Influence of Chloride Ion on the Toxicity of Heavy Metal Mercury upon Vibrio parahaemolyticus

Heavy metal pollutants released into the coastal region certainly influence the bacterial population leading to the formation of metal resistant forms. The toxicity of mercury to different species of bacteria also vary. Among bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus play an important role in the disease of marine animals and human beings as pathogens. Hence the present study was aimed to understand the effect of mercury on the survival of two V. parahaemolyticus strains isolated from polluted uppanar estuary at different concentrations. (0, 1, 10, 25, 50 and 100 ppm) in the absence and presence of Nacl (1.75 and 3.5%) was carried out. Toxicity of mercury showed that  V. parahaemolyticus gradually decreased upto 1 ppm mercury and then there was a decline at higher concentration of mercury

Spirituality Scale: Development and Validation

The genesis of spirituality is challenging due to a wide variety of perspectives and assumptions underlying spirituality research. Spirituality is still an emerging concept in the developing countries such as India, although rich culture has enriched in the past. Confining to various definitions of spirituality, the study attempts to evolve a health oriented spirituality scale in an Indian context. With exploration of literature and expert reviews, various attributes of spirituality scale were initiated with a pool of 120 items. These items were subjected to experts’ opinion and were reduced to 77. The version I scale was then administered on a sample of 254 participants. After initial factor analyses, the scale was again administered on a sample of 104 participants. Principal component analyses were employed and 56 items were retained covering five factors for final version of Spirituality Scale. The reliability was 0.640 and validity was 0.491

Influence of sediment chemistry on mangrove-phosphobacterial relationship

The study reveals importance of sediment chemistry in mangrove-phosphobacterial relationship. The various physicochemical parameters of sediment, bacterial distribution, and acidic- alkaline phosphatase activity were studied in Avicennia marina mangrove sediments. The sampling sites were four mangrove forests along West India. Rhizospheric, pneumatophoric and bulk/non-rhizospheric sediment were collected. The rhizospheric sediment showed higher bacterial activity. The pH was observed low in the rhizospheric sediment and good abundance of phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB). This was also supported by other physico-chemical parameters. Acid phosphatase activity was found to be higher in rhizospheric sediment indicating acid production at rhizosphere by microbial action and root exudation. It is the first study indicating that alkaline phosphatase activity was observed to be higher in pneumatophoric sediment. This coincides with higher number of phosphatase-producing bacteria (PPB) and high inorganic P in the pneumatophoric sediment, revealing that this region of A. marina harbours favourably more PPB with utilization of organic P by bacterial load and conversion to inorganic forms stressing that strong bonding exists between mangrove-sediment-phosphobacterial relationships

3′-(4-Chloro­benzo­yl)-4′-(4-chloro­phen­yl)-1′-methyl­spiro­[indoline-3,2′-pyrrolidin]-2-one

In the title compound, C25H20Cl2N2O2, the pyrrolidine ring adopts an envelope conformation and the best plane through the five ring atoms makes a dihedral angle of 87.03 (8)° with the indoline ring. Mol­ecules are connected by pairs of N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds into centrosymmetric dimers with an R 2 2(8) graph-set ring motif. C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds stabilize the crystal structure

Campus smoking policies and smoking-related Twitter posts originating from California public universities: Retrospective study

BACKGROUND: The number of colleges and universities with smoke- or tobacco-free campus policies has been increasing. The effects of campus smoking policies on overall sentiment, particularly among young adult populations, are more difficult to assess owing to the changing tobacco and e-cigarette product landscape and differential attitudes toward policy implementation and enforcement. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the study was to retrospectively assess the campus climate toward tobacco use by comparing tweets from California universities with and those without smoke- or tobacco-free campus policies. METHODS: Geolocated Twitter posts from 2015 were collected using the Twitter public application programming interface in combination with cloud computing services on Amazon Web Services. Posts were filtered for tobacco products and behavior-related keywords. A total of 42,877,339 posts were collected from 2015, with 2837 originating from a University of California or California State University system campus, and 758 of these manually verified as being about smoking. Chi-square tests were conducted to determine if there were significant differences in tweet user sentiments between campuses that were smoke- or tobacco-free (all University of California campuses and California State University, Fullerton) compared to those that were not. A separate content analysis of tweets included in chi-square tests was conducted to identify major themes by campus smoking policy status. RESULTS: The percentage of positive sentiment tweets toward tobacco use was higher on campuses without a smoke- or tobacco-free campus policy than on campuses with a smoke- or tobacco-free campus policy (76.7% vs 66.4%, P=.03). Higher positive sentiment on campuses without a smoke- or tobacco-free campus policy may have been driven by general comments about one’s own smoking behavior and comments about smoking as a general behavior. Positive sentiment tweets originating from campuses without a smoke- or tobacco-free policy had greater variation in tweet type, which may have also contributed to differences in sentiment among universities. CONCLUSIONS: Our study introduces preliminary data suggesting that campus smoke- and tobacco-free policies are associated with a reduction in positive sentiment toward smoking. However, continued expressions and intentions to smoke and reports of one’s own smoking among Twitter users suggest a need for more research to better understand the dynamics between implementation of smoke- and tobacco-free policies and resulting tobacco behavioral sentiment

Importance of Spin-Orbit Interaction for the Electron Spin Relaxation in Organic Semiconductors

Despite the great interest organic spintronics has recently attracted, there is only a partial understanding of the fundamental physics behind electron spin relaxation in organic semiconductors. Mechanisms based on hyperfine interaction have been demonstrated, but the role of the spin-orbit interaction remains elusive. Here, we report muon spin spectroscopy and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements on two series of molecular semiconductors in which the strength of the spin-orbit interaction has been systematically modified with a targeted chemical substitution of different atoms at a particular molecular site. We find that the spin-orbit interaction is a significant source of electron spin relaxation in these materials

Phosphorus Mobilizers from Mangrove Ecosystem and their Role in Desalination of Agricultural Lands

Globally the agricultural activities are having shrinkage in terms of area and salinization of agricultural lands is one of the most serious environmental problems. Nationally our land is affected by salinity and alkalinity, and thus results in decreased production. Phosphorus being one of the essential mineral nutrients limits the plant growth and is unavailable to plants due to its low solubility and high fixation in the soil. Hence, this is rectified with additional supply of as phosphatic fertilizers. However, major portion of soluble inorganic phosphate in form of chemical fertilizer applied to soil is immobilized rapidly and occurs in oxidised form as phosphates bounded to aluminium, calcium or iron and becomes unavailable to plants. Hence, the use of phosphorus-mobilizing bacteria can provide a solution to the problem of limited phosphorus availability in salt-affected soils. The application of phosphorus-mobilizing bacteria as biofertilizer can not only improves the growth and quality of produce, but also drastically reduces the usage of chemical fertilizers. Hence, phosphorus-mobilizing bacteria can be used as environment friendly bio-fertilizers help to reduce the requirement of phosphatic fertilizer

Mass and half-life measurements of neutron-deficient iodine isotopes

Neutron-deficient iodine isotopes, 116I and 114I, were produced at relativistic energies by in-flight fragmentation at the Fragment Separator (FRS) at GSI. The FRS Ion Catcher was used to thermalize the ions and to perform highly accurate mass measurements with a Multiple-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass-Spectrometer (MR-TOF-MS). The masses of both isotopes were measured directly for the first time. The half-life of the 114I was measured by storing the ions in an RF quadrupole for different storage times and counting the remaining nuclei with the MR-TOF-MS. The measured half-life was used to assign the ground state to the measured 114I ions. Predictions on the possible α-decay branch for 114I are presented based on the reduced uncertainties obtained for the Qα-value. Systematic studies of the mass surface were performed with the newly obtained masses, showing better agreement with the expected trend in this mass region.peerReviewe