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Candidatus Liberibacter spp. are insect-vectored, fastidious, and vascular-limited phytopathogens. They are the presumptive causal agents of potato zebra chip, tomato vein clearing, and the devastating citrus greening disease worldwide. There is an urgent need to develop new strategies to control them. In this study, we characterized a dual-specificity serine/tyrosine phosphatase (STP) that is well conserved among thirty-three geographically diverse Candidatus Liberibacter spp. and strains that infect multiple Solanaceaea and citrus spp. The STP is expressed in infected plant tissues, localized at the plant cytosol and plasma membrane, and interferes with plant cell death responses. We employed an in silico target-based molecular modeling and ligand screen to identify two small molecules with high binding affinity to STP. Efficacy studies demonstrated that the two molecules can inhibit Candidatus Liberibacter spp. but not unrelated pathogens and confer plant disease tolerance. The inhibitors and strategies are promising means to control Candidatus Liberibacter spp.

Background: In recent years, various phytomedicines have been used in the treatment of hepatic disorders. The aim of this study is to find out whether Peltophorum pterocarpum bark and leaves can help rats that have been exposed to isoniazid and rifampicin-induced hepatotoxicity. Materials and Methods: The rats were divided into 10 groups each with 6 rats. The liver damage is induced by isoniazid and rifampicin. The leaf and bark of P. pterocarpum extracted with ethanol are freshly mixed in sterile water (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg body weight), and given to rats orally in the early morning as a single dosage per day until the study period. The animals were sacrificed and the tissue and serum samples were collected for further investigations. Results: The liver damage induced by isoniazid and rifampicin altered the various biochemical parameters levels, but after the treatment of P. pterocarpum barks and leaves the levels were significantly altered when compared to the negative control rats. The drug silymarin was used as a standard. Conclusion: The extracts have the protective effect of liver markers and membrane-bound enzymes against the toxin-treated rats. This result highlights the hepatoprotective properties of the leaves and barks of the plant in a similar manner and the formulation (Group 10) have high beneficial effects than other groups.

Citrus greening, also known as Huanglongbing (HLB), is caused by the unculturable bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter spp. (e.g., CLas), and has caused a devastating decline in citrus production in many areas of the world. As of yet, there are no definitive treatments for controlling the disease. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) that have the potential to block secretion-dependent effector proteins at the outer-membrane domains were screened in silico. Predictions of drug-receptor interactions were built using multiple in silico techniques, including molecular docking analysis, molecular dynamics, molecular mechanics generalized Born surface area analysis, and principal component analysis. The efflux pump TolC of the Type 1 secretion system interacted with natural bacteriocin plantaricin JLA-9, blocking the β barrel. The trajectory-based principal component analysis revealed the possible binding mechanism of the peptides. Furthermore, in vitro assays using two closely related culturable surrogates of CLas (Liberibacter crescens and Rhizobium spp.) showed that Plantaricin JLA-9 and two other screened AMPs inhibited bacterial growth and caused mortality. The findings contribute to designing effective therapies to manage plant diseases associated with Candidatus Liberibacter spp.

Huanglongbing (HLB), associated with the psyllid-vectored phloem-limited bacterium, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), is a disease threat to all citrus production worldwide. Currently, there are no sustainable curative or prophylactic treatments available. In this study, we utilized mass spectrometry (MS)-based metabolomics in combination with 3D molecular mapping to visualize complex chemistries within plant tissues to explore how these chemistries change in vivo in HLB-infected trees. We demonstrate how spatial information from molecular maps of branches and single leaves yields insight into the biology not accessible otherwise. In particular, we found evidence that flavonoid biosynthesis is disrupted in HLB-infected trees, and an increase in the polyamine, feruloylputrescine, is highly correlated with an increase in disease severity. Based on mechanistic details revealed by these molecular maps, followed by metabolic modeling, we formulated and tested the hypothesis that CLas infection either directly or indirectly converts the precursor compound, ferulic acid, to feruloylputrescine to suppress the antimicrobial effects of ferulic acid and biosynthetically downstream flavonoids. Using in vitro bioassays, we demonstrated that ferulic acid and bioflavonoids are indeed highly bactericidal to CLas, with the activity on par with a reference antibiotic, oxytetracycline, recently approved for HLB management. We propose these compounds should be evaluated as therapeutics alternatives to the antibiotics for HLB treatment. Overall, the utilized 3D metabolic mapping approach provides a promising methodological framework to identify pathogen-specific inhibitory compounds in planta for potential prophylactic or therapeutic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) plays a vital role in the entity sharing and minimizing the workload of the human beings in various aspects. Nowadays the term IoT is used in various fields such as health care, automobiles, industry, agriculture, and so on. Agriculture is the main source of food to whole world. There are various problems faced by the farmers in agriculture due to shortage and wastage of water and fertilizers. In this regard, an optimal IoT model has been developed and proposed to attain an effective crop field. The proposed IoT model will monitor, record temperature, and soil moisture values, which will be continuously analyzed to achieve optimal plant growth and yield. The motor will be connected to the IoT model which automatically switch on/off based on optimal threshold temperature and soil moisture content value. A novel irrigation algorithm named differential waterflow algorithm has been proposed and deployed in the proposed IoT model for the automatic usage of the motor in the field. The proposed IoT model provides a web interface to the user through the cloud storage, so that the farmer can control and monitor the system in remote. The proposed system will reduce the water consumption and will ensure the uniform water distribution to the crops through the Poisson distribution which results in increasing yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Rajiv Gandhi National Park encompasses a rich biodiversity of both flora and fauna and is regarded as one of the richest protected areas in Asia. It is a part of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and covers foot-hills of the Brahmagiri hill ranges in the Western Ghats, which is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and epicenter of Indian endemics harbouring species-rich-habitats and supporting a high biodiversity. This is evident in its flowering plants diversity brought to focus during the present study. The National Park spreads over an area of 643.39 km2, harbours 1337 species, 14 subspecies and 34 varieties of Angiosperms distributed over 754 genera and 152 families. Notably 110 species of these are endemic. A complete inventory of all the recorded species is provided here.

Performance and flowfield measurements were conducted on a small-scale cydorotor for application to a micro air vehicle. Detailed parametric studies were conducted to determine the effects of the number of blades, rotational speed, and blade pitching amplitude. The results showed that power loading and rotor efficiency increased when using more blades; this observation was found over a wide range of blade pitching amplitudes. The results also showed that operating the cyclorotor at higher pitching amplitudes resulted in improved performance, independently of the number of blades. A momentum balance performed using the flowfield measurements helped to quantify the vertical and sideward forces produced by the cyclorotor; these results correlated well with the force measurements made using load balance. Increasing the number of blades increased the inclination of the resultant thrust vector with respect to the vertical because of the increasing contribution of the sideward force. The profile drag coefficient of the blade sections computed using a momentum deficit approach correlated well with typical values at these low chord Reynolds numbers. Particle image velocimetry measurements made inside the cage of the cyclorotor showed that there are rotational flows that, when combined with the influence of the upper wake on the lower half of the rotor, explain the relatively low efficiency of the cyclorotor. DOI: 10.2514/1.45791

The aerodynamic interaction between an unsteady, inclined synthetic jet and a crossflow boundary layer was studied as a precursor toward applying active flow control concepts for rotor applications, such as dynamic stall control and fuselage drag reduction. Because the flowfield offered numerous challenges from a measurement perspective, several experiments were carried out using a phase-locked, two-dimensional microscopic particle image velocity technique in a building block approach, by adding one complexity after another. The procedure began with boundary layer measurements made on a simple flat plate using the microscopic particle image velocity technique. Velocity measurements were made deep in the viscous sublayer, as close as 20[micro]m from the surface. Following this, the synthetic jet actuator was characterized while operating in quiescent air as well as in crossflow. The results showed that the evolution of the synthetic jet in crossflow was substantially different from its evolution in quiescent air, suggesting that any flow physics or performance prediction (for example, the depth of penetration of the jet into the boundary layer) made based on the quiescent flow conditions may not be applicable in crossflow. All the momentum added to the boundary layer had its source from the synthetic jet actuator, and the penetration of the jet was limited to the viscous sublayer and log layer; the outer layer was unaffected, despite using a jet to freestream velocity ratio of four. Significant effort was also made to validate the microscopic particle image velocity technique and evaluate its capability to accurately resolve such a complex flowfield. To this end, microscopic particle image velocity measurements were compared with hot-wire measurements made on a simple steady jet, as well as an unsteady, periodic synthetic jet. Excellent correlation was found between the two techniques, validating microscopic particle image velocity measurements. DOI: 10.2514/1.45794

The formation and evolutionary characteristics of the blade tip vortices generated by a hovering rotor were studied using dual-plane stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. The dual-plane stereoscopic particle image velocimetry technique permitted noninvasive measurement of the three components of the velocity field and the nine components of the velocity gradient tensor, a capability not possible with classical particle image velocimetry. The dual-plane stereoscopic particle image velocimetry method is based on coincident flow measurements made over two differentially spaced laser sheet planes. A polarization-based approach was used in which the two laser sheets were given orthogonal polarizations, with filters and beam-splitting optical cubes placed so that the cameras imaged Mie scattered light from only one or other of the laser sheets. The digital processing of the images used a deformation grid correlation algorithm that was optimized for the high velocity gradient and small-scale turbulent flows found inside the blade tip vortices. High-resolution flow imaging of the vortex sheet in the wake behind the rotor blade, combined with detailed turbulence measurements, revealed the presence of several turbulent flow features during the vortex roll-up process that appear to play an important role in its final evolution. The dual-plane stereoscopic particle image velocimetry measurements also included the fluctuating terms involved in the Reynolds-averaged stress transport equations. The results confirm that an isotropic assumption of turbulence is invalid inside blade tip vortices and that stress should not be represented as a linear function of strain. The dual-plane stereoscopic particle image velocimetry measurements were also compared with velocity and turbulence measurements made using a laser Doppler velocimeter system, with good correlation. DOI: 10.2514/1.39202

The formation and rollup of a tip vortex trailed from a hovering helicopter rotor blade is studied in detail using both computations and measurements. The compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations are computationally solved on an overset mesh system. The flow measurements are made using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry. The high resolution of both the numerics and the measurements reveal multiple coherent structures in the evolving rotor tip vortex flowfield. Secondary and tertiary vortices that result from crossflow separations near the blade tip are identified. These vortices, along with a part of the trailed wake, are ultimately entrained into the tip vortex that is formed downstream of the blade's trailing edge. The simulations clearly demonstrate the resolution required to accurately represent the complex three-dimensional flowfield. The advantage of particle image velocimetry, which has the ability to make planar measurements at a given instant of time, has been fully used to validate the computational fluid dynamics predictions. Even though linear eddy viscosity models are expected to inadequately represent the details of the turbulent quantities, good agreement is seen to be achieved with the particle image velocimetry measurements of the mean flowfield. The various sources of computational and measurement uncertainties are discussed.