A Record of Rotaloid Foraminifera from the Upper Permian-Lower Triassic Rocks of Kashmir, India

The first record of Rotaloid foraminifera from the Upper Permian-Lower Triassic of Kashmir is significant as it provides an insight to understand organic evolution. The present study explicitly reveals that Rotaloid foraminifers’ first origination was in Upper Permian in Peri-Gondwana Tethys and later migrated to other provinces of the world.Keywords: Rotaloid Foraminifera, Upper Permian, Lower Triassic, Kashmir, India

A Selective PMCA Inhibitor Does Not Prolong the Electroolfactogram in Mouse

Within the cilia of vertebrate olfactory receptor neurons, Ca(2+) accumulates during odor transduction. Termination of the odor response requires removal of this Ca(2+), and prior evidence suggests that both Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchange and plasma membrane Ca(2+)-ATPase (PMCA) contribute to this removal.In intact mouse olfactory epithelium, we measured the time course of termination of the odor-induced field potential. Replacement of mucosal Na(+) with Li(+), which reduces the ability of Na(+)/Ca(2+) exchange to expel Ca(2+), prolonged the termination as expected. However, treating the epithelium with the specific PMCA inhibitor caloxin 1b1 caused no significant increase in the time course of response termination.Under these experimental conditions, PMCA does not contribute detectably to the termination of the odor response

Diarrhea, Pneumonia, and Infectious Disease Mortality in Children Aged 5 to 14 Years in India

Background: Little is known about the causes of death in children in India after age five years. The objective of this study is to provide the first ever direct national and sub-national estimates of infectious disease mortality in Indian children aged 5 to 14 years. Methods: A verbal autopsy based assessment of 3 855 deaths is children aged 5 to 14 years from a nationally representative survey of deaths occurring in 2001–03 in 1?1 million homes in India. Results: Infectious diseases accounted for 58 % of all deaths among children aged 5 to 14 years. About 18 % of deaths were due to diarrheal diseases, 10 % due to pneumonia, 8 % due to central nervous system infections, 4 % due to measles, and 12 % due to other infectious diseases. Nationally, in 2005 about 59 000 and 34 000 children aged 5 to 14 years died from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, corresponding to mortality of 24?1 and 13?9 per 100 000 respectively. Mortality was nearly 50 % higher in girls than in boys for both diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. Conclusions: Approximately 60 % of all deaths in this age group are due to infectious diseases and nearly half of these deaths are due to diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. Mortality in this age group from infectious diseases, and diarrhea i

Enzymatic capacities of metabolic fuel use in cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) and responses to food deprivation: insight into the metabolic organization and starvation survival strategy of cephalopods

Food limitation is a common challenge for animals. Cephalopods are sensitive to starvation because of high metabolic rates and growth rates related to their "live fast, die young" life history. We investigated how enzymatic capacities of key metabolic pathways are modulated during starvation in the common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to gain insight into the metabolic organization of cephalopods and their strategies for coping with food limitation. In particular, lipids have traditionally been considered unimportant fuels in cephalopods, yet, puzzlingly, many species (including cuttlefish) mobilize the lipid stores in their digestive gland during starvation. Using a comprehensive multi-tissue assay of enzymatic capacities for energy metabolism, we show that, during long-term starvation (12 days), glycolytic capacity for glucose use is decreased in cuttlefish tissues, while capacities for use of lipid-based fuels (fatty acids and ketone bodies) and amino acid fuels are retained or increased. Specifically, the capacity to use the ketone body acetoacetate as fuel is widespread across tissues and gill has a previously unrecognized capacity for fatty acid catabolism, albeit at low rates. The capacity for de novo glucose synthesis (gluconeogenesis), important for glucose homeostasis, likely is restricted to the digestive gland, contrary to previous reports of widespread gluconeogenesis among cephalopod tissues. Short-term starvation (3-5 days) had few effects on enzymatic capacities. Similar to vertebrates, lipid-based fuels, putatively mobilized from fat stores in the digestive gland, appear to be important energy sources for cephalopods, especially during starvation when glycolytic capacity is decreased perhaps to conserve available glucose

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Management of Soil-Borne Diseases of Grain Legumes Through Broad-Spectrum Actinomycetes Having Plant Growth-Promoting and Biocontrol Traits

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.) are the two important grain legumes grown extensively in the semiarid tropics (SAT) of the world, where soils are poor in nutrients and receive inadequate/erratic rainfall. SAT regions are commonly found in Africa, Australia, and South Asia. Chickpea and pigeonpea suffer from about 38 pathogens that cause soil-borne diseases including wilt, collar rot, dry root rot, damping off, stem canker, and Ascochyta/Phytophthora blight, and of which three of them, wilt, collar rot, and dry root rot, are important in SAT regions. Management of these soil-borne diseases are hard, as no one control measure is completely effective. Advanced/delayed sowing date, solarization of soil, and use of fungicides are some of the control measures usually employed for these diseases but with little success. The use of disease-resistant cultivar is the best efficient and economical control measure, but it is not available for most of the soil-borne diseases. Biocontrol of soil-borne plant pathogens has been managed using antagonistic actinobacteria, bacteria, and fungi. Actinobacterial strains of Streptomyces, Amycolatopsis, Micromonospora, Frankia, and Nocardia were reported to exert effective control on soil-borne pathogens and help the host plants to mobilize and acquire macro- and micronutrients. Such novel actinomycetes with wide range of plant growth-promoting (PGP) and antagonistic traits need to be exploited for sustainable agriculture. This chapter gives a comprehensive analysis of important soil-borne diseases of chickpea and pigeonpea and how broad-spectrum actinomycetes, particularly Streptomyces spp., could be exploited for managing them

Implications of new age of Mallapur Intrusives on the chronology and evolution of the Kaladgi Basin, Dharwar Craton, India

The Kaladgi Basin on the northern edge of the Dharwar craton has characters diverse from the other epicratonic Purana basins of Peninsular India. Sedimentological studies in the basin have established the presence of three cycles of flooding separated by an event of intra-basinal deformation accompanied by low grade incipient metamorphism. The overall structural configuration of the basin indicates its development by supracrustal extension accompanied by shearing in a trans-tensional regime during the Mesoproterozoic. This was followed by sagging that yielded Neoproterozoic sedimentation in a successor nested basin. Ar/Ar dating of an intrusive mafic dyke along the axial plane of a fold has yielded a plateau age of . This helps constraint the age of the various events during the evolution of this basin