Screening for exopolysaccharide production from basidiomycetes of chhattisgarh

Polysaccharides extracted from mushrooms have wide applications. Seven species of mushrooms  i.e. Grifola frondosa, Polyporus species 1, Polyporus species 2, Pleurotus sajorcaju, Pleurotus florida, Schizophyllum commune and Jelly species were collected and each species was tested for their polysaccharide producing ability. Among all seven species, Pleurotus sajorcaju produces maximum exopolysaccharide & minimum was produced by Pleurotus florida 1. Polysaccharide production was checked by incubating all seven species in shaking and static conditions. Although 28°C at 150 rpm for 7 and 14 days is the best condition  for exopolysaccharide production from mushroom species. Total biomass (dry weight and wet weight) was also recorded. Maximum biomass was found to be of Schizophyllum commune. Total free glucose produced was also determined and was found to be highest in Pleurotus florida. Natural polysaccharides can play a relevant role in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, particularly in the field of drug delivery, for their intrinsic biocompatibility and potential low cost

Influence of Ni doping on the electronic structure of Ni_2MnGa

The modifications in the electronic structure of Ni_{2+x}Mn_{1-x}Ga by Ni doping have been studied using full potential linearized augmented plane wave method and ultra-violet photoemission spectroscopy. Ni 3d related electron states appear due to formation of Ni clusters. We show the possibility of changing the minority-spin DOS with Ni doping, while the majority-spin DOS remains almost unchanged. The total magnetic moment decreases with excess Ni. The total energy calculations corroborate the experimentally reported changes in the Curie temperature and the martensitic transition temperature with x.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.

The Interactions of the Largest Subunit of RNA Polymerase II with Other Cellular Proteins: a Bioinformatic Approach

The function of a protein is governed by its interaction with other proteins inside a cell. Therefore, it is important to identify the interacting partners of a particular protein to decipher its function. The protein interaction networks are generally determined by bioinformatic as well as experimental methodologies such as yeast two hybrid, mass spectrometry, immunoprecipitation, and fluorescence resonance energy transfer assays. Here, we have analyzed bioinformatically the interactions of Rpb1p (the largest subunit of RNA Polymerase II) with other proteins in yeast, using Cytoscape software and Biogrid/Biomart database. We find that Rpb1p interacts with a large number of proteins involved in mRNA synthesis, processing, export, and other cellular processes. These results validate the application of such bioinformatic approach to determine the interactome for other cellular proteins

Gait and balance in cervical dystonia and dystonic head tremor

Background: Previous studies have found gait and balance abnormalities in patients with cervical dystonia. However, the characteristics of gait and balance in cervical dystonia with head tremors have not been ascertained. A midline constant head tremor when walking would likely render gait and balance more difficult. The pathophysiology of dystonia has also been increasingly linked with cerebellar function abnormality, commonly implicated in gait and balance disorders.Methods: We examined the gait and balance characteristics of cervical dystonia presenting with head tremors. We used the timed up-and-go (TUG) walk test, 10 m walk test, Berg Balance Scale (BBS), and Gait and Freezing questionnaire. We then assessed the gait on an instrumented walkway system to capture spatiotemporal measures such as speed, cadence, step time, step length, stride width, swing%, stance%, single support%, double support%, and gait variability index (GVI). We also assessed whether the gait in dystonic tremor (DT) differed from essential tremor (ET) and orthostatic tremor (OT), as these tremor disorders share the cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathway as the common pathological pathway.Results: 50 participants comprising DT (20 patients), ET (15 patients), and OT (15 patients) were enrolled. While the gait abnormalities were subclinical, 11/20 DT patients (55%) walked at a slower speed on the TUG, 11/20 (55%) had reduced scores on the BBS, 9/20 (45%) had increased step time, 4/20 (20%) had reduced step length, 4/20 (20%) had wider stride width, 9/20 (45%) spent greater time during double support and 8/20 (40%) patients had an abnormal GVI. Comparisons of DT with healthy control data revealed a slower gait velocity (p = 0.001) and a reduced step length (p = 0.001). Compared to DT, the ET group revealed a reduced cadence (p = 0.04) and the OT group revealed an increased TUG time (p = 0.03), reduced BBS scores (p = 0.02), reduced step length (p = 0.02), reduced cadence (p = 0.03), reduced GVI (p = 0.01), and increased double support phase (p = 0.045).Conclusion: DT is accompanied by multiple abnormalities affecting gait and balance, albeit subclinical and less pronounced than ET and OT, possibly related to more effective compensatory mechanisms. Nevertheless, these abnormalities indicate that rehabilitative measures warrant consideration when managing in clinical settings

A Bibliometric Overview of the Field of Type-2 Fuzzy Sets and Systems [Discussion Forum]

© 2005-2012 IEEE. Fuzzy Sets and Systems is an area of computational intelligence, pioneered by Lotfi Zadeh over 50 years ago in a seminal paper in Information and Control. Fuzzy Sets (FSs) deal with uncertainty in our knowledge of a particular situation. Research and applications in FSs have grown steadily over 50 years. More recently, we have seen a growth in Type-2 Fuzzy Set (T2 FS) related papers, where T2 FSs are utilized to handle uncertainty in realworld problems. In this paper, we have used bibliometric methods to obtain a broad overview of the area of T2 FSs. This method analyzes information on the bibliographic details of published journal papers, which includes title, authors, author address, journals and citations, extracted from the Science and Social Science Citation Indices in the Web of Science (WoS) database for the last 20 years (1997-2017). We have compared the growth of publications in the field of FSs, and its subset T2 FSs, identified highly cited papers in T2 FSs, highly cited authors, key institutions, and main countries with researchers involved in T2 FS related research

A prospective randomized controlled trial to study the effect of prenatal yoga on maternal weight gain and psychological stress in pregnancy and its association with pregnancy outcomes

Background: Objective of study was to evaluate the effect of prenatal yoga on maternal gestational weight gain (GWG) and psychological stress in pregnancy (PSS) and to evaluate the effect of prenatal yoga on labour outcomes. Methods: Prospective randomized controlled trial conducted at AIIMS, New Delhi between May 2020-December 2021. Sixty women each were recruited in the yoga and control group. Women in the yoga group attended 60 minutes supervised yoga sessions followed by self-sessions. Women in the control group received routine antenatal care along with 30 minutes per day of walking and dietary counselling. The assessment was done for the weight(WT), dietary intake (D) and perceived stress score (PSS) at the time of recruitment (WT1, D1, PSS1), 28 weeks (WT2, D2, PSS2) and 36 weeks (WT3, D3, PSS3) and the results were then compared. Results: At recruitment all the parameters in both groups were comparable. The difference in mean and difference in percentage in terms of gestational weight gain (GWG) at recruitment and at 36 weeks was statistically significant (p-value=0.027). The per cent weight gain in the Yoga group was significantly low (p value=0.048). The control group experienced more amount of stress both at 28 weeks (p-value = 0.021) and 36 weeks (p-value <0.0001). The difference in mean and difference in percentage in terms of PSS1 and PSS2 (p-value=0.011), PSS2 and PSS3 (p-value=0.0001) PSS1 and PSS 3 (p-value=0.0001). Labour outcomes were comparable between both groups. Conclusions: Yoga helps in controlling excessive GWG and helps prevent many adverse feto-maternal outcomes associated with obesity

Evolution of Glacial and High-Altitude Lakes in the Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya Over the Past Four Decades (1975–2017)

Global climate change is significantly triggering the dynamic evolution of high-mountain lakes which may pose a serious threat to downstream areas, warranting their systematic and regular monitoring. This study presents the first temporal inventory of glacial and high-altitude lakes in the Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya for four points in time i.e., 1975, 1991, 2000, and 2017 using Hexagon, TM, ETM+, and OLI images, respectively. First, a baseline data was generated for the year 2000 and then the multi-temporal lake changes were assessed. The annual mapping of SGLs was also performed for four consecutive years (2014–2017) to analyze their nature and occurrence pattern. The results show an existence of 463 glacial and high-altitude lakes (> 0.003 km2) in 2000 which were grouped into four classes: supraglacial (SGL; 50) pro/peri glacial lake in contact with glacier (PGLC; 35), pro/peri glacial lake away from glacier (PGLA; 112) and other lakes (OL; 266). The mean size of lakes is 0.06 km2 and about 87% lakes have area < 0.1 km2. The number of lakes increased (by 9%) from 425 in 1975 to 466 in 2017, accompanied by a rapid areal expansion from 25.17 ± 1.90 to 31.24 ± 2.36 km2 (24%). The maximum expansion in number (106%) and area (138%) was observed in SGLs, followed by PGLCs (number: 34%; area: 90%). Contrarily no significant change was found in other lakes. The annual SGL mapping reveals that their number (area) increased from 81 (543,153 m2) to 96 (840,973 m2) between 2014 and 2017. Occurrence pattern of SGLs shows that maximum number of lakes (> 80%) are persistent in nature, followed by drain-out (15–20%) and recurring type lakes (7–8%). The new-formed lakes (9–17%) were consistently noticed in all the years (2014–2017). The results of this study underline that regional climate is accelerating the cryosphere thawing and if the current trend continues, further glacier melting will likely occur. Therefore, formation of new lakes and expansion of existing lakes is expected in the study area leading to increase in potential of glacial lake outburst floods. Thereby, persistent attention should be paid to the influences of climatic change in the region

Unexpected Dual Task Benefits on Cycling in Parkinson Disease and Healthy Adults: A Neuro-Behavioral Model

Background When performing two tasks at once, a dual task, performance on one or both tasks typically suffers. People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) usually experience larger dual task decrements on motor tasks than healthy older adults (HOA). Our objective was to investigate the decrements in cycling caused by performing cognitive tasks with a range of difficulty in people with PD and HOAs. Methods Twenty-eight participants with Parkinson’s disease and 20 healthy older adults completed a baseline cycling task with no secondary tasks and then completed dual task cycling while performing 12 tasks from six cognitive domains representing a wide range of difficulty. Results Cycling was faster during dual task conditions than at baseline, and was significantly faster for six tasks (all p\u3c.02) across both groups. Cycling speed improved the most during the easiest cognitive tasks, and cognitive performance was largely unaffected. Cycling improvement was predicted by task difficulty (p\u3c.001). People with Parkinson’s disease cycled slower (p\u3c.03) and showed reduced dual task benefits (p\u3c.01) than healthy older adults. Conclusions Unexpectedly, participants’ motor performance improved during cognitive dual tasks, which cannot be explained in current models of dual task performance. To account for these findings, we propose a model integrating dual task and acute exercise approaches which posits that cognitive arousal during dual tasks increases resources to facilitate motor and cognitive performance, which is subsequently modulated by motor and cognitive task difficulty. This model can explain both the improvement observed on dual tasks in the current study and more typical dual task findings in other studies