Expresson of the Endodermal Marker, EcSox17, During Embryogenesis of the Direct Developing Frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui

In the model amphibian, Xenopus laevis, the HMG box transcription factor, Sox17, is expressed throughout the vegetal region that forms the endoderm. It is both necessary and sufficient for the endoderm formation. In order to study endoderm formation in the direct developing frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui, its Sox17 orthologue EcSox17 was cloned by Sean Willamson. To look at the expression of EcSox17, I designed primers and did RT-PCR on whole embryos. EcSox17 was expressed from cleavage to hatching of free-living froglet. EcSox17 RNA was present in the ovaries, an expression which has not been reported in any other vertebrate. Whole mount and bisected in situ hybridizations were done to look at the location of the EcSox17 RNA. EcSox17 was expressed at the blastoporal lip at all times and was not expressed in the yolk-rich vegetal core. RT-PCR on dissected pieces of early gastrulae however, indicated that the vegetal core expressed EcSox17, suggesting its contribution to the developing endoderm. I conclude that EcSox17 expression is ovarian as well as zygotic throughout the embryonic development. The transcript location at the blastoporal lip and perhaps throughout the vegetal region in early gastrula suggests its contribution to the definitive endoderm. Further experimentation is required to assess the function and necessity of EcSox17 in endoderm formation

Role of Thyroid Hormone in the Intestinal Development of Eleutherodactylus coqui

Thyroid hormone (TH) is required for the metamorphosis of the long, coiled tadpole gut in Xenopus laevis into a shorter mature adult gut. Eleutherodactylus coqui, a direct developing frog, lacks a tadpole. Its embryonic gut is a miniature adult form with a mass of yolky endodermal cells attached to the small intestine to provide nutrition. The requirement of TH for the gut development in E. coqui was tested in this study. Inhibition of TH synthesis with methimazole arrested gut development in its embryonic form. T3, the active form of TH, induced gut development. Embryos treated with methimazole failed to utilize the yolk in their nutritional endoderm, and survived for weeks without any further development. Acidification of the yolk platelet is an initial step in the breakdown of yolk in X. laevis. E. coqui embryos in methimazole failed to acidify their yolk platelets, but acidification was stimulated by TH indicating its role in yolk utilization. In X. laevis, TRβ is upregulated in response to TH and induces differentiation of the adult gut. Similarly, EcTRβ, the E. coqui orthologue, was upregulated by TH in the gut. EcTRβ expression was high in the nutritional endodermal cells indicating a direct role for TH in yolk utilization. The low expression level of EcSox17, an endodermal transcription factor, in these nutritional endodermal cells was consistent with the fact that these cells did not contribute to the definitive gut. This study indicated a novel role for TH in yolk utilization in addition to its conserved role in gut development and differentiation

Clinicomicrobiological spectrum of abnormal discharge from vagina in women in costal Andhra Pradesh

Background: When there is change in colour, consistency, order and volume of discharge then it is called abnormal vaginal discharge and associated with vulvar pruritus, dyspareunia, dysuria and lower abdominal pain. There is variability in organism isolated and treatment used.Methods: Sexually active women in reproductive age group with complain of abnormal vaginal discharge were included in this study based in following inclusion and exclusion criteria. . A detailed history of patient was taken regarding nature of discharge, colour, smell along with dysuria, dyspareunia, itching of vulva and lower abdominal pain.Results: Out of 160 patients 88 patients have bacterial vaginosis. Trichomonas vaginitis was present in 7.5% patients. Candidiasis was present in 6.25% patients. Some patients were having more than one infection like Bacterial vaginosis and Trichomonas vaginitis was coexisting in 13.75%, Bacterial vaginosis + Candidiasis were present in 8.75% patients. Mixed infection was present in 8.75%.Conclusions: From present study we can conclude that vaginal discharge is more common in married women in young age. Patients commonly presented with curdy white discharge, pruritus vulva and lower abdominal pain. Erythema and excoriation in vulva were common presentation, followed by erythema of vagina. Nature of discharge was mucopurulent in most patients. Bacterial vaginosis was most common followed by Trichomonas vaginitis

"Beware of deception": Detecting Half-Truth and Debunking it through Controlled Claim Editing

The prevalence of half-truths, which are statements containing some truth but that are ultimately deceptive, has risen with the increasing use of the internet. To help combat this problem, we have created a comprehensive pipeline consisting of a half-truth detection model and a claim editing model. Our approach utilizes the T5 model for controlled claim editing; "controlled" here means precise adjustments to select parts of a claim. Our methodology achieves an average BLEU score of 0.88 (on a scale of 0-1) and a disinfo-debunk score of 85% on edited claims. Significantly, our T5-based approach outperforms other Language Models such as GPT2, RoBERTa, PEGASUS, and Tailor, with average improvements of 82%, 57%, 42%, and 23% in disinfo-debunk scores, respectively. By extending the LIAR PLUS dataset, we achieve an F1 score of 82% for the half-truth detection model, setting a new benchmark in the field. While previous attempts have been made at half-truth detection, our approach is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to attempt to debunk half-truths

An open close multiple travelling salesman problem with single depot

This paper introduces a novel practical variant, namely an open close multiple travelling salesmen problem with single depot (OCMTSP) that concerns the generalization of classical travelling salesman problem (TSP). In OCMTSP, the overall salesmen can be categorized into internal/permanent and external/outsourcing ones, where all the salesmen are positioned at the depot city. The primary objective of this problem is to design the optimal route such that all salesmen start from the depot/base city, and then visit a given set of cities. Each city is to be visited precisely once by exactly one salesman, and only the internal salesmen have to return to the depot city whereas the external ones need not return. To find optimal solutions, an exact pattern recognition technique based Lexi-search algorithm (LSA) is developed which has been subjected in Matlab. Comparative computational results of the LSA have been made with the existing methods for general multiple travelling salesman problem (MTSP). Further, to test the performance of LSA, computational experiments have been carried out on some benchmark as well as randomly generated test instances for OCMTSP, and results are reported. The overall computational results demonstrate that the proposed LSA is efficient in providing optimal and sub-optimal solutions within the considerable CPU times

PEMFC Based Z-Source DVR for Voltage Sag/Swell compensation and Active/Reactive Power Analysis

Power quality is most essential aspect in power system environment. Voltage sags and swells are the frequently occurred disturbances in the power system which affecting the quality of power.  This paper propose the new dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) called proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) based voltage type impedance source (Z-Source) dynamic voltage restorer to compensate voltage sags/swells. Active, reactive power analysis with PEMFC Based Z-Source DVR is also studied in this paper. The results are obtained by using simulink software in MATLAB.

Solving open travelling salesman subset-tour problem through a hybrid genetic algorithm

In open travelling salesman subset-tour problem (OTSSP), the salesman needs to traverse a set of k (≤n) out of n cities and after visiting the last city, the salesman does not necessarily return to the central depot. The goal is to minimize the overall traversal distance of covering k cities. The OTSSP model comprises two types of problems such as subset selection and permutation of the cities. Firstly, the problem of selection takes place as the salesman’s tours do not contain all the cities. On the other hand, the next problem is about to determine the optimal sequence of the cities from the selected subset of cities. To deal with this problem efficiently, a hybrid nearest neighbor technique based crossover-free Genetic algorithm (GA) with complex mutation strategies is proposed. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first hybrid GA for the OTSSP. As there are no existing studies on OTSSP yet, benchmark instances are not available for OTSSP. For computational experiments, a set of test instances is created by using TSPLIB. The extensive computational results show that the proposed algorithm is having great potential in achieving better results for the OTSSP. Our proposed GA being the first evolutionary-based algorithm that will help as the baseline for future research on OTSSP

Enzyme Replacement Therapy for Mucopolysaccharidosis IIID using Recombinant Human α-N-Acetylglucosamine-6-Sulfatase in Neonatal Mice

There is currently no cure or effective treatment available for mucopolysaccharidosis type IIID (MPS IIID, Sanfilippo syndrome type D), a lysosomal storage disorder (LSD) caused by the deficiency of α-N-acetylglucosamine-6-sulfatase (GNS). The clinical symptoms of MPS IIID, like other subtypes of Sanfilippo syndrome, are largely localized to the central nervous system (CNS), and any treatments aiming to ameliorate or reverse the catastrophic and fatal neurologic decline caused by this disease need to be delivered across the blood–brain barrier. Here, we report a proof-of-concept enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for MPS IIID using recombinant human α-N-acetylglucosamine-6-sulfatase (rhGNS) via intracerebroventricular (ICV) delivery in a neonatal MPS IIID mouse model. We overexpressed and purified rhGNS from CHO cells with a specific activity of 3.9 × 10⁴ units/mg protein and a maximal enzymatic activity at lysosomal pH (pH 5.6), which was stable for over one month at 4 °C in artificial cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). We demonstrated that rhGNS was taken up by MPS IIID patient fibroblasts via the mannose 6-phosphate (M6P) receptor and reduced intracellular glycosaminoglycans to normal levels. The delivery of 5 μg of rhGNS into the lateral cerebral ventricle of neonatal MPS IIID mice resulted in normalization of the enzymatic activity in brain tissues; rhGNS was found to be enriched in lysosomes in MPS IIID-treated mice relative to the control. Furthermore, a single dose of rhGNS was able to reduce the accumulated heparan sulfate and β-hexosaminidase. Our results demonstrate that rhGNS delivered into CSF is a potential therapeutic option for MPS IIID that is worthy of further development

Cronobacter sakazakii clinical isolates overcome host barriers and evade the immune response

Cronobacter sakazakii is the most frequently clinically isolated species of the Cronobacter genus. However the virulence factors of C. sakazakii including their ability to overcome host barriers remains poorly studied. In this study, ten clinical isolates of C. sakazakii were assessed for their ability to invade and translocate through human microvascular endothelial cells (HBMEC). Their ability to avoid phagocytosis in human macrophages U937 and human brain microglial cells was investigated. Additionally, they were tested for serum sensitivity and the presence of the Cronobacter plasminogen activation gene (cpa) gene, which is reported to confer serum resistance. Our data showed that the clinical C. sakazakii strains invaded and translocated through Caco-2 and HBMEC cell lines and some strains showed significantly higher levels of invasion and translocation. Moreover, C. sakazakii was able to persist and even multiply in phagocytic macrophage and microglial cells. All strains, except one, were able to withstand human serum exposure, the single serum sensitive strain was also the only one which did not encode for the cpa gene. These results demonstrate that C. sakazakii clinical host immune response indicating their capacity to cause diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and meningitis. Our data showed for the first time the ability of C. sakazakii clinical isolates to survive and multiply within human microglial cells. Additionally, it was shown that C. sakazakii clinical strains have the capacity to translocate through the Caco-2 and HBMEC cell lines paracellularly