Schooling, cognitive ability, and health

A large literature documents a strong correlation between health and educational outcomes. In this paper we investigate the role of cognitive ability in the health–education nexus. Using NLSY data, we show that cognitive ability accounts for roughly one quarter of the association between schooling and health. Both schooling and ability are strongly associated with health at low levels but less related or unrelated at high levels. Estimates treating schooling as endogenous to health suggest that most of the correlation between schooling and health is attributable to unobserved heterogeneity, except possibly at low levels of schooling for individuals with low cognitive ability. An implication is that policies which increase schooling will only increase health to the extent that they increase the education of poorly-educated individuals; subsidies to college education, for example, are unlikely to increase population health.education, health, intelligence, correlated random coefficient models

Memory fMRI predicts verbal memory decline after anterior temporal lobe resection.

To develop a clinically applicable memory functional MRI (fMRI) method of predicting postsurgical memory outcome in individual patients

A PACS alternative for transmitting DICOM images in a high latency environment

Picture Archiving and Communication System(PACS) is responsible for storing Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) images fromradiology modalities into its database, images takes a lot of time to transfer to remote location through WAN due to large file size and slow transfer protocol. A PACS alternative system has been developed which performs basic functions of a generic PACS. Images directly from modalities are large in size by default transfer syntax of these images is Endian Explicit syntax. Changing this transfer syntax to lossless JPEG 2000 decreases the file size and because of lossless compression quality of image is still same as original image. These compressed images are then copied into Network Attached Storage working as PACS alternative. A series of test conducted in lab with multiple transfer protocol on Network Attached Storage (NAS) to find out which transfer protocol is faster under moderate speed and high latency network

Donor notification in reactive donors and their response to communication

Background: Blood transfusion is associated with the risk of transmitting transfusion transmissible infections (TTI) even after the thorough mandatory TTI screening of blood units. To prevent disease transmission, it is important to inform, notify and counsel the donors about their seroreactive status at the blood centre. The present study determines the response of various TTI reactive donors for post donation counselling after notification and their persistence in society as reactive donors.Methods: It was a retrospective study conducted at tertiary care center from 1May2015 to 30April2017. Re-active donors were called to the blood bank by telephonic call and letters. Reactive donors on complying at center were retested, counselled and referred to appropriate centre for further management.Results: There were 34,204 blood donations over period of two years, out of which 375[1.09%] were reactive donors. Of these HBV reactive comprises of 166/34204(0.48%), HCV were 40/34204(0.11%), HIV reactive donors comprises of 26/34204(0.07%), Syphilis 138/34204[0.40%] and there were five cases of co-infection, two for HIV+ HCV, two cases HIV+HBV and one case of co-infection with HBV+ Syphilis. A total of 375 TTI reactive donors were identified, out of which (227/375) 60.5% contacted by tele-phone calls and letters and remaining (148/375) 39.46% cannot be contacted. Out of 227 contacted donors only 117 donors reported for post donation counselling i.e. response rate of 51.54%.Conclusions: Donor notification is efficient method of curtailing TTI but undermined by communication failure with donors, resulting in persistent load of blood transmissible infectious risk

Effect of Seed Disinfectants on in vitro Seed Germination and Seedling Development in Eggplant

The present investigation reports effects of disinfectants on culture contamination, seed germination and seedling growth in eggplant. Mercuric chloride hampers seed germination when seeds are treated with 0.1% solution above 2 min duration and lesser durations are not helpful in controlling in vitro contamination. The highest seed germination (89.97%) was recorded with 50% commercial bleach for 20 min in the genotype BL-3, followed by BR-16 (88.53%), BR-14 (86.19%), BL-5 (86.16%) and BSR-23 (85.57%). However, least number of seeds germinated in BR-18 (10.94%), BSR-25 (13.27%) and BL-7 (18.62%) when disinfected with 75% commercial bleach for 25min. Overall results revealed that 50% commercial bleach concentration (73.76%) was better than 75% (36.85%), and 20 min duration (60.82%) was better than 25 min (49.80%) for seed disinfection. Among the varieties, BL-3 was at the top (68.85%) and BR-18 at the lowest (34.16%) edge for per cent seed germination. Seedling growth (cm) with use of commercial bleach was quite satisfactory compared to disinfection with HgCl2, where, 50% commercial bleach favored a good stand of plant lets even after 10 days, showing a healthy root (3cm), hypocotyl (5cm) and cotyledons (1.5cm)

Arenibacter amylolyticus sp. nov., an amylase- producing bacterium of the family Flavobacteriaceae isolated from marine water in India

A novel Gram- stain- negative, curved rod- shaped, 0.5?0.7 ?m wide and 3.0?10.0 ?m long, non- motile bacterium, designated strain AK53T, was isolated from a 5 m depth water sample collected from the Bay of Bengal, Visakhapatnam, India. Colonies on marine agar were circular, small, dark orange, shiny, smooth, translucent, flat, with an entire margin. The major fatty acids included iso-C15:0, iso-C15: 0 3OH, anteiso- C15:0, iso-C15: 1 G, iso- C17: 0 3OH and summed feature 3 (C16:1 ?7c and/or C16:1 ?6c and/or iso-C15:0- 2OH). Polar lipids included phosphatidylethanolamine and five unidentified lipids. The DNA G+C content of the strain AK53T was found to be 40.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain AK53T was closely related to Arenibacter latericius KMM 426T and Arenibacter certesii KMM3941T (pair- wise sequence similarity of 99.17 and 98.89 %, respectively), forming a distinct branch within the genus Arenibacter and clustering with A. latericius. Strain AK53T shared average nucleotide identity (ANIb, based on BLAST) of 78.07 and 77.44 % with A. latericius JCM 13508T and A. certesii JCM 13507T, respectively. Based on the observed phenotypic, chemotaxonomic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis, strain AK53T is described in this study as representing a novel species in the genus Arenibacter, for which the name Arenibacter amylolyticus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Arenibacter amylolyticus is AK53T (=MTCC 12004T= JCM 19206T=KCTC 62553T)

Metabolomics characterization of Senna tora (L.) Roxb. using different approaches

The present study aimed to investigate the variety of elements, chemical compounds and their corresponding functional groups in the whole plant, leaves, and seeds of Senna tora. A preliminary phytochemical analysis has revealed the presence of secondary metabolites including alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, terpenoids, cardiac active glycosides, phenolics, etc. Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrophotometry (GC-MS) analysis of leaves and seeds of S. tora has depicted 31 and 27 compounds, respectively. Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy has further unveiled the presence of different functional groups such as amines, aromatic compounds, carboxyl groups, ketones etc. associated with different metabolites. Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (WD-XRF) has revealed the presence of more than 20 elements (macro and micro) including Ca, Mg, Fe, K, etc. This study has highlighted the detailed account of the chemical compounds and elements present in the plant species under investigation and substantiated its medicinal importance in the traditional health care system

Genetic variability in CMS backcross generations and their maintainers in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)

Twelve genotypes of eggplant in BC3, BC4 and BC5 generations of CMS-lines derived from Solanum ae-thiopicum × Solanum melongena cross along with their maintainers were evaluated for eighteen quantitative charac-ters at Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana. Analysis of variance depicted significant variation (P ? 0.05) for all the characters in all generations. High PCV and GCV values were observed for fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, number of fruits plant-1 and yield plant-1 in all generations indicating high variability in the germplasm. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance was found for peduncle length, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, number of fruits plant-1 and yield plant-1 in all generations indicating the predominance of additive gene action for these traits. Thus, selections can be made from present germplasm for the development of improved CMS inbred lines with varying fruit traits