Insecticidal effects of Cassia tora and Cassia alata against cowpea weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus)

A study on the effects of Cassia tora and Cassia alata against cowpea weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus) was conducted from April to July, 2016 and aimed at evaluating the effects of Cassia tora and Cassia alata in the control of cowpea weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus). The percentage mortality of Callosobruchus maculatus in white variety seeds of cowpea treated with concentrations 2g, 3g, 4g and 5g powder of Cassia alata are 40%, 50%, 70% and 90% respectively and Cassia tora of the same concentrations gave mortality percentage of 30%, 40%, 60% and 70% respectively. The mortality of adult C. maculatus was higher in both varieties treated with powdered mixture of both plant materials in ratio of Ca80%:Ct20% showed (90%) mortality followed by Ca50%:Ct50% with 80%. C. maculatus mortality according to variety was higher in the white variety than the brown variety with Ca20%:Ct80% mixture as (3.00±1.00) and (2.50±0.50) respectively. The weevil perforation index (WPI), increase as the concentration of the plant increased with Cassia alata having the highest weevil perforation index when compared to Cassia tora. There was significant difference (P<0.05) between combination of the two plants (Cassia alata and Cassia tora) and weevil perforation index for both varieties of cowpea seeds. Since the plant species showed efficacy and are cheap and readily available, it therefore be recommended, that the leaf powders of these two plants can be used in the control of adult C. maculates in storage of cowpea

Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis secondary to infections:a tertiary care experience

Background: Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis is an uncommon complication of various conditions. It is characterized by immune dysregulation and massive cytokine release causing multiorgan dysfunction. It is classified as primary and secondary to various etiologies like infections, malignancies and autoimmune disease. As it has high mortality, clinician awareness is important for early diagnosis and improved outcome. Aim of the study was to study the etiologies, clinical manifestations, complications and laboratory features in patients diagnosed with infection associated hemophagocytic syndrome (IAHS).Methods: We have done retrospective analysis of all cases diagnosed to have Infection Associated Hemophagocytic Syndrome (IAHS) between March 2012 to November 2015 in a 1000 bedded tertiary care hospital in south India.Results: Total five cases detected. Most of the cases are related to tropical infections (80%). All of them presented with fever, cytopenias and organomegaly. Ferritin and Triglycerides were elevated in all patients. Bone marrow hemophagocytosis was observed in 80% of cases. Diagnostic protocol of HLH 2004 was followed. Only 20% survival observed.Conclusions: IAHS is a rare fulminant complication associated with diagnostic and therapeutic challenges because of overlapping clinical features with sepsis. Increased physician awareness, early diagnosis and therapeutic interventions may improve survival

Occupants in the building design decision-making process

Building occupants affect building performance in many ways, depending on how the building design responds to what occupants need, the amount of control that building designers have afforded them, and how well the design team has anticipated the way they will want to interact with the building and its systems in the future. This chapter discusses the challenge of integrating considerations related to building occupancy and occupant behavior into the decision-making process of building designers. It outlines the role of information management in coordinating information needed by designers at different design stages and contexts, and the range of occupancy-related factors to be considered in design practice, to facilitate performance and risk assessment in relation to legislation, regulations, and the interests of the client. This practice-based context forms the background for a discussion on how information and decisions about occupants could flow throughout the design process in a coherent and coordinated way. It concludes by proposing a knowledge management template for recording and supporting information transfer regarding occupancy throughout the design decision-making process, which can fit within and support current industry tools such as building information modeling and building performance simulation

Reduced-bias estimator of the Conditional Tail Expectation of heavy-tailed distributions

International audienceSeveral risk measures have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we focus on the estimation of the Conditional Tail Expectation (CTE). Its asymptotic normality has been first established in the literature under the classical assumption that the second moment of the loss variable is finite, this condition being very restrictive in practical applications. Such a result has been extended by Necir {\it et al.} (2010) in the case of infinite second moment. In this framework, we propose a reduced-bias estimator of the CTE. We illustrate the efficiency of our approach on a small simulation study and a real data analysis

Low specificity of determine HIV1/2 RDT using whole blood in south west Tanzania

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of two rapid detection tests (RDTs) for HIV 1/2 in plasma and in whole blood samples. Methods: More than 15,000 study subjects above the age of two years participated in two rounds of a cohort study to determine the prevalence of HIV. HIV testing was performed using the Determine HIV 1/2 test (Abbott) in the first (2006/2007) and the HIV 1/2 STAT-PAK Dipstick Assay (Chembio) in the second round (2007/2008) of the survey. Positive results were classified into faint and strong bands depending on the visual appearance of the test strip and confirmed by ELISA and Western blot. Results: The sensitivity and specificity of the Determine RDT were 100% (95% confidence interval = 86.8 to 100%) and 96.8% (95.9 to 97.6%) in whole blood and 100% (99.7 to 100%) and 97.9% (97.6 to 98.1%) in plasma respectively. Specificity was highly dependent on the tested sample type: when using whole blood, 67.1% of positive results were false positive, as opposed to 17.4% in plasma. Test strips with only faint positive bands were more often false positive than strips showing strong bands and were more common in whole blood than in plasma. Evaluation of the STAT-PAK RDT in plasma during the second year resulted in a sensitivity of 99.7% (99.1 to 99.9%) and a specificity of 99.3% (99.1 to 99.4%) with 6.9% of the positive results being false. Conclusions: Our study shows that the Determine HIV 1/2 strip test with its high sensitivity is an excellent tool to screen for HIV infection, but that – at least in our setting – it can not be recommended as a confirmatory test in VCT campaigns where whole blood is used

Neutrons describe ectoine effects on water H-bonding and hydration around a soluble protein and a cell membrane

Understanding adaptation to extreme environments remains a challenge of high biotechnological potential for fundamental molecular biology. The cytosol of many microorganisms, isolated from saline environments, reversibly accumulates molar concentrations of the osmolyte ectoine to counterbalance fluctuating external salt concentrations. Although they have been studied extensively by thermodynamic and spectroscopic methods, direct experimental structural data have, so far, been lacking on ectoine-water-protein interactions. In this paper, in vivo deuterium labeling, small angle neutron scattering, neutron membrane diffraction and inelastic scattering are combined with neutron liquids diffraction to characterize the extreme ectoine-containing solvent and its effects on purple membrane of H. salinarum and E. coli maltose binding protein. The data reveal that ectoine is excluded from the hydration layer at the membrane surface and does not affect membrane molecular dynamics, and prove a previous hypothesis that ectoine is excluded from a monolayer of dense hydration water around the soluble protein. Neutron liquids diffraction to atomic resolution shows how ectoine enhances the remarkable properties of H-bonds in water-properties that are essential for the proper organization, stabilization and dynamics of biological structures