India’s water supply and demand from 2025-2050: business-as-usual scenario and issues

Water demandEstimationIrrigation waterRiver basinsWater supplySimulation modelsPopulation growthFood productionFood consumptionCrop yieldGroundwater irrigation

Identifying mesoscale eddies- Relevance to mud banks and fishery

The most popular fishing area during mud bank formation in Kerala is off Punnapra coast in Alapuzha district. This place is equipped with unique crafts such as one-man operated expanded polystyrene thermocol made gill netters, and several other traditional crafts. The fishermen community along this coast is vigilant against any mechanized fishing during mud bank period which falls in the southwest monsoon months when there is a ban on mechanized crafts. There are comparable datasets, from mud bank vis-à-vis non mud bank in this region, which indicate that, the catch per unit effort (CPUE) do not vary significantly. Fishing in Thrissur and Malappuram districts are not restricted by the formation of mud banks. In these districts modified outboard crafts such as pair trawlers operating double net and the high horse power of the out board engines are generally on a look out for nonmud bank resources also. In Malappuram district, the occurrence of the mud bank fishery is for limited days and generally less reported. Therefore, the analysis of data sets indicated better production and CPUE from non-mud banks in Malappuram. In general we can say that there is no significant increase in abundance of fishes reported from the mud bank regions. But the calm waters generated at certain pockets of the otherwise disturbed coastal waters act as areas for seasonal landings of fish

Prognostic importance of left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138381/1/ejhf789.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138381/2/ejhf789_am.pd

Atrial fibrillation impairs the diagnostic performance of cardiac natriuretic peptides in dyspneic patients. results from the BACH Study (Biomarkers in ACute Heart Failure)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of atrial fibrillation (AF) on the performance of mid-region amino terminal pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP) in comparison with the B-type peptides (BNP and NT-proBNP) for diagnosis of acute heart failure (HF) in dyspneic patients. Background: The effects of AF on the diagnostic and prognostic performance of MR-proANP in comparison with the B type natriuretic peptides have not been previously reported. Methods: A total of 1,445 patients attending the emergency department with acute dyspnea had measurements taken of MR-proANP, BNP, and NT-proBNP values on enrollment to the BACH trial and were grouped according to presence or absence of AF and HF. Results: AF was present in 242 patients. Plasma concentrations of all three peptides were lowest in those with neither AF nor HF and AF without HF was associated with markedly increased levels (p < 0.00001). HF with or without AF was associated with a significant further increment (p < 0.00001 for all three markers). Areas under receiver operator characteristic curves (AUCs) for discrimination of acute HF were similar and powerful for all peptides without AF (0.893 to 0.912; all p < 0.001) with substantial and similar reductions (0.701 to 0.757) in the presence of AF. All 3 peptides were independently prognostic but there was no interaction between any peptide and AF for prediction of all-cause mortality. Conclusions: AF is associated with increased plasma natriuretic peptide (MR-proANP, BNP and NT-proBNP) levels in the absence of HF. The diagnostic performance of all three peptides is impaired by AF. This warrants consideration of adjusted peptide thresholds for diagnostic use in AF and mandates the continued search for markers free of confounding by AF

Impact of pulmonary disease on the prognosis in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: the TOPCAT trial

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154618/1/ejhf1593_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154618/2/ejhf1593.pd

Coordination of Mobile Mules via Facility Location Strategies

In this paper, we study the problem of wireless sensor network (WSN) maintenance using mobile entities called mules. The mules are deployed in the area of the WSN in such a way that would minimize the time it takes them to reach a failed sensor and fix it. The mules must constantly optimize their collective deployment to account for occupied mules. The objective is to define the optimal deployment and task allocation strategy for the mules, so that the sensors' downtime and the mules' traveling distance are minimized. Our solutions are inspired by research in the field of computational geometry and the design of our algorithms is based on state of the art approximation algorithms for the classical problem of facility location. Our empirical results demonstrate how cooperation enhances the team's performance, and indicate that a combination of k-Median based deployment with closest-available task allocation provides the best results in terms of minimizing the sensors' downtime but is inefficient in terms of the mules' travel distance. A k-Centroid based deployment produces good results in both criteria.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, conferenc

S-Nitrosothiol-modified nitric oxide-releasing chitosan oligosaccharides as antibacterial agents

S-nitrosothiol-modified chitosan oligosaccharides were synthesized by reaction with 2-iminothiolane hydrochloride and 3-acetamido-4,4-dimethylthietan-2-one, followed by the thiol nitrosation. The resulting nitric oxide (NO)-releasing chitosan oligosaccharides stored ~0.3 μmol NO/mg chitosan. Both the chemical structure of the nitrosothiol (i.e., primary and tertiary) and the use of ascorbic acid as a trigger for NO donor decomposition were used to control the NO-release kinetics. With ascorbic acid, the S-nitrosothiol-modified chitosan oligosaccharides elicited a 4-log reduction in Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) viability. Confocal microscopy indicated that the primary S-nitrosothiol-modified chitosan oligosaccharides associated more with the bacteria relative to the tertiary S-nitrosothiol system. The primary S-nitrosothiol-modified chitosan oligosaccharides elicited minimal toxicity towards L929 mouse fibroblast cells at the concentration necessary for a 4-log reduction in bacterial viability, further demonstrating the potential of S-nitrosothiol-modified chitosan oligosaccharides as NO-release therapeutics