Neutrino Oscillations and Mass Models

These notes provide a review of various neutrino mass model and their implications for particle physics and the Standard Model. We discuss how mass terms are incorporated into the Standard Model, including the Dirac mass term and the Majorana mechanism. We explore experimental evidence supporting the existence of non-zero neutrino mass and develop the formalism of neutrino oscillations. Additionally, we provide a brief overview of some famous radiative neutrino mass models. This notes draws heavily from the references given below and can serve as a valuable resource for students and new researchers interested in the field of neutrino physics.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:hep-ph/0310204 by other author

A Study Exploring Soft Skills in Higher Education

There is a need for improved skills development within the UK’s Higher Education Institutions (HEI) stemming from the disconnect between the expectations of employers of the skills graduates have and the skills graduates have gained during their degree. It is well-known now that there is a clear skills gap. The present study aims to explore the effect of graduates and students' perception of skills development in HEI in the UK. A total of 420 participants completed an online survey to explore their perception as well as their confidence of skills development by rating each skill on a Likert scale. The paper discusses the results in light of pedagogical strategies developed to teach soft skills in HE. The paper concludes with recommendations for teaching practice.&nbsp

Decoding the Misconceptions about the Vedas: Reassessing European Scholarship and Re-evaluating Interpretive Frameworks

The study of Vedas has been an ongoing endeavor for centuries with various interpretations made to understand their essence. A commentary by Sri Aurobindo on Rigveda discussed in his book "The Secret of the Veda" is considered to provide a deeper understanding of the teachings of the Vedas in a contemporary context, as it removes difficulties posed by the ancient form of Sanskrit and interpretations done over different times and contexts. This recomprehension of the Vedas aims to change the perception of the Vedas from being a collection of nonsensical hymns to a more insightful and profound collection of teachings, drawing upon the works of modern scholars of Sanskrit. In this text, we aim to encapsulate the interpretation of Sri Aurobindo in a chapter form so that it becomes accessible to the general audience

Efficacy and safety of intravenous and/or oral levonadifloxacin in the management of secondary bacterial pulmonary infections in COVID-19 patients: findings of a retrospective, real-world, multi-center study

Background: Owing to dysregulated immune response, secondary bacterial pulmonary infections involving both gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens are common in COVID-19 patients and are often associated with higher mortality. This is a first ever report on the safety and efficacy of levonadifloxacin in the treatment of secondary bacterial pulmonary infections in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.Methods: This multi-center, retrospective, post-marketing and real-world study assessed the safety and efficacy of IV and/or oral levonadifloxacin in the treatment of bacterial infections encountered in COVID-19 patients. Data for 154 male/female patients above 18 years of age who received levonadifloxacin (injectable and/or oral) was collected from 44 participating sites. Study outcomes were the clinical and microbial success at the end of therapy. Safety was assessed based on clinical and laboratory adverse events.Results: Among the 154 patients assessed, 121 (78.6%) were males and 142 (92.2%) were hospitalized. Majority of the patients (119) received all-IV therapy while 11 patients were prescribed with IV followed by oral regimen. All-oral therapy was received by 24 patients. The most common co-morbid conditions were diabetes (19.6%) and hypertension (19.2%). Post-treatment with levonadifloxacin, clinical and microbial success rates were 96.8% and 97.0% respectively.Conclusions: Levonadifloxacin showed promising safety and efficacy when used as IV and/or oral therapy for the treatment of secondary bacterial pulmonary infections in COVID-19 patients. Clinically relevant features of levonadifloxacin such as availability of both IV and oral options, broad spectrum coverage and reassuring safety in patients with significant co-morbidities could help simplify the management.Trial registration no. CTRI/2020/09/028152 [Registered on: 30/09/2020]

Smartphone assisting convolutional neural networks for soil texture classification in dry and wet humid conditions in West Guwahati, Assam

Soil texture using a hydrometer or pipette method requires expertise, although these are accurate. A soil expert may help the farmer to detect the soil texture by analyzing the visual texture of the soil, which is not always accurate. This paper presents the smartphone image-based sand and clay soil classification in wet and dry humid conditions using Self Convolution Neural Network (SCNN) and finetuned MobileNet.A soil dataset of 576 soil images was prepared using a low-cost smartphone under natural light conditions. Different augmentation techniques such as shift, range, rotation, and zoom were applied to the soil dataset to increase the number of images in the soil dataset. The best performance of the MobileNet was reported at epoch 15 with a testing and training loss of 0.0091 and 0.0194, respectively. Though the SCNN model performed best at epoch 10 with a testing accuracy of 99.85%, the MobileNet reported less computation time (167.8s) than the SCNN (273.2s). The precision and recall of the models were 99.62 (MobileNet) and 99.84 (SCNN). The accuracy of the SCNN reported itself as the best model, whereas the computing time of the MobileNet reported itself as the best model in different humid conditions. The model can be used to replicate the traditional soil texture analysis method and the farmers can use it for better productivity

Plasmodium vivax lineages: geographical distribution, tandem repeat polymorphism, and phylogenetic relationship

Background: Multi-drug resistance and severe/ complicated cases are the emerging phenotypes of vivax malaria, which may deteriorate current anti-malarial control measures. The emergence of these phenotypes could be associated with either of the two Plasmodium vivax lineages. The two lineages had been categorized as Old World and New World, based on geographical sub-division and genetic and phenotypical markers. This study revisited the lineage hypothesis of P. vivax by typing the distribution of lineages among global isolates and evaluated their genetic relatedness using a panel of new mini-satellite markers. Methods: 18S SSU rRNA S-type gene was amplified from 420 Plasmodium vivax field isolates collected from different geographical regions of India, Thailand and Colombia as well as four strains each of P. vivax originating from Nicaragua, Panama, Thailand (Pak Chang), and Vietnam (ONG). A mini-satellite marker panel was then developed to understand the population genetic parameters and tested on a sample subset of both lineages. Results: 18S SSU rRNA S-type gene typing revealed the distribution of both lineages (Old World and New World) in all geographical regions. However, distribution of Plasmodium vivax lineages was highly variable in every geographical region. The lack of geographical sub-division between lineages suggests that both lineages are globally distributed. Ten mini-satellites were scanned from the P. vivax genome sequence; these tandem repeats were located in eight of the chromosomes. Mini-satellites revealed substantial allelic diversity (7-21, AE = 14.6 +/- 2.0) and heterozygosity (He = 0.697-0.924, AE = 0.857 +/- 0.033) per locus. Mini-satellite comparison between the two lineages revealed high but similar pattern of genetic diversity, allele frequency, and high degree of allele sharing. A Neighbour-Joining phylogenetic tree derived from genetic distance data obtained from ten mini-satellites also placed both lineages together in every cluster. Conclusions: The global lineage distribution, lack of genetic distance, similar pattern of genetic diversity, and allele sharing strongly suggested that both lineages are a single species and thus new emerging phenotypes associated with vivax malaria could not be clearly classified as belonging to a particular lineage on basis of their geographical origin

Genetic structure of Plasmodium falciparum field isolates in eastern and north-eastern India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Molecular techniques have facilitated the studies on genetic diversity of <it>Plasmodium </it>species particularly from field isolates collected directly from patients. The <it>msp-1 </it>and <it>msp-2 </it>are highly polymorphic markers and the large allelic polymorphism has been reported in the block 2 of the <it>msp-1 </it>gene and the central repetitive domain (block3) of the <it>msp-2 </it>gene. Families differing in nucleotide sequences and in number of repetitive sequences (length variation) were used for genotyping purposes. As limited reports are available on the genetic diversity existing among <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>population of India, this report evaluates the extent of genetic diversity in the field isolates of <it>P. falciparum </it>in eastern and north-eastern regions of India.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A study was designed to assess the diversity of <it>msp-1 </it>and <it>msp-2 </it>among the field isolates from India using allele specific nested PCR assays and sequence analysis. Field isolates were collected from five sites distributed in three states namely, Assam, West Bengal and Orissa.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>P. falciparum </it>isolates of the study sites are highly diverse in respect of length as well as sequence motifs with prevalence of all the reported allelic families of <it>msp-1 </it>and <it>msp-2</it>. Prevalence of identical allelic composition as well as high level of sequence identity of alleles suggest a considerable amount of gene flow between the <it>P. falciparum </it>populations of different states. A comparatively higher proportion of multiclonal isolates as well as multiplicity of infection (MOI) was observed among isolates of highly malarious districts Karbi Anglong (Assam) and Sundergarh (Orissa). In all the five sites, R033 family of <it>msp-1 </it>was observed to be monomorphic with an allele size of 150/160 bp. The observed 80–90% sequence identity of Indian isolates with data of other regions suggests that Indian <it>P. falciparum </it>population is a mixture of different strains.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present study shows that the field isolates of eastern and north-eastern regions of India are highly diverse in respect of <it>msp-1 </it>(block 2) and <it>msp-2 </it>(central repeat region, block 3). As expected Indian isolates present a picture of diversity closer to southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and Latin American countries, regions with low to meso-endemicity of malaria in comparison to African regions of hyper- to holo-endemicity.</p

Therapeutic efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine in uncomplicated falciparum malaria in India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is the treatment of choice for uncomplicated falciparum malaria. Artemether-lumefantrine (AL), a fixed dose co-formulation, has recently been approved for marketing in India, although it is not included in the National Drug Policy for treatment of malaria. Efficacy of short course regimen (4 × 4 tablets of 20 mg artemether plus 120 mg lumefantrine over 48 h) was demonstrated in India in the year 2000. However, low cure rates in Thailand and better plasma lumefantrine concentration profile with a six-dose regimen over three days, led to the recommendation of higher dose globally. This is the first report on the therapeutic efficacy of the six-dose regimen of AL in Indian uncomplicated falciparum malaria patients. The data generated will help in keeping the alternative ACT ready for use in the National Programme as and when required.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>One hundred and twenty four subjects between two and fifty-five years of age living in two highly endemic areas of the country (Assam and Orissa) were enrolled for single arm, open label prospective study. The standard six-dose regimen of AL was administered over three days and was followed-up with clinical and parasitological evaluations over 28 days. Molecular markers <it>msp</it>-<it>1 </it>and <it>msp</it>-2 were used to differentiate the recrudescence and reinfection among the study subjects. In addition, polymorphism in <it>pfmdr</it>1 was also carried out in the samples obtained from patients before and after the treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The PCR corrected cure rates were high at both the sites viz. 100% (n = 53) in Assam and 98.6% (n = 71) in Orissa. The only treatment failure case on D7 was a malnourished child. The drug was well tolerated with no adverse events. Patients had pre-treatment carriage of wild type codons at positions 86 (41.7%, n = 91) and 184 (91.3%, n = 91) of <it>pfmdr1 </it>gene.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>AL is safe and effective drug for the treatment of acute uncomplicated falciparum malaria in India. The polymorphism in <it>pfmdr</it>1 gene is not co-related with clinical outcome. However, treatment failure can also occur due to incomplete absorption of the drug as is suspected in one case of failure at D7 in the study. AL can be a viable alternative of artesunate plus sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine (AS + SP), however, the drug should be used rationally and efficacy needs to be monitored periodically.</p

Plasmodium vivax lineages: geographical distribution, tandem repeat polymorphism, and phylogenetic relationship

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multi-drug resistance and severe/complicated cases are the emerging phenotypes of vivax malaria, which may deteriorate current anti-malarial control measures. The emergence of these phenotypes could be associated with either of the two <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>lineages. The two lineages had been categorized as Old World and New World, based on geographical sub-division and genetic and phenotypical markers. This study revisited the lineage hypothesis of <it>P. vivax </it>by typing the distribution of lineages among global isolates and evaluated their genetic relatedness using a panel of new mini-satellite markers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p><it>18S SSU rRNA S-type </it>gene was amplified from 420 <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>field isolates collected from different geographical regions of India, Thailand and Colombia as well as four strains each of <it>P. vivax </it>originating from Nicaragua, Panama, Thailand (Pak Chang), and Vietnam (ONG). A mini-satellite marker panel was then developed to understand the population genetic parameters and tested on a sample subset of both lineages.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>18S SSU rRNA S-type </it>gene typing revealed the distribution of both lineages (Old World and New World) in all geographical regions. However, distribution of <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>lineages was highly variable in every geographical region. The lack of geographical sub-division between lineages suggests that both lineages are globally distributed. Ten mini-satellites were scanned from the <it>P. vivax </it>genome sequence; these tandem repeats were located in eight of the chromosomes. Mini-satellites revealed substantial allelic diversity (7-21, <it>AE </it>= 14.6 ± 2.0) and heterozygosity (<it>He </it>= 0.697-0.924, <it>AE </it>= 0.857 ± 0.033) per locus. Mini-satellite comparison between the two lineages revealed high but similar pattern of genetic diversity, allele frequency, and high degree of allele sharing. A Neighbour-Joining phylogenetic tree derived from genetic distance data obtained from ten mini-satellites also placed both lineages together in every cluster.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The global lineage distribution, lack of genetic distance, similar pattern of genetic diversity, and allele sharing strongly suggested that both lineages are a single species and thus new emerging phenotypes associated with vivax malaria could not be clearly classified as belonging to a particular lineage on basis of their geographical origin.</p