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Argyreia lawii C.B. Clarke, an endemic to Western Ghats of India is reported here as an after century collection. Detailed description and photo plates are given for easy identification and IUCN status of the species has been accessed.

Abstract The study aimed to develop an efficient, rapid, and large-scale in vitro regeneration system for propagation, conservation, and restoration of an endemic and critically endangered herb, Ceropegia mohanramii. The cultures were established using nodal explants on Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) medium supplemented with 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP: 1.0 mg/l). Nodal buds cultured on MS medium supplemented with BAP (2.0 mg/l) along with indole-3-butyric acid (IBA, 0.5 mg/l) resulted with production of maximum number of shoots (17.1 ± 1.2) in hundred percent of the cultures. MS medium supplemented with BAP (2.0 mg/l) along with diverse concentrations of indole-3acetic acid (IAA) promoted the in vitro flowering. In vitro regenerated shoots were transferred to one-half MS medium fortified with singular supplementation of auxins, where IBA (1.5 mg/l) served optimal for production of maximum number of roots (5.7 ± 0.6). In vitro derived plantlets were hardened under controlled conditions in a glasshouse and subsequently transferred to soil. Over 1200 saplings were transplanted to eight different localities of the Western Ghats where over 76% survival is recorded after 1 year of transplantation.

Commelina imberbis Ehrenb. ex Hassk., an African species, and Murdannia crocea subsp. crocea (Griff.) Faden, a Southeast Asian species, have been reported for the first time from India with their typification, descriptions, illustrations, color photographs, and notes on allied species. Keywords: Commelina, India, Murdannia, New record, Typification

Node localization is critical for accessing diverse nodes that provide services in remote places. Single-anchor localization techniques suffer co-linearity, performing poorly. The reliable multiple anchor node selection method is computationally intensive and requires a lot of processing power and time to identify suitable anchor nodes. Node localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is challenging due to the number and placement of anchors, as well as their communication capabilities. These senor nodes possess limited energy resources, which is a big concern in localization. In addition to convention optimization in WSNs, researchers have employed nature-inspired algorithms to localize unknown nodes in WSN. However, these methods take longer, require lots of processing power, and have higher localization error, with a greater number of beacon nodes and sensitivity to parameter selection affecting localization. This research employed a nature-inspired crow search algorithm (an improvement over other nature-inspired algorithms) for selecting the suitable number of anchor nodes from the population, reducing errors in localizing unknown nodes. Additionally, the weighted centroid method was proposed for identifying the exact location of an unknown node. This made the crow search weighted centroid localization (CS-WCL) algorithm a more trustworthy and efficient method for node localization in WSNs, with reduced average localization error (ALE) and energy consumption. CS-WCL outperformed WCL and distance vector (DV)-Hop, with a reduced ALE of 15% (from 32%) and varying communication radii from 20 m to 45 m. Also, the ALE against scalability was validated for CS-WCL against WCL and DV-Hop for a varying number of beacon nodes (from 3 to 2), reducing ALE to 2.59% (from 28.75%). Lastly, CS-WCL resulted in reduced energy consumption (from 120 mJ to 45 mJ) for varying network nodes from 30 to 300 against WCL and DV-Hop. Thus, CS-WCL outperformed other nature-inspired algorithms in node localization. These have been validated using MATLAB 2022b.

Now-a-days, wireless sensor node acts as a basement for a higher level industrial internet of things application. Any kind of real time IoT applications sense the data using already in-built sensors. In real time physical environment, sensors are having minimum amount of power for their operations such as sensing, communicating and processing the data. Many researches are carried out to improve the energy efficiency of sensor nodes and improves their network lifetime. More concentration is needed on clustering and routing part of the communication to go for energy saving. We have proposed an algorithm based on fuzzy and unequal clustering (FBUCA) and a three tier multi-hop optimized routing technique (TM-ORT) to improve the efficiency of the network. Energy consumption and data reliability are stabilized by QOS based multi-hop routing protocols. Whenever clustering plays a main role, load balancing among the clusters has to be important to concentrate. Load balancing has been achieved by choosing best parameters for fuzzy based clustering to select an efficient cluster head for data aggregation and routing. We have done experimental simulations and concluded the results in terms of performance metrics such as standard deviation (SD), First node Die (FND), total energy consumption (TEC) and average energy consumption (AEC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench, popularly known as okra or bhindi, is an important vegetable crop cultivated mostly in tropical and subtropical countries. The present study aims to induce variability in this economically significant crop using gamma rays. Mature, dry and healthy seeds, irradiated with different doses of gamma rays were allowed to grow in the field along with control seeds. The effect of gamma radiations on different agronomic traits and yield contributing characters of okra, including shoot length, root length, number of secondary branches, fruits per plants, seeds per fruit and 100 seed weight were recorded for M1 and M2 generations. The observed agronomic and yield based characters in the M2 mutants at various doses of gamma rays were found to be significantly correlated. The obtained M2 mutants are useful in development of an improved variety of okra, having agronomically significant traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), which is responsible for more than a million deaths annually, uses lipids as the source of carbon and energy for its survival in the latent phase of infection. Mtb cannot synthesize all of the lipid molecules required for its growth and pathogenicity. Therefore, it relies on transporters such as the mammalian cell entry (Mce) complexes to import lipids from the host across the cell wall. Despite their importance for the survival and pathogenicity of Mtb, information on the structural properties of these proteins is not yet available. Each of the four Mce complexes in Mtb (Mce1–4) comprises six substrate-binding proteins (SBPs; MceA–F), each of which contains four conserved domains (N-terminal transmembrane, MCE, helical and C-terminal unstructured tail domains). Here, the properties of the various domains of Mtb Mce1A and Mce4A, which are involved in the import of mycolic/fatty acids and cholesterol, respectively, are reported. In the crystal structure of the MCE domain of Mce4A (MtMce4A39–140) a domain-swapped conformation is observed, whereas solution studies, including small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), indicate that all Mce1A and Mce4A domains are predominantly monomeric. Further, structural comparisons show interesting differences from the bacterial homologs MlaD, PqiB and LetB, which form homohexamers when assembled as functional transporter complexes. These data, and the fact that there are six SBPs in each Mtb mce operon, suggest that the MceA–F SBPs from Mce1–4 may form heterohexamers. Also, interestingly, the purification and SAXS analysis showed that the helical domains interact with the detergent micelle, suggesting that when assembled the helical domains of MceA–F may form a hydrophobic pore for lipid transport, as observed in EcPqiB. Overall, these data highlight the unique structural properties of the Mtb Mce SBPs.