Now a days heavy metal contamination along the roadside is a matter of concern especially in industrial areas of developing countries. The non-degradable nature of heavy metals makes them injurious ...to all living beings. Soil, dust, and plants are the main media for the entry of these metals into our food chain. Thereby, a survey was conducted to assess the nickel (Ni), copper (Cu) and manganese (Mn) levels in roadside dust, soil and maize crop growing along the roadside. Moreover, the effects of these metals were also assessed on the growth and physiology of maize. Plant, soil, and dust sample were collected from Millat road Faisalabad. Samples were collected from four sites at three different distances (10m, 30m, 60m) from the road. Each site had a distance of 5 km from the other site. As result, metal concentration in soil, dust and maize decreased with increasing distance from the road. Maximum metal concentration in dust, soil and plant was noted at the distance of 10m (Cu 40.1, Mn 189.66 and Ni 5.6 mg kg-1 in soil; Cu 11.3, Mn 179.7 and Ni 9.37 mg kg-1 in dust; Cu 11.8, Mn 23.01 and Ni 3.75 mg kg-1 in plant) from the roadside. Likewise, maize plants near the roadside showed more metal concentration with retarded growth and physiology.
This study investigates the role of smart tourism technology (STT) attributes (accessibility, informativeness, interactivity, and personalisation) in creating a positive STT experience, influencing ...tourists' intentions to revisit, thus benefiting the image of a heritage site. A conceptual model was developed by formulating key reasoning from the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and flow theory. Four hundred samples were collected from four national heritage sites in India to test the model. The results indicated that the STT role is critical in developing tourists' STT experience and revisit intention, with STT attributes representing the central route of elaboration tending to play a stronger role. This study discusses results across age (old/young) and gender (male/female) with theoretical implications that could also contribute meaningful insights to marketers, government bodies, and corporations involved in tourism development. Importantly, the emergence of STT and the dimensions of the heritage site image are discussed from a sustainability perspective.
Nature has adapted different methods for surviving dry, arid, xeric conditions. It is the focus of this comparative review to pull together the relevant information gleaned from the literature that ...could be utilized to design moisture harvesting devices informed by biomimetics. Most water harvesting devices in current use are not informed by nature and those that do are usually based on a biomimetic principle that has been based on one species only. This review draws on the published literature to establish a list of species (animals (vertebrates invertebrates) and plants) whose habitat is in mainly dry or arid regions and that are known to harvest airborne moisture. Key findings have been outlined and review comments and discussion set out. Following this, surface feature convergences have been identified, namely hexagonal microstructures, groove-like and cone-like geometries. This has been coupled with direction of water flow that is driven by surface energy. As far as the authors are aware, this convergent evolution has not been brought together in this manner before. In the future this information could be translated into an engineered device for collecting water from airborne sources.
Single-particle energy levels of nucleons moving in an anisotropic harmonic oscillator potential along with a spin-orbit and an orbit-orbit interaction have been calculated. The model proposed herein ...incorporates shapes generated by higher multipolar anisotropies other than the quadruple one. The gaps among the energy levels are strongly dependent on the degree of anisotropy and hence, affect the nucleonic separation energies. For large anisotropies, this characteristic disturbs the occurrences of the usual magic numbers and the sequential ordering of the shells characterized by principal quantum number, N, associated with the elementary shell model. For large asymmetries, the states characterized by higher N, may come down and lie below the energies of the states with lower N and vice versa. This feature of the model provides a natural explanation of intruder states or the island of inversion observed experimentally. For certain choices of the parameters, the large gaps in single nucleonic separation energies could occur at neutron numbers, 10,18,30, and 32 as observed, respectively, in 20Ne, 28Ne, 52Ti, and 54Ti. For neutron as well as proton number 14, the magnitude of this energy gap depends strongly on the choice of the strength of the spin-orbit and orbit-orbit terms. The model provides a simple understanding of the observed fact that some nuclei with proton or neutron number 14 sometimes exhibit this gap but not others. It also provides an interesting insight of having a low-laying (1/2−) state in 7He, and confirms the ground state spin and parity of 11Be to be (1/2+) and those of 9He to be (1/2+), both of which have been contentious. This investigation indicated the density distribution, i.e., the shapes of many of nuclei near drip line to be anisotropic having a symmetry about their body-fixed z-axis.
Ethnicity impacts cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, and South Asians demonstrate a higher risk than White Europeans. Arterial stiffness is known to contribute to CVD, and differences in arterial ...stiffness between ethnicities could explain the disparity in CVD risk. We compared central and local arterial stiffness between White Europeans and South Asians and investigated which factors are associated with arterial stiffness. Data were collected from cohorts of White Europeans (the Netherlands) and South Asians (India). We matched cohorts on individual level using age, sex, and body mass index (BMI). Arterial stiffness was measured with ARTSENS® Plus. Central stiffness was expressed as carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV, m/s), and local carotid stiffness was quantified using the carotid stiffness index (Beta) and pressure-strain elastic modulus (Epsilon, kPa). We compared arterial stiffness between cohorts and used multivariable linear regression to identify factors related to stiffness. We included n = 121 participants per cohort (age 53±10 years, 55% male, BMI 24 kg/m.sup.2). Cf-PWV was lower in White Europeans compared to South Asians (6.8±1.9 vs. 8.2±1.8 m/s, p0.05 for interaction). Systolic blood pressure was associated with carotid stiffness in both cohorts, whereas age was associated to carotid stiffness only in South Asians and BMI only in White Europeans. Ethnicity is associated with central but not local arterial stiffness. Conversely, ethnicity seems to modify associations between CVD risk factors and local but not central arterial stiffness. This suggests that ethnicity interacts with arterial stiffness measures and the association of these measures with CVD risk factors.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
•Continuous mental stress of losing job due to Covid-19 has crippled tourists to move around globally for enjoyment and recreation.•Covid-19 has detoured, changed, and toppled human habit, daily life ...pattern, and global pattern of business.•The effect and consequences of pandemics should be explored and understood from the service seekers’ (Tourist) perspective.•Covid-19 has influenced people’s psychological state substantially.•Covid-19 may have an enduring impact on the mobility of people in the future due to the change of human attitude and life pattern.
The impact of pandemics on the tourism industry should be explored from the perspective of those who will travel, go to the tourist places on vacation, and avail services from tourism and hospitality-related organizations. This study has aimed to identify the reasons for the changed human psychology towards tourism during the COVID-19 Pandemic to develop an attitude-behavioral model. This investigation thus conducted an extensive empirical study among tourists to capture their social, emotional, and financial beliefs. The research then examined the measurement model through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) before investigating the cause-effect relationship through the structural model. Analysis revealed that the negative effect of attitude on behavioral intention toward this new equilibrium is controlled by the emotional aspect of attitude. Furthermore this paper made several contributions to the literature on human psychology, crisis management, human behavior, marketing, and tourism.
Series of experiments were conducted to identify the possible antifungal components of Chenopodium album leaves for the management of a highly destructive soil-borne fungal pathogen Sclerotium ...rolfsii. A 4% methanolic extract caused up to 82% reduction in biomass of the target organism. This extract was partitioned using solvents of variable polarities, and the obtained subfractions were evaluated for their activity against S. rolfsii. The best antifungal activity was detected for the ethyl acetate subfraction (60–74%) followed by n-hexane (51–69%), n-butanol (50–60%), chloroform (20–40%) while the aqueous sub-fraction had the lowest activity (9–35%) as detected by the decrease in biomass of the pathogen. Ethyl acetate and n-hexane sub-fractions were analyzed for their chemical constituents by GC–MS technique. Literature survey showed that among the identified compounds kitazin P, imidazole-4-carboxylic acid, 2-fluoro-1-methoxymethyl-, ethyl ester and 9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid, 2,3-dihydroxypropyl ester, (Z,Z,Z)- had antifungal activities against other fungal species and could be responsible for control of S. rolfsii by methanolic extract in the present study.
Inflammation contributes to liver injury in acetaminophen (APAP) hepatotoxicity in mice and is triggered by stimulation of immune cells. The purinergic receptor P2X7 is upstream of the nod-like ...receptor family, pryin domain containing-3 (NLRP3) inflammasome in immune cells and is activated by ATP and NAD that serve as damage-associated molecular patterns. APAP hepatotoxicity was assessed in mice genetically deficient in P2X7, the key inflammatory receptor for nucleotides (P2X7-/-), and in wild-type mice. P2X7-/- mice had significantly decreased APAP-induced liver necrosis. In addition, APAP-poisoned mice were treated with the specific P2X7 antagonist A438079 or etheno-NAD, a competitive antagonist of NAD. Pre- or posttreatment with A438079 significantly decreased APAP-induced necrosis and hemorrhage in APAP liver injury in wild-type but not P2X7-/- mice. Pretreatment with etheno-NAD also significantly decreased APAP-induced necrosis and hemorrhage in APAP liver injury. In addition, APAP toxicity in mice lacking the plasma membrane ecto-NTPDase CD39 (CD39-/-) that metabolizes ATP was examined in parallel with the use of soluble apyrase to deplete extracellular ATP in wild-type mice. CD39-/- mice had increased APAP-induced hemorrhage and mortality, whereas apyrase also decreased APAP-induced mortality. Kupffer cells were treated with extracellular ATP to assess P2X7-dependent inflammasome activation. P2X7 was required for ATP-stimulated IL-1β release. In conclusion, P2X7 and exposure to the ligands ATP and NAD are required for manifestations of APAP-induced hepatotoxicity.
Abstract The impact of antibiotics on growth, cocoon production was assessed in addition to isolation and characterization of bacteria associated with silkworm gut of infected larvae. Larval rearing ...was maintained at recommended conditions of temperature and humidity. Silkworm larvae showing abnormal symptoms were collected from the control group and dissected for gut collection. Bacteria were isolated from the gut content by spreading on agar plates and incubated at 37 °C for 48 hrs. Bacterial identification and phylogenetic analysis were carried out by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The isolated bacteria were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility test (disc diffusion methods) by using Penicillin (10 µg/mL), Tetracycline (30 µg/mL), Amoxicillin (25 µg/mL), Ampicillin (10 µg/mL), and Erythromycin (15 µg/mL). All isolated strains showed positive results for the catalase test. We isolated and identified bacterial strains (n = 06) from the gut of healthy and diseased silkworm larvae. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence, isolated bacteria showed close relation with Serratia, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas spp. Notably, 83.3% of strains were resistant to Penicillin, Tetracycline, Amoxicillin, Ampicillin, and Erythromycin but 16.6% showed antibiotic susceptibility to the above-mentioned commonly used antibiotics. Silkworm larvae fed on penicillin-treated leaves showed significant improvement in larval weight, larval length, and cocoon production. Significantly higher larval weight (6.88g), larval length (5.84cm), and cocoon weight (1.33g) were recorded for larvae fed on leaves treated with penicillin as compared to other antibiotics. Isolated bacterial strains showed close relation with Serratia spp., Bacillus spp. and Pseudomonas spp.
Resumo O impacto dos antibióticos no crescimento e na produção do casulo foi avaliado, além do isolamento e caracterização das bactérias associadas ao intestino de larvas infectadas do bicho-da-seda. A criação das larvas foi mantida nas condições recomendadas de temperatura e umidade. As larvas do bicho-da-seda com sintomas anormais foram coletadas do grupo controle e dissecadas para coleta do intestino. As bactérias foram isoladas do conteúdo intestinal por espalhamento em placas de ágar e incubadas a 37° C durante 48 horas. A identificação bacteriana e a análise filogenética foram realizadas pelo sequenciamento do gene 16S rRNA. As bactérias isoladas foram submetidas a teste de sensibilidade antimicrobiana (métodos de difusão em disco) com penicilina (10 µg / mL), tetraciclina (30 µg / mL), amoxicilina (25 µg / mL), ampicilina (10 µg / mL) e eritromicina (15 µg / mL). Todas as cepas isoladas apresentaram resultados positivos para o teste da catalase. Isolamos e identificamos cepas bacterianas (n = 06) do intestino de larvas de bicho-da-seda saudáveis e doentes. Com base na sequência do gene 16S rRNA, as bactérias isoladas mostraram estreita relação com Serratia, Bacillus e Pseudomonas spp. Notavelmente, 83,3% das cepas eram resistentes a penicilina, tetraciclina, amoxicilina, ampicilina e eritromicina, mas 16,6% mostraram suscetibilidade aos antibióticos comumente usados mencionados acima. As larvas do bicho-da-seda alimentadas com folhas tratadas com penicilina apresentaram melhora significativa no peso larval, comprimento larval e produção de casulo. Peso larval significativamente maior (6,88g), comprimento larval (5,84cm) e peso do casulo (1,33g) foram registrados para larvas alimentadas com folhas tratadas com penicilina, em comparação com outros antibióticos. Cepas bacterianas isoladas mostraram estreita relação com Serratia spp., Bacillus spp. e Pseudomonas spp.
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