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The spread of John’s disease in camel herds (Camelus dromedarius) has been worldwide reported. Despite extensive studies on Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection in camels, the complete pathogenesis and epidemiology of this infection have not been fully exploited. The objective of the study is focusing on the nature of the immune responses, and the types of the recruited cells were studied in the intestine of naturally infected camels employing immunohistochemistry to analyze the expression of CD335, CD103, CD11b, and CD38 markers. Marked expression of some or all of the markers was observed in the ileum, mesenteric, and supramammary lymph nodes of the old infected camels. The expression of CD335, a well-known natural killer (NK) cell marker, was detected in the mesenteric lymph node, while the dendritic cell (DCs) marker, CD103, was markedly expressed in the villi and propria submucosa (PS) of the ileum in old infected camels. CD103 + and CD11b + DCs were detected in the mesenteric lymph nodes of young infected camels. The expression of CD38, a crucial proinflammatory marker, was more noticeable in the peripheral region of the mesenteric lymph node. The expression of these markers in the infected camel intestine was peculiar and is reported for the first time. In summary, the unique expression patterns of CD335, CD103, CD11b, and CD38 markers in naturally infected camel intestines revealed through immunohistochemistry new insights into the immune responses associated with MAP infection. These first-time observations suggest potential roles of innate and adaptive immunity, highlighting specific aspects of MAP immunopathology. Further studies with targeted tools are crucial for a precise understanding of these markers’ roles in the infected intestines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the extent of retractions in scientific publications of BRICS countries indexed in the SCOPUS database from 1989 to 2021. The scientific publication of BRICS countries has increased in recent years, which has given way to an increase in retraction. However, much money is being invested in research and development work resulting in more publications by BRICS than any other developing country. Out of 11,764 retracted publications, 72.67% of papers are written by two–five authors, in that 230 retracted articles are published by top 20 authors, it sums up to 1.99%. Retraction on conference proceedings share is 77.90% in that IEEE Computing Society retracts 99.04% of papers. Springer publisher retracts 29.69% journal articles. In the source of journal publication the Arabian Journal of Geosciences has 6.19% retractions. Out of 689 retraced citations, 40.64% are post-citations, and 59.36% are pre-citations. Three articles noticed self-citations in pre-retracted publications but no self-citations in the top 10 post-retracted articles. Unless the academic and research communities enforce severe action to address the growing problems of fabrication and plagiarism, research will be futile. More retraction would result in the degradation of the authors as well as the institution; both have to join hands and follow the publication ethics to stop or at least avoid retraction in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The free and forced vibration of a graded geometrically nonlinear Timoshenko nanobeam supported by on a nonlinear foundation is considered in this paper. The main contribution of this study is to propose a new formulation for the dynamic response of this beam by combining nonlocal and surface elasticity in addition to employing the physical neutral axis method which eliminates the quadratic nonlinearity from the equation of motion. Using the principle of virtual work, a fourth-order nonlinear partial differential equation is formulated and Galerkin technique is employed to yield a fourth-order ordinary differential equation with cubic nonlinearity in the temporal domain. The method of multiple scales is employed to obtain the analytical expression of the nonlinear frequency of the beam and its frequency response curve from a primary resonance analysis. To assess the accuracy of this analytical solution, it is compared with a numerical solution obtained using the differential quadrature method. The obtained analytical results are successfully validated for particular cases of the considered problem with results published by other authors. The effects of surface elasticity, nonlocality, the physical neutral axis, the beam aspect ratio, the power-law index and the elastic foundation coefficients on the free and forced vibration response of the graded Timoshenko nanobeam are thoroughly investigated for different types of boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spam detection in emails tends to be an endless research interest among many researchers and academicians. Even though email communication has become a major role in day to day activities, the increasing volumes of threats towards spam emails has paved the way for numerous email spam detection techniques. Many spam filtering methods including data mining and machine learning techniques are adopted by researchers; yet a complete accurate filtering model is an expected solution to cope up with the intentional spam attacks. This paper proposes one such model that uses a hybrid approach towards efficient spam detection. A collaborative spam filtering framework using abstraction of the entire email layout and the fingerprints of the layout is proposed to match and catch the sprouting nature of spam. Collaborative framework uses recommendations from other users to create spam database. Any incoming mail is checked against the spam database for spam or ham classification using near duplicate similarity matching scheme. To reduce false positive and false negative ratio in spam classification, we calculate cumulative weights from both email layouts and fingerprints. Fingerprint signatures of newly classified spam are progressively updated to the spam database for up-to-date spam detection. The system is evaluated with Spam Assassin dataset and the results are proven for a comparatively better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 68 days of lockdown in India, as a measure to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, unlike any other in the world. In the first half of the lockdown, migrant workers were stranded with no food and money with severe restrictions on movement when a mass exodus of workers back to their hometowns and villages began. In the second half, the workers' woes were compounded with a series of chaotic travel orders and gross mismanagement of the repatriation process. In this article, we draw on the work of Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) with more analysis and perspective. SWAN was a spontaneous relief effort that emerged soon after the lockdown was announced in March 2020. In addition to providing relief, SWAN concurrently documented the experiences of over 36,000 workers through the lockdown. We highlight the inadequacy of the government and judicial response to the migrant worker crisis. We present quantitative data elaborating the profile of workers that reached out to SWAN, the extent of hunger, loss of livelihoods and income. We also present qualitative insights based on interactions with workers and discuss multiple, non-exhaustive, dimensions of vulnerability to which migrant workers were exposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Lyell, born in 1797, and Scottish by birth was one among the last generation of British polymaths who contributed much to the development of geology as a scientific discipline. He laid the foundation of modern geology and outlined his geological vision supported by global examples in a treatise called the Principles of Geology. This book that became popular with the scholars and the reading public inspired many contemporary researchers, most prominently Charles Darwin to think in new ways about the evolutionary pathways of the Earth and its constituents. Lyell, a heretical thinker in geology in his time was given due recognition by the establishment as he was knighted in 1848 and made a baronet. His lasting legacy lies in providing scientific underpinnings to the study of Earth's history, centered on the foundational principle of uniformitarianism that views all the geological features of the Earth's surface as a product formed in a gradualistic manner, mediated through deep time. And, that the geologic processes acted in the same manner and intensity in the past as they do in the present, summarized in a maxim: "the present is the key to the past". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the energy efficiency is improved in the clustered wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using sink mobility in restricted path. However, due to path restriction, a constant speed is assigned with mobile sink and this has limited the time for communication to collect the sensor data in randomly deployed sensor networks. Further, the collection of sensor data increases the consumption of power in such network. Hence to improve this cluster based block wise compressed path constrained sensing is introduced in clustered sensor networks. Here, two techniques are deployed to reduce the consumption of power in sensor network. To limit the communication time in collecting the sensor data, the shortest path tree computation is used. Also, to reduce the inherent data sparsity block wise compression over spatially correlated data is used. The collection of data is done by the cluster heads and forwarded to the base stations (BSs) using shortest path tree computation. This is formulated as a mixed linear integer programming problem, which is solved using adaptive amoeba algorithm. The block wise compression method uses compressed sensing (CS) in clustered WSN and the measurement is done through block diagonal matrix. The forwarding of CS measurements is done through shortest path algorithm and this relays the measurements to the BSs. The validation is carried out in terms of total consumed power due to the effect of sparsity and transferring the CS measurements to BS. The performance is evaluated based on optimal clustering for attaining reduced power consumption. The experimental results show that the proposed method has higher throughput with increased energy efficiency than the other conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of images after processing is a significant step for determining how good the images are being analyzed. Quality of image is usually estimated with the help of image quality metrics. Unfortunately, most of the commonly used metrics cannot sufficiently portray the visual aspect of the enhanced image. In this proposed system, an approach for medical image enhancement is presented. Here adaptive genetic algorithm is proposed for medical image contrast enhancement. Initially, the chromosomes having gene value of the image gray levels have been generated. After that the fitness function will be calculated for each generated chromosome based on the image edge and their overall intensity values. The selected best chromosomes which have the high fitness value will be given to crossover and mutation operation. In GA the adaptive property is introduced by including adaptive crossover and mutation operations. The proposed method is compared with two different types of optimization algorithms such as Genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle swarm optimization (PSO) that ensure accuracy and quality of medical images in proposed adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA). The experimental solutions are got with the help of metrics like PSNR, SDME, MSE, SSIM, MSSIM, AD, MD, NAE, PSO and SC which proves the proposed algorithm, produces better results as compared to the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of work in a year for every rural household at a minimum wage. Because of MGNREGA, for the first time in the country, a transaction-based management information system (MIS) has been made available in the public domain, a feather in the cap of transparency. An essential safeguard in MGNREGA is delay compensation to be paid when workers do not receive wages within 15 days of completion of work. Despite several attempted measures, payment delays are rampant and the method of calculating delay compensation is flawed leading to massive under-calculation of the true payable compensation. By analysing over 90 lakh transactions for the financial year 2016–2017 across 10 states, we observe that only 21% of the payments were made on time and the central government alone was taking an average of over 50 days to electronically transfer wages. On aggregate, in our sample, while the true total delay compensation payable is about Rs. 36 crores, only about Rs. 15.6 crores is being calculated in the MIS. The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has acknowledged the correctness of the findings and the Supreme Court of India has also issued Orders to the MoRD based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic response of a bladed disk is very sensitive to the symmetry of identical blades. If the properties of one or more blades vary slightly then the response can increase substantially, which is known as mistuning. Mistuning in bladed disks due to manufacturing tolerances has been extensively studied, with emphasis on response and fatigue life prediction. Damage to blades can also cause mistuning but has received only limited attention. The identification of mistuning in rotating bladed disks is a challenging and an ongoing topic of investigation. This study proposes a Wavelet Energy-Based Mistuning Index (WEBMI) which is obtained from the wavelet packet transforms of both tuned and mistuned blade responses, and requires only output response signals. The proposed mistuning index is demonstrated on a lumped parameter model of a bladed disk, and mistuning was represented by altering the stiffness or mass of individual blades. Mistuning to single and multiple blades with different locations and severities was simulated. Gaussian white noise was added to the response signal to test robustness. Finally, experimentswere conducted to validate the feasibility of the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the WEBMI is sensitive enough to identify subtle mistuning as small as 0.5% in single and multiple locations. Furthermore, the mistuning index increases monotonically with increases in mistuning severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquakes occur as the natural outcome of the processes that govern a dynamic planet, one that supports plate motions. The internal structure of the Earth that can sustain the convective -ow of the mantle and the presence of a strong, fractured outer shell, the lithosphere that can glide over the underlying asthenosphere are important components of the plate tectonic framework, and therefore, the global distribution of earthquakes. With an introduction to the ideas of plate tectonics and earthquake terminology, this article introduces the significance of the India-Eurasia plate boundary and its seismic productivity. The most active continent-continent collision boundary on the Earth defined by the Himalaya and the Andaman-Sumatra subduction zone are part of this plate boundary. Parts of the Indian continental interior regions are also noted for some destructive earthquakes. This article provides a brief overview of the background processes, terminology, and some highlights on Indian earthquakes studies, and points to academic opportunities in the area of earthquake studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a need for a collation and comparison of the content of the mobile medical applications (apps) to allow health care professionals to know precisely which app they can rely on to gain access to appropriate drugs references. This study aims to evaluate the features of mobile medical apps based on 3 major functions: Dosage recommendation, drug adverse Reaction, And Drug Interaction (DoReADI). Method: A review and comparison of mobile apps available in Google's Play Store (Android system) and Apple's App Store (iOS system) were performed. The comparison was based on the availability of options, especially DoReADI functionalities. The assessment criteria were as follows: requirement for an Internet connection, subscription fee charged, size of app, dose recommendation, drug indication, dose calculator, drug picture, dose adjustment, pregnancy safety, interaction checker, interaction classification, clinical teaching advice, contraindicated drug, black box warning, adverse effect, contraindication or precaution, as well as toxicology and pharmacology information. Results: Eight mobile medical apps were included and used to compare their features and functionalities. The 4 apps that scored the highest (14/17 points) are: Lexicomp®, Epocrates®, Micromedex®, and Drugs.com®. Lexicomp and Micromedex do not provide the image of the drug and have an access subscription fee. Epocrates does not provide interaction classification and clinical teaching advice, and occupies a large space in the memory to be installed. Meanwhile, My Blue Book® scored the lowest (9/17 points) because certain features such as toxicology information, drug interaction, clinical teaching advice, contraindicated drug, and black box warning were not included. Conclusion: Based on the features assessment criteria of each mobile medical application, Lexicomp, Epocrates, Micromedex, and Drugs.com are the apps that scored the highest. Epocrates and Micromedex are useful for checking drug interactions. In addition, some of the apps have additional features for the DoReADI criteria, for example, dose calculator and interaction classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the trace metals in water and sediment of the Baram river in Northern Sarawak, Malaysia, a tropical river that is subjected to increasing land use activities, particularly logging. Water and sediment samples were collected from a total of 32 stations along the main and tributaries of the Baram river in triplicates. Water samples were digested based on the open acid digestion method whilst sediment was microwave digested. The samples were analysed with microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometer for arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), selenium (Se) and zinc (Zn). Mercury (Hg) was analysed using the flow injection system. The background values of metals in water were determined based on 95th percentile of unaffected samples. For sediment, the baseline values were derived from the cumulative distribution curves with kneedle algorithm incorporated to improve the identification of background thresholds for assessment of contamination. The contamination factors suggest enrichment of Al, Fe, Mn, particularly at stations downstream where substantial development of oil palm plantations and land clearing activities were found. Significant correlations between Al, Fe and Mn in water suggest similar origin, possibly from surface runoff as these elements are prominently found in sediment. This study reveals that logging activities adjacent to the Baram river has caused accelerated surface runoff affecting the balance of Al, Fe and Mn in the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The aim of this study was to investigate our indications of laparotomy, surgical procedures and their results, and to compare our results with those of others. In necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), indications of surgery, surgical strategy and results vary. Materials and methods This study was conducted at the regional tertiary care referral centre. The study design was a retrospective one. Case records of 24 patients with advanced NEC who underwent laparotomy over a 7-year period were analysed. Demographic data, clinical features, laboratory and skiagram findings, indication for surgery, operative findings, procedures performed, immediate surgery-related complications and postoperative survival were studied. Results The mean age was 20.29 days (range = 3-82 days). The mean birth weight was 1810.5 g (range = 660-3000 g). Seventy-five percent of babies were premature. Indications of surgery were as follows: pneumoperitoneum (16), failure to improve with adequate medical treatment (three), abdominal tenderness and rigidity (two), abdominal wall oedema and erythema (two), and acute intestinal obstruction (one). Peritoneal drainage was carried out in five patients, of whom two (40%) survived after laparotomy. Thirteen (54.17%) patients had focal, nine (37.5%) multifocal and two (8.33%) had panintestinal NEC. Six patients underwent resection anastomosis (RA) and 16 underwent enterostomy. Surgery-related complications occurred in six patients. The overall mortality was eight (33.33%). Two (33.33%) of the six RA patients, four (25%) of 16 stoma patients and two (100%) with corporation panintestinal disease died. Conclusion The most common indication for laparotomy in NEC was pneumoperitoneum. We performed laparotomy in drain-managed patients when stable; 40% of such patients survived. We preferred gangrene resection and enterostomy to RA. Mortality and morbidity in the RA group were higher than that in the stoma group; dead RA patients had multifocal disease. Survival rate of laparotomy-NEC patients (66.66%) was comparable to that of other centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study monitored the toxicity of environmentally relevant concentration of pesticides and metals in zebra fish Danio rerio. Zebra fish were exposed to environmentally relevant concentration of pesticides and metals for a period of 14 days. The individual and the combined toxicity of pesticides and metals were evaluated. The pesticides and metals treated groups showed histopathological alterations in the muscle, liver and gill tissues. Significant alterations were seen in liver and gill compared to muscle tissue. Among groups, the changes in group III (pesticides treated) were severe followed by group II (metals treated) and then the group IV (metals and pesticides treated, combined toxicity). Splitting of muscle fibers was observed in muscle tissue of fish treated with pesticides (group III). In the liver tissues severe damages such as dilation and congestion of blood sinusoids (group IV), cytoplasmic vaculoation in both group II & III was observed. Pronounced hyperplasia and necrosis in gill of fish treated with pesticides (group III). In conclusion the evidence of pathological alterations in gills and livers of zebra fish Danio rerio appeared to be a useful bio-marker to assess the impact of combined toxicity of pesticides and metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, we report the solvothermal method for the synthesis of iron(III)-salen complexes (salen = N,N′-bis(salicylidene)ethylenediaminato) from salicylaldehyde, 2,2′-bis ethylenediamine and ferric chloride in a single step. The solvothermal method involves the synthesis of complexes with good quality having excellent control on the composition. An insight into the spectral, computational, electrochemical and antibacterial studies highlights the structural, redox and clinical aspects of the complexes. The calculated energy of spin multiplicity sextet ( S = 6) obtained from DFT lies below doublet ( S = 2) and quartet ( S = 4) surfaces by 13.7 and 5.8 kcal mol, respectively, indicating that sextet is more stable compared to the other two multiplicities for eight iron(III)-salen complexes. The excitation energies and intensities of the electronic transitions calculated by the TDDFT method are in good agreement with the experimental values. Electron-donating substituents in the salen moiety produce a cathodic shift and electron-withdrawing groups the anodic shift in Fe(III)/Fe(II) redox potential values. The results of preliminary antibacterial study reveal that the iron(III)-salen complex was effective against clinically important Gram-negative bacterium ( Escherichia coli) (7.2 μg ml) than the Gram-positive bacterium ( Staphylococcus aureus) (158.3 μg ml). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zebra fish were exposed to environmentally relevant concentration of pesticides and metals for a period of 14 days. The individual and the combined toxicity of pesticides and metals were studied. Damage caused to the DNA and induction of mutation in the GADD45β gene was investigated in this study. The present investigation revealed that exposure of zebra fish to pesticides and metals induced DNA damage and also mutation in the GADD451β gene. The pesticides treated group (III) showed significantly higher damage followed by metals treated group (II). The DNA damage was comparatively less in the pesticides and metals exposed group (IV). GADD45β gene which is considered to be one of the most important gene involved in G phase arrest, has been found to be mutated in zebra fish when exposed to metals and pesticides. The comparison of amplified gene sequence of GADD45β gene with the sequence of the zebra fish retrieved from the NCBI confirmed the mutation in the gene sequence of zebra fish treated with pesticides and metals. The induction of DNA damage in fish due to contaminants may lead to mutations, which contribute towards the multistage carcinogenesis process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the development of an improved brain image classification system using the shape prior segmentation procedure and pruned association rule with ImageApriori algorithm. Topics covered include the classifications of the computed tomography (CT) scan brain images, the experimental results on pre-diagnosed brain images and the potential use of the algorithm in assisting physicians for efficient classification.

The objective of this work is to develop and implement a medical decision-making system for an automated diagnosis and classification of ultrasound carotid artery images. The proposed method categorizes the subjects into normal, cerebrovascular, and cardiovascular diseases. Two contours are extracted for each and every preprocessed ultrasound carotid artery image. Two types of contour extraction techniques and multilayer back propagation network (MBPN) system have been developed for classifying carotid artery categories. The results obtained show that MBPN system provides higher classification efficiency, with minimum training and testing time. The outputs of decision support system are validated with medical expert to measure the actual efficiency. MBPN system with contour extraction algorithms and preprocessing scheme helps in developing medical decision-making system for ultrasound carotid artery images. It can be used as secondary observer in clinical decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An active contour segmentation technique for extracting the intima-media layer of the common carotid artery (CCA) ultrasound images employing semiautomatic region of interest identification and speckle reduction techniques is presented in this paper. An attempt has been made to test the ultrasound images of the carotid artery of different subjects with this contour segmentation based on improved dynamic programming method. It is found that the preprocessing of ultrasound images of the CCA with region identification and despeckleing followed by active contour segmentation algorithm can be successfully used in evaluating the intima-media thickness (IMT) of the normal and abnormal subjects. It is also estimated that the segmentation used in this paper results an intermethod error of 0.09 mm and a coefficient of variation of 18.9%, for the despeckled images. The magnitudes of the IMT values have been used to explore the rate of prediction of blockage existing in the cerebrovascular and cardiovascular pathologies and also hypertension and atherosclerosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The propagation of cassava through true seeds (sexual seeds) rather than by clones is a promising option due to its manifold advantages such as enhancing the multiplication rate, keeping the dreaded cassava mosaic disease (CMD) under check, longer seed viability, ease of storage and transport. The high genetic heterogeneity and consequent variation among seedlings is the major stumbling block in sexual propagation. In the present study, a CMD resistant exotic accession MNga-1 and a promising cultivar “Ambakadan” with profuse fruit setting, seed output and male sterility were identified to be promising parents for the TCS programme. The rate of sexual propagation could be more than 20-fold over the traditional clonal propagation. Seed treatment with 1% KNO3 or 300 ppm GA promoted uniform seed germination and seedling vigour and reduced the transplanting period from 45 days after planting (DAS) to 30 DAS. Removal of taproots of seedlings while transplanting enhanced tuber development. Tuber yield of first clones (C1) was significantly superior to that of the seedlings. The dry matter content and starch output of seedlings and first clones were comparable to that of the commercial varieties. Similarly, the HCN and cooking quality of seedlings and first clones were at acceptable levels. In the open pollinated (OP) progenies of the Ambakadan the CMD infection increased drastically due to secondary spread of the pathogen. The hybrid progenies of Ambakadan and the CMD resistant line MNga-1 revealed higher percentage of CMD free seedlings and first clonal progenies in the evaluation trials conducted at CTCRI Thiruvananthapuram and ARS, Peddapuram during 2001-2002 and 2002-2003. Nearly homogeneous hybrid population resistant to CMD could be obtained by systematic roguing at seedling and first clonal stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical analysis of electroplating effluent revealed the presence of very high concentrations of nickel (393 ppm) in the effluent. Bioassay was carried out to test the toxicity of nickel chloride to Aspergillus niger. In contrast to 50% conidial inhibition at 1.7 m M nickel, hyphal extension was affected even at a lower concentration (0.4 m M), suggesting that hyphae are more sensitive than conidia to nickel. An increase in nickel concentration resulted in a proportionate decrease in the hyphal extension. Nickel (II)-resistant mutants of A. niger M1, M2, and M3, were obtained using direct selection, stepwise adaptation, and ultraviolet mutation techniques. Biosorption of Ni (II) by the mutant M3 was 50% more than that of its parent strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]