Complete Sequences of Organelle Genomes from the Medicinal Plant Rhazya Stricta (Apocynaceae) and Contrasting Patterns of Mitochondrial Genome Evolution Across Asterids

Rhazya stricta is native to arid regions in South Asia and the Middle East and is used extensively in folk medicine to treat a wide range of diseases. In addition to generating genomic resources for this medicinally important plant, analyses of the complete plastid and mitochondrial genomes and a nuclear transcriptome from Rhazya provide insights into inter-compartmental transfers between genomes and the patterns of evolution among eight asterid mitochondrial genomes. Results: The 154,841 bp plastid genome is highly conserved with gene content and order identical to the ancestral organization of angiosperms. The 548,608 bp mitochondrial genome exhibits a number of phenomena including the presence of recombinogenic repeats that generate a multipartite organization, transferred DNA from the plastid and nuclear genomes, and bidirectional DNA transfers between the mitochondrion and the nucleus. The mitochondrial genes sdh3 and rps14 have been transferred to the nucleus and have acquired targeting presequences. In the case of rps14, two copies are present in the nucleus; only one has a mitochondrial targeting presequence and may be functional. Phylogenetic analyses of both nuclear and mitochondrial copies of rps14 across angiosperms suggests Rhazya has experienced a single transfer of this gene to the nucleus, followed by a duplication event. Furthermore, the phylogenetic distribution of gene losses and the high level of sequence divergence in targeting presequences suggest multiple, independent transfers of both sdh3 and rps14 across asterids. Comparative analyses of mitochondrial genomes of eight sequenced asterids indicates a complicated evolutionary history in this large angiosperm clade with considerable diversity in genome organization and size, repeat, gene and intron content, and amount of foreign DNA from the plastid and nuclear genomes. Conclusions: Organelle genomes of Rhazya stricta provide valuable information for improving the understanding of mitochondrial genome evolution among angiosperms. The genomic data have enabled a rigorous examination of the gene transfer events. Rhazya is unique among the eight sequenced asterids in the types of events that have shaped the evolution of its mitochondrial genome. Furthermore, the organelle genomes of R. stricta provide valuable genomic resources for utilizing this important medicinal plant in biotechnology applications.King Abdulaziz UniversityIntegrative Biolog

Study and implementation of urogenital schistosomiasis elimination in Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba islands) using an integrated multidisciplinary approach

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Schistosomiasis is a parasitic infection that continues to be a major public health problem in many developing countries being responsible for an estimated burden of at least 1.4 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in Africa alone. However, morbidity due to schistosomiasis has been greatly reduced in some parts of the world, including Zanzibar. The Zanzibar government is now committed to eliminate urogenital schistosomiasis. Over the next 3--5 years, the whole at-risk population will be administered praziquantel (40 mg/kg) biannually. Additionally, snail control and behaviour change interventions will be implemented in selected communities and the impact measured in a randomized intervention trial. METHODS: In this 5-year research study, on both Unguja and Pemba islands, urogenital schistosomiasis will be assessed in 45 communities with urine filtration and reagent strips in 4,500 schoolchildren aged 9--12 years annually, and in 4,500 first-year schoolchildren and 2,250 adults in years 1 and 5. Additionally, from first-year schoolchildren, a finger-prick blood sample will be collected and examined for Schistosoma haematobium infection biomarkers. Changes in prevalence and infection intensity will be assessed annually. Among the 45 communities, 15 were randomized for biannual snail control with niclosamide, in concordance with preventive chemotherapy campaigns. The reduction of Bulinus globosus snail populations and S. haematobium-infected snails will be investigated. In 15 other communities, interventions triggering behaviour change have been designed and will be implemented in collaboration with the community. A change in knowledge, attitudes and practices will be assessed annually through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with schoolchildren, teachers, parents and community leaders. In all 45 communities, changes in the health system, water and sanitation infrastructure will be annually tracked by standardized questionnaire-interviews with community leaders. Additional issues potentially impacting on study outcomes and all incurring costs will be monitored and recorded. DISCUSSION: Elimination of schistosomiasis has become a priority on the agenda of the Zanzibar government and the international community. Our study will contribute to identifying what, in addition to preventive chemotherapy, needs to be done to prevent, control, and ultimately eliminate schistosomiasis, and to draw lessons for current and future schistosomiasis elimination programmes in Africa and elsewhere.Trial registrationISRCTN4883768

Speed Control of Hydraulic Elevator by Using Electro-Hydraulic Servo Mechanism

المصعد الهيدروليكي هو أحد أنواع المصاعد المستخدمة في المباني ذات الارتفاع المنخفض والذي لا يزيد عن الثلاث طوابق. في هذا البحث تم نصب وتنفيذ وتشغيل نموذج مصغر لمصعد هيدروليكي والتحقق النظري والتجريبي باستخدام صمام تناسبي، ومسيطر نوع PI. تم تنفيذ المصعد مع ثلاث طوابق بارتفاع كلي يبلغ 76 سم مع جميع المكونات والملحقات الهيدروليكية والكهربائية، حيث ان اتمتة المصعد كانت باستخدام مايكرو كونترولر اردوينو ِArduino نوع أونو. UNO برنامج الحاسوب اللابفيو LABVEIW تم استخدامه للسيطرة على المصعد من خلال مسوق التيار المستمر L298 DC. أفضل قيم لباراميترات المسيطر PI تم الحصول عليها تجريبيا. النتائج أظهرت دعم وتحسين الأداء للمصعد الهيدروليكي من خلال استخدام نظام المؤازرة الكهروهيدروليكي لتحقيق التوقف السلس وراحة المستخدمين للمصعد في التنقل بحركة انسيابية بين الطوابق.An electro-hydraulic elevator is a new type of enhanced elevators used in low-rise buildings, no more than eight floors. In this paper, an electro-hydraulic servo system for controlling the speed of a hydraulic elevator prototype by using a proportional valve and PI controller has been investigated theoretically and experimentally. A three floors elevator prototype model with 76cm height has been built, including hydraulic components and electrical components. The elevator system is automated using an Arduino UNO board based Data Acquisition (DAQ) system. LabVIEW software is programmed to control the hydraulic elevator system through L298 DC drive via the DAQ board. The best PI gains have been calculated experimentally using Ziegler–Nichols, trial and error methods. The results showed the effectiveness of the use of Electro-hydraulic servomechanism in enhancing the performance of the hydraulic elevator in terms of comfort and smoothness when people travelled through the elevator floors

Processing and Characterization of Activated Carbon from Coconut Shell and Palm Kernel Shell Waste by H3PO4 Activation

Palm kernel shell and coconut shell are used as a precursor for the production of activated carbon, a way of mitigating the tons of waste produced in Ghana. The raw Palm kernel shell and coconut shell were activated chemically using H3PO4. A maximum activated carbon yield of 26.3 g was obtained for Palm kernel shell and 22.9 g for coconut shell at 400oC, an impregnation ratio of 1.2 and 1-hour carbonization time. Scanning electron microscopy reveals well-developed cavities of the H3PO4 activated coconut shell and Palm kernel shell compared to the non-activated carbon. Iodine number of 743.02 mg/g and 682.11 mg/g, a porosity of 0.31 and 0.49 and the electrical conductivity of 2010 μS/cm and 778 μS /cm were obtained for the AC prepared from the coconut shell and Palm kernel shell respectively. The results of this work show that high-quality activated carbon can be manufactured locally from coconut shell and Palm kernel shell waste, and a scale-up of this production will go a long way to reduce the tons of coconut shell and Palm kernel shell waste generated in the country

Estimation of some Immunological Factors in Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients

هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى تقييم بعض معايير المناعة الخلوية لمرضى التدرن الرئوي من خلال تقدير مستويات الانترلوكينات IFN-γ )وIL-10و( IL-12   وتقدير فيتامين. D3  تم خلال الدراسة جمع عينات الدم من 50 مريضا بالتدرن الرئوي من المراجعات الى العيادة الاستشارية للأمراض الصدرية في الحلة -محافظة بابل خلال الفترة مابين شهر شباط 2016 إلى شباط 2017. ومن بين مرضى التدرن الرئوي، كان هناك 27 ذكور و23 إناث، وعمر المرضى يتراوح بين 12-80 عاما. تم قياس السايتوكينات وفيتامين D3باستخدام تقنية الاليزا. أظهر متوسط ​​تركيز مصل الدم IL-10  وIL-12 أن هناك زيادة معنوية (p˂ 0.05) في مرضى التدرن الرئوي بالمقارنة مع مجموعة السيطرة (4.024 و1.049) بغ / مل , (51.563 و13.514) بغ / مل على التوالي.  في حين لم يظهر متوسط ​​تركيز مصل IFN-γ زيادة معنوية (p˃0.05) في مرضى التدرن الرئوي مقارنة بمجموعة السيطرة (36.505 و25.019) بغ / مل. أظهر متوسط ​​تركيز مصل الدم ل VD3 انخفاضا معنويا (p ˂ 0.05) في مرضى التدرن الرئوي مقارنة بمجموعة السيطرة (18.186 و29.321) نغ/ لThis study aimed to assess the status of cell mediated immunity for pulmonary tuberculosis patients through evaluation levels of Interleukins (IFN-γ ,IL-10, IL-12) and estimation vitamin D3 . Whole blood samples collected from 50 pulmonary tuberculosis patients who are admitted to consultant clinic for respiratory diseases in Hilla – Babylon province during the period from February 2016 to February 2017. Out of the pTB patients, there were 27 males and 23 females, the patients age range was between 12-80 years. Cytokines levels and vitamin D3 estimated by using ELISA technique. The mean of serum concentration of IL-10  and IL-12 revealed that there is a significantly increased (p˂ 0.05) in pulmonary tuberculosis patients as compared to controls (4.024 and 1.049)pg/ml (51.563 and 13.514) pg/ml ,respectively. While, the mean of serum concentration of IFN-γ showed no significant increasing (p˃0.05) in pulmonary tuberculosis patients compared to controls (36.505 and 25.019)pg/ml.  The mean of serum concentration of VD3 showed a significant decreasing (p˂ 0.05) in pulmonary tuberculosis patients as compared to controls (18.186 and 29.321) ng/ml. Conclusions: The results provide a good correlation between the levels of  IL-10 , IL-12, IFN-γ and Vitamin D3 with the cellular immunity against pulmonary tuberculosis

Multi Criteria Optimization Approach for Dressing of Vitrified Grinding Wheel

Rotary diamond dressers are widely used for the dressing to improve the efficiency of vitrified grinding wheel. The paper focuses on the process parameters, i.e., feed speed of dresser, depth of cut, grinding wheel velocity, velocity ratio between grinding wheel and rotary dresser, number of pass and dressing method (up-cut or down-cut) in rotary diamond dressing. The objective is to investigate the effect of these process parameters with their interactions for two response parameters, dressing ratio and overlapped dressed area. As far as the response parameters are concerned, the goal is to maximize dressing ratio and minimize overlapped dressed area simultaneously. Thirty-six experiments were designed and performed. Analysis of variance and multi-criteria optimization approach are opted to find out significant process parameters and optimal parameter setting. Finally, the significant process parameters, dressing method and number of pass are identified as well and the optimal parameter setting is also determined

Empirical determination of charm quark energy loss and its consequences for azimuthal anisotropy

We propose an empirical model to determine the form of energy loss of charm quarks due to multiple scatterings in quark gluon plasma by demanding a good description of production of D mesons and non-photonic electrons in relativistic collision of heavy nuclei at RHIC and LHC energies. Best results are obtained when we approximate the momentum loss per collision $\Delta p_T \propto \alpha \, p_T$, where $\alpha$ is a constant depending on the centrality and the centre of mass energy. Comparing our results with those obtained earlier for drag coefficients estimated using Langevin equation for heavy quarks we find that up to half of the energy loss of charm quarks at top RHIC energy could be due to collisions while that at LHC energy at 2760 GeV/A the collisional energy loss could be about one third of the total. Estimates are obtained for azimuthal anisotropy in momentum spectra of heavy mesons, due to this energy loss. We further suggest that energy loss of charm quarks may lead to an enhanced production of D-mesons and single electrons at low $p_T$ in AA collisions.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, Typographical errors corrected, Key-words and PACS indices added, sequence of figures corrected, references added in section 3, discussions expande

Optimization of non thermal plasma reactor performance for the decomposition of xylene

Non Thermal Plasma (NTP) is an emerging method used for the decomposition of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This research focuses on the optimization of NTP reactor performance for decomposition of xylene from wastewater using response surface methodology (RSM) by operating the NTP reactor at applied voltage of 12-15 kV, discharge gap of 2.0-3.0 cm and gas flow rate of 2.0-5.0 L/min. An optimum xylene removal efficiency of 81.98% was obtained at applied voltage 15kV, discharge gap 2.09cm and gas flow rate at 2.36 L/min. The experimental removal efficiencies and model predictions were in close agreement with an error of 0.63%

Development of novel multiplex microsatellite polymerase chain reactions to enable high-throughput population genetic studies of Schistosoma haematobium

© 2015 Webster et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published version of the article