Protocol of Explanatory Study on Social, Economic and Political Dimensions of Nutritional Status of Children Aged Six to Sixty Months from Low Socio-Economic Strata in Kerala, India

Background: Despite having better human development indicators, one-fifth of under-five children in Kerala are undernourished. The demographic, socio-economic, cultural and political transition in Kerala necessitates a revisit on the causes of undernutrition among children given that it tackled many of the immediate causes of undernutrition. The present study aims at the multi-dimensional factors' influence on nutritional status of children from low socio-economic strata in Kerala. Methods/Design: The conceptual framework for the present study adapted the ecosocial theory by Nancy Krieger. We use an explanatory study design, by adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods. The sample size for the quantitative phase is 600 children of age six to 60 months and their mothers. The qualitative phase includes in-depth interviews with key informants. The data collection tools include weighing scale and stadiometer for taking anthropometric measurements, household survey questionnaire, interview schedule for mothers, interview guide for key informants, field diary and checklist for document analysis. Discussion: Contextual evidence that the study generates will have implications at individual, service provision and policy perspectives of undernutrition among children in Kerala. It will help improve the nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive policies and programs in Kerala, which in turn will improve the nutritional status of the children

Radiogenic heat production of Late Archaean Bundelkhand granite and some Proterozoic gneisses and granitoids of Central India

Abundances of heat-producing elements, K, U and Th, in some of the granites and gneisses of the Bundelkhand and Bastar terrains have been estimated by in situ gamma-ray spectrometry. The Bundelkhand granite is an I-type, calc-alkaline granite complex made up of porphyritic, coarse-to-medium grained and fine-grained granites. It carries macro enclaves of ~ 3.5 Ga-old tonalitic gneisses. These gneisses have a low heat production of 1.4 μWm-3. The mean heat production of the dominant porphyritic and mediumto- coarse grained Bundelkhand granite is 5.5 μWm-3. The heat production of the Proterozoic Jabalpur granite intruding the Mahakhosal greenstone belt is 3.4 μWm-3. The Tirodi gneisses resulting from migmatization of psammopelites of the Sausar Group, are characterized by a mean heat production of 3.8 μWm-3. The cataclastic biotite gneisses of the Tattapani geothermal area are the highest heat-producing rocks encountered in the Bundelkhand terrain with a mean heat production of 7.4 μWm-3. The tonalitic Amgaon gneisses of the Bastar terrain are characterized by a heat production of 0.7 μWm-3, which is about half of the mean heat production of the tonalitic gneisses occurring as inclusions in the Bundelkhand granite. Mean heat production of the Proterozoic Amgaon and Dongargarh granites are 2.5 and 2.9 μWm-3, respectively. Preliminary heat production data presented here show that the gneisses and granitoids of the Bundelkhand and Bastar terrains may have distinct heat production ranges, with the rocks of the Bundelkhand terrain being more heat-producing

Growth Stress Induced Tunability of Dielectric Constant in Thin Films

It is demonstrated here that growth stress has a substantial effect on the dielectric constant of zirconia thin films. The correct combination of parameters - phase, texture and stress - is shown to yield films with high dielectric constant and best reported equivalent oxide thickness of 0.8 nm. The stress effect on dielectric constant is twofold, firstly, by the effect on phase transitions and secondly by the effect on interatomic distances. We discuss and explain the physical mechanisms involved in the interplay between the stress, phase changes and the dielectric constant in detail.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Comparison of enzyme activities with diagnostic potential in healthy and root (wilt) diseased coconut palms, differing in cultivars and growth stages

Activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), succinic dehydrogenase (SucDH), exochitinase (Cht) and 1, 4 β-glucanase (Glucn) were quantified to assess their diagnostic potential for detection of, or their role in imparting tolerance against, root (wilt) disease (RWD). The enzymes were determined in healthy and infected palms of contrasting coconut cultivars - Chowghat Green Dwarf (CGD) and/or Malayan Green Dwarf (MGD) tolerant and West Coast Tall (WCT) - susceptible, in the adult palms and in some at the seedling growth stage. Healthy and RWD plants differed little and that too inconsistently with respect to the activities, specific activities and soluble protein content of all the 4 enzymes, offering no diagnostic potential, in the three cultivars. However, cultivars and growth stage differences for enzyme activities were found to be significant for some enzymes. The RWD tolerant cultivar CGD (10-year old palms) had higher SOD and SucDH activity, higher soluble protein in the SOD and SucDH extract and lesser SOD specific activity than the RWD susceptible cultivar WCT (40-year old palms). The RWD tolerant cultivar MGD had lesser SOD activity than WCT in the seedling stage, lesser SOD specific activity in the adult stage (15-year old palms), higher SucDH activity and specific activity, higher soluble protein in the SOD extract, but lesser soluble protein in the Cht extract than 40-year old WCT adult palms. Seedlings of WCT and MGD had higher SOD activity than their adult plants. Seedlings of WCT and CGD had higher soluble protein in SOD extract than their adult plants. Seedlings of CGD had higher soluble protein in SucDH extract than its adult plants. Metabolic differences in enzyme activities indicated that the cultivars CGD followed by MGD and the seedling stage or younger plants seem to have a better capacity in resisting the effects of root (wilt) disease

Innovative Method for the Estimation of Closure Velocity between RAT Driven Drogue and IFR Probe Air to Air refueling Flight Trials

Air-to-air refueling for a fighter platform is a force multiplier in terms of increasing its combat radius and payload carrying ability. Adapting for such a facility especially for an aircraft under design and development is a challenging task. It requires rigorous ground and flight testing to meet the certification standards. One of important flight test parameter that needs to be validated for structural impact load calculations and certification needs is the closure velocity. The air-to-air refueller was equipped with a Ram-air-turbine powered drogue and chute system. An innovative methodology of estimating the closure velocity between the drogue of the mother aircraft and the in-flight refueling probe of the receiving aircraft was evolved. The method was employed and validated during the air-to-air refueling trials of a prototype fighter platform. The intention of this paper is to explain the methodology employed and deliberate the results obtained with respect to the air-to-air refueling certification

Comparative analysis of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) between drought-tolerant and -susceptible genotypes of chickpea under terminal drought stress

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chickpea (<it>Cicer arietinum </it>L.) is an important grain-legume crop that is mainly grown in rainfed areas, where terminal drought is a major constraint to its productivity. We generated expressed sequence tags (ESTs) by suppression subtraction hybridization (SSH) to identify differentially expressed genes in drought-tolerant and -susceptible genotypes in chickpea.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>EST libraries were generated by SSH from root and shoot tissues of IC4958 (drought tolerant) and ICC 1882 (drought resistant) exposed to terminal drought conditions by the dry down method. SSH libraries were also constructed by using 2 sets of bulks prepared from the RNA of root tissues from selected recombinant inbred lines (RILs) (10 each) for the extreme high and low root biomass phenotype. A total of 3062 unigenes (638 contigs and 2424 singletons), 51.4% of which were novel in chickpea, were derived by cluster assembly and sequence alignment of 5949 ESTs. Only 2185 (71%) unigenes showed significant BLASTX similarity (<1E-06) in the NCBI non-redundant (nr) database. Gene ontology functional classification terms (BLASTX results and GO term), were retrieved for 2006 (92.0%) sequences, and 656 sequences were further annotated with 812 Enzyme Commission (EC) codes and were mapped to 108 different KEGG pathways. In addition, expression status of 830 unigenes in response to terminal drought stress was evaluated using macro-array (dot blots). The expression of few selected genes was validated by northern blotting and quantitative real-time PCR assay.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study compares not only genes that are up- and down-regulated in a drought-tolerant genotype under terminal drought stress and a drought susceptible genotype but also between the bulks of the selected RILs exhibiting extreme phenotypes. More than 50% of the genes identified have been shown to be associated with drought stress in chickpea for the first time. This study not only serves as resource for marker discovery, but can provide a better insight into the selection of candidate genes (both up- and downregulated) associated with drought tolerance. These results can be used to identify suitable targets for manipulating the drought-tolerance trait in chickpea.</p

Intrahepatic Sarcomatoid Cholangiocarcinoma

Intrahepatic sarcomatoid cholangiocarcinoma is a rare but an aggressive variant of cholangiocarcinoma with a very poor prognosis. We report the first caucasian patient who presented with a rapidly enlarging liver mass requiring hepatic resection. Detailed histopathological analyses including immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy confirmed sarcomatoid cholangiocarcinoma. The patient had early onset disease recurrence within 5 weeks of surgery. Here we demonstrate that combination chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin is a potential treatment option in patients with advanced sarcomatous cholangiocarcinoma. The patient achieved sustained partial remission with combination chemotherapy and remains alive and well more than 29 months since initial surgery

An Integrated Pipeline of Open Source Software Adapted for Multi-CPU Architectures: Use in the Large-Scale Identification of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

The large amounts of EST sequence data available from a single species of an organism as well as for several species within a genus provide an easy source of identification of intra- and interspecies single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In the case of model organisms, the data available are numerous, given the degree of redundancy in the deposited EST data. There are several available bioinformatics tools that can be used to mine this data; however, using them requires a certain level of expertise: the tools have to be used sequentially with accompanying format conversion and steps like clustering and assembly of sequences become time-intensive jobs even for moderately sized datasets. We report here a pipeline of open source software extended to run on multiple CPU architectures that can be used to mine large EST datasets for SNPs and identify restriction sites for assaying the SNPs so that cost-effective CAPS assays can be developed for SNP genotyping in genetics and breeding applications. At the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the pipeline has been implemented to run on a Paracel high-performance system consisting of four dual AMD Opteron processors running Linux with MPICH. The pipeline can be accessed through user-friendly web interfaces at http://hpc.icrisat.cgiar.org/PBSWeb and is available on request for academic use. We have validated the developed pipeline by mining chickpea ESTs for interspecies SNPs, development of CAPS assays for SNP genotyping, and confirmation of restriction digestion pattern at the sequence level

Genomic-enabled prediction models using multi-environment trials to estimate the effect of genotype × environment interaction on prediction accuracy in chickpea

Genomic selection (GS) by selecting lines prior to field phenotyping using genotyping data has the potential to enhance the rate of genetic gains. Genotype × environment (G × E) interaction inclusion in GS models can improve prediction accuracy hence aid in selection of lines across target environments. Phenotypic data on 320 chickpea breeding lines for eight traits for three seasons at two locations were recorded. These lines were genotyped using DArTseq (1.6 K SNPs) and Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS; 89 K SNPs). Thirteen models were fitted including main effects of environment and lines, markers, and/or naïve and informed interactions to estimate prediction accuracies. Three cross-validation schemes mimicking real scenarios that breeders might encounter in the fields were considered to assess prediction accuracy of the models (CV2: incomplete field trials or sparse testing; CV1: newly developed lines; and CV0: untested environments). Maximum prediction accuracies for different traits and different models were observed with CV2. DArTseq performed better than GBS and the combined genotyping set (DArTseq and GBS) regardless of the cross validation scheme with most of the main effect marker and interaction models. Improvement of GS models and application of various genotyping platforms are key factors for obtaining accurate and precise prediction accuracies, leading to more precise selection of candidates