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

Acute Onset of Quadriplegia Secondary to Hypoparathyroidism: Mimicker of AMAN Variant of GBS

Acute onset of quadriplegia is a rare phenomenon seen with hypocalcemia due to hypoparathyroidism. We describe a 33-year gentleman who presented with weakness of all four limbs and areflexia. ECG showed QT abnormality. Nerve conduction study revealed normal sensory and significantly low motor CMAP amplitudes in both the upper and lower extremities. This nerve conduction study can be seen in acute motor neuropathy of various etiologies, among which GBS is the most worrisome. Our patient found to have low calcium and parathyroid hormone level. His symptoms improved after calcium replacement. Occurrence of quadriplegia in hypoparathyroidism, and its improvement after correction of calcium, suggests crucial role of calcium in neuromuscular transmission. One should suspect electrolyte imbalance, like hypocalcemia in patients presenting with nerve conduction features of AMAN variant of GBS

Bacteriological Profile and their Susceptibility Pattern in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Tertiary Care Hospital in Wah

Introduction: Neonatal sepsis is a clinical syndrome characterized by multiple symptoms and signs of infection during the first month of life. The objective of this study is to determine the frequency of commonly isolated bacteria from patients of neonatal sepsis and their susceptibility patterns in POF hospital at Wah. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in POF Hospital Neonatal intensive care unit and Microbiology laboratory from January 2018 to December 2019. The blood samples of patients suspected with neonatal sepsis were processed as per standard methodology. Results: Out of ninety blood samples, fifty-one (56.7%) yielded the growth of Gram-negative rods and thirty-nine (43.3%) yielded Gram-positive cocci. Among Gram-positive bacteria, coagulase-negative staphylococci were the most common pathogen isolated from 53.8% cases followed by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (15.3%). Among Gram-negative bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae (54.90%) was the most frequently identified bacteria followed by Serratia marcescens (27.45%). The Gram-positive cocci were the most susceptible to linezolid (100%) followed by vancomycin (87.2%). The Gram-negative rods depict remarkable resistance to ciprofloxacin (92.2%), gentamicin (100%), and meropenem (54.9%). Conclusions: The study concluded a predominance of Gram-negative bacteria as a causative agent of neonatal sepsis in our setup. The bacterial isolates are highly resistant to commonly prescribed oral as well as injectable antibiotics. Implementation of infection control policies is a dire need to combat the grave situation of increasing antibiotic resistance

Radiative BB to axial-vector meson decays at NLO in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

The rare decay $B\rightarrow A\gamma$, with $A$ representing axial-vector mesons such as $K_1 (1270),\; K_1 (1400),\; b_1(1300),\; a_1(1260)$, is studied at next-to-leading order (NLO) in soft collinear effective theory (SCET). The large outgoing meson energy encourages the study of the decay with an appropriate factorization scheme that separates the factorizable and non-factorizable parts systematically. We have analyzed the leading-power and $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ diagrams that contribute to matching to SCET$_I$. The new intermediate theory is matched onto SCET$_{II}$ and the running of SCET$_I$ operators is performed to sum large perturbative logarithms. The values of soft-overlap function $\zeta_{\perp}$ for $K_1 (1270,\;1400), a_{1}$ and $b_{1}$ mesons are estimated from the light cone-sum-rules (LCSR), and later using it the corresponding branching fractions for $B \to \left(K_{1}(1270,\; 1400),\; a_{1},\; b_{1}\right)\gamma$ decays are calculated. We find that in case of $B \to K_{1}(1270,\; 1400)\gamma$ decays the results are in good agreement with their experimental measurements. Also the estimated values of the branching ratios of the $B \to (b_{1},\; a_1)\gamma$ decays are potentially large to be measured at the LHCb and future B-factories

Probing Heavy Charged Higgs Boson Using Multivariate Technique at Gamma-Gamma Collider

The current study explores the production of charged Higgs particles through photon-photon collisions within the Two Higgs Doublet Model context, including one-loop-level scattering amplitude of Electroweak and QED radiation. The cross-section has been scanned for plane ($m_{\phi^{0}}, \sqrt{s}$) investigating the process of $\gamma\gamma \rightarrow H^{+}H^{-}$. Three particular numerical scenarios low-$m_{H}$, non-alignment, and short-cascade are employed. Hence using $h^{0}$ for low-$m_{H^{0}}$ and $H^{0}$ for non-alignment and short-cascade scenario, the new experimental and theoretical constraints are applied.The decay channels for charged Higgs particles are examined in all the scenarios along with the analysis for cross-sections revealing that at low energy it is consistently higher for all scenarios. However as $\sqrt{s}$ increases, it reaches a peak value at 1$~$TeV for all benchmark scenarios. The branching ratio of the decay channels indicates that for non-alignment, the mode of decay $W^{\pm} h^{0}$ takes control %{} when $BR(H^{\pm} \rightarrow W^{\pm} H^{0})$ decreases at larger values of $m_{H^{0}}$.} and for short cascade the prominent decay mode remains $t\bar{b}$, while in the low-$m_{H}$ the dominant decay channel is of $W^{\pm} h^{0}$. In our research, we employ contemporary machine-learning methodologies to investigate the production of high-energy Higgs Bosons within a 3$$TeV Gamma-Gamma collider. We have used multivariate approaches such as Boosted Decision Trees (BDT), LikelihoodD, and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) to show the observability of heavy-charged Higgs Bosons versus the most significant Standard Model backgrounds. The purity of the signal efficiency and background rejection are measured for each cut value.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure

Students\u27 perceptions of usefulness of Anatomy demonstrations in traditional and hybrid undergraduate medical education curricula

A cross-sectional study was carried out to study students\u27 perceptions on the usefulness of Anatomy demonstrations (AD) in the undergraduate medical education by comparing the Conventional Medical College (CMC) and problem-based learning as hybrid curriculum (HMC). Purposive sampling technique was used and all students were included. The completed questionnaire responses were returned by 92 CMC and 87 HMC students. CMC cohort understood the structural relationship more than HMC (p=0.03). AD helped 50 students (54%) of CMC to get through the theory examination, however 73 (84%) students of HMC found them useful in preparation for theory examinations (p\u3c0.001). The importance of AD as a major content delivery strategy cannot be overemphasized in the anatomy curriculum and useful teaching strategies from various undergraduate medical curricula, such as the use of the plastic and plastinated models and the session handouts

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 growthpromoting 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