Cystic Fibrosis Impact on Cellular Function

The following literature review provides an account in support of the premise that the cystic fibrosis (CF) disease affects widespread areas of the body primarily due to the defective CFTR protein. Mutations in the CFTR gene lead to defects in CFTR protein that causes the disease. Lack of protein function or lack of functional protein cause variability in severity of the phenotype. The defective CFTR protein changes ion influx and efflux across the body’s cell membranes, which ultimately changes the internal environment of these cells. This change contributes to each cell’s production of proteins through transcription and translation. The simple changes in ion movement in and out of these cells have detrimental effects on the overall function of the cells. The cells create a system for maintenance of the body’s health, and if the cells do not function appropriately, the body fails to manage viral and bacterial infections. In this review, I will discuss how the defective CFTR channel works in the cells of the bodies of CF patients, and explain why the normal CFTR channel is essential for proper health and maintenance of the human body. In addition to the CFTR channel, other factors affect the severity of the disease. Genome-wide association studies explore other factors attributed to CF, including environmental factors, modifier genes, transcriptional regulation factors, and post-translational modifications. Potentiators and correctors target the CFTR channel in order to increase CFTR function, working alongside therapies in order to combat the effects of defective channels in CF patients

Carbon, nitrogen, and vegetation along an urbanization gradient: a Boston case study integrating field, remotely sensed and socioeconomic data

Understanding the role humans play in modifying ecosystems through urban development is central to addressing our current and emerging environmental challenges. Urbanization can drastically modify carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. However, spatiotemporal distribution of these modifications and their impact on ecosystems are not well-quantified. In this dissertation, I combined field and remotely sensed data, models and laboratory analysis, and socioeconomic data to understand the variations in ecosystem characteristics and their socioeconomic covariates along a 100-km urbanization gradient in the Boston region. Vegetation and soil C and N chemistry from 139 field plots show that C and N content increased in soil and decreased in vegetation with urbanization for forest, residential and other-developed land use classes. Landsat normalized difference vegetation index correlated positively with aboveground biomass and foliar N content (but not N concentration), and negatively with impervious surface area (ISA) fraction. Patterns in foliar N concentration are associated more strongly with changes in species composition than with phenotypic plasticity. My results demonstrate the need to account for ISA fraction when scaling vegetation and soil data across urban landscapes. Measured atmospheric inorganic N inputs at nine sites along the gradient correlated significantly with proximity to urban core and modeled on-road CO2 emissions. N leaching rates correlated positively with atmospheric N input rates. A regional model underestimated atmospheric N inputs at urban sites and overestimated it at rural sites, thus highlighting the need to incorporate the effects of urbanization in N deposition models. Analysis of census variables, forestland owner surveys, and biomass highlighted the scale-dependent relationships between socioeconomic variables and vegetation biomass. Owner occupancy showed the strongest and most consistent relationship with biomass across different scales. Combined with either housing age or educational attainment, owner occupancy explained ~80% variance in biomass in different spatial extents of the gradient. Conservation awareness among landowners was higher near the urban core and correlated positively with educational attainment and landholding size. My results demonstrate the complex spatial variations in urban biogeochemistry and help develop a mechanistic understanding of urban ecosystem function and its socioeconomic covariates

Nutrient X-Ray Energy Shift Studies in Wheat Plants and Soils

Aims: To check the effect of soil environment on chemistry of potassium and calcium nutrients in wheat plants with varying soil conditions. Study Design: Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) measurements on plant/soil samples. Study of fluorescent X-ray spectra and data processing to calculate shift in photo peak energies of nutrients. Place and Duration of Study: XRF laboratory, Nuclear science laboratories, Physics Department, Punjabi University, Patiala during December 2013-March 2014. Methodology: A pot experiment was performed on wheat plants grown on soils collected from different sites of six cities / town / village in Punjab, India. Low power X-ray tube set up for Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) measurements has been used to record the fluorescent X-ray spectra of wheat plants and soils for macro nutrient studies. SOLVER a powerful program included in Microsoft Excel for Windows was applied to predict nutrient X-ray energies with precision 10-4 of channel width. The shifts in peak energies were evaluated with reference to that of plant/soil from an environmentally protected ground site. Results: The shift in calcium photo peak energies was found higher than that of potassium photo peaks. In case of soils, the shifts are related to level of contamination of soils from sewage system, factory sites and road sides. The changes in soil nutrients’ chemical state lead to these shifts and accordingly from studied shifts, the height of the contamination level is approximated and correlated with the population life style of localities and environment of occupations on the soils like industries, farming and gardening etc. The shifts in nutrient photo peak energies in plants, generally, in opposite direction to that for soils signify the wheat plants’ quality to cope with stress conditions. Conclusion: Shifts in photo peak energies for nutrients can be used as tool to sense the contamination level of soil

Experimental generation and characterization of partially spatially coherent qubits

Partially spatially coherent qubits are more immune to turbulent atmospheric conditions than coherent qubits, which makes them excellent candidates for free-space quantum communication. In this article, we report the generation of partially spatially coherent qubits in a spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process using a Gaussian Schell model (GSM) pump beam. For this non-linear process, we demonstrate experimentally for the first time, the transfer of spatial coherence features of the pump (classical) to the biphotons (quantum) field. Also, the spatial profiles of partially coherent qubits generated in type-I and type-II non-collinear SPDC process are experimentally observed and multi-mode nature of partially coherent photons (qubit) is ascertained. These investigations pave the way toward the efficient generation of partially spatially coherent qubits with a tunable degree of spatial coherence, which lead to wide range of applications in frontier areas such as quantum cryptography, teleportation, imaging, and lithography.Comment: 15 page

Fifteen Years of Fragmentation and Land Cover Change in India’s Ten Largest Cities – A Google Earth Engine Analysis

Urbanization is one of the most transformative drivers of global environmental change today, with India representing one of the fastest urbanizing countries. We map the urban expansion of India’s ten largest cities from 2001 to 2016, through a regression tree classification of Landsat data in Google Earth Engine. Indian cities are growing through sprawl, and simultaneously densifying through in-filling. In Delhi, Mumbai and Pune, urban growth is multinucleated, aggregating to form a larger urban region. However, the dominant pattern in most cities is mono-nucleated growth via edge-expansion. The colonial signature is visible in many cities such as Bangalore, where due to the British colonial practice of planting trees in the cantonment, the city interior has lower urban density at the core as compared to the periphery. Much of the urban growth between 2001-2016 is at the expense of agriculture and fallow areas. Across all cities, urban patches have expanded and coalesced into larger units. At the same time, there is an overall loss of surface water cover within cities. Urban growth has led to fragmentation of tree cover, agriculture/fallow and water bodies. This paper demonstrates that India’s urbanization is leading to severe impacts on water security (because of the loss of surface water), biodiversity (because of the fragmentation of tree cover and the conversion of agriculture and fallow lands to built up urban cover), factors which if left unaddressed will severely impact the sustainability of Indian urbanization