Potential of Biocontrol Agents in Plant Disease Control for Improving Food Safety

Plant disease control is mainly based on extraneous application of pesticides to improve agriculture productivity. However, only a part of applied pesticides is used for killing of pathogens and pests. Large part of applied pesticides remains either as residual pesticide or gets volatilized or leached resulting in ecological and environmental problems, and human health hazards. The increased consumer demands for safe food have invigorated research on development of safe and ecofriendly biopesticides. The use of microorganisms for biological control of pests is considered as a pragmatic approach which can drastically lessen the adverse outcomes of agrochemicals in soil. Rhizospheric microorganisms isolated from various crops produce different antagnostic compounds and inhibit the growth of various phytopathogens and insect pests. Moreover, in several plants, hormones like salicylic acid, jasmonic acid and ethylene contribute towards induction of both, systemic acquired as well as induced systemic resitance. In this article, antagonistic rhizosphere microorganisms have been explored for control of phytopathogens. Further, recent advances in field of biopesticides using rhizosphere microorganisms under field conditions is discussed for improvingcrop productivity in sustainable agricultur

Biopesticides: Use of Rhizosphere Bacteria for Biological Control of Plant Pathogens

The pesticides used to control pests and diseases are also implicated in ecological, environmental and human health hazards. To reduce the deleterious effects of these agrochemicals, certain antagonistic microorganisms have been characterised from rhizosphere of different crop plants that suppress various plant diseases and thus, minimize the use of pesticides. The application of these specific antagonistic microorganisms in biological control of soilborne pathogens has been studied intensively in the last two decades. These beneficial rhizosphere microorganisms inhibit the pathogenic bacteria and fungi by producing antibiotics, bacteriocins, siderophores, hydrolytic enzymes and other secondary metabolites. The efficiency of these biocontrol products can be improved by manipulation of the environment, using mixtures of beneficial organisms, physiological and genetic enhancement of the biocontrol mechanisms, manipulation of formulations and integration of biocontrol with other alternative methods that provide additive effects. These biocontrol agents could be effectively utilised in sustainable agriculture for improving growth of crop plants

Changing physician behavior: interventions to improve prescription writing practices in a secondary level hospital in Delhi

Background: According to a report by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2003, approximately 50% of all patients fail to take their medicine correctly. This is due to errors in prescription, underuse or misuse of medicines and ignorance of prescribers, dispensers, and patients.Methods: It is a hospital-based interventional-study carried out in a secondary level multispecialty hospital of Delhi. Investigators collected 536 prescriptions from the outpatient department of various departments and studied according to WHO core prescribing indicators for assessing drug prescription writing pattern. Interventions to improve the prescribing pattern included one continued medical education session and one workshop on prescription writing (providing essential drug list [EDL] etc.,), sharing the baseline data with the physicians and administrative approach. Evaluation of the prescribing pattern after 6 weeks of the intervention was done to find out the impact.Results: On an average 3.43 drug per encounter before intervention increased to 3.46 drugs per encounter. Inclusion of generic drugs and from EDL increased significantly from 54.8% to 73.4% and 76.9% to 88.4% respectively.. Prescribing antibiotics and injectables showed no significant reduction from baseline. The completeness of the prescriptions with respect to the various components improved significantly.Conclusion: Combining different intervention seems a noble approach to improve the prescription writing practices with respect to completeness and inclusion of generic drugs, drugs from EDL

MHC-DRB1 exon 2 polymorphism and its association with faecal egg count of Haemonchus contortus in Munjal sheep

365-369Haemonchosis is an important disease of small ruminants. Anthelmenthic resistance has instigated the demand of other viable method for control of gastrointestinal parasite. Here, we investigated ovine major histocompatibility complex class II (Ovar MHC II) DRB1 exon 2 polymorphism and its association with faecal egg count (FEC) of Haemonchus contortus in Munjal population of sheep. Genomic DNA was isolated from blood samples of 46 lambs between 6-7 months of age. The polymorphism in DRB1 gene was analyzed using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique. PCR products of exon 2 of DRB1 gene were digested with HaeII, BsaHI and NciI restriction enzymes. Fragment of the DRB1 gene comprising 9 bp of the 5' intron and 270 bp of entire exon 2 was successfully amplified. On digestion of 279 bp PCR product with NciI, three genotypes viz. A1A1, A2A2 and A1A2 were found with allele frequencies 0.65 and 0.35. HaeII enzyme revealed three genotypes A1A1, A1A2 and A2A2 with allele frequencies of A1 and A2 were 0.42 and 0.58. BsaHI enzyme also generated three genotypes A1A1, A1A2 and A2A2 with allele frequencies of A1 and A2 was 0.42 and 0.58. We were able to found polymorphism in DRB1 gene but no association could be established between genotypes generated by different restriction enzymes and FEC of H. contortus in Munjal sheep

Ultrasensitive Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Detection by Porous Silver Supraparticles from Self-Lubricating Drop Evaporation

This work demonstrates an original and ultrasensitive approach for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) detection based on evaporation of self-lubricating drops containing silver supraparticles. The developed method detects an extremely low concentration of analyte that is enriched and concentrated on sensitive SERS sites of the compact supraparticles formed from drop evaporation. A low limit of detection of 10^-16 M is achieved for a model hydrophobic compound rhodamine 6G (R6G). The quantitative analysis of R6G concentration is obtained from 10^-5 to 10^-11 M. In addition, for a model micro-pollutant in water triclosan, the detection limit of 10^-6 M is achieved by using microliter sample solutions. The intensity of SERS detection in this approach is robust to the dispersity of the nanoparticles in the drop but became stronger after a longer drying time. The ultrasensitive detection mechanism is the sequential process of concentration, extraction, and absorption of the analyte during evaporation of self-lubrication drop and hot spot generation for intensification of SERS signals. This novel approach for sample preparation in ultrasensitive SERS detection can be applied to the detection of chemical and biological signatures in areas such as environment monitoring, food safety, and biomedical diagnostics.Comment: 25 Pages, 12 Figure

Evaluation of computerized health management information system for primary health care in rural India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Comprehensive Rural Health Services Project Ballabgarh, run by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has a computerized Health Management Information System (HMIS) since 1988. The HMIS at Ballabgarh has undergone evolution and is currently in its third version which uses generic and open source software. This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a computerized Health Management Information System in rural health system in India.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data for evaluation were collected by in-depth interviews of the stakeholders i.e. program managers (authors) and health workers. Health Workers from AIIMS and Non-AIIMS Primary Health Centers were interviewed to compare the manual with computerized HMIS. A cost comparison between the two methods was carried out based on market costs. The resource utilization for both manual and computerized HMIS was identified based on workers' interviews.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There have been no major hardware problems in use of computerized HMIS. More than 95% of data was found to be accurate. Health workers acknowledge the usefulness of HMIS in service delivery, data storage, generation of workplans and reports. For program managers, it provides a better tool for monitoring and supervision and data management. The initial cost incurred in computerization of two Primary Health Centers was estimated to be Indian National Rupee (INR) 1674,217 (USD 35,622). Equivalent annual incremental cost of capital items was estimated as INR 198,017 (USD 4213). The annual savings is around INR 894,283 (USD 11,924).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The major advantage of computerization has been in saving of time of health workers in record keeping and report generation. The initial capital costs of computerization can be recovered within two years of implementation if the system is fully operational. Computerization has enabled implementation of a good system for service delivery, monitoring and supervision.</p

The rhizosphere microbiome and biological control of weeds: A review

The productivity of important grain crops wheat, rice and maize is adversely affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Weeds and phytopathogens are the major biotic stresses involved in biomass reduction and yield losses of these cereal crops. Various weeds compete with crop plants for natural resources viz. light, moisture, nutrients and space, and cause yield losses to agricultural produce. Weeds also increase harvesting costs and reduce quality of the farm produce. Weed management strategies include crop rotation, mechanical weeding or treatment with different herbicides. Although, sprays of different herbicides control various destructive weeds but their excessive use is environmentally unsafe and uneconomic. Indiscriminate use of these agrochemicals for weed control has resulted into considerable pollution of soil, groundwater and atmosphere. Therefore, effective biological weed management is an attractive approach for achieving the increased crop production to meet the food demands of the escalating global population. Many bacteria and fungi have been identified from the plant rhizospheres, which suppress the growth of weeds. The production of indole acetic acid, aminolevulinic acid, toxins and hydrogen cyanide has been correlated with the growth suppression of various weeds. Interestingly, inoculation with bioherbicides results in creation of biased rhizosphere leading to resource partitioning of nutrients towards growth stimulation of crop plants. Thus, inoculation of plants with bioherbicides has been found to increase germination percentage, seedling vigor, root and shoot growth, seed weight and increased grain, fodder and fruit yields. These environment-friendly biocontrol strategies for management of weeds are highly compatible with the sustainable agriculture

Cardiology update - The first quarter

The first round of this year covers a lot about dual-antiplatelet therapy duration after stent placement, coronary angiography after a cardiac arrest, transcatheter aortic valve replacement indications in low-risk patients, sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor results, angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor in acute heart failure, and many other trials