The Political Economy of Global Agriculture: Effects on Agriculture, Farmers, Consumers and Economic Growth

International political economy deals with mutual interaction of international politics and international economics. The ever-changing political scenarios, be it right-wing or left-wing, agriculture in particular has been neglected. The main focus of the paper is to study the effects of political economy on agriculture, farmers, consumer welfare and economic growth. The data on indicators collected from FAO,World Bank, IMF, UNDES, WEF, OECD, CGIAR reports. The growth rates, Agricultural Orientation Index (AOI) and statistical-analysis estimated. Globally, political and economic systems, international governments like World Bank, IMF and WTO’s attitude towards agriculture is poor. Agriculture must be brought on global political agenda for sustainable food security, economic growth and development and to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). The protection of producers and consumers is being based on political will of governments. The study concludes for developing countries, stimulus package is required for the development of agriculture. The political economy of AOI indicates that the countries which have more than 1 will spend more budget in budget allocation towards agriculture. The study found that, clearly agriculture globally is not on the priority list for the local central governments in allocating their budgets towards agriculture. The study suggests that, economic minded politicians and political minded economists who has knowledge of social, political and economic systems are required in efficient economic system of agriculture

Iron acquisition and its regulation in Nitosomonas europaea

Iron is absolutely necessary for the maintenance, the defense, the differentiation and last, but by no means least, the growth and cellular division of almost all living organisms including Nitrosomonas europaea, an ammonia oxidizing bacterium. Given the necessity of iron, it is not surprising that N. europaea evolved several irondependent proteins to perform many essential functions. Here, we used computational and molecular techniques to study the iron transport systems and their regulation in N. europaea. Despite its high iron requirement, N. europaea does not produce siderophores. However it can grow in media containing relatively low iron by lowering its cellular iron and heme contents and by efficiently allocating the available iron to required irondependent proteins. Similar to other Gram-negative bacteria, N. europaea is responding to iron limitation by increasing transcript levels of siderophore-dependent iron acquisition systems. In addition, transcripts of several hypothetical proteins with putative novel roles in iron acquisition were also present in higher levels when N. europaea is grown in iron limited conditions. Most of the genes involved in iron uptake that were mentioned above appear to be regulated by either iron alone or iron and Ferric Uptake Regulator (Fur) protein in N. europaea. In addition, it appears that N. europaea Fur also plays a role in maintaining a balance between acquiring enough iron and allocating it to various iron-dependent proteins. N. europaea is capable of taking up Fe³⁺-bound ferrichrome, ferrioxamine, pyoverdine via nitABC Fe-transporter. N. europaea might be having alternative means for transport of Fe³⁺ or Fe²⁺ ions across the cytoplasmic membrane and also Fe³⁺-bound to enterobactin and aerobactin siderophores

Digitized Engineering Notebook

Digitized Engineering Notebook is a fully operational web application which designed in a perspective to replace the traditional notebook of students with a complete digital feature. The noticeable functionalities of this project include front page with welcome message and a menu for navigation. The administrator will have access to edit the content in the database. The project leader and the team members can edit the content in the project. User will have option to create a new project or edit and can select existing project. Project leader will have accesses to add or remove members from the team and can be able to create dated log entries. The user can create, share or edit the content to encourage team work, brain storm ideas and documents. User can upload text documents, drawing, sketches, figures, and multimedia elements such as pictures, videos. User can give their comments in discussion board. This wed application will provide users with input columns labeled as tasks, reflections, notes, details etc. This web application can also convert contents to an organized pdf file. This wed application is developed using open source software which includes PHP, Apache HTTPs server, MySQ

Reinforcing Security and Usability of Crypto-Wallet with Post-Quantum Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proof

Crypto-wallets or digital asset wallets are a crucial aspect of managing cryptocurrencies and other digital assets such as NFTs. However, these wallets are not immune to security threats, particularly from the growing risk of quantum computing. The use of traditional public-key cryptography systems in digital asset wallets makes them vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers, which may increase in the future. Moreover, current digital wallets require users to keep track of seed-phrases, which can be challenging and lead to additional security risks. To overcome these challenges, a new algorithm is proposed that uses post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) to enhance the security of digital asset wallets. The research focuses on the use of the Lattice-based Threshold Secret Sharing Scheme (LTSSS), Kyber Algorithm for key generation and ZKP for wallet unlocking, providing a more secure and user-friendly alternative to seed-phrase, brain and multi-sig protocol wallets. This algorithm also includes several innovative security features such as recovery of wallets in case of downtime of the server, and the ability to rekey the private key associated with a specific username-password combination, offering improved security and usability. The incorporation of PQC and ZKP provides a robust and comprehensive framework for securing digital assets in the present and future. This research aims to address the security challenges faced by digital asset wallets and proposes practical solutions to ensure their safety in the era of quantum computing

Role of a Fur homolog in iron metabolism in Nitrosomonas europaea

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In response to environmental iron concentrations, many bacteria coordinately regulate transcription of genes involved in iron acquisition via the ferric uptake regulation (Fur) system. The genome of <it>Nitrosomonas europaea</it>, an ammonia-oxidizing bacterium, carries three genes (NE0616, NE0730 and NE1722) encoding proteins belonging to Fur family.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the three <it>N. europaea fur </it>homologs, only the Fur homolog encoded by gene NE0616 complemented the <it>Escherichia coli </it>H1780 <it>fur </it>mutant. A <it>N. europaea fur:kanP </it>mutant strain was created by insertion of kanamycin-resistance cassette in the promoter region of NE0616 <it>fur </it>homolog. The total cellular iron contents of the <it>fur:kanP </it>mutant strain increased by 1.5-fold compared to wild type when grown in Fe-replete media. Relative to the wild type, the <it>fur:kanP </it>mutant exhibited increased sensitivity to iron at or above 500 μM concentrations. Unlike the wild type, the <it>fur:kanP </it>mutant was capable of utilizing iron-bound ferrioxamine without any lag phase and showed over expression of several outer membrane TonB-dependent receptor proteins irrespective of Fe availability.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our studies have clearly indicated a role in Fe regulation by the Fur protein encoded by <it>N. europaea </it>NE0616 gene. Additional studies are required to fully delineate role of this <it>fur </it>homolog.</p

FO‐SPR biosensor calibrated with recombinant extracellular vesicles enables specific and sensitive detection directly in complex matrices

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have drawn huge attention for diagnosing myriad of diseases, including cancer. However, the EV detection and analyses procedures often lack much desired sample standardization. To address this, we used well-characterized recombinant EVs (rEVs) for the first time as a biological reference material in developing a fiber optic surface plasmon resonance (FO-SPR) bioassay. In this context, EV binding on the FO-SPR probes was achieved only with EV-specific antibodies (e.g. anti-CD9 and anti-CD63) but not with non-specific anti-IgG. To increase detection sensitivity, we tested six different combinations of EV-specific antibodies in a sandwich bioassay. Calibration curves were generated with two most effective combinations (anti-CD9/(B)anti-CD81 and anti-CD63/(B)anti-CD9), resulting in 10(3) and 10(4) times higher sensitivity than the EV concentration in human blood plasma from healthy or cancer patients, respectively. Additionally, by using anti-CD63/(B)anti-CD9, we detected rEVs spiked in cell culture medium and HEK293 endogenous EVs in the same matrix without any prior EV purification or enrichment. Lastly, we selectively captured breast cancer cell EVs spiked in blood plasma using anti-EpCA M antibody on the FO-SPR surface. The obtained results combined with FO-SPR real-time monitoring, fast response time and ease of operation, demonstrate its outstanding potential for EV quantification and analysis

Use of aliphatic n-alkynes to discriminate soil nitrification activities of ammonia-oxidizing thaumarchaea and bacteria

Ammonia (NH₃)-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and thaumarchaea (AOA) co-occupy most soils, yet no short-term growth-independent method exists to determine their relative contributions to nitrification in situ. Microbial monooxygenases differ in their vulnerability to inactivation by aliphatic n-alkynes, and we found that NH₃ oxidation by the marine thaumarchaeon Nitrosopumilus maritimus was unaffected during a 24-h exposure to ≤20 μM concentrations of 1-alkynes C₈ and C₉. In contrast, NH₃ oxidation by two AOB (Nitrosomonas europaea and Nitrosospira multiformis) was quickly and irreversibly inactivated by 1 μM C₈ (octyne). Evidence that nitrification carried out by soilborne AOA was also insensitive to octyne was obtained. In incubations (21 or 28 days) of two different whole soils, both acetylene and octyne effectively prevented NH₄⁺-stimulated increases in AOB population densities, but octyne did not prevent increases in AOA population densities that were prevented by acetylene. Furthermore, octyne-resistant, NH₄⁺-stimulated net nitrification rates of 2 and 7 μg N/g soil/day persisted throughout the incubation of the two soils. Other evidence that octyne-resistant nitrification was due to AOA included (i) a positive correlation of octyne-resistant nitrification in soil slurries of cropped and noncropped soils with allylthiourea-resistant activity (100 μM) and (ii) the finding that the fraction of octyne-resistant nitrification in soil slurries correlated with the fraction of nitrification that recovered from irreversible acetylene inactivation in the presence of bacterial protein synthesis inhibitors and with the octyne-resistant fraction of NH₄⁺-saturated net nitrification measured in whole soils. Octyne can be useful in short-term assays to discriminate AOA and AOB contributions to soil nitrification.This is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by the American Society for Microbiology and can be found at: http://aem.asm.org/

Ammonia oxidation: Ecology, physiology, biochemistry and why they must all come together

Ammonia oxidation is a fundamental core process in the global biogeochemical nitrogen cycle. Oxidation of ammonia (NH3) to nitrite (NO2 −) is the first and rate-limiting step in nitrification and is carried out by distinct groups of microorganisms. Ammonia oxidation is essential for nutrient turnover in most terrestrial, aquatic and engineered ecosystems and plays a major role, both directly and indirectly, in greenhouse gas production and environmental damage. Although ammonia oxidation has been studied for over a century, this research field has been galvanised in the past decade by the surprising discoveries of novel ammonia oxidising microorganisms. This review reflects on the ammonia oxidation research to date and discusses the major gaps remaining in our knowledge of the biology of ammonia oxidation