Utilization of carbon and nitrogen sources by Streptomyces kanamyceticus M 27 for the production of an Anti bacterial antibiotic

We tested a number of carbon and nitrogen compounds for their effect on the production of an antibacterial antibiotic by Streptomyces kananmyceticus M27. Dextrose was found to be the most suitable carbon source, though maltose, sucrose, and soluble starch gave moderate yields. (NH4)H2PO4 and yeast extract were adequate nitrogen sources for antibiotic production. There was, however, no direct relation between the growth of the organism and antibiotic formation. The pH of the medium might be an important factor for antibiotic formation, as media giving high antibiotic yields showed an alkaline pH

Glassy magnetic phase driven by short range charge and magnetic ordering in nanocrystalline La1/3_{1/3}Sr2/3_{2/3}FeO3−δ_{3-\delta}: Magnetization, Mossbauer, and polarised neutron studies

The charge ordered La$_{1/3}$Sr$_{2/3}$FeO$_{3-\delta}$ (LSFO) in bulk and nanocrystalline forms are investigated using ac and dc magnetization, M\"{o}ssbauer, and polarised neutron studies. A complex scenario of short range charge and magnetic ordering is realized from the polarised neutron studies in nanocrystalline specimen. This short range ordering does not involve any change in spin state and modification in the charge disproportion between Fe$^{3+}$ and Fe$^{5+}$ compared to bulk counterpart as evident in the M\"{o}ssbauer results. The refinement of magnetic diffraction peaks provides magnetic moments of Fe$^{3+}$ and Fe$^{5+}$ are about 3.15$\mu_B$ and 1.57$\mu_B$ for bulk, and 2.7$\mu_B$ and 0.53$\mu_B$ for nanocrystalline specimen, respectively. The destabilization of charge ordering leads to magnetic phase separation, giving rise to the robust exchange bias (EB) effect. Strikingly, EB field at 5 K attains a value as high as 4.4 kOe for average size $\sim$ 70 nm, which is zero for the bulk counterpart. A strong frequency dependence of ac susceptibility reveals cluster-glass like transition around $\sim$ 65 K, below which EB appears. Overall results propose that finite size effect directs the complex glassy magnetic behavior driven by unconventional short range charge and magnetic ordering, and magnetic phase separation appears in nanocrystalline LSFO.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Fig. 1 available upon request or in http://www.ffn.ub.es/oscar/Articles.html. Accepted in Phys. Rev.

Altered resistin and IL6 in Neonatal sepsis in patients admitted in a tertiary care teaching hospital at Eastern India

Background: Neonatal sepsis is a clinical syndrome followed by bacteraemia in the first month of life and appears to be one of the primary causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. The study aim was to detect the levels of resistin, IL-6, CRP and hs-CRP in clinically suspected cases of neonatal sepsis and establish its association with the pathogenesis of the disease. Materials & Methods: The case control study consists of 78 neonates of whom 42 were clinically suspected case of sepsis admitted in NICU of Paediatric department and were taken as cases and 36 were normal healthy neonates taken as control subjects in a tertiary care teaching hospital, Durgapur, West Bengal. The cases as well as controls were within 28 days of age. Preterm and term neonates (< 28 days of age) of both sexes showing signs of both early and late onset sepsis and also blood culture positive were included in the study. Two ml of blood was collected without anticoagulant and serum was separated by centrifugation at 3500 rpm for 15-20 mins and was used for measurement of hs-CRP, resistin and IL 6. Serum hs-CRP levels was determined with a high-sensitivity nephelometric method while the serum level of IL-6 and Resistin were measured by immunoassay Kits (Raybiotech, USA). Results: Serum resistin levels were increased in sepsis cases as compared to controls and were statistically significant (38.96 ± 17.15 vs 15.49 ± 8.54 ng/ml; p < 0.0001). It was also observed that serum IL 6 levels were higher in sepsis cases as compared to controls which was statistically significant (58.19 ± 39.97 versus 8.48 ± 3.90 pg/ml; P < 0.0001). However, a weak positive correlation was observed between serum resistin with serum IL 6 level (r = 0.343; P = 0.025) among neonatal sepsis subjects while no correlation was seen in controls (r = 0.141; P = 0.411). Conclusion: The measurement of these sepsis markers is extremely important only in case of neonates with unclear infectious status. We have observed a significant rise in Resistin or IL 6 or hs-CRP which may be suggested as specific marker for the identification of neonatal sepsis.  The combination of Resistin or IL 6 or CRP or hs-CRP could therefore be crucial for the diagnosis and would be better predictors of neonatal sepsis and may be crucial in the pathogenesis of the disease. Keywords: Preterm neonates, neonatal sepsis, mortality and morbidity, serum resistin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), hs-CR

Laminar-turbulent transition in Raman fiber lasers:a first passage statistics based analysis

Loss of coherence with increasing excitation amplitudes and spatial size modulation is a fundamental problem in designing Raman fiber lasers. While it is known that ramping up laser pump power increases the amplitude of stochastic excitations, such higher energy inputs can also lead to a transition from a linearly stable coherent laminar regime to a non-desirable disordered turbulent state. This report presents a new statistical methodology, based on first passage statistics, that classifies lasing regimes in Raman fiber lasers, thereby leading to a fast and highly accurate identification of a strong instability leading to a laminar-turbulent phase transition through a self-consistently defined order parameter. The results have been consistent across a wide range of pump power values, heralding a breakthrough in the non-invasive analysis of fiber laser dynamics

Exchange bias effect in alloys and compounds

The phenomenology of exchange bias effects observed in structurally single-phase alloys and compounds but composed of a variety of coexisting magnetic phases such as ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, spin-glass, cluster-glass and disordered magnetic states are reviewed. The investigations on exchange bias effects are discussed in diverse types of alloys and compounds where qualitative and quantitative aspects of magnetism are focused based on macroscopic experimental tools such as magnetization and magnetoresistance measurements. Here, we focus on improvement of fundamental issues of the exchange bias effects rather than on their technological importance

Search for Higgs bosons of the Universal Extra Dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider

The Higgs sector of the Universal Extra Dimensions (UED) has a rather involved setup. With one extra space dimension, the main ingredients to the construct are the higher Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the Standard Model Higgs boson and the fifth components of the gauge fields which on compactification appear as scalar degrees of freedom and can mix with the former thus leading to physical KK-Higgs states of the scenario. In this work, we explore in detail the phenomenology of such a Higgs sector of the UED with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in focus. We work out relevant decay branching fractions involving the KK-Higgs excitations. Possible production modes of the KK-Higgs bosons are then discussed with an emphasis on their associated production with the third generation KK-quarks and that under the cascade decays of strongly interacting UED excitations which turn out to be the only phenomenologically significant modes. It is pointed out that the collider searches of such Higgs bosons face generic hardship due to soft end-products which result from severe degeneracies in the masses of the involved excitations in the minimal version of the UED (MUED). Generic implications of either observing some or all of the KK-Higgs bosons at the LHC are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures and 1 tabl

Effectiveness of a Yoga-Based Lifestyle Protocol (YLP) in Preventing Diabetes in a High-Risk Indian Cohort: A Multicenter Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial (NMB-Trial)

IntroductionThough several lines of evidence support the utility of yoga-based interventions in diabetes prevention, most of these studies have been limited by methodological issues, primarily sample size inadequacy. Hence, we tested the effectiveness of yoga-based lifestyle intervention against diabetes risk reduction in multicentre, large community settings of India, through a single-blind cluster-randomized controlled trial, Niyantrita Madhumeha Bharat Abhiyan (NMB). Research Design and MethodsNMB-trial is a multicentre cluster-randomized trial conducted in 80 clusters [composed of rural units (villages) and urban units (Census Enumeration Blocks)] randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to intervention and control groups. Participants were individuals (age, 20–70 years) with prediabetes (blood HbA1c values in the range of 5.7–6.4%) and IDRS ≥ 60. The intervention included the practice of yoga-based lifestyle modification protocol (YLP) for 9 consecutive days, followed by daily home and weekly supervised practices for 3 months. The control cluster received standard of care advice for diabetes prevention. Statistical analyses were performed on an intention-to-treat basis, using available and imputed datasets. The primary outcome was the conversion from prediabetes to diabetes after the YLP intervention of 3 months (diagnosed based upon HbA1c cutoff >6.5%). Secondary outcome included regression to normoglycemia with HbA1c <5.7%.ResultsA total of 3380 (75.96%) participants were followed up at 3 months. At 3 months post-intervention, overall, diabetes developed in 726 (21.44%) participants. YLP was found to be significantly effective in halting progression to diabetes as compared to standard of care; adjusted RRR was 63.81(95% CI = 56.55–69.85). The YLP also accelerated regression to normoglycemia [adjusted Odds Ratio (adjOR) = 1.20 (95% CI, 1.02–1.43)]. Importantly, younger participants (≤40 years) were found to regress to normoglycemia more effectively than the older participants Pinteraction<0.001. ConclusionBased on the significant risk reduction derived from the large sample size, and the carefully designed randomized yoga-based intervention on high-risk populations, the study is a preliminary but strong proof-of-concept for yoga as a potential lifestyle-based treatment to curb the epidemic of diabetes. The observed findings also indicate a potential of YLP for diabetes prevention in low/moderate risk profile individuals that needs large-scale validation.Trial RegistrationClinical Trial Registration Number: CTRI/2018/03/012804

Azimuthal Anisotropy of Photon and Charged Particle Emission in Pb+Pb Collisions at 158 A GeV/c

The azimuthal distributions of photons and charged particles with respect to the event plane are investigated as a function of centrality in Pb + Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c in the WA98 experiment at the CERN SPS. The anisotropy of the azimuthal distributions is characterized using a Fourier analysis. For both the photon and charged particle distributions the first two Fourier coefficients are observed to decrease with increasing centrality. The observed anisotropies of the photon distributions compare well with the expectations from the charged particle measurements for all centralities.Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. The manuscript has undergone a major revision. The unwanted correlations were enhanced in the random subdivision method used in the earlier version. The present version uses the more established method of division into subevents separated in rapidity to minimise short range correlations. The observed results for charged particles are in agreement with results from the other experiments. The observed anisotropy in photons is explained using flow results of pions and the correlations arising due to the decay of the neutral pion

Multiplicity Distributions and Charged-neutral Fluctuations

Results from the multiplicity distributions of inclusive photons and charged particles, scaling of particle multiplicities, event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations, and charged-neutral fluctuations in 158$\cdot A$ GeV Pb+Pb collisions are presented and discussed. A scaling of charged particle multiplicity as $N_{part}^{1.07\pm 0.05}$ and photons as $N_{part}^{1.12\pm 0.03}$ have been observed, indicating violation of naive wounded nucleon model. The analysis of localized charged-neutral fluctuation indicates a model-independent demonstration of non-statistical fluctuations in both charged particles and photons in limited azimuthal regions. However, no correlated charged-neutral fluctuations are observed.Comment: Talk given at the International Symposium on Nuclear Physics (ISNP-2000), Mumbai, India, 18-22 Dec 2000, Proceedings to be published in Pramana, Journal of Physic

Bio-nanotechnology application in wastewater treatment

The nanoparticles have received high interest in the field of medicine and water purification, however, the nanomaterials produced by chemical and physical methods are considered hazardous, expensive, and leave behind harmful substances to the environment. This chapter aimed to focus on green-synthesized nanoparticles and their medical applications. Moreover, the chapter highlighted the applicability of the metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) in the inactivation of microbial cells due to their high surface and small particle size. Modifying nanomaterials produced by green-methods is safe, inexpensive, and easy. Therefore, the control and modification of nanoparticles and their properties were also discussed