Molecular Basis of Plant Adaptation against Aridity

Environment fluctuations have become the greatest threat to global food security. Of various abiotic stress factors, aridity hampers the most yield contributing attributes. In the context of agriculture, term “aridity” refers to a protracted period of insufficient precipitation, having detrimental influence on crop development and overall biological output. A sustained drought has considerable negative effects on crops and livestock, including the reduced production, destruction of property, and livestock sell-offs. Consequently, plants themself exert various kinds of defensive mechanisms to combat the ill effects of climate change. For example, plants with small leaves, benefit from aridity as part of their strategy for modifying the soil to water shortages and nutrient restrictions. Furthermore, low genetic diversity among significant crop species, together with ecological productivity limits, must be addressed in order to adapt crops to episodic drought spells in the coming days. A deeper understanding of the molecular and genetic underpinnings of the most important intrinsic adaptation responses to drought stress seems to be beneficial for gene engineering as well as gene-based expression investigations in plant systems under hostile environment. Recently, molecular markers and “omics” have opened a huge opportunity to identify and develop specific gene constructs governing plant adaptation to environmental stress

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Abstract: This study describes development and subsequent validation of a reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method for estimation of letrozole, a new aromatase inhibitor, in raw material, pharmaceutical formulations like tablets and nanoparticles and in release medium. The chromatographic system consisted of a FinePak C 8 column, an isocratic mobile phase composed of deionized water, acetonitrile and methanol (50:30:20 v/v/v) and UV detection at 240 nm. Letrozole was eluted at 9.8 min with no interfering peak of excipients used for the preparation of dosage forms. The method was linear over the range from 1 to 50 µg/mL in raw drug (R 2 = 0.9999). The intra-day and inter-day precision values were in the range of 0.122 ñ 0.277%. Limit of detection and limit of quantitation were 0.207 µg/mL and 0.627 µg/mL, respectively. Results were validated statistically according to ICH guidelines in both tablets and nanoparticles. Validation of the method yielded good results concerning range, linearity, precision and accuracy. The method was successfully applied in drug release studies from nanoparticles. The release kinetics was found to be fitted into the Higuchi model

Isolation and characterization of pectic polysaccharides from the fruits of <i>Naringi crenulata</i>

437-442Pectic polysaccharides have been isolated from the fruits of Naringi crenulata by extraction with water. The water extract contains large amount of protein. The polymers present in the water extract are fractionated by graded precipitation with ethanol, anion exchange chromatography, and size exclusion chromatography. Characterization or the subtractions obtained therefrom by various chemical and physico-chemical methods of analysis reveals that the water extract contain pectic polymers substituted to various degrees with side chains comprising mainly or terminal, 1,4-, 1,6-, 1,3,6-linked galactose, together with lesser amounts of 1,2,4- and 1,3-linked galactose residues. Arabinose residues are terminal, 1, 5-, 1,3,5-linked. These polymers contain acetyl groups and give viscous solution in water

Excellent EMI shielding performance and thermal insulating properties in lightweight, multifunctional carbon-cenosphere composite foams

Lightweight carbon foam has been considered as one of the most promising candidates for providing excellent EMI shielding performance in the fields of aerospace and portable electronics. Here, multifunctional lightweight carbon composite foams were developed by the impregnation of phenolic resin and cenospheres (0-40 wt.%) into polyurethane (PU) foam substrate. Subsequenty, impregnated foams were converted into carbon-cenosphere composite foams via heat treatment at 1000 degrees C. The influence of cenosphere particles on the morphological, physical, mechanical electrical and thermal properties of carbon-cenosphere composite foams was studied in details. EMI shielding of carbon-cenosphere composite foam was measured in X-band frequency region (8.2-12.4 GHz) using waveguide method. The total shielding effectiveness (SE) of carbon foam was increased from - 25.2 to - 48.6 dB by the loading of 30 wt.% cenosphere. The thermal conductivity achieves as low as 0.02 W/(m.K), which is similar to aerogel

Significance of fractal correlation dimension and seismic b-value variation due to 15th July 2009, New Zealand earthquake of Mw 7.8

New Zealand earthquake that occurred on 15th July 2009 (Mw 7.8) was analysed using fractal correlation dimension (Dc) and seismic b-VALUE. We have analysed the earthquakes catalog of thirty- ve years with a magnitude (mb ≥3.7), in order to observe a crucial in- formation in terms of Dc value uctuation for the event. The event is preceded by fall and anomalous change in Dc value in the year 2007 about two years prior to the mainshock. A sudden decrease in Dc value with highly clustered events is observed before the main- shock. The low value of Dc is an indicator of clustering and it shows how intermediate size events correlate with one another in the pre- paration process of this event. Here the low Dc value may be the indicator for high stress developer along the fault to produce large size earthquake. Moreover, we also observed abnormal uctuation in b-VALUE from 2003. The fractal clustering and scaling of earthquakes are indicated by b-VALUE change prior to strong earthquake as a harbinger of stress correlation in various scales. The event is also mar- ked for that occurred in the periphery of the positive Coulomb stress development, as obtained from three low Dc time windows' events. The drop in Dc value is not a single observation prior to this large event, but such pattern is also seen for other strong events in the study zone. One such well identi ed strong event is Mw 7.2 (2003) along with low Dc value prior to the event. Thus, stress correlation mea- sured along with these indirect statistical tools gives the clue of self-organization of long wavelength of stress, which was not measu- red earlier with classical approaches. This type of study may provide a very useful information for hazard mitigation

Remote ischemic preconditioning for prevention of contrast-induced acute kidney injury in patients of CKD stage III and IV undergoing elective coronary angiography: A randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is a serious complication of coronary angiography (CA). The aim of this randomized, parallel group, single blind, sham-controlled trial was to assess the safety and efficacy of the remote ischemic preconditioning on the prevention of CI-AKI. Methods: Patients of 18–80 years of age with CKD 3 and 4, who were admitted for elective coronary angiography in a tertiary care hospital in eastern India were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to standard care with ischemic preconditioning (n = 45; intermittent arm ischemia through 4 cycles of 5-min inflation and 5-min deflation of a blood pressure cuff) or with standard care and sham ischemic preconditioning (n = 42). Overall, both study groups were at moderate risk of developing CI-AKI according to the Mehran risk score. The primary endpoint was the incidence of CI-AKI, defined as an increase in serum creatinine ≥25' or ≥0.5 mg/dL above baseline at 48 h after contrast medium exposure. Results: CI-AKI occurred in 8 patients (19.04') in the control group and 2 (4.4') in the remote ischemic preconditioning group (odds ratio, 0.198, 95' confidence interval, 0.087 to 0.452; P = 0.04). No major adverse events were related to remote ischemic preconditioning. Conclusions: This study indicates that remote ischemic preconditioning is a simple and well-tolerated procedure, which reduces the incidence of CI-AKI in CKD 3 and 4 patients undergoing coronary angiography

Lightweight, high electrical and thermal conducting carbon-rGO composites foam for superior electromagnetic interference shielding

Lightweight and high strength carbon-rGO composite foams were inventively fabricated by simple sacrificial template technique using reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and phenolic resin as a carbon source. The carbon-rGO composite foams were fabricated by two different routes. In one case, rGO was incorporated in phenolic resin and carbon foam developed by several heat treatments. In the other case, graphene oxide (GO) was decorated over carbon foam and converted into rGO decorated carbon foam by heat treatment. The EMI shielding of carbon-rGO composite foams was measured in the X-band frequency range (8.2-12.4 GHz) and mechanisms were systematically studied with respect to the rGO and porous structure. The EMI SE of carbon foams was increased from -23.2 to -50.7 dB by the decoration of 1.0 wt % rGO. The thermal conductivity achieves as high as 1.4 W/(m K) by incorporation of 4.0 wt % rGO in carbon foam. All the results indicated that this effort provided a novel, simple, low-cost concept for fabricating lightweight, high electrical and thermal conducting carbon-rGO composite foam for high-performance EMI shielding applications

Chorzy trudni nietypowiWspółistnienie stenozy mitralnej i achalazji przełyku - opis przypadku

A 65-year-old woman with rheumatic heart disease and severe mitral stenosis developed dysphagia. As her dysphagia could not be directly attributed to an enlarged left atrium, she underwent barium swallow, which established the diagnosis of achalasia. This case report shows two unrelated diseases present in the same patient which individually can cause dysphagia