Ochrobactrum, bacillus and Enterobacter isolates of Hot Water Spring Augment the Growth of Zea Mays Seedlings

Hot springs situated at high altitudes is a kind of remarkable ecosystem for the exploration of microbial flora. It was hypothesized that hot springs can harbor bacteria with plant growth-promoting and exopolysaccharides (EPS) producing ability that can favour the growth of plants. For the investigation of this hypothesis, seven EPS producing bacterial isolates were isolated from a water sample of hot water spring of Tattapani, Azad Kashmir and characterized morphologically and biochemically. Three out of seven isolates (BE1, BN1 and BN3) showed significant production of EPS (14-15 mg / 100 ml). Growth kinetics study revealed that optimum EPS production was attained at pH 9, with fructose as a carbon source and peptone as a nitrogen source. Inoculation of these isolates caused augmentation in seed germination (27-38 %), shoot length (27-35 %), seedling length (10-14 %), number of roots (12-25 %) of Zea mays (variety-MMRI yellow) seedlings and significant rise in auxin (28-51 %) and soluble protein content (50-68 %) as compared to non-inoculated treatment. Alcian blue staining unveiled the good colonization potential of these isolates on inoculated roots. Bacterial isolates were identified as Ochrobactrum intermedium (BE1), Bacillus pumilus (BN1) and Enterobacter cloacae (BN3), respectively through 16S rRNA analysis. Bacterial strain BN3 showed promising results for plant growth promotion along with EPS production. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of EPS produced by strain BN3 revealed the complex composition of EPS. We concluded that hot springs can be the possible home for EPS producing bacteria with plant growth promotion capability

Epidemiology of Hypertension in the Prefecture of Figuig, Morocco

BACKGROUND: Hypertension continues to be a public health problem with devastating consequences globally, particularly in developing countries where there is an acute paucity of hypertension data.The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological, clinical, and treatment characteristics of hypertensive patients in the prefecture of Figuig, Morocco. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of hypertensive patients’ medical records from 2010 to 2020. The diagnosis, treatments, and complications were reported by physicians and cardiologists. Data analysis was made according to epidemiological, clinical complications, and treatments. RESULTS: Hypertension progressed from 871 cases in 2010 to 1785 cases in 2020 with an average annual incidence rate of 105.56/100,000 person-year, affecting more women than men (68% vs 32%). Hypertension was higher among rural residents compared to urban residents (54.0%vs 46%). Hypertension was noted in 65.4 % of patients aged 60+, and in 30.49% of patients aged 40-59. The incidence proportion of clinical complications is Ipcomplications=18.35/1000 person- year, principally cardiovascular diseases (45.42%), stroke (25.55%), retinopathy (17.98%) and nephropathy (10.41%). The most antihypertensive drugs used were Calcium channel blockers (33.39%), Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (21.13%), Angiotensin receptors blockers (21.21%), diuretics (19.4%), beta-blockers (5.38%) and central antihypertensive (10.46%) with an average coverage needs of treatments in the prefecture as (47.29%). CONCLUSION: Hypertension progresses gradually in the prefecture, higher among older individuals, women and rural residents. Large proportion of patients cannot find their treatments in health care structures which lead to poor blood pressure control, accelerating the appearance of complications

Consequences of Streptococcal Pneumoniae Meningitis When it Remains Undiagnosed – Suggested Model of Investigational Process

Background: Whenever any patient presents with headache and slightly high total leukocytic counts, the pertinent question gets raised is either prompt lumbar puncture (LP) is indicated or not. Usually patients with bacterial meningitis characteristically exhibit fever, neck rigidity and deranged mental status or headache. In majority of cases the causes are non-infective. Whilst meningococcal meningitis has a distinctive non-blanching rash and is promptly diagnosable from the CSF. Our report describes disease presentation with merely one aspect of the triad for acute bacterial meningitis and it raises query regarding reliance on guidelines based on the triad

Decomposition of semigroups into semidirect and Zappa-Sz\'{e}p products

This thesis focuses on semidirect and Zappa-Sz\'{e}p products in the context of semigroups and monoids. We present a survey of direct, semidirect and Zappa-Sz\'{e}p products and discuss correspondence between external and internal versions of these products for semigroups and monoids. Particular attention in this thesis is paid to a wide class of semigroups known as restriction semigroups. We consider Zappa-Sz\'{e}p product of a left restriction semigroup $S$ with semilattice of projections $E$ and determine algebraic properties of it. We prove that analogues of Green's lemmas and Green's theorem hold for certain semigroups where Green's relations \ar,\el,\eh and \dee are replaced by \art_E,\elt_E, \eht_E and \adt_E. We show that if \eht_E is a congruence on a certain semigroup $S$, then any right congruence on the submonoid \wt H^e_E (the \eht_E-class of $e$), where $e\in E$, can be extended to a congruence on $S$. We introduce the idea of an {\em inverse skeleton} $U$ of a semigroup $S$ and examine some conditions under which we obtain skeletons from monoids. We focus on a result of Kunze \cite{kunze:1983} for the Bruck-Reilly extension \mbox{BR}(M,\theta) of a monoid $M$, showing that \mbox{BR}(M,\theta) is a Zappa-Sz\'{e}p product of $\N^0$ under addition and a semidirect product $M\rtimes \N^0$. We put Kunze's result in more general framework and give an analogous result for certain restriction monoids. We consider the {\it $\lambda$-semidirect product} of two left restriction semigroups and prove that it is left restriction. In the two sided case using the notion of double action we prove that the $\lambda$-semidirect product of two restriction semigroups is restriction. introduce the notion of $(A,T)$-propernessto prove the results analogous to McAlister's covering theorem and O'Carroll's embedding theorem for monoids and left restriction monoids under some conditions. We extend the notion of the $\lambda$-semidirect product of two restriction semigroups $S$ and $T$ to develop $\lambda$-Zappa-Sz\'{e}p products and construct a category. In the special case where $S$ is a semilattice and $T$ is a monoid we order our category to become inductive and thus obtain a restriction semigroup via the use of the standard pseudo-product

TEACH US THE WAY WE WANT: TEACHING APPROACH FOR SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

This study was conducted to explore the learning of special needs students in reading and writing; determine their preferred teaching approaches; and obtain their suggestions to improve the teaching of both reading and writing modules. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted in obtaining pertinent information. Results regarding what the learners learned; and the best approach for teaching English revealed interesting insights which could guide special needs teachers. Suggestions which aimed at improving English teaching were also provided.     Article visualizations

The TLR-NF-kB axis contributes to the monocytic inflammatory response against a virulent strain of Lichtheimia corymbifera , a causative agent of invasive mucormycosis

Invasive mucormycosis (IM) is a life-threatening infection caused by the fungal order Mucorales, its diagnosis is often delayed, and mortality rates range from 40-80% due to its rapid progression. Individuals suffering from hematological malignancies, diabetes mellitus, organ transplantations, and most recently COVID-19 are particularly susceptible to infection by Mucorales. Given the increase in the occurrence of these diseases, mucormycosis has emerged as one of the most common fungal infections in the last years. However, little is known about the host immune response to Mucorales. Therefore, we characterized the interaction among L. corymbifera— one of the most common causative agents of IM—and human monocytes, which are specialized phagocytes that play an instrumental role in the modulation of the inflammatory response against several pathogenic fungi. This study covered four relevant aspects of the host-pathogen interaction: i) The recognition of L. corymbifera by human monocytes. ii) The intracellular fate of L. corymbifera. iii) The inflammatory response by human monocytes against the most common causative agents of mucormycosis. iv) The main activated Pattern-Recognition Receptors (PRRs) inflammatory signaling cascades in response to L. corymbifera . Here, we demonstrate that L. corymbifera exhibits resistance to intracellular killing over 24 hours, does not germinate, and inflicts minimal damage to the host cell. Nonetheless, viable fungal spores of L. corymbifera induced early production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1β, and late release of TNF-α and IL-6 by human monocytes. Moreover, we revealed that IL-1β production predominantly depends on Toll-like receptors (TLRs) priming, especially via TLR4, while TNF-α is secreted via C-type lectin receptors (CTLs), and IL-6 is produced by synergistic activation of TLRs and CTLs. All these signaling pathways lead to the activation of NF-kB, a transcription factor that not only regulates the inflammatory response but also the apoptotic fate of monocytes during infection with L. corymbifera. Collectively, our findings provide new insights into the host-pathogen interactions, which may serve for future therapies to enhance the host inflammatory response to L. corymbifera

Semigroups with finitely generated universal left congruence

We consider semigroups such that the universal left congruence ω ℓ is finitely generated. Certainly a left noetherian semigroup, that is, one in which all left congruences are finitely generated, satisfies our condition. In the case of a monoid the condition that ω ℓ is finitely generated is equivalent to a number of pre-existing notions. In particular, a monoid satisfies the homological finiteness condition of being of type left-FP 1 exactly when ω ℓ is finitely generated. Our investigations enable us to classify those semigroups such that ω ℓ is finitely generated that lie in certain important classes, such as strong semilattices of semigroups, inverse semigroups, Rees matrix semigroups (over semigroups) and completely regular semigroups. We consider closure properties for the class of semigroups such that ω ℓ is finitely generated, including under morphic image, direct product, semi-direct product, free product and 0-direct union. Our work was inspired by the stronger condition, stated for monoids in the work of White, of being pseudo-finite. Where appropriate, we specialise our investigations to pseudo-finite semigroups and monoids. In particular, we answer a question of Dales and White concerning the nature of pseudo-finite monoids

HSET Overexpression Fuels Tumor Progression via Centrosome Clustering-Independent Mechanisms in Breast Cancer Patients

Human breast tumors harbor supernumerary centrosomes in almost 80% of tumor cells. Although amplified centrosomes compromise cell viability via multipolar spindles resulting in death-inducing aneuploidy, cancer cells tend to cluster extra centrosomes during mitosis. As a result cancer cells display bipolar spindle phenotypes to maintain a tolerable level of aneuploidy, an edge to their survival. HSET/KifC1, a kinesin-like minus-end directed microtubule motor has recently found fame as a crucial centrosome clustering molecule. Here we show that HSET promotes tumor progression via mechanisms independent of centrosome clustering. We found that HSET is overexpressed in breast carcinomas wherein nuclear HSET accumulation correlated with histological grade and predicted poor progression-free and overall survival. In addition, deregulated HSET protein expression was associated with gene amplification and/or translocation. Our data provide compelling evidence that HSET overexpression is pro-proliferative, promotes clonogenic-survival and enhances cellcycle kinetics through G2 and M-phases. Importantly, HSET co-immunoprecipitates with survivin, and its overexpression protects survivin from proteasome-mediated degradation, resulting in its increased steady-state levels. We provide the first evidence of centrosome clustering-independent activities of HSET that fuel tumor progression and firmly establish that HSET can serve both as a potential prognostic biomarker and as a valuable cancer-selective therapeutic target

Nano Titania Applications in Cancer Theranostics

Titanium is one of the most abundantly utilized nanomaterials for human consumption. Biomedical applications of nano titania include sunscreens, drug delivery, prosthetic implants, bioimaging probes, and antimicrobial and antirheumatic agents for various treatment of diseases, including autoimmune disease, neurogenerative diseases, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and cancer. Its applications as a drug delivery vehicle and photosensitizer in cancer therapy and diagnosis are highly appreciated, especially for skin and natural cavities applications. The reactive oxygen species (i.e., H2O2, OH., OH2, 1O2, etc.) generation properties of nano titania after activation with light or ultrasound make it ideal for apoptosis induction in neoplastic cells. In addition, the singlet oxygen (1O2) generating properties make it suitable for bioimaging deep-seated and superficial tumors after activation. Nano titania is highly biocompatible with negligible adverse effects. In this chapter, we will focus on the anticancer effects of nano titania on various types of cancers by employing it as a drug delivery vehicle and sensitizer for external source-activated modalities viz. photodynamic and sonodynamic therapy