We study a class of homogeneous and anisotropic geometries with affine equation of state (EoS) for different physically plausible scenarios of the universe evolution using dynamical system technique. ...We analyze the locally rotationally symmetric Bianchi I (LRS BI), Bianchi III (LRS BIII) and Bianchi V (LRS BV) geometry for the exhibition of the effects of affine EoS in the model. The model exhibits stable attractor which is also isotropic and thus, it may explain the late-time accelerated expansion of the universe. The model also possess stiff matter-, radiation- and matter-dominated phases prior to the dark energy assisted accelerating phase which are confirmed by the behaviours of effective equation of state and deceleration parameters. We use the statefinder diagnostic which is a geometrical diagnostic to explore model independent features of the cosmological dynamical system. The LRS BI, BIII and BV geometry based dynamical systems exhibit
r
=
1
,
s
=
0
(
Λ
cold dark matter model) at late-times, which is compatible with the observations. The dynamical system for the Kantowski–Sachs model yields synchronous bounce on the basis of the model parameters. It also yields a late-time attractor which may explain the accelerated expansion of the universe in the model. The qualitative differences between LRS BIII and BV cosmological dynamical systems have also been discussed.
► Higher level of sitosterol was found to limit polymerization in frying oils. ► A corresponding increase in the extent of TG ester hydrolysis was observed. ► Conjugation in steradienes may be ...responsible for the antioxidative effect. ► Atmospheric moisture may catalyze the conversion of sterol to steradiene. ► Sitosterol was found was more potent than sitostanol in limiting TG polymerization.
The antioxidative effect of sitosterol at 1, 2 and 5% levels, in triolein, refined canola, high oleic sunflower and flaxseed oils, continuously heated for a period of up to 72h at frying temperature of 180°C, was studied. High Pressure Size Exclusion Chromatography (HPSEC) was used to monitor changes in peak areas of triacylglycerol (TG) polymer, monomer and ester hydrolysis products. The presence of enhanced levels of sitosterol was found to significantly decrease TG polymer formation in triolein and the vegetable oil samples after heating at 180°C for a period of 72h. A corresponding increase in the level of intact TG monomer and the extent of TG ester hydrolysis was observed in all samples with enhanced levels of sitosterol. Conversion of sterol to steradiene, by the 1, 2 elimination of water, may be responsible for the antioxidative effect of sitosterol at frying temperatures.
In New Delhi, India, candidemia affected 15 critically ill coronavirus disease patients admitted to an intensive care unit during April–July 2020. Candida auris accounted for two thirds of cases; ...case-fatality rate was high (60%). Hospital-acquired C. auris infections in coronavirus disease patients may lead to adverse outcomes and additional strain on healthcare resources.
Multiple environmental stresses adversely affect plant growth and development. Plants under multiple stress condition trigger cascade of signals and show response unique to specific stress as well as ...shared responses, common to individual stresses. Here, we aim to identify common and unique genetic components during stress response mechanisms liable for cross-talk between stresses. Although drought and cold stress have been widely studied, insignificant information is available about how their combination affects plants. To that end, we performed meta-analysis and co-expression network comparison of drought and cold stress response in Arabidopsis thaliana by analyzing 390 microarray samples belonging to 29 microarray studies. We observed 6120 and 7079 DEGs (differentially expressed genes) under drought and cold stress respectively, using Rank Product methodology. Statistically, 28% (2890) DEGs were found to be common in both the stresses (i.e.; drought and cold stress) with most of them having similar expression pattern. Further, gene ontology-based enrichment analysis have identified shared biological processes and molecular mechanisms such as-'photosynthesis', 'respiratory burst', 'response to hormone', 'signal transduction', 'metabolic process', 'response to water deprivation', which were affected under cold and drought stress. Forty three transcription factor families were found to be expressed under both the stress conditions. Primarily, WRKY, NAC, MYB, AP2/ERF and bZIP transcription factor family genes were highly enriched in all genes sets and were found to regulate 56% of common genes expressed in drought and cold stress. Gene co-expression network analysis by WGCNA (weighted gene co-expression network analysis) revealed 21 and 16 highly inter-correlated gene modules with specific expression profiles under drought and cold stress respectively. Detection and analysis of gene modules shared between two stresses revealed the presence of four consensus gene modules.
With the turn of this century, novel food processing techniques have become commercially very important because of their profound advantages over the traditional methods. These novel processing ...methods tend to preserve the characteristic properties of food including their organoleptic and nutritional qualities better when compared with the conventional food processing methods. During the same period of time, there is a clear rise in the populations suffering from food allergies, especially infants and children. Though, this fact is widely attributed to the changing livelihood of population in both developed and developing nations and to the introduction of new food habits with advent of novel foods and new processing techniques, their complete role is still uncertain. Under the circumstance, it is very important to understand the structural changes in the protein as food is processed to comprehend whether the specific processing technique (conventional and novel) is increasing or mitigating the allergenicity. Various modern means are now being employed to understand the conformational changes in the protein which can affect the allergenicity. In this review, the processing effects on protein structure and allergenicity are discussed along with the insinuations of recent studies and techniques for establishing a platform to investigate future pathway to reduce or eliminate allergenicity in the population.
Okadaic acid (OA) is one of the most prevalent and largely distributed bio-toxin in the world. Consumption of OA results in a series of digestive ailments such as nausea and diarrhea. This study ...demonstrates the preparation and functioning of an electrochemical microfluidic biochip for the detection of OA. The screen-printed carbon electrode (SPCE) was modified by phosphorene-gold nanocomposite onto which an aptamer specific to OA was immobilized. BP-Au nanocomposites were synthesized by an in-situ, one-step method without the use of a reducing agent. Potassium ferro-ferri cyanide was used as a redox pair to quantify signal strength. To improve reaction time, increase sensitivity and portability, a microfluidic platform was designed and developed. This device comprised of channels identified for specific purposes such as sample mixing and incubation. Overall, the integrated system consisted of a polydimethylsiloxane microfluidic chip housing an aptamer modified SPCE, as a single detection module for Okadaic acid. The nanomaterials and the microfluidic channels prepared were spectroscopically and electrochemically analyzed. Differential pulse voltammograms revealed a detection limit of 8 pM, while a linear range was found between 10 nM–250 nM. Selectivity studies were also performed with spiked mussel samples and other interfering species. This point-of-care device can be deployed to perform on-farm assays in fishing units.
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•Development of a sensitive microfluidic electrochemical aptasensing device for the detection of Okadaic acid.•Phosphorene- Au, a novel 2D nanocomposite was used to enhance signal acquisition.•Modified electrode was integrated into the biochip yielding pM range sensitivity.•Real sample analysis with shellfish extract was performed to validate sensor parameters.
This work proposes an energy-efficient resource provisioning and allocation framework to meet dynamic demands of the future applications. The frequent variations in a cloud user’s resource demand ...leads to the problem of an excess power consumption, resource wastage, performance and Quality-of-Service (QoS) degradation. The proposed framework addresses these challenges by matching the application’s predicted resource requirement with resource capacity of VMs precisely and thereby consolidating entire load on the minimum number of energy-efficient physical machines (PMs). The three consecutive contributions of the proposed work are: (1) Online Multi-Resource Feed-forward Neural Network (OM-FNN) to forecast the multiple resource demands concurrently for the future applications, (2) autoscaling of VMs based on the clustering of the predicted resource requirements, (3) allocation of the scaled VMs on the energy-efficient PMs. The integrated approach successively optimizes resource utilization, saves energy and automatically adapts to the changes in future application resource demand. The proposed framework is evaluated by using real workload traces of the benchmark Google Cluster Dataset and compared against different scenarios including energy-efficient VM placement (VMP) with resource prediction only, VMP without resource prediction and autoscaling, and optimal VMP with autoscaling based on actual resource utilization. The observed results demonstrate that the proposed integrated approach achieves near-optimal performance against optimal VMP and outperforms rest of the VMPs in terms of power saving and resource utilization up to 88.5% and 21.12% respectively. In addition, OM-FNN predictor shows better accuracy, lesser time and space complexity over a traditional single-input and single-output feed-forward neural network (SISO-FNN) predictor.
Energy-efficient glass windows are pivotal in modern infrastructure striving toward the "Zero energy" concept. Electrochromic (EC) energy storage devices emerge as a promising alternative to ...conventional glass, yet their widespread commercialization is impeded by high costs and dependence on external power sources. Addressing this, redox potential-based self-powered electrochromic (RP-SPEC) devices are introduced leveraging established EC materials like tungsten oxide (WO3) and vanadium-doped nickel oxide (V-NiO) along with aluminum (Al) as an anode. These devices produce open circuit voltages (OCV) exceeding ±0.3 V, enabling autonomous operation for multiple cycles. The WO3 film exhibits 1% transmission and 88% modulation in the colored state at 550 nm with a mere 260 nm thickness. The redox interactions facilitate coloring and bleaching cycles without external power, while photo-charging rejuvenates the system. Notably, the inherent voltages of the RP-SPEC device offer dual functionality, powering electronic devices for up to 81 h. Large-area (≈28 cm2) device feasibility is demonstrated, paving the way for industrial adoption. The RP-SPEC device promises to revolutionize smart window technology by offering both energy efficiency and autonomous operation, thus advancing sustainable infrastructure.
The whole genome sequencing analysis of 20 T. indotineae strains demonstrate that this new species is distinct clonal offshoot of T. mentagrophytes/T. interdigitale spp. complex. ...naming of this ...emerging antifungal-resistant species was essential as it could not be unambiguously identified as either T. mentagrophytes or T. interdigitale based on ITS sequencing, mycological and physiological characteristics. ...in the last 5 years before labelling T. indotineae as a species de novo, studies based on rDNA ITS region sequencing identified Indian Trichophyton strains as T. mentagrophytes/interdigitale; further, Nenoff and colleagues grouped the strains as T. mentagrophytes Type VIII 3,4,6,26,32. The BLAST searches of ITS sequences of T. indotineae on NCBI database still show ≥99% sequence similarity with T. mentagrophytes, T. interdigitale, and T. indotineae. ...to obtain accurate identification (i.e., sequence similarity of 100% with T. indotineae), ITS sequences of well-defined reference strains described by Tang and colleagues 30, importantly, primary T. indotineae strains (NUBS19006 and NUBS19007), should be included in the analysis. Notably, TRB-resistant T. indotineae strains isolated from cases in Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland during 2016 to 2020 exhibited Phe397Leu and Leu393Phe amino acid substitutions that confer resistance to TRB 11,15,22,33. Since 2018, several cases of clinically resistant tinea corporis with extensive lesions that do not respond to TRB have been reported from France 13,14.
is a multidrug resistant pathogen that presents a serious global threat to human health. As
is a newly emerged pathogen, several questions regarding its ecological niche remain unexplored. While ...species closely related to
have been detected in different environmental habitats, little is known about the natural habitat(s) of
Here, we explored the virgin habitats around the very isolated Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean for evidence of
We sampled coastal wetlands, including rocky shores, sandy beaches, tidal marshes, and mangrove swamps, around the Andaman group of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Union Territory, in India. Forty-eight samples of sediment soil and seawater were collected from eight sampling sites representing the heterogeneity of intertidal habitats across the east and west coast of South Andaman district.
was isolated from two of the eight sampling sites, a salt marsh and a sandy beach. Interestingly, both multidrug-susceptible and multidrug-resistant
isolates were found in the sample. Whole-genome sequencing analysis clustered the
isolates into clade I, showing close similarity to other isolates from South Asia. Isolation of
from the tropical coastal environment suggests its association with the marine ecosystem. The fact that viable
was detected in the marine habitat confirms
survival in harsh wetlands. However, the ecological significance of
in salt marsh wetland and sandy beaches to human infections remains to be explored.
is a recently emerged multidrug-resistant fungal pathogen capable of causing severe infections in hospitalized patients. Despite its recognition as a human pathogen a decade ago, so far the natural ecological niche(s) of
remains enigmatic. A previous hypothesis suggested that
might be native to wetlands, that its emergence as a human pathogen might have been linked to global warming effects on wetlands, and that its enrichment in that ecological niche was favored by the ability of
for thermal tolerance and salinity tolerance. To understand the mystery of environmental niches of
, we explored the coastal wetland habitat around the very isolated Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.
was isolated from the virgin habitats of salt marsh area with no human activity and from a sandy beach.
isolation from the marine wetlands suggests that prior to its recognition as a human pathogen, it existed as an environmental fungus.
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