Predictive approach for simultaneous biosorption of hexavalent chromium and pentachlorophenol degradation by Bacillus cereus RMLAU1

Chromium and pentachlorophenol are the major environmental pollutants emanating from tannery effluent. Indigenous Bacillus cereus isolate was employed for biosorption and PCP degradation studies under varied environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, contact time, presence of other heavy metals, initial biosorbent and Cr6+ concentrations. Best results for Cr6+ biosorption (% removal) by living and dead biomass at 2.0 g l-1 were found to be 35.2 mg Cr g-1 dry wt (63%) at pH 5.0, and 42.5 mg Cr g-1 dry wt (70.5%) at pH 4.0, respectively at 35ºC (150 rpm) during 120 min at an initial concentration of 200 mg Cr6+ l-1 and 500 mg PCP l-1. Among various factors, pH had profound effect on Cr6+ biosorption and PCP degradation. Maximum 7.5 % (w/v) PCP degradation ensued in 2 h only by live cells in the presence of 0.4 % (w/v) cometabolite glucose. Presumably, this is the first report on simultaneous biosorption of chromium and pentachlorophenol remediation by native Bacillus cereus isolate from tannery effluent. Statistical regressional analysis suitably validated the experimental findings. This strain would be helpful in eco-friendly simultaneous bioremediation allied with a predictive computational approach.Key words: Bacillus cereus, Biosorption, Chromium, Heavy metals, Pentachlorophenol

Antibiotic Sensitivity Pattern of Bacterial Isolates from the Intensive Care Unit of a Tertiary Care Hospital in India

Purpose: To undertake an audit of the antimicrobial (AM) sensitivity pattern of bacterial isolates in the intensive care units (ICU) of a tertiary hospital of Bhavnagar, India.Methods: Retrospective analysis of the indoor case papers of ICUs from January 2010 to 31st March 2011 was carried out at Department of Pharmacology, Govt. Medical College and Sir Takhtsinhji General Hospital, Bhavnagar, India. Information collected include demographic data of the patient, admission unit, duration of hospital stay, diagnosis, type of infection, empirical treatment, indication of the use of the antimicrobials (AMs). Others include collected specimen, causative agent, sensitivitypattern, and treatment changes based on the sensitivity pattern in a case record form. AM sensitivity testing was performed by the modified Kirby Baur method as recommended by clinical and laboratory standard institute (CLSI). Internal and external quality control were maintained for culture and sensitivity method.Results: The most commonly isolated organisms were Klebsiella pneumoniae (28.6 %) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (16.3 %). Lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) was the most common infection. Imipenem, meropenem and levofloxacin were the most effective antimicrobials for Gramnegative isolates (GNIs) while vancomycin ciprofloxacin, and gentamicin were the most efficacious antimicrobials for Gram-positive isolates (GPIs). Widespread resistance to third generationcephalosporins and cloxacillin was noted for GNIs and GPIs, respectively. Meropenem (100 %) > levofloxacin (100 %) > sparfloxacin (94.4 %) > gentamicin (83.3 %) was the rank order of antimicrobial activity against LRTI.Conclusion: GNIs were the predominant cause of infection in ICUs. Third generation cephalosporinsresistant GNIs were the predominant resistant organisms. The study showed that fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides could be used as first line AMs for the effective management of LRTI in a hospital setting.Keywords: Antibiotic sensitivity, Bacterial resistance, Intensive care unit, Tertiary hospita

Pivotal role of families in doctor–patient communication in oncology: a qualitative study of patients, their relatives and cancer clinicians

Families are a unique source of support for many cancer patients. Most advanced communication skills training for oncologists are patient centred and do not cover interactions with family members. The current study used in-depth qualitative interviews of patients, relatives and cancer clinicians with thematic analysis to explore the role of family members in the communication process. Forty-one participants included 10 cancer patients, 10 relatives ensuring proportionate representation of both gender and primary cancer site and 21 doctors representing both medical and surgical oncology. Nineteen of 20 patients and relatives wanted an "open and honest" discussion with their doctors. All patients, relatives and doctors preferred involvement of the family at most stages of cancer treatment. Five themes were identified in relation to communication with family members. The participants highlighted the "importance of family for physical and psychological care," they emphasised the need to "balance patient autonomy and relatives desire to be protective" using varied "negotiating strategies" that are influenced by "socioeconomic circumstances of both patient and family." The doctor-patient-relative communication process was not static with preferences changing over time. The data suggests that communication skills training of cancer clinicians should incorporate modules on better communication with relatives

Deep attention network for pneumonia detection using chest X-ray images

In computer vision, object recognition and image categorization have proven to be difficult challenges. They have, nevertheless, generated responses to a wide range of difficult issues from a variety of fields. Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs) have recently been identified as the most widely proposed deep learning (DL) algorithms in the literature. CNNs have unquestionably delivered cutting-edge achievements, particularly in the areas of image classification, speech recognition, and video processing. However, it has been noticed that the CNN-training assignment demands a large amount of data, which is in low supply, especially in the medical industry, and as a result, the training process takes longer. In this paper, we describe an attention-aware CNN architecture for classifying chest X-ray images to diagnose Pneumonia in order to address the aforementioned difficulties. Attention Modules provide attention-aware properties to the Attention Network. The attention-aware features of various modules alter as the layers become deeper. Using a bottom-up top-down feedforward structure, the feedforward and feedback attention processes are integrated into a single feedforward process inside each attention module. In the present work, a deep neural network (DNN) is combined with an attention mechanism to test the prediction of Pneumonia disease using chest X-ray pictures. To produce attention-aware features, the suggested network was built by merging channel and spatial attention modules in DNN architecture. With this network, we worked on a publicly available Kaggle chest X-ray dataset. Extensive testing was carried out to validate the suggested model. In the experimental results, we attained an accuracy of 95.47% and an F- score of 0.92, indicating that the suggested model outperformed against the baseline models

Contribution of Cell Elongation to the Biofilm Formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa during Anaerobic Respiration

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a gram-negative bacterium of clinical importance, forms more robust biofilm during anaerobic respiration, a mode of growth presumed to occur in abnormally thickened mucus layer lining the cystic fibrosis (CF) patient airway. However, molecular basis behind this anaerobiosis-triggered robust biofilm formation is not clearly defined yet. Here, we identified a morphological change naturally accompanied by anaerobic respiration in P. aeruginosa and investigated its effect on the biofilm formation in vitro. A standard laboratory strain, PAO1 was highly elongated during anaerobic respiration compared with bacteria grown aerobically. Microscopic analysis demonstrated that cell elongation likely occurred as a consequence of defective cell division. Cell elongation was dependent on the presence of nitrite reductase (NIR) that reduces nitrite (NO2−) to nitric oxide (NO) and was repressed in PAO1 in the presence of carboxy-PTIO, a NO antagonist, demonstrating that cell elongation involves a process to respond to NO, a spontaneous byproduct of the anaerobic respiration. Importantly, the non-elongated NIR-deficient mutant failed to form biofilm, while a mutant of nitrate reductase (NAR) and wild type PAO1, both of which were highly elongated, formed robust biofilm. Taken together, our data reveal a role of previously undescribed cell biological event in P. aeruginosa biofilm formation and suggest NIR as a key player involved in such process

A review on herbal antiasthmatics

In traditional systems of medicine, many plants have been documented to be useful for the treatment of various respiratory disorders including asthma. In the last two decades the use of medicinal plants and natural products has been increased dramatically all over the world. Current synthetic drugs used in pharmacotherapy of asthma are unable to act at all the stages and targets of asthma. However some herbal alternatives employed in asthma are proven to provide symptomatic relief and assist in the inhibition of disease progression also. The herbs have shown interesting results in various target specific biological activities such as bronchodilation, mast cell stabilization, anti-anaphylactic, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, anti-allergic, immunomodulatory and inhibition of mediators such as leukotrienes, lipoxygenase, cyclooxygenase, platelet activating, phosphodiesterase and cytokine, in the treatment of asthma. This paper is an attempt to classify these pharmacological and clinical findings based on their possible mechanism of action reported. It also signifies the need for development of polyherbal formulations containing various herbs acting at particular sites of the pathophysiological cascade of asthma for prophylaxis as well as for the treatment of asthma

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO