Role of pretreatment neutophil to lymphocyte ratio as an independent prognostic factor in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients: a prospective study in a tertiary care centre

Background: More recently, established systemic inflammation-based prognostic scores have been explored extensively, such as NLR and serum C-reactive protein (CRP). We postulated that NLR might be a readily available and inexpensive objective prognostic index that could be used in daily oncologic clinical practice and could help to stratify patients in clinical trials.Methods: In total, there were 150 patients with OSCC treated at GSVM medical college, Kanpur between October 2012 and January 2015 whose clinical information and laboratory parameters were obtained. The NLR was determined by dividing the absolute neutrophil count by the absolute lymphocyte count, and the NLR data were then dichotomized and divided into two groups as NLR-low and -high.Results: The 3-year OS rate of the NLR-high group tended to be significantly lower than that of the NLR-low group, this relationship was found to be statistically significant (p value <0.05). The 3-year DFS rate in the NLR-high group was lower than that in the NLR-low group; however, there were no significant difference between the two groups.Conclusions: Our findings reported herein demonstrated that pre-treatment NLR is a potential biomarker for predicting the overall survival in oral SCC patients. Combined with other markers, NLR may be used in decision-making and the selection of treatment modality in patients with oral SCC

Crosslinguistic Generalization of Semantic Treatment in Aphasia: Evidence from the Indian Context

The last two decades witnessed several novel treatment approaches to aphasia therapy. Semantic feature-based therapy is one of such treatment approaches that gained considerable research attention (Boyle & Coelho, 1995). More importantly, this treatment approach has been found effective in bilingual persons with aphasia. For instance, Edmonds and Kiran (2006) administered semantic feature based therapy in Spanish-English bilingual persons with aphasia and reported of crosslinguistic generalization of treatment effect to untreated language. This promising research, however, needs to be replicated and extended to novel language pairs. Research on crosslinguistic generalization of treatment effects is of paramount importance to multilingual countries like India. For instance, with several hundreds of languages and dialects spoken across India and with the pervasive use of English as second language, speech language pathologists (SLPs) in the country are often baffled on the selection of language for treatment in bilingual persons with aphasia. Empirical evidence from Indian languages would add confidence to the SLPs while selecting language for treatment in person with aphasia. In this context, the current study aimed to replicate and extend the earlier findings on crosslinguistic generalization of treatment effects in bilingual persons with aphasia to the Indian context

Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) Nanocomposites: Effect of Inorganic Nanoparticles Reinforcement on Its Performance and Food Packaging Applications

Poly lactic acid (PLA) is a compostable, as well as recyclable, sustainable, versatile and environmentally friendly alternative, because the monomer of PLA-lactide (LA) is extracted from natural sources. PLA’s techno-functional properties are fairly similar to fossil-based polymers; however, in pristine state, its brittleness and delicacy during processing pose challenges to its potential exploitation in diverse food packaging applications. PLA is, therefore, re-engineered to improve its thermal, rheological, barrier and mechanical properties through nanoparticle (NP) reinforcement. This review summarises the studies on PLA-based nanocomposites (PLA NCs) developed by reinforcing inorganic metal/metallic oxide, graphite and silica-based nanoparticles (NPs) that exhibit remarkable improvement in terms of storage modulus, tensile strength, crystallinity, glass transition temperature (Tg) value, antimicrobial property and a decrease in water vapour and oxygen permeability when compared with the pristine PLA films. This review has also discussed the regulations around the use of metal oxide-based NPs in food packaging, PLA NC biodegradability and their applications in food systems. The industrial acceptance of NCs shows highly promising perspectives for the replacement of traditional petrochemical-based polymers currently being used for food packaging.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Erratum: Tiwari, S., et al. Biosensors for Epilepsy Management: State-of-Art and Future Aspects. Sensors 2019, 19, 1525.

The authors wish to make the following correction to the above-mentioned published paper [...]

Mucor assisted degradation of sulfosulfuron in irrigation water

Sulfosulfuron is a widely used wheat herbicide, which has two major environmental issues, viz. carryover effect to succeeding crops, and groundwater and surface water contamination. The safer aquatic environment requires the degradation of the herbicide. In this present investigation, we have attempted to isolate an efficient fungus naturally abundant in water, which can degrade sulfosulfuron in aqueous phase. Mucor sp., a fungus isolated from irrigation water was characterized as a sulfosulfuron-degrading microorganism. It survived in the minimal broth having sulfosulfuron at a level of 2000 mgL-1. It was able to degrade entire amount of sufosulfuron applied to water within 27 days. Two major routes of degradation were established. One route involved the cleavage of sulfonylurea bridge resulting in the formation of a couple of major metabolites, viz. 2-amino-4,6-dimethoxypyrimidine (I) and 2-ethylsulfonylimidazo{1,2-a}pyridine-3-sulfonamide (II). The other route was the cleavage of sulfonylamide linkage, which formed the metabolite N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2-yl)urea (III). Three other metabolites, N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2-yl)-N'-hydroxyurea (IV), N,N'-bis(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2- yl)urea (V) and N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin)-N-(4-hydroxy-6-methoxy pyrimidin-2-yl)urea (VI) were also identified. The survival of Mucor sp. at a very high concentration of sulfosulfuron and its ability to degrade the herbicide through various biochemical mechanisms showed its potential in the bioremediation process of sulfosulfuron contaminated water

Mucor assisted degradation of sulfosulfuron in irrigation water

884-890Sulfosulfuron is a widely used wheat herbicide, which has two major environmental issues, viz. carryover effect to succeeding crops, and groundwater and surface water contamination. The safer aquatic environment requires the degradation of the herbicide. In this present investigation, we have attempted to isolate an efficient fungus naturally abundant in water, which can degrade sulfosulfuron in aqueous phase. Mucor sp., a fungus isolated from irrigation water was characterized as a sulfosulfuron-degrading microorganism. It survived in the minimal broth having sulfosulfuron at a level of 2000 mgL-1. It was able to degrade entire amount of sufosulfuron applied to water within 27 days. Two major routes of degradation were established. One route involved the cleavage of sulfonylurea bridge resulting in the formation of a couple of major metabolites, viz. 2-amino-4,6-dimethoxypyrimidine (I) and 2-ethylsulfonylimidazo{1,2-a}pyridine-3-sulfonamide (II). The other route was the cleavage of sulfonylamide linkage, which formed the metabolite N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2-yl)urea (III). Three other metabolites, N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2-yl)-N'-hydroxyurea (IV), N,N'-bis(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin-2yl)urea (V) and N-(4,6-dimethoxypyrimidin)-N-(4-hydroxy-6-methoxy pyrimidin-2-yl)urea (VI) were also identified. The survival of Mucor sp. at a very high concentration of sulfosulfuron and its ability to degrade the herbicide through various biochemical mechanisms showed its potential in the bioremediation process of sulfosulfuron contaminated water

Effect of high-pressure processing on the packaging properties of biopolymer-based films: a review

Suitable packaging material in combination with high-pressure processing (HPP) can retain nutritional and organoleptic qualities besides extending the product’s shelf life of food products. However, the selection of appropriate packaging materials suitable for HPP is tremendously important because harsh environments like high pressure and high temperature during the processing can result in deviation in the visual and functional properties of the packaging materials. Traditionally, fossil-based plastic packaging is preferred for the HPP of food products, but these materials are of serious concern to the environment. Therefore, bio-based packaging systems are proposed to be a promising alternative to fossil-based plastic packaging. Some studies have scrutinized the impact of HPP on the functional properties of biopolymer-based packaging materials. This review summarizes the HPP application on biopolymer-based film-forming solutions and pre-formed biopolymer-based films. The impact of HPP on the key packaging properties such as structural, mechanical, thermal, and barrier properties in addition to the migration of additives from the packaging material into food products were systemically analyzed. HPP can be applied either to the film-forming solution or preformed packages. Structural, mechanical, hydrophobic, barrier, and thermal characteristics of the films are enhanced when the film-forming solution is exposed to HPP overcoming the shortcomings of the native biopolymers-based film. Also, biopolymer-based packaging mostly PLA based when exposed to HPP at low temperature showed no significant deviation in packaging properties indicating the suitability of their applications. HPP may induce the migration of packaging additives and thus should be thoroughly studied. Overall, HPP can be one way to enhance the properties of biopolymer-based films and can also be used for packaging food materials intended for HPP

Effect of cold plasma treatment on the packaging properties of biopolymer-based films: a review

Biopolymers, like polysaccharides and proteins, are sustainable and green materials with excellent film-forming potential. Bio-based films have gained a lot of attention and are believed to be an alternative to plastics in next-generation food packaging. Compared to conventional plastics, biopolymers inherently have certain limitations like hydrophilicity, poor thermo-mechanical, and barrier properties. Therefore, the modification of biopolymers or their films provide an opportunity to develop packaging materials with desired characteristics. Among different modification approaches, the application of cold plasma has been a very efficient technology to enhance the functionality and interfacial characteristics of biopolymers. Cold plasma is biocompatible, shows uniformity in treatment, and is suitable for heat-sensitive components. This review provides information on different plasma generating equipment used for the modification of films and critically analyses the impact of cold plasma on packaging properties of films prepared from protein, polysaccharides, and their combinations. Most studies to date have shown that plasma treatment effectively enhances surface characteristics, mechanical, and thermal properties, while its impact on the improvement of barrier properties is limited. Plasma treatment increases surface roughness that enables surface adhesion, ink printability, and reduces the contact angle. Plasma-treated films loaded with antimicrobial compounds demonstrate strong antimicrobial efficacy, mainly due to the increase in their diffusion rate and the non-thermal nature of cold plasma that protects the functionality of bioactive compounds. This review also elaborates on the existing challenges and future needs. Overall, it can be concluded that the application of cold plasma is an effective strategy to modify the inherent limitations of biopolymer-based packaging materials for food packaging applications

Association mapping reveals novel genes and genomic regions controlling grain size architecture in mini core accessions of Indian National Genebank wheat germplasm collection

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a staple food crop for the global human population, and thus wheat breeders are consistently working to enhance its yield worldwide. In this study, we utilized a sub-set of Indian wheat mini core germplasm to underpin the genetic architecture for seed shape-associated traits. The wheat mini core subset (125 accessions) was genotyped using 35K SNP array and evaluated for grain shape traits such as grain length (GL), grain width (GW), grain length, width ratio (GLWR), and thousand grain weight (TGW) across the seven different environments (E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E5, E6, and E7). Marker-trait associations were determined using a multi-locus random-SNP-effect Mixed Linear Model (mrMLM) program. A total of 160 non-redundant quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) were identified for four grain shape traits using two or more GWAS models. Among these 160 QTNs, 27, 36, 38, and 35 QTNs were associated for GL, GW, GLWR, and TGW respectively while 24 QTNs were associated with more than one trait. Of these 160 QTNs, 73 were detected in two or more environments and were considered reliable QTLs for the respective traits. A total of 135 associated QTNs were annotated and located within the genes, including ABC transporter, Cytochrome450, Thioredoxin_M-type, and hypothetical proteins. Furthermore, the expression pattern of annotated QTNs demonstrated that only 122 were differentially expressed, suggesting these could potentially be related to seed development. The genomic regions/candidate genes for grain size traits identified in the present study represent valuable genomic resources that can potentially be utilized in the markers-assisted breeding programs to develop high-yielding varieties