Distribution and bioaccumulation of heavy metal in water, sediment and fish tissue from the River Mahananda in Seemanchal zone, North Bihar, India

In the present study, distribution, and bioaccumulation of Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb were analysed in water, sediment and freshwater fish tissues of Catla catla and Mystus seenghala which were seasonally collected from River Mahananda in Seemanchal zone. The results showed that except Pb, level of Cu, Zn and Cd in water were below than allowance limit of WHO (2008), while level of Cu, Zn and Cd in sediment was higher than a toxicity reference value (TRV) recommended by USEPA (1999), except Pb. Heavy metal concentration in water and sediment were recorded in the order: Cu>Pb>Zn>Cd and Zn>Cu>Pb>Cd, respectively. The seasonal variation of this metal in water was in the sequence: rainy>winter>summer, and in sediment summer>winter>rainy. Bioaccumulation of studied metal by different tissues of M. seenghala was maximum than C. catla, and found that following order of magnitude: liver>gill>muscle. The order of studied metal concentration in liver Zn>Pb>Cu>Cd, in Gills Zn>Pb>Cu>Cd, in muscle Zn>Pb>Cu. Pb was only metal whose concentration was higher than FAO, FAO/WHO and WHO standards in all examined tissues of both species. Bioaccumulation of Pb in different tissues of both fishes was observed maximum in summer followed by winter and rainy (monsoon) seasons. Bioaccumulation factor (BAF) of all four metals in organs of M. seenghala was higher than C. Catla. Metal index value (MI) > 1 for Cd and Pb in water suggests that worse quality of water. The levels of heavy metals accumulated in two fishes might be due to the increase in agricultural influx water, domestic wastes, poultry farm, municipal and some other anthropogenic activities. This study shows that River water in the studied zone is a serious concern of human health and selected fishes do not feed directly without proper treatment of the riverine ecosystem, and potential danger may occur in the future

Identification of Alphanumeric Pattern Using Android

The “Identification of Alphanumeric pattern using Android” is a smart phone apps using Android platform and combines the functionality of Optical Character Recognition and identification of alphanumeric pattern and after processing, data is stored in server. This paper present, to design an apps using the Android SDK that will enable the Identification of Alphanumeric pattern using optical character reader technique for the Android based smart phone application. Camera, captures the document image and then the OCR is convert that image in to text (Binarization of captured data) according to the Alphanumeric (alphabetic and numeric characters) database and data stored in server. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.160414

A Large-scale Analysis of the Marketplace Characteristics in Fiverr

Crowdsourcing platforms have become quite popular due to the increasing demand of human computation-based tasks. Though the crowdsourcing systems are primarily demand-driven like MTurk, supply-driven marketplaces are becoming increasingly popular. Fiverr is a fast growing supply-driven marketplace where the sellers post micro-tasks (gigs) and users purchase them for prices as low as $5. In this paper, we study the Fiverr platform as a unique marketplace and characterize the sellers, buyers and the interactions among them. We find that sellers are more appeasing in their interactions and try to woo their buyers into buying their gigs. There are many small tightly-knit communities existing in the seller-seller network who support each other. We also study Fiverr as a seller-driven marketplace in terms of sales, churn rates, competitiveness among various subcategories etc. and observe that while there are certain similarities with common marketplaces there are also many differences

Intrinsic Vertebral Markers for Spinal Level Localization in Anterior Cervical Spine Surgery: A Preliminary Report

Study DesignProspective clinical study.PurposeTo observe the usefulness of anterior cervical osteophytes as intrinsic markers for spinal level localization (SLL) during sub-axial cervical spinal surgery via the anterior approach.Overview of LiteratureVarious landmarks, such as the mandibular angle, hyoid bone, thyroid cartilage, first cricoid ring, and C6 carotid tubercle, are used for gross cervical SLL; however, none are used during cervical spinal surgery via the anterior approach. We present our preliminary assessment of SLL over anterior vertebral surfaces (i.e., intrinsic markers) in 48 consecutive cases of anterior cervical spinal surgeries for the disc-osteophyte complex (DOC) in degenerative diseases and granulation or tumor tissue associated with infectious or neoplastic diseases, respectively, at an ill-equipped center.MethodsThis prospective study on patients undergoing anterior cervical surgery for various sub-axial cervical spinal pathologies aimed to evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of SLL via intraoperative palpation of disease-related morphological changes on anterior vertebral surfaces visible on preoperative midline sagittal T1/2-weighted magnetic resonance images.ResultsDuring a 3-year period, 48 patients (38 males,10 females; average age, 43.58 years) who underwent surgery via the anterior approach for various sub-axial cervical spinal pathologies, including degenerative disease (n= 42), tubercular infection (Pott's disease; n=3), traumatic prolapsed disc (n=2), and a metastatic lesion from thyroid carcinoma (n=1), comprised the study group. Intrinsic marker palpation yielded accurate SLL in 79% of patients (n=38). Among those with degenerative diseases (n=42), intrinsic marker palpation yielded accurate SLL in 76% of patients (n=32).ConclusionsIntrinsic marker palpation is an attractive potential adjunct for SLL during cervical spinal surgeries via the anterior approach in well-selected patients at ill-equipped centers (e.g., those found in developing countries). This technique may prove helpful when radiographic visualization is occasionally inadequate

The PPARα agonist fenofibrate suppresses B-cell lymphoma in mice by modulating lipid metabolism

AbstractObesity is associated with an increased risk for malignant lymphoma development. We used Bcr/Abl transformed B cells to determine the impact of aggressive lymphoma formation on systemic lipid mobilization and turnover. In wild-type mice, tumor size significantly correlated with depletion of white adipose tissues (WAT), resulting in increased serum free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations which promote B-cell proliferation in vitro. Moreover, B-cell tumor development induced hepatic lipid accumulation due to enhanced hepatic fatty acid (FA) uptake and impaired FA oxidation. Serum triglyceride, FFA, phospholipid and cholesterol levels were significantly elevated. Consistently, serum VLDL/LDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein B levels were drastically increased. These findings suggest that B-cell tumors trigger systemic lipid mobilization from WAT to the liver and increase VLDL/LDL release from the liver to promote tumor growth. Further support for this concept stems from experiments where we used the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) agonist and lipid-lowering drug fenofibrate that significantly suppressed tumor growth independent of angiogenesis and inflammation. In addition to WAT depletion, fenofibrate further stimulated FFA uptake by the liver and restored hepatic FA oxidation capacity, thereby accelerating the clearance of lipids released from WAT. Furthermore, fenofibrate blocked hepatic lipid release induced by the tumors. In contrast, lipid utilization in the tumor tissue itself was not increased by fenofibrate which correlates with extremely low expression levels of PPARα in B-cells. Our data show that fenofibrate associated effects on hepatic lipid metabolism and deprivation of serum lipids are capable to suppress B-cell lymphoma growth which may direct novel treatment strategies. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Lipid Metabolism in Cancer

Antimonial Resistance in Leishmania donovani Is Associated with Increased In Vivo Parasite Burden

Leishmania donovani is an intracellular protozoan parasite that causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Antimonials (SSG) have long been the first-line treatment against VL, but have now been replaced by miltefosine (MIL) in the Indian subcontinent due to the emergence of SSG-resistance. Our previous study hypothesised that SSG-resistant L. donovani might have increased in vivo survival skills which could affect the efficacy of other treatments such as MIL. The present study attempts to validate these hypotheses. Fourteen strains derived from Nepalese clinical isolates with documented SSG-susceptibility were infected in BALB/c mice to study their survival capacity in drug free conditions (non-treated mice) and in MIL-treated mice. SSG-resistant parasites caused a significant higher in vivo parasite load compared to SSG-sensitive parasites. However, this did not seem to affect the strains' response to MIL-treatment since parasites from both phenotypes responded equally well to in vivo MIL exposure. We conclude that there is a positive association between SSG-resistance and in vivo survival skills in our sample of L. donovani strains which could suggest a higher virulence of SSG-R strains compared to SSG-S strains. These greater in vivo survival skills of SSG-R parasites do not seem to directly affect their susceptibility to MIL. However, it cannot be excluded that repeated MIL exposure will elicit different adaptations in these SSG-R parasites with superior survival skills compared to the SSG-S parasites. Our results therefore highlight the need to closely monitor drug efficacy in the field, especially in the context of the Kala-azar elimination programme ongoing in the Indian subcontinent

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis