Quantitative Analysis of Curing Mechanisms of Epoxy Resin by Mid- and Near- Fourier Transform Infra Red Spectroscopy

This article informs the essence of major work done by a number of researchers on the analysis of two-step curing mechanism of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) epoxy resin in presence of amine curing agents using near- and mid-IR technology. Various peaks used as a marker for resin formation are discussed and their implementation is comprehensively studied. In addition to this, a wide range of information about the importance of reference peaks in both near-IR (NIR) and mid-IR (MIR) regions are congregated and their accuracy is audited. Also discrepancies observed by researchers in epoxy conversion (α) in NIR and MIR regions are reviewed to highlight the comparative advantages of both regions, one over the other.Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 3, May 2014, pp. 314-321, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.732

Identification and in vitro evaluation of lipids from sclerotia of lignosus rhinocerotis for antioxidant and anti-neuroinflammatory activities

Lignosus rhinocerotis (Cooke) Ryvarden (Tiger milk mushroom) is traditionally used to treat inflammation triggered symptoms and illnesses such as cough, fever and asthma. The present study evaluated the in vitro antioxidant, cytotoxic and anti-neuroinflammatory activities of the extract and fractions of sclerotia powder of L. rhinocerotis on brain microglial (BV2) cells. The ethyl acetate fraction had a total phenolic content of 0.30 ± 0.11 mg GAE/g. This fraction had ferric reducing capacity of 61.8 ± 1.8 mg FSE/g, ABTS+ scavenging activity of 36.8 ± 1.8 mg TE/g and DPPH free radical scavenging activity of 21.8% ± 0.7. At doses ranging from 0.1 μg/mL - 100 μg/mL, the extract and fractions were not cytotoxic to BV2 cells. At 100 μg/mL, the crude hydroethanolic extract and the ethyl acetate fraction elicited the highest nitric oxide reduction activities of 68.7% and 58.2%, respectively. Linoleic and oleic acids were the major lipid constituents in the ethyl acetate fraction based on FID and GC-MS analysis. Linoleic acid reduced nitric oxide production and down regulated the expression of neuroinflammatory iNOS and COX2 genes in BV2 cells

The epidemiology of soil-transmitted helminths in Bihar State, India.

BACKGROUND: Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) infect over a billion individuals worldwide. In India, 241 million children are estimated to need deworming to avert the negative consequences STH infections can have on child health and development. In February-April 2011, 17 million children in Bihar State were dewormed during a government-led school-based deworming campaign. Prior to programme implementation, a study was conducted to assess STH prevalence in the school-age population to direct the programme. The study also investigated risk factors for STH infections, including caste, literacy, and defecation and hygiene practices, in order to inform the development of complementary interventions. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among children in 20 schools in Bihar. In addition to providing stool samples for identification of STH infections, children completed a short questionnaire detailing their usual defecation and hand-hygiene practices. Risk factors for STH infections were explored. RESULTS: In January-February 2011, 1279 school children aged four to seventeen provided stool samples and 1157 children also completed the questionnaire. Overall, 68% of children (10-86% across schools) were infected with one or more soil-transmitted helminth species. The prevalence of ascariasis, hookworm and trichuriasis was 52%, 42% and 5% respectively. The majority of children (95%) practiced open defecation and reported most frequently cleansing hands with soil (61%). Increasing age, lack of maternal literacy and certain castes were independently associated with hookworm infection. Absence of a hand-washing station at the schools was also independently associated with A. lumbricoides infection. CONCLUSIONS: STH prevalence in Bihar is high, and justifies mass deworming in school-aged children. Open defecation is common-place and hands are often cleansed using soil. The findings reported here can be used to help direct messaging appropriate to mothers with low levels of literacy and emphasise the importance of water and sanitation in the control of helminths and other diseases

Genome-wide association study for type 2 diabetes in Indians identifies a new susceptibility locus at 2q21.

Indians undergoing socioeconomic and lifestyle transitions will be maximally affected by epidemic of type 2 diabetes (T2D). We conducted a two-stage genome-wide association study of T2D in 12,535 Indians, a less explored but high-risk group. We identified a new type 2 diabetes-associated locus at 2q21, with the lead signal being rs6723108 (odds ratio 1.31; P = 3.32 × 10⁻⁹). Imputation analysis refined the signal to rs998451 (odds ratio 1.56; P = 6.3 × 10⁻¹²) within TMEM163 that encodes a probable vesicular transporter in nerve terminals. TMEM163 variants also showed association with decreased fasting plasma insulin and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance, indicating a plausible effect through impaired insulin secretion. The 2q21 region also harbors RAB3GAP1 and ACMSD; those are involved in neurologic disorders. Forty-nine of 56 previously reported signals showed consistency in direction with similar effect sizes in Indians and previous studies, and 25 of them were also associated (P < 0.05). Known loci and the newly identified 2q21 locus altogether explained 7.65% variance in the risk of T2D in Indians. Our study suggests that common susceptibility variants for T2D are largely the same across populations, but also reveals a population-specific locus and provides further insights into genetic architecture and etiology of T2D

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Solving MIN ONES 2-SAT as fast as VERTEX COVER

The problem of finding a satisfying assignment that minimizes the number of variables that are set to 1 is NP-complete even for a satisfiable 2-SAT formula. We call this problem MIN ONES 2-SAT. It generalizes the well-studied problem of finding the smallest vertex cover of a graph, which can be modeled using a 2-SAT formula with no negative literals. The natural parameterized version of the problem asks for a satisfying assignment of weight at most k. In this paper, we present a polynomial-time reduction from MIN ONES 2-SAT to VERTEX COVER without increasing the parameter and ensuring that the number of vertices in the reduced instance is equal to the number of variables of the input formula. Consequently, we conclude that this problem also has a simple 2-approximation algorithm and a 2k - c logk-variable kernel subsuming (or, in the case of kernels, improving) the results known earlier. Further, the problem admits algorithms for the parameterized and optimization versions whose runtimes will always match the runtimes of the best-known algorithms for the corresponding versions of vertex cover. Finally we show that the optimum value of the LP relaxation of the MIN ONES 2-SAT and that of the corresponding VERTEX COVER are the same. This implies that the (recent) results of VERTEX COVER version parameterized above the optimum value of the LP relaxation of VERTEX COVER carry over to the MIN ONES 2-SAT version parameterized above the optimum of the LP relaxation of MIN ONES 2-SAT. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved