Morphological and biochemical characterization of Passiflora quadrangularis L. - A source of vegetable from East Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India

Present research investigation was aimed at morphological and biochemical assessment of Passiflora quadrangularis L. commonly known as giant granadilla and locally called asvegetable squash grown as vegetable crop by the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. Sevengenotypes collected during survey were characterized for different morphological andbiochemical traits. Results showed that average fruit weight was 432.57g/fruit, with juicecontent 100.11 mL/fruit, vitamin C content 25.79 mg, vitamin A content 1.65 mg, Mean total flavonoids content was 16.75 mg/100 g of fruit juice, total soluble solids 12.040 Brix,antioxidant activity (DPPH) 6.07 %, titratable acidity 1.69 %, total carbohydrates 9.95 %,phenol content 338.38 mg/100 g of leaf was noted among the genotypes tested. The mean anthocyanin content in leaf was 1.20 mg/100 g, tendril 0.90 mg/100 g and petiole 1.69 mg/ 100 g among the genotypes. Seed protein profiling of Passiflora quadrangularis L. with SDS- PAGE showed diverse molecular weights ranging from 11 KD to 163.53 KD. However, monomorphic banding pattern among the protein profiling of giant granadilla was recorded among the selected genotypes. The results of the study show that the collected genotypes are belonged to Passiflora quadrangularis L. and are good source of nutritive value which can be used as source of vegetable

Ghrelin does not impact the blunted counterregulatory response to recurrent hypoglycemia in mice

IntroductionRecurrent episodes of insulin-induced hypoglycemia in patients with diabetes mellitus can result in hypoglycemia-associated autonomic failure (HAAF), which is characterized by a compromised response to hypoglycemia by counterregulatory hormones (counterregulatory response; CRR) and hypoglycemia unawareness. HAAF is a leading cause of morbidity in diabetes and often hinders optimal regulation of blood glucose levels. Yet, the molecular pathways underlying HAAF remain incompletely described. We previously reported that in mice, ghrelin is permissive for the usual CRR to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. Here, we tested the hypothesis that attenuated release of ghrelin both results from HAAF and contributes to HAAF.MethodsC57BL/6N mice, ghrelin-knockout (KO) + control mice, and GhIRKO (ghrelin cell-selective insulin receptor knockout) + control mice were randomized to one of three treatment groups: a “Euglycemia” group was injected with saline and remained euglycemic; a 1X hypoglycemia (“1X Hypo”) group underwent a single episode of insulin-induced hypoglycemia; a recurrent hypoglycemia (“Recurrent Hypo”) group underwent repeated episodes of insulin-induced hypoglycemia over five successive days.ResultsRecurrent hypoglycemia exaggerated the reduction in blood glucose (by ~30%) and attenuated the elevations in plasma levels of the CRR hormones glucagon (by 64.5%) and epinephrine (by 52.9%) in C57BL/6N mice compared to a single hypoglycemic episode. Yet, plasma ghrelin was equivalently reduced in “1X Hypo” and “Recurrent Hypo” C57BL/6N mice. Ghrelin-KO mice exhibited neither exaggerated hypoglycemia in response to recurrent hypoglycemia, nor any additional attenuation in CRR hormone levels compared to wild-type littermates. Also, in response to recurrent hypoglycemia, GhIRKO mice exhibited nearly identical blood glucose and plasma CRR hormone levels as littermates with intact insulin receptor expression (floxed-IR mice), despite higher plasma ghrelin in GhIRKO mice.ConclusionsThese data suggest that the usual reduction of plasma ghrelin due to insulin-induced hypoglycemia is unaltered by recurrent hypoglycemia and that ghrelin does not impact blood glucose or the blunted CRR hormone responses during recurrent hypoglycemia

The small pelagic fishery of the Pemba Channel, Tanzania: what we know and what we need to know for management under climate change

Small pelagic fish, including anchovies, sardines and sardinellas, mackerels, capelin, hilsa, sprats and herrings, are distributed widely, from the tropics to the far north Atlantic Ocean and to the southern oceans off Chile and South Africa. They are most abundant in the highly productive major eastern boundary upwelling systems and are characterised by significant natural variations in biomass. Overall, small pelagic fisheries represent about one third of global fish landings although a large proportion of the catch is processed into animal feeds. Nonetheless, in some developing countries in addition to their economic value, small pelagic fisheries also make an important contribution to human diets and the food security of many low-income households. Such is the case for many communities in the Zanzibar Archipelago and on mainland Tanzania in the Western Indian Ocean. Of great concern in this region, as elsewhere, is the potential impact of climate change on marine and coastal ecosystems in general, and on small pelagic fisheries in particular. This paper describes data and information available on Tanzania's small pelagic fisheries, including catch and effort, management protocols and socio-economic significance

Enhancing the performance of distributed hash tables in the presence of network address translators

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks are preferred over other content distribution service architectures since they provide more resilience and higher availability through wide scale replication of content at large numbers of peers. Many algorithms based on Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) have been developed in the last few years to make searching on a P2P network more efficient. Though many benchmarks have been developed in the past to study the performance of DHT algorithms, none of them have focused on the presence of Network Address Translators (NATs). With more than half of the computers in the world connected to the Internet being behind NATs, DHTs cannot afford to ignore them. We study the performance of DHTs and analyze the causes of failures by modeling their behavior with NATs in p2psim (an open-source simulator). We first propose a generic master-slave design that will help Chord (a well known DHT) extend its reach to nodes that are behind the most restrictive of NATs. Exploiting the real world distribution of NATs and prevalent implementation characteristics of Chord, we also propose a more specific solution that can a large subset of nodes behind NATs become active members of the ring. We have implemented both these designs in p2psim, and obtained various performance metrics. Our results from the numerous experimental runs show that DHTs like Chord can be made more scalable without destabilizing the system. We hope that these plots will aid in effective management of trade-offs and in engineering an approach based on the characteristics of the P2P application and the network

Choline chloride as an efficient catalyst for the synthesis of styryl-pyrazoles

<p>An efficient and green methodology for syntheses of various styryl-pyrazoles (3) from the reaction of 2-(5-phenyl-1<i>H</i>-pyrazol-3-yl)acetonitriles (1) with substituted benzaldehydes (2) by the use of biodegradable, nonhazardous, naturally occurring, and inexpensive choline chloride and NaOH under an environmentally benign medium has been described.</p

Medical School and Stress: A Cross-sectional Study of Stress among Medical Students in Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences in district Etawah

Background: Medical education has come long way since the era of Hippocrates. It is progressively evolving into a more organized and complicated system. All over the world, Medical education is criticized as one of the most demanding and stressful academics, showing effects on physical and mental health of medical students. This research was conducted to study stress and its factors in students of UPUMS, Saifai, Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. Aim &amp; Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of stress among medical students of UPUMS. To estimate internal consistency of Medical Students Stress Questionnaire (MSSQ-40). Material &amp; Methods: A Cross-sectional study was carried out during Oct. 2017 - Mar. 2018 among MBBS Students of all academic years in Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences (UPUMS), Saifai. All the students enrolled in the university available on the day of data collection were recruited in the study. MSSQ-40 was the study tool to assess stress. Ethical clearance was obtained from Ethical Committee. Statistical analysis done in SPSS-23. Results: The mean age of subjects was 22.4±2.3 years, more than 84% of the respondents had moderate and high stress. More number of females perceived stress than the male, 33% female were suffering from high &amp; severe stress. statistically significant. Conclusion: Gender &amp; grades had clear association with stress, academics &amp; interpersonal relation caused more stress. Early detection and effective intervention can prevent future illness among medical students

A case report of neuroleptic malignant syndrome

A 32-year-old male patient with a history of treatment resistant paranoid schizophrenia developed neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) during changeover of his antipsychotic medication from zuclopenthixol depot to clozapine. This case highlights the difficulties of cross-tapering two antipsychotics—that is, converting from a typical depot medication to an oral atypical antipsychotic

Response of Yield and Fruit Quality to Foliar Application of Micronutrients in Lemon [Citrus limon (L.) Burm.] cv. Assam Lemon

Assam lemon [Citrus limon (L.) Burm.], an indigenous lemon cultivar of Assam, is widely cultivated in warm southern slopes of the Himalayas in North-Eastern India. Since this cultivar of lemon is having a prominent trait of bearing fruits in several flushes throughout the year, it is essential to provide sufficient nutrition for obtaining optimum yield with good quality fruits. In the current experiment, a randomized block design having twelve treatments with three replications was followed to find out the response of lemon fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micronutrients during the year 2019. Among all, the treatment ZnSO4 (0.2%) + FeSO4 (0.2%) + Borax (0.2%) + CuSO4 (0.2%) gave the best performance in improving the yield and quality of fruits. The highest number of fruits per plant at the time of harvesting (73), yield per plant (11.5 kg), fruit fresh weight (158 g), fruit length (9.60 cm), fruit diameter (5.80 cm), juice content (152 mL/fruit), TSS (6.40 °B), ascorbic acid (49.10 mg/100g), total sugar (6.30%), reducing sugar (3.90%), non-reducing sugar (2.40%) with lowest titratable acidity(3.13%) were obtained which revealed that the yield and fruit quality of lemon depends on the application of different micronutrients

Response of Yield and Fruit Quality to Foliar Application of Micronutrients in Lemon [Citrus limon (L.) Burm.] cv. Assam Lemon

Assam lemon [Citrus limon (L.) Burm.], an indigenous lemon cultivar of Assam, is widely cultivated in warm southern slopes of the Himalayas in North-Eastern India. Since this cultivar of lemon is having a prominent trait of bearing fruits in several flushes throughout the year, it is essential to provide sufficient nutrition for obtaining optimum yield with good quality fruits. In the current experiment, a randomized block design having twelve treatments with three replications was followed to find out the response of lemon fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micronutrients during the year 2019. Among all, the treatment ZnSO4 (0.2%) + FeSO4 (0.2%) + Borax (0.2%) + CuSO4 (0.2%) gave the best performance in improving the yield and quality of fruits. The highest number of fruits per plant at the time of harvesting (73), yield per plant (11.5 kg), fruit fresh weight (158 g), fruit length (9.60 cm), fruit diameter (5.80 cm), juice content (152 mL/fruit), TSS (6.40 °B), ascorbic acid (49.10 mg/100g), total sugar (6.30%), reducing sugar (3.90%), non-reducing sugar (2.40%) with lowest titratable acidity (3.13%) were obtained which revealed that the yield and fruit quality of lemon depends on the application of different micronutrients