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Tropical forest ecosystem act as a carbon sink and plays a vital role in climate change mitigation. The carbon storage capacity of tropical forest ecosystems is declining gradually in recent years. But studies regarding the multiple drivers of tree and soil carbon in the tropical forest ecosystems are scarce. Our study aims to quantify the tree and soil carbon storage capacity and to explore how these carbon storages are associated with both biotic (stand structure, anthropogenic disturbance) and abiotic drivers (climate, topography, and soil) simultaneously in tropical forest ecosystems. The present study was conducted in two forest-protected areas of Bangladesh, namely- Satchari National Park (SNP), and Khadimnagar National Park (KNP). Results showed that tree carbon stock was 72.9 t ha−1 and 58.2 t ha−1 in SNP and KNP, respectively. Besides, soil carbon was 77.1 t ha−1 in SNP and 130.5 t ha−1 in KNP. We found that tree carbon was positively correlated with all stand structure parameters. However, soil carbon was negatively correlated with tree richness, height, and basal area. Anthropogenic disturbance had a negative correlation with tree carbon and a positive correlation with soil carbon stock. No significant correlation was observed between tree carbon and local climatic parameters. But soil carbon had a positive correlation with annual precipitation and a negative correlation with annual mean temperature. Furthermore, tree carbon was positively associated with elevation and slope whereas soil carbon was negatively associated with elevation. Tree carbon was negatively correlated with silt% but positively with sand%. Conversely, soil carbon showed significant positive associations with soil moisture, bulk density, soil pH, and soil silt%. Our study provides a comprehensive insight on the understandings of key drivers of tree and soil carbon storage in the tropical forest ecosystem of Bangladesh. We concluded that anthropogenic disturbance and stand characteristics regulate tree carbon stock while soil carbon is mainly associated with local climate and soil properties in the studied tropical forest ecosystems.

This paper reports the photocatalytic decomposition of methylene blue (MB) over titania doped copper ferrite, CuFe2O4/TiO2 with 50 wt% loading, synthesized via sol-gel method. The synthesized photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-vis diffuse reflectance, and photoluminescence, Mott-Schottky (MS) analysis and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The catalyst loadings were varied from 0.25 – 1.0 g/L and the optimum catalyst loading found to be 0.5 g/L. At the optimum loading, the conversion achieved was 83.7%. The other loadings produced slightly lower conversions at 82.7%, 80.6% and 80.0%, corresponding to 0.25, 1 and 0.75 g/L after 3 hours of irradiation. The study on the effect of initial concentration indicated that 20 ppm as the optimum concentration, tested with 0.5 g/L catalyst loading. The spent catalyst was used for the recyclability test and demonstrated a high longevity with a degradation efficiency less than 6 % for each time interval. The novelty of this study lies on the new application of photocatalytic material, CuFe2O4/TiO2 on thiazine dye that shows remarkable activity and reusability performance under visible light irradiation.

The experiment was conducted on the growth and yield of okra using nutrient management through different types of fertilizers and netting at the Horticulture Farm of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh. There were netting treatments, viz. N1 = Control (no net) and N2= Net (blue color) along with fertilizer treatments viz. T1 = no fertilizer (control), T2 = vermicompost @ 10 t ha−1, T3 = vermicompost @ 15 t ha−1, T4 = combined application of 2/3 part organic (T3) and 1/3 part inorganic (T5), and T5 = inorganic fertilizers. Temperature (◦C) and relative humidity (%) were recorded under net and at the open condition daily during production stage (month of May) However, the value didnt differ significantly. Growth parameters of okra viz. plant height, pod length, pod diameter, and pods of okra were found the highest from T4N2 treatment combination which was significantly higher from other combinations. The lowest growth and yield of okra was found from the treatment combination of T1N1. First flowering was observed in T4N2 at 32 days after planting of okra seeds. Vermicompost at different rates (10 t ha−1 and 15 t ha−1) with net gave lower production of okra compared to inorganic fertilizer treatments with net. The highest yield of okra (19.65 t ha−1) was found from the combined effect of T4N2 which was 56.74% higher compared to control (T1N1). [Fundam Appl Agric 2019; 4(1.000): 627-631]

Water is the ultimate and mostly used media during textile materials processing, especially in colouration. This study investigated the possibilities of using seawater for cotton and polyester fabrics dyeing. Single jersey fabrics made of 100 percent cotton and polyester were dyed using a standard recipe and two separate water source as dyeing mediums. It has been focused on the assessment of colour fastness to wash, perspiration, saliva, rubbing, water, light and colour difference value due to compare the efficiency of dyeing media. The results revealed that the cotton fabric dyed with seawater showed lighter shade than that of ground water sample. But for polyester fabric darker shade was obtained compared to ground water. The cotton sample dyed with sea water carried about 15% higher colour strength than ground water dyed sample but for polyester it was very negligible, only 3%. Moreover, the results of colour fastness to wash, perspiration, saliva, rubbing, water and light for seawater dyed samples of cotton and polyester were shown satisfactory outcomes having the grading of 4–5 in most of the cases. This exploration established that commercial dyeing processes were robust and can be practically transferable into the seawater medium for cotton and polyester fabrics.

The importance of local climate and biodiversity in tropical forest's ability to provide critical ecosystem services is well documented, whereas the relationship among local climatic factors and biodiversity with soil ecosystem functions largely remain unclear. We investigated the importance of local rainfall regime and indicators of plant (tree, herb, and shrub) diversity (richness and abundance) on soil ecosystem functions in two tropical forest ecosystems of north-east Bangladesh. We considered six soil parameters, i.e. soil water regulation (SWR), soil physical stability (SPS), soil microbial habitat (SMH), soil pH (pH), medium of plant growth (MPG), and soil aggregate stability (SAS) as indicators of soil ecosystem functions. Our study finds four rainfall parameters having significant (p < 0.05) positive effects on soil water regulation, soil physical stability, microbial habitat, soil pH, medium of plant growth, and soil aggregate stability. Tree species abundance had positive effects on SPS (p < 0.001) and MPG (p < 0.05), while tree species richness had negative effects on SMH (p < 0.001) and MPG (p < 0.01). Soil aggregate stability was negatively (p < 0.05) affected by tree species abundance, whereas tree species richness positively (p < 0.0001) affected SAS. We found no significant effects of tree species abundance and richness on pH and SWR. The abundance of herbaceous species had positive impacts on MPG (p

In this work, p-type CuFe2O4 was synthesized by sol gel method. The prepared CuFe2O4 was used as photocathode catalyst for photoelectrochemical (PEC) CO2 reduction. The XRD, UV-Visible Spectroscopy (UV-Vis), and Mott-Schottky (MS) experiments were done to characterize the catalyst. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) was employed to evaluate the visible light (λ>400 nm) effect of this catalyst for CO2 reduction. The band gap energy of the catalyst was calculated from the UV-Vis and was found 1.30 eV. Flat band potential of the prepared CuFe2O4 was also calculated and found 0.27 V versus Ag/AgCl. Under light irradiation in the CO2-saturated NaHCO3 solution, a remarkable current development associated with CO2 reduction was found during LSV for the prepared electrode from onset potential -0.89 V with a peak current emerged at -1.01 V (vs Ag/AgCl) representing the occurrence of CO2 reduction reaction. In addition, the mechanism of PEC was proposed for the photocathode where the necessity of a bias potential in the range of 0.27 to ~ -1.0 V vs Ag/AgCl was identified which could effectively inhibit the electron-hole (e-/h+) recombination process leading to an enhancement of CO2 reduction reactions.

Abstract Background Right coronary artery perforation extending to the sinus of Valsalva is a rare and potentially fatal complication of percutaneous coronary intervention. There are no definite guidelines on the management strategies for such complications. Treatment modality depends on the patient’s haemodynamic stability and the extent of aortic involvement. Polytetrafluoroethylene-covered stents have emerged as a revolutionary strategy, enabling efficient endovascular repair of the entry port of such dissections, particularly the coronary ostia, and obviating the need for high-risk emergent surgical intervention. Case presentation A 60 year old Bangladeshi gentleman underwent a coronary angiogram following a prior inferior ST elevation myocardial infarction (MI), 1 month previously. Coronary angiography done via right radial approach using 5 FR TIG catheter showed diffuse mid RCA disease with maximum 90% stenosis. Angioplasty of the RCA was planned. The RCA was cannulated with a 6-French JR 3.5 guiding catheter (USA). The lesion was crossed by a 0.014 inch guide wire and stented with a 2.75 × 38 mm novolimus-eluting DESyne stent, after predilatation. Immediately after stenting, a Type II perforation was observed in the ostial RCA, which progressed into the right coronary sinus of Valsalva. As the patient was haemodynamically stable with no ischaemia on ECG, we attempted to seal the ostial RCA with bare metal stents. Two successive bare metal stents failed to seal the aorto-coronary dissection. Ultimately, a 3.0 × 19 mm polytetrafluoroethylene-covered stent was deployed to seal the entry port in the ostial RCA, yielding a satisfactory angiographic result with only minimal contrast staining limited to the right sinus of Valsalva. The patient was closely monitored and discharged on dual antiplatelet therapy comprising of aspirin and prasugrel. He remained asymptomatic and with follow up echocardiograms showing no pericardial effusion nor extension of the dissection. Conclusions The polytetrafluoroethylene-covered stent provides a safe and effective means of sealing iatrogenic aorto-coronary dissections complicated by Ellis type II or II perforations, thus avoiding emergency surgery. However, as they are associated with increased incidence of stent thrombosis, an efficient and prolonged post-PCI antiplatelet regimen is recommended.

Climate change adaptation is one of the most crucial issues in developing countries like Bangladesh. The main objective was to understand the linkage of participation with Community Based Adaptation (CBA) to climate change. Institutional framework following different types of conceptual theories (collective action, group, game and social learning theory) was utilized to analyze the participatory process in local community level Village Disaster Mangement Committee (VDMC) that works in collaboration with local government. Field level data was collected through interview and group discussion during 25 April to 30 May 2015 in the Teesta riverine area of northern Bangladesh. Results showed that flood and drought were the major climate change impacts in the study area, and various participatory tools were used for risk assessment and undertaking action plans to overcome the climate change challenges by the group VDMC. Participation in VDMC generated both relational and technical outcomes. The relational outcomes are the informal institutional changes through which local community adopt technological adaptation measures. Although, limitations like bargaining problem, free riding or conflict were found in collective decision making, but the initiation of local governance like VDMC has brought various institutional change in the communities in terms of adaptation practices. More than 80% VDMC and around 40–55% non-VDMC household respondents agreed that overall community based adaptation process was successful in the previous year. They believed that some innovative practices had been brought in the community through VDMC action for climate change adaptation. No doubt that the CBA has achieved good progress to achieve the government Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) strategy of climate change adaptation. But, there is still lack of coordination among local government, NGOs and civil partners in working together. Research related to socio-economic impact analysis for the sustainability of adaptation measures implemented through local community could be undertaken in future.

We present the results of an experimental study about strain effects on the core band gap and diameter of spherical bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) synthesized by using a colloidal technique at varying temperatures. Structural characterizations were made by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) techniques. Optical characterizations were made by using UV-Vis absorption and fluorescence emission spectroscopies. The XRD analysis suggests that the synthesized bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs have zinc blende crystal structure. HRTEM results indicate that the CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS QDs have average particle sizes about 3.50 nm and 4.84 nm, respectively. Furthermore, compressive strain causes an increase (decrease) in the core band gap (diameter) of spherical CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs at any temperature. An elastic strain-modified effective mass approximation (EMA) predicts that there is a parabolic decrease (increase) in the core band gap (diameter) of QDs with temperature. The diameter of spherical bare CdSe core and CdSe/ZnS core/shell QDs calculated by using the strain-modified EMA, with core band gap extracted from absorption spectra, are in excellent agreement with the HRTEM data.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a severely disabling disease affecting the brain and spinal cord. The detection of MS at an early stage is difficult. However, detection of MS from blood cell gene expression may ameliorate the early identification of MS. The present study addressed overlapped genes between blood cell and brain tissues of MS patients. We analyzed microarray gene expression brain tissue datasets and eQTL data to identify overlapped genes in the blood and brain of MS patients. We identified 23 overlapped differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (PWP2, UPK3BL, NFATC3, NPIPA5, KNOP1, PIK3C2B, LDLRAP1, HN1L, FAM226B, STAG3L2, ZNF814, BMS1P5, SDCCAG8, CLN8, ARHGEF7, NEAT1, ANKRD42, C5orf34, DOK6, PKN2, SP1, DBF4B, VAMP3) in the blood cells and brain tissues of MS patients. The axon guidance mediated and postsynaptic differentiation associated pathways were enriched by the DEGs. The significant regulatory transcription factors (TFs) including SP1, ARNT, MEF2A, YY1, EGR1, MIF, FOS, NFYA, TFAP2A, MYC, USF, MXI1, JUN, MAX, E2F1, POU3F2, GABPA, TFAP2C, CUX1, 2623, SPI1 and microRNAs (miRNAs) including miR-650, miR-223, miR-9, miR-181b, miR-190, miR-561, miR-520c-3p, miR-658, miR-199b-5p, miR-660, miR-20 were identified in MS. The candidate drugs were determined from drug target overrepresentation analysis. This study provides biomarkers at protein levels (hub proteins and TFs) and RNA levels (mRNAs, miRNAs) in MS subjects that were similarly dysregulated in both blood and brain tissues. Keywords: Multiple sclerosis, Molecular biomarkers, Blood-brain common gene, Differentially expressed genes, Protein-protein interaction, cis-eQTL, Transcription factors, microRNAs

Depressive illness is a significant risk factor for ovarian cancer development (OC). The underlying mechanism is unclear (perhaps involving altered neuroendocrine factors), but identifying associated alterations in gene expression of OC in depression sufferers may uncover novel factors that affect OC progression. We thus analyzed microarray gene expression data from OC tissue taken from patients diagnosed with and without depression. We identified 34 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of depression from OC patients. Gene ontology (GO) and KEGG pathway analyses indicated several molecular pathways including complement and coagulation cascades, the hippo signaling pathway, ether lipid metabolism, the MAPK signaling pathway, and antigen processing and presentation were overrepresented among DEGs. Subsequent, protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis revealed pathway hub proteins (FOS, EGR1, JUNB, HSPA1B, FGFR3, TRIB1, CTSB, SERPINE1), regulatory transcription factors (TFs; FOS, EGR1, JUNB) and one miRNA, miR-101-5p from TFs-miRNAs coregulatory networks. The prognostic survival analysis of the DEGs revealed CXCL12, ARL4C, NQO2 associated with worse OC survival outcomes. Protein-metabolite interaction network analysis showed that upregulated protein CHPT1 (a choline phosphotransferase) interacts with four important phospholipid synthesis and signaling metabolites. Protein-drug interaction analysis revealed SERPINE1 and PLAT proteins interact with compounds that include thrombolytic drugs, plasmin inhibitors, thiazolidinediones, NSAIDs, and hypertension treatments. Thus, we identified evidence for factors and pathways altered in OC tissue when patient depression is evident, and characterized important aspects of these OC-depression links that may be instrumental in developing new treatments for OC patients. Keywords: Ovarian cancer, Depression, Drug targets, Biomarker signatures, Differentially expressed genes, Protein-protein interaction, Protein-metabolite interaction, Protein-drug interactions, Survival analysis

The class of doughnut graphs is a subclass of 5-connected planar graphs. It is known that a doughnut graph admits a straight-line grid drawing with linear area, the outerplanarity of a doughnut graph is 3, and a doughnut graph is k-partitionable. In this paper we show that a doughnut graph exhibits a recursive structure. We also give an efficient algorithm for finding a shortest path between any pair of vertices in a doughnut graph. We also propose a nice application of a doughnut graph based on its properties.

A body of emerging research shows the promise of charcoal soil amendments (“biochars”) in restoring fertility in degraded agricultural and forest soils. “Sustainable biochars” derived from locally produced waste biomass and produced near the application site are of particular interest. We tested the effects of surface applications of wood-derived biochars (applied at 7.5 t·ha−1) on soil physiochemical properties (N, P, K, pH, soil moisture content, organic matter content, and bulk density) in three land-use types: agriculture (Camellia sinensis monoculture), agroforestry (C. sinensis with shade trees), and secondary forest (Dipterocarpus dominated) assessed over seven months. We found significant positive effects of biochar on soil physiochemical properties in all land-use types, with the strongest responses in the most degraded tea monoculture sites. Although biochar had no significant effect on soil N and K, it improved soil P—the primary nutrient most commonly limiting in tropical soils. Biochar also enhanced soil moisture and organic matter content, reduced bulk density, and increased soil pH in monoculture sites. Our results support the general hypothesis that biochar can improve the fertility of degraded soils in agricultural and forest systems in Bangladesh and suggest that biochar additions may be of great benefit to the most degraded soils.

Drought stress is a serious abiotic factor inhibiting nutrient acquisition by roots and limiting cereal crop production in Asian Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Many studies revealed that balanced fertilization can improve photosynthetic activity by stabilizing superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, improve proline, abscisic acid (ABA) and make the crop drought tolerant with efficient root system and finally improve crop yield. To mitigate drought stress, along with the usage of resistant and efficient genotypes, soil and foliar applications of macro- and micro-nutrients are being used in Asia. According to drought sensitivity index, the efficient genotypes are found more drought-tolerant than the inefficient ones. Studies revealed that irrigation alone is not sufficient to obtain satisfactory grain yield without balanced fertilization. At drought stress, the efficient genotypes accumulate higher quantities of ABA and proline, and exhibit higher activities of SOD, as compared with inefficient genotypes through greater nutrient accumulation by their longer and thinner root systems with high efficiency. Under severe drought with low nutritional status, the rate of photosynthesis, particularly water-use efficiency (WUE) increases in the efficient genotypes than in the inefficient ones. Consequently, these physiological and morphological parameters result in better yield performance by efficient use of water. Under drought, soil application of NPK along with foliar application of zinc (Zn), boron (B) and manganese (Mn) increase grain yield as well as micronutrients concentration of the grain. The rate of photosynthesis, pollen viability, number of fertile spikes, number of grains per spike, and WUE are increased by late foliar application of these micronutrients. This indicates that, by increasing WUE foliar application of Zn, B and Mn at booting to anthesis can reduce the harmful effects of drought that often occur during the late stages of cereal production in Asian LDCs. Therefore, it can be concluded that soil application of Zn, B and Mn in early stage combined with foliar application in late stage, especially at the flowering stage, is a promising approach to alleviate drought stress. Another attractive environmental friendly approach is to select efficient and drought tolerant genotypes with a more efficient root system. These findings are of high relevance for farmers׳ practices, the extension service and fertilizer industry to mitigate the drought stress in Asian LDCs. A few recommendations are made for extension of scientific knowledge to find more scope in support of mitigating drought situation.

Introduction: For Otorhinolaryngologist, removal of Foreign Bodies (FB) from the ear, nose and throat is one of the common emergency procedures done. Most of the cases especially of the ear and nose can be managed without General Anaesthesia (GA). But in some cases GA may be needed. There are very few studies that address the scenario of ear, nose and throat foreign body that required GA for its removal and the complications associated with it. Aim: This study was conducted with the aim to study the patient’s profile, types and distribution of FB removed under GA, and the associated complications. Materials and Methods: The present study is a hospital based retrospective, cross-sectional study conducted in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology in association with Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care in North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, Shillong, Meghalaya, India from year 2009 to 2014. Information was collected from indoor patient file and operation record book. Those patients where foreign body was not found after examination under GA were excluded. Results: A total of 112 cases of foreign body in ear, nose and throat removed under GA were selected. There was variation of age from youngest case being 11 months to 74 years with a slight male predominance. Two third of the patients belonged to paediatric age group. Most of the FB were inanimate with high number of inorganic type found in majority. Foreign body in food passage was found in most cases. Coin and meat bone were the common FB in children and adults respectively. We found no complications related to removal of foreign body from the food passage and nose. But some complications were seen in foreign body of ear and tracheo-bronchial tree. Conclusion: Ear, nose and throat FB that required GA were seen in all age groups. FB of food passage constitute the majority. Type of foreign body varies between children and adults. In children most common types were related to toys and their part and food materials. In adults, food materials were most common.

Investigation was conducted on three alkali metals (Li, Na, and K) supported by rice husk silica as catalysts for methyl esters production. A simple pseudo-heterogeneous transesterification process of used cooking oil with methanol was conducted to produce methyl esters using calcined alkali metal supported rice husk silica as a solid catalyst. Alkali metal silicate catalysts showed longer lasting activity than the traditional alkali catalysts. The optimum conditions for the process were: alkali metals silicate calcination temperature 500 °C, time 3 h; catalyst amount 3%; methanol to oil molar ratio 9:1; and a reaction temperature of 65 °C. The process was able to transesterify oil to methyl esters in the range of 96.5–98.2% in 1 h for all series. The catalyst is able to tolerant free fatty acid and moisture up to 1.25% and 1.75%, respectively. The catalyst was easily separated from the reaction mixture by filtration and able to reuse six times. The final product met the selected biodiesel fuel properties in accordance with European Standard (EN) 14214.

Barhl1, a mouse homologous gene of Drosophila BarH class homeobox genes, is highly expressed within the inner ear and crucial for the long-term maintenance of auditory hair cells that mediate hearing and balance, yet little is known about the molecular events underlying Barhl1 regulation and function in hair cells. In this study, through data mining and in vitro report assay, we firstly identified Barhl1 as a direct target gene of Atoh1 and one E-box (E3) in Barhl1 3’ enhancer is crucial for Atoh1-mediated Barhl1 activation. Then we generated a mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) line carrying disruptions on this E3 site E-box (CAGCTG) using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and this E3 mutated mESC line is further subjected to an efficient stepwise hair cell differentiation strategy in vitro. Disruptions on this E3 site caused dramatic loss of Barhl1 expression and significantly reduced the number of induced hair cell-like cells, while no affections on the differentiation toward early primitive ectoderm-like cells and otic progenitors. Finally, through RNA-seq profiling and gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, we found that this E3 box was indispensable for Barhl1 expression to maintain hair cell development and normal functions. We also compared the transcriptional profiles of induced cells from CDS mutated and E3 mutated mESCs, respectively, and got very consistent results except the Barhl1 transcript itself. These observations indicated that Atoh1-mediated Barhl1 expression could have important roles during auditory hair cell development. In brief, our findings delineate the detail molecular mechanism of Barhl1 expression regulation in auditory hair cell differentiation.

With the rapid advancements of ubiquitous information and communication technologies, a large number of trustworthy online systems and services have been deployed. However, cybersecurity threats are still mounting. An intrusion detection (ID) system can play a significant role in detecting such security threats. Thus, developing an intelligent and accurate ID system is a non-trivial research problem. Existing ID systems that are typically used in traditional network intrusion detection system often fail and cannot detect many known and new security threats, largely because those approaches are based on classical machine learning methods that provide less focus on accurate feature selection and classification. Consequently, many known signatures from the attack traffic remain unidentifiable and become latent. Furthermore, since a massive network infrastructure can produce large-scale data, these approaches often fail to handle them flexibly, hence are not scalable. To address these issues and improve the accuracy and scalability, we propose a scalable and hybrid IDS, which is based on Spark ML and the convolutional-LSTM (Conv-LSTM) network. This IDS is a two-stage ID system: the first stage employs the anomaly detection module, which is based on Spark ML. The second stage acts as a misuse detection module, which is based on the Conv-LSTM network, such that both global and local latent threat signatures can be addressed. Evaluations of several baseline models in the ISCX-UNB dataset show that our hybrid IDS can identify network misuses accurately in 97.29% of cases and outperforms state-of-the-art approaches during 10-fold cross-validation tests.

Peroxidase catalyzes the oxidation of various electron donor substrates such as phenol and aromatic amines in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. In this study, peroxidase was purified 164-fold from the leaves of Moringa oleifera L. with a recovery of 28% by ammonium sulphate precipitation, DEAE-cellulose column chromatography, Sephadex G-200 column chromatography, and Con-A column chromatography. SDS-PAGE showed a polypeptide band with molecular weight of 43 kDa. The enzyme was found to be a single subunit in nature. The purified enzyme displayed optimum activity at pH 6.0 and at a temperature of 50 °C with a Km value of 0.2335 mM for guaiacol as best substrate. It is a glycoprotein that contains 9.05% sugar as estimated by the phenol sulfuric acid method. Some ions (Ni2+, Pb2+, Zn2+, Al3+, Mg2+, Cu2+, Co2+, and Cd2+) exhibited low inhibitory effect while Fe2+, Fe3+, and Hg2+ exhibited strong inhibitory effects. EDTA markedly inhibited the peroxidase activity.

Mining interesting patterns from DNA sequences is one of the most challenging tasks in bioinformatics and computational biology. Maximal contiguous frequent patterns are preferable for expressing the function and structure of DNA sequences and hence can capture the common data characteristics among related sequences. Biologists are interested in finding frequent orderly arrangements of motifs that are responsible for similar expression of a group of genes. In order to reduce mining time and complexity, however, most existing sequence mining algorithms either focus on finding short DNA sequences or require explicit specification of sequence lengths in advance. The challenge is to find longer sequences without specifying sequence lengths in advance. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach to mining maximal contiguous frequent patterns from large DNA sequence datasets. The experimental results show that our proposed approach is memory-efficient and mines maximal contiguous frequent patterns within a reasonable time.

Pattern discovery in biological sequences (e.g., DNA sequences) is one of the most challenging tasks in computational biology and bioinformatics. So far, in most approaches, the number of occurrences is a major measure of determining whether a pattern is interesting or not. In computational biology, however, a pattern that is not frequent may still be considered very informative if its actual support frequency exceeds the prior expectation by a large margin. In this paper, we propose a new interesting measure that can provide meaningful biological information. We also propose an efficient index-based method for mining such interesting patterns. Experimental results show that our approach can find interesting patterns within an acceptable computation time.

Every day we experience unprecedented data growth from numerous sources, which contribute to big data in terms of volume, velocity, and variability. These datasets again impose great challenges to analytics framework and computational resources, making the overall analysis difficult for extracting meaningful information in a timely manner. Thus, to harness these kinds of challenges, developing an efficient big data analytics framework is an important research topic. Consequently, to address these challenges by exploiting non-linear relationships from very large and high-dimensional datasets, machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms are being used in analytics frameworks. Apache Spark has been in use as the fastest big data processing arsenal, which helps to solve iterative ML tasks, using distributed ML library called Spark MLlib. Considering real-world research problems, DL architectures such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is an effective approach to overcoming practical issues such as reduced accuracy, long-term sequence dependency, and vanishing and exploding gradient in conventional deep architectures. In this paper, we propose an efficient analytics framework, which is technically a progressive machine learning technique merged with Spark-based linear models, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and LSTM, using a two-stage cascade structure in order to enhance the predictive accuracy. Our proposed architecture enables us to organize big data analytics in a scalable and efficient way. To show the effectiveness of our framework, we applied the cascading structure to two different real-life datasets to solve a multiclass and a binary classification problem, respectively. Experimental results show that our analytical framework outperforms state-of-the-art approaches with a high-level of classification accuracy.

ABSTRACT: Heavy metal pollution of the soil environment has become a major source of concern and continues to pose serious health problems to both humans and ecological systems worldwide. Phytoremediation is a biological treatment whereby plants are used to remove pollutant from the environment. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the potential of Melastoma malabathricum as a phytoremediator to absorb heavy metals from soil contaminated with sewage sludge. Melastoma malabathricum seedlings were planted on six different growth media: T0 - Control (100 % soil), T1 (80 % soil + 20 % sewage sludge), T2 (60 % soil + 40 % sewage sludge), T3 (40 % soil + 60 % sewage sludge), T4 (20 % soil + 80 % sewage sludge) and T5 (100 % sludge). There were differences found in both growth parameters and plant biomass. The highest growth performance such as plant height and number of leaves was found in T3. Iron was highly accumulated in the roots, Cu in the stems in T3, while Pb was accumulated in leaves in T5. The results showed the lowest Translocation Factor (TF) and highest Bioconcentration Factor (BCF) values in relation to the following elements: Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn. Melastoma malabathricum roots are able to uptake and translocate the elements into the plant's shoots. Therefore, it can be considered a good accumulator plant due to its capability of concentrating contaminants in aerial tissue. Melastoma malabathricum were thus found to be suitable for absorbing heavy metals in contaminated soils, and this species can also be considered an effective phtyoremediator of contaminated soil and mitigator of soil pollution.

Migraine is one of the most disabling types of headache. It affects 4-6% of men and 13-18% of women; more than 80% of them are under 30 years. Many theories to explain mechanism of migraine are present; role of serum magnesium is one of them. This Cross-sectional analytical study was designed to see serum magnesium level status of migraine patients in Bangladesh and to find out any relation. The study was carried out in Outpatient Department of Neurology of Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, Mymensingh, Bangladesh from July 2017 to September 2018. Seventy (70) patients between 18-60 years of both sexes with headache fulfilling the criteria for migraine were enrolled as migraine group. Patients with headache who did not fulfill the criteria of migraine enrolled as non migraine group. Patients were included in both groups after exclusion of structural lesions, magnesium containing drug intake, pregnancy, menstruation, alcoholism, renal or GIT problems. Serum magnesium levels were studied in both groups and compared with each other. All related factors such as age, sex, family history of migraine, occupation were assessed. Fifty one (51) of 70 patients (72.85%) was female and 19(27.15%) were male in migraine group. Thirty eight (54.28%) of cases were between 18 and 30 years old. Thirty nine (55.71%) of migraine patients had history of similar headache in their family. Severe headache in 51.43% of migraine patients and 30% had more than three attacks per month. Mean serum magnesium level was 1.70 mg/dl in migraine group and 1.85 mg/dl in non migraine group (p=0.001). Serum magnesium level was also lower in severe migraine headache in comparison to mild to moderate headache (p=0.01). No significant difference was found in serum magnesium level compared according to age, sex, frequency of attack and presence or absence of aura. The study concludes that serum magnesium in migraine patients was significantly lower than non migraine group. It was also lower in migraine patient having severe headache in comparison with mild to moderate headache, though in both conditions they were within normal range.