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Purpose: Faculties have a vital role to play in ensuring that their graduates are trained with relevant skills. Formally arranged capacity building programs (CBPs) can aid in training and retraining the faculties with relevant contemporary skills so that they in turn can do justice to their students. The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficacy of such public-funded online CBPs in enhancing faculties' research and teaching capabilities. Design/methodology/approach: A scientifically designed questionnaire was sent to faculties who attended 12-day public-funded online capacity building workshop. Binomial logistic regression models were constructed to analyze as to how effective the online workshop was in enhancing teaching and research skills of the faculties involved. Findings: From the research study, the authors were able to infer that although faculties were able to understand theoretical concepts of qualitative nature relatively easily, the authors felt that its value addition in enhancing the research output was rather limited. The study also found that the faculties felt teaching concepts outside their "syllabus" to be counterintuitive. A significant finding of the study was that research had an important role in enhancing their teaching efficacy. Originality/value: Studies which are undertaken to test the efficacy of online capacity building workshops are scarce. This domain is going to gain importance in near future as technology is evolving at a rapid rate and online training of faculties helps in optimizing scarce resources.

Background: Infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are the most common vascular tumors of infancy. They proliferate rapidly during the early infantile period followed by a period of gradual regression over several years. Most of the uncomplicated IH undergo spontaneous involution, with a small proportion of cases requiring intervention. These are children with IH in life-threatening locations, local complications like haemorrhage, ulceration and necrosis and functional or cosmetic disfigurements. Systemic corticosteroids have been the first line of treatment for many years. Recently, non-selective beta-blockers, such as oral propranolol and topical timolol, have emerged as promising and safer therapies. To minimize the systemic side events caused by oral administration of propranolol, topical timolol started to be applied in the treatment of IHs, especially for superficial lesions. Aims: treatment of Infantile hemangioma with topical timolol Vs oral propranolol. Methods: This is a prospective interventional study done in department of pediatrics medicine and pediatrics surgery in Gandhi medical college Bhopal from January 2022 to January 2024 in 200 patients We treated 200 children with superficial IHs using oral propranolol or topical timolol, and investigated the efficacy and safety of the two treatment patterns. Results: we treated 200 patients, The mean age at initiation of the treatment was 5.2 months. Age ranges from one months to 2 years. Most of the patients comes between 3-6 months of age. The ratio of female to male was 2.234:1, and males are 60 and females are 140 in study. 12.5% (25/200) of patients were born prematurely. 7.5% (15/200) of patients had a history of progesterone use. 50% (100/200) of lesions were located in the head and neck region, 35% (70) at extremities and 15% (30) at trunk region. Tumor size ranged from 0.5 to 21.2 cm², with a mean size of 4.42 cm². The mean duration of treatment was 6.2 months, and the mean follow-up time was 6.2 months. Both oral propranolol and topical timolol achieved a satisfactory therapeutic outcome, with an effective response rate of 97 and 96.4%, respectively. No significant differences in visual analog scale (VAS) improvement between the two groups were observed. Occurrence rate of systemic adverse events for patients treated with oral propranolol (3.9%) was significantly higher than that for patients treated with topical timolol (0%). Clinical response was not associated with gender, duration of treatment, lesion location, lesion size, gestational age, and progesterone use during pregnancy, but closely associated with age at treatment initiation, which indicated that younger age at treatment initiation predicted for a better regression rate. Conclusions: IHs are very common disease, so early and active intervention has become the first choice for proliferating infantile hemangiomas. We recommend that topical timolol instead of oral propranolol could be the first-line therapy for superficial IHs because of its good efficacy and improved safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andrographis paniculata (Burm. f.) Nees is an important medicinal plant known for its bioactive compound andrographolide. NAC transcription factors (NAM, ATAF1/2, and CUC2) play a crucial role in secondary metabolite production, stress responses, and plant development through hormonal signaling. In this study, a putative partial transcript of three NAC family genes (ApNAC83, ApNAC21 22 and ApNAC02) was used to isolate full length genes using RACE. Bioinformatics analyses such as protein structure prediction, cis-acting regulatory elements, and gene ontology analysis were performed. Based on in silico predictions, the diterpenoid profiling of the plant's leaves (five-week-old) and the real-time PCR-based expression analysis of isolated NAC genes under abscisic acid (ABA) treatment were performed. Additionally, the expression analysis of isolated NAC genes under MeJA treatment and transient expression in Nicotiana tabacum was performed. Full-length sequences of three members of the NAC transcription factor family, ApNAC83 (1102 bp), ApNAC21 22 (996 bp), and ApNAC02 (1011 bp), were isolated and subjected to the promoter and gene ontology analysis, which indicated their role in transcriptional regulation, DNA binding, ABA-activated signaling, and stress management. It was observed that ABA treatment leads to a higher accumulation of andrographolide and 14-deoxyandrographolide content, along with the upregulation of ApNAC02 (9.6-fold) and the downregulation of ApNAC83 and ApNAC21 22 in the leaves. With methyl jasmonate treatment, ApNAC21 22 expression decreased, while ApNAC02 increased (1.9-fold), with no significant change being observed in ApNAC83. The transient expression of the isolated NAC genes in a heterologous system (Nicotiana benthamiana) demonstrated their functional transcriptional activity, leading to the upregulation of the NtHMGR gene, which is related to the terpene pathway in tobacco. The expression analysis and heterologous expression of ApNAC21 22 and ApNAC02 indicated their role in andrographolide biosynthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 55 percent of the world's 7.3 billion people access the Internet, creating a significant demand in information technology (IT) services for both organizations and consumers. The number of data centers continue to increase to meet this demand, consuming 2 percent of the energy produced worldwide. Many organizations moving towards cloud computing due to its ability to meet users' needs on demand. Greening cloud computing technology has become an important aspect of an organization's design and use of cloud computing. One aspect of greening the cloud is through efficiently using cloud-based resources. In this study, we focus on the resource allocation applications of cloud computing technologies to green an organizations cloud. We design a pricing and allocation mechanism for a private cloud computing service that allows the firm to effectively load balance their cloud computing resources. Our optimal pricing mechanism is a dynamic pricing model, which maximizes the net value of users in a private cloud computing service. Additionally, we create a job allocation algorithm based on our dynamic pricing model to load balance the cloud. We show that balancing the job allocation such that the number of jobs at individual resource servers as close to equal as possible is optimal. Furthermore, simulations were run on the allocation mechanism to examine the effects on the cloud resources while gaining insight to effectively distribution resources to public clouds. Our model can help organizations to efficiently distribute their cloud-based resources, which allows for a greener cloud computing system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Personalized or Precision medicine (PM) is a promising approach for the cancer treatment that tailors treatment to a patient's characteristics. Biomarkers are crucial for identifying the patients who are expected to derive greatest advantage from targeted therapy. Main body: Here, various biomarkers, including genetic, epigenetic, protein, and metabolites, and their clinical significance, are discussed. The review provides insights into the use of biomarkers and their clinical significance in cancer treatment. There are several hurdles in use of PM in oncology, such as the complexity of tumor biology and heterogeneity, limited availability of biomarkers, high cost of targeted therapies, resistance to targeted therapies, and ethical and social issues. Conclusion: The biomarkers play a crucial diagnostic role in the treatment of cancer. The review also acknowledges the challenges and limitations of personalized medicine which, if resolved, can be helpful in the management of cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we report herein the isolation of cadinane-type sesquiterpenoid, tatarinowin A (ACH-6), and pentadecanoic acid (ACH-8) from petroleum ether extract of rhizome of Acorus calamus L. (Acoraceae) along with 6 other known compounds in this species. It is pertinent to mention here that this is the first report to stain these compounds in which dereplication approach based on GC-MS was applied to target unknown compounds ACH-6 and ACH-8 in A. calamus L. Derelpication approaches based on GC-MS is very useful technique in the area of drug discovery and have eminence potential to identify known and unknown compounds present in extracts of medicinal important plants. This technique can be used to expedite the process of purification of unknown compounds from different matrixes. The isolated compounds were identified with the help of inbuilt library search which reveals the presence of 17 known and 4 unknown compounds. Further, the structure elucidation of all isolated compounds was done using spectroscopy techniques. Also, the structure of ACH-6 was further confirmed by using the single-crystal X-ray diffraction technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Datura stramonium L. is an important Ayurvedic herb of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) used in the treatment of innumerable diseases for centuries. Previously, we reported the isolation of three steroidal lactones (Daturalactone (D1), 12-Deoxywithastramonalide (D23), and Daturilin (D27) from D. stramonium L. The present study was designed to evaluate in vitro immunomodulatory potential of these lactones on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). The data revealed that the lactones from D. stramonium significantly enhanced the proliferation of the human PBMC and increased the IL-2, IFN-γ, and TNF-α secretion. Flow cytometry data showed a significant up-regulation of CD3, CD8, and CD56 expression on PBMC. Enhanced intracellular granulysin expression was also observed in Datura lactones treated PBMC. Granulysin is an immunomarker and enhanced expression of granulysin depict activation of Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes and Natural Killer cells. Further, the micro-cytotoxicity assay was performed by co-culturing lactone-activated lymphocytes and target cells (colon cancer cells; HCT-116 and SW620, and pancreatic cancer cells; Panc-1 cells). The human PBMC activated with the lactones exhibited enhanced cancer cell death as compared to the untreated PBMC. It was found that the D27-treated lymphocytes showed higher cancer-killing potential as compared to D1- or D23-activated immune cells. Additionally, mechanistic studies showed that the stimulated lymphocytes enhanced ROS production and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential in the target cancer cells. The current study showed immuno-potentiating effects of D. stramonium lactones on human PBMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest challenges that is escalating and affecting humanity across the globe. To overcome this increasing burden of resistance, discovering novel hits by targeting the enzymes involved in peptidoglycan (murein) biosynthesis has always been considered better in antimicrobial drug discovery. UDP-N-acetylglucosamine enolpyruvyl transferase (MurA) enzyme has been identified as essential for Escherichia coli survival and catalyzes the early-stage step in bacterial cell wall synthesis. The present article gives a brief overview of the role of enzymes in peptidoglycan synthesis and MurA enzyme (previously known as MurZ in E. coli), in particular, including its structural and active site features. This review also provides an insight into the current knowledge of the reported MurA inhibitors, their mechanism of action and drawbacks of these hits that hinder their clinical trials, which would be helpful for synthesis and discovering potent molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the lacunae in the preparedness of healthcare systems across the globe. This preparedness also includes the safety of healthcare providers (HCPs) at various levels. Sudden spread of COVID-19 infection has created threatening and vulnerable conditions for the HCPs. The current pandemic situation has not only affected physical health of HCPs but also their mental health. Objective: This study aims to understand the prevalence and severity of secondary traumatic stress, optimism parameters, along with states of mood experienced by the HCPs, viz., doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals (including Physiotherapist, Lab technicians, Phlebotomist, dieticians, administrative staff and clinical pharmacist), during the COVID-19 lockdown in India. Methodology: The assessment of level of secondary traumatic stress (STS), optimism/pessimism (via Life Orientation Test-Revised) and current mood states experienced by Indian HCPs in the present COVID-19 pandemic situation was done using a primary data of 2,008 HCPs from India during the first lockdown during April-May 2020. Data was collected through snow-ball sampling technique, reaching out to various medical health care professionals through social media platforms. Result: Amongst the study sample 88.2% of doctors, 79.2 of nurses and 58.6% of allied HCPs were found to have STS in varying severity. There was a female preponderance in the category of Severe STS. Higher optimism on the LOTR scale was observed among doctors at 39.3% followed by nurses at 26.7% and allied health care professionals 22.8%. The mood visual analogue scale which measures the "mood" during the survey indicated moderate mood states without any gender bias in the study sample. Conclusion: The current investigation sheds light on the magnitude of the STSS experienced by the HCPs in the Indian Subcontinent during the pandemic. This hitherto undiagnosed and unaddressed issue, calls for a dire need of creating better and accessible mental health programmes and facilities for the health care providers in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]