity to the patient and can influence the quality of life of patients. One major concerns following gastrectomy is the complaints of post-operative steatorrhea and weight loss which is attributed to lipid malabsorption. One of the postulated causes of lipid malabsorption following gastrectomy and Roux en Y reconstruction is exocrine pancreatic enzyme insufficiency. AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To find the incidence of exocrine pancreas insufficiency following gastrectomy, for gastric cancer and to assess the quality of life in patients undergoing gastric resection for malignancy. MATERIALS AND METHOD: This was a cross-sectional study among patients undergoing gastric resection for adenocarcinoma in the Upper GI surgical unit, Department of General Surgery in Christian Medical College, Vellore. Patients planned for gastrectomy fulfilling the study recruitment criteria and consented for the study were tested for stool elastase pre-operatively and post-operatively. Continuous sampling of all eligible patients were done till sample size was reached. All patients who underwent gastrectomy for adenocarcinoma stomach during the study period in 2017 were assessed for quality of life using a semi structured questionnaire from a validated questionnaire EORTC QLQ C30 and EORTC QLQ STO22 during their postoperative period. Retrospective QOL analysis was performed on the patients who had undergone gastrectomy for adenocarcinoma stomach between the years 2013 and 2016. Data was entered using Epidata 3.1 and analysed using SPSS 23. RESULTS: The incidence of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency calculated by stool elastase testing in subtotal and total gastrectomy was 40% and 16.7% respectively. The overall incidence of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency in gastrectomy was 34.6% None of the patients in the study had significant clinical symptoms suggestive of steatorrhea or fat malabsorption. The was no statistical difference between total and subtotal gastrectomy with the incidence of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. More number of patients at 1-year follow-up have higher pain and eating restriction score which decreases as the follow up time period increases. Quality of life score was not influenced by the type of gastrectomy, method of surgery, stage of disease at presentation or the resection intent. As the follow up time period from time of surgery increases by a month, the overall quality of life score decreases by 2 points. CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency following gastric resection for malignancy is low in our population compared to the Western data. Routine supplementation of pancreatic enzyme supplements to all patients undergoing gastrectomy may not be required. However, screening for pancreatic insufficiency by stool elastase testing, in the subgroup of patients who are malnourished or have symptoms of fat malabsorption may help detect this problem, which can be addressed effectively by exocrine pancreatic supplementation

16S rRNA gene taxonomic profiling of endophytic bacteria associated with phylaenopsis roots

Orchids are one of the main groups of ornamental plants commercially exploited. In the present study, we analyzed the diversity of bacterial community in Phalaenopsis root using metagenomic approach. The diversity of bacterial taxonomic category was assessed at different Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) levels using Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) pipeline and MG-RAST. At phylum level, Proteobacteria (61.34%) was the most dominant group followed by unclassified derived from bacteria (24.74%) and Actinobacteria (12.52%). Genus level analysis revealed the abundance of Rubrobacter, Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter. The study revealed that of the total species detected 50.83 per cent were unclassified, stressing the importance of metagenomics to assess the diversity of endophytes associated with orchid roots

Monsoon variability: links to major oscillations over the equatorial Pacific and Indian oceans

In this article, we first discuss our perception of the factors which are critical for inter-annual variation of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall and the major milestones leading to this understanding. The nature of the two critical modes for monsoon variability, viz. El Nino Southern Oscillation and equatorial Indian Ocean Oscillation is considered and their links to the monsoon elucidated. We suggest possible reasons for the rather poor skill of simulation of the interannual variation of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall by atmospheric general circulation models, run with the observed sea surface temperature as boundary condition. We discuss implications of what we have learned for the monsoon of 2006, and possible use of information on the two important modes for prediction of the rainfall in all or part of the summer monsoon season. We conclude with our view of what the focus of re-search and development should be for achieving a substantial improvement in the skill of simulation and prediction of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall in the next future

A mechanism for the recently increased interdecadal variability of the Silk Road Pattern

The Silk Road Pattern (SRP) teleconnection manifests in summer over Eurasia, where it is associated with substantial temperature and precipitation anomalies. The SRP varies on interannual and decadal scales; reanalyses show an increase in its decadal variability around the mid-1970s. Understanding what drives this decadal variability is particularly important, because contemporary seasonal prediction models struggle to predict the phase of the SRP. Based on analysis of observations and multiple targeted numerical experiments, this study proposes a mechanism for decadal SRP variability. Causal Effect Network analysis confirms a positive feedback loop between the eastern portion of the SRP pattern and vertical motion over India on synoptic timescales. Anomalies over a larger region of subtropical South Asia can reinforce a background state that projects onto the positive or negative SRP through this mechanism. This effect is isolated and confirmed in targeted numerical simulations. The transition from weak to strong decadal variability in the mid-1970s is consistent with more spatially coherent interannual precipitation variability over subtropical South Asia. Furthermore, results suggest that oceanic variability does not directly force the SRP. Nevertheless, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific may indirectly affect the SRP by modulating South Asian rainfall on decadal timescales

A three-level common-mode voltage eliminated inverter with single dc supply using flying capacitor inverter and cascaded H-bridge

A three-level common-mode voltage eliminated in- verter with single dc supply using flying capacitor inverter and cascaded H-bridge has been proposed in this paper. The three phase space vector polygon formed by this configuration and the polygon formed by the common-mode eliminated states have been discussed. The entire system is simulated in Simulink and the re- sults are experimentally verified. This system has an advantage that if one of devices in the H-bridge fails, the system can still be oper- ated as a normal three-level inverter at full power. This inverter has many other advantages like use of single dc supply, making it pos- sible for a back-to-back grid-tied converter application, improved reliability, etc

Study of atmospheric forcing and responses (SAFAR) campaign: overview

Study of Atmospheric Forcing and Responses (SAFAR) is a five year (2009-2014) research programme specifically to address the responses of the earth's atmosphere to both natural and anthropogenic forcings using a host of collocated instruments operational at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India from a unified viewpoint of studying the vertical coupling between the forcings and responses from surface layer to the ionosphere. As a prelude to the main program a pilot campaign was conducted at Gadanki during May-November 2008 using collocated observations from the MST radar, Rayleigh lidar, GPS balloonsonde, and instruments measuring aerosol, radiation and precipitation, and supporting satellite data. We show the importance of the large radiative heating caused by absorption of solar radiation by soot particles in the lower atmosphere, the observed high vertical winds in the convective updrafts extending up to tropopause, and the difficulty in simulating the same with existing models, the upward traveling waves in the middle atmosphere coupling the lower atmosphere with the upper atmosphere, their manifestation in the mesospheric temperature structure and inversion layers, the mesopause height extending up to 100 km, and the electro-dynamical coupling between mesosphere and the ionosphere which causes irregularities in the ionospheric F-region. The purpose of this communication is not only to share the knowledge that we gained from the SAFAR pilot campaign, but also to inform the international atmospheric science community about the SAFAR program as well as to extend our invitation to join in our journey

The role of the basic state in the ENSO-monsoon relationship and implications for predictability

The impact of systematic model errors on a coupled simulation of the Asian Summer monsoon and its interannual variability is studied. Although the mean monsoon climate is reasonably well captured, systematic errors in the equatorial Pacific mean that the monsoon-ENSO teleconnection is rather poorly represented in the GCM. A system of ocean-surface heat flux adjustments is implemented in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans in order to reduce the systematic biases. In this version of the GCM, the monsoon-ENSO teleconnection is better simulated, particularly the lag-lead relationships in which weak monsoons precede the peak of El Nino. In part this is related to changes in the characteristics of El Nino, which has a more realistic evolution in its developing phase. A stronger ENSO amplitude in the new model version also feeds back to further strengthen the teleconnection. These results have important implications for the use of coupled models for seasonal prediction of systems such as the monsoon, and suggest that some form of flux correction may have significant benefits where model systematic error compromises important teleconnections and modes of interannual variability

Integrated Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis with an Application to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Systems biologic approaches such as Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) can effectively integrate gene expression and trait data to identify pathways and candidate biomarkers. Here we show that the additional inclusion of genetic marker data allows one to characterize network relationships as causal or reactive in a chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) data set.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We combine WGCNA with genetic marker data to identify a disease-related pathway and its causal drivers, an analysis which we refer to as "Integrated WGCNA" or IWGCNA. Specifically, we present the following IWGCNA approach: 1) construct a co-expression network, 2) identify trait-related modules within the network, 3) use a trait-related genetic marker to prioritize genes within the module, 4) apply an integrated gene screening strategy to identify candidate genes and 5) carry out causality testing to verify and/or prioritize results. By applying this strategy to a CFS data set consisting of microarray, SNP and clinical trait data, we identify a module of 299 highly correlated genes that is associated with CFS severity. Our integrated gene screening strategy results in 20 candidate genes. We show that our approach yields biologically interesting genes that function in the same pathway and are causal drivers for their parent module. We use a separate data set to replicate findings and use Ingenuity Pathways Analysis software to functionally annotate the candidate gene pathways.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We show how WGCNA can be combined with genetic marker data to identify disease-related pathways and the causal drivers within them. The systems genetics approach described here can easily be used to generate testable genetic hypotheses in other complex disease studies.</p