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Vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily. It is a primary regulator of calcium and phosphate homeostasis required for skeleton and bone mineralization. Vitamin D in active form 1α,25 dihydroxyvitamin-D3 mediates its cellular functions by binding to VDR. Active VDR forms heterodimers with partner RXR (retinoid X receptor) to execute its physiological actions. HVDRR (Hereditary Vitamin D-Resistant Rickets) is a rare genetic disorder that occurs because of generalized resistance to the 1α,25(OH)

Introduction: Thyroid nodules are common and are commonly benign. The reported prevalence of nodular thyroid disease depends on the population studied and the methods used to detect nodules. Numerous studies suggest a prevalence of 2-6% with palpation, 19-35% with ultrasound, and 8-65% in autopsy data. Aims and objectives: To evaluate diagnostic reliability of ultrasound morphological criteria (ACR-TIRADS system) and elastographyin differentiating benign from malignant thyroid nodules in patients using cytopathology or histopathology as gold standard. Materials and methods: Prospective observational study, Patients visiting LLR (Hallet) Hospital with clinically suspicious thyroid nodule, LLR (Hallet) Hospital, GSVM Medical College, Jan 2019 to Oct 2020. Result: Showing distribution of composition of nodules in our study subjects Maximum nodules have mixed solid cystic composition . Showing distribution of echogenicity of nodules in our study subjects. Maximum nodules in our study have to hyperechoic echogenicity. Showing distribution of margin of nodules in our study subjects. Maximum nodules in our study have ill dened margin. Conclusion: In conclusion, no single investigation was found to be 100% sensitive or specic in diagnosing malignancy in nodular goiter but a good clinical, FNAC and USG examinations are complimentary to each other in predicting malignancy and avoid unnecessary or inadequate surgery.

Oncology is that area of medicine where patients are usually treated intravenously. Researchers are trying to find alternative drug delivery methods of anticancer drugs due to the pain associated with conventional drug delivery methods. Studies estimate that a majority of patients (up to 89%) prefer oral anticancer medications to traditional IV fluid or injection therapies when available. Better patient compliance, tolerability, reduced cost; greatest safety and possible increased efficacy are the main reasons for increased attention towards oral delivery of anti-cancer drugs. But oral bioavailability of this class is limited because of its idiosyncratic physicochemical properties and biological barriers such as pre-systemic metabolism and gastrointestinal instability. The various challenges to oral delivery of anticancer drugs are discussed extensively in this paper including peculiar physicochemical properties, biological barriers and adverse drug-drug interactions. Further, the emerging innovations in addressing the challenges to oral delivery of anticancer drugs are discussed. These mainly include absorption enhancers and nanocarriers based drug delivery systems.

A large section of cellular proteins in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems have oligomeric property. Intently, oligomerization of protein is an invaluable phenomenon from the point of view of protein evolution. This review comprises an overview on modulation of protein oligomerization. The comprehensive modulation of protein oligomerization can be supportive for effective drug designing in the future. The common mechanisms of protein oligomerization are domain swapping and ligand induced dimerization. Infrequent mechanism of protein oligomerization involves point mutations at the dimer interface, post-translational modification and insertion/deletion at the interface. Predominantly, ligand induced oligomerization is the most useful method to regulate the protein oligomerization that can act as a modulator. Thus, functional modulation of oligomeric proteins can be done, both in-vitro and in-vivo, using various artificial and natural modulators, respectively. Though, the biophysical methods, like microscopy and spectroscopy, have strong potential to characterize the oligomeric proteins. Oligomeric proteins can be characterized biochemically too. Hence, this review illustrates the regulation of protein oligomerization using several modulators, in the future, these can be used for effective drug designing to cure several diseases associated with oligomeric proteins.

Biogenic synthesis of silver nanoparticles synthesized from Hymenocallis species (Spider Lilly) leaf extract was subjected for investigation of its antimicrobial property against four bacterial species (E. coli, Salmonella sp., Streptococcus sp. & Staphylococcus sp.). The results revealed that synthesized nanoparticles solution very much justify the color change property from initial light yellow to final reddish brown during the synthesis producing a characteristics absorption peak in the range of 434-466 nm. As antimicrobial agents, their efficacy was evaluated by analysis of variance in between the species and among the different concentration of AgNPs solution, which clearly showed that there was significant variation in the antibiotic property between the four different concentrations of AgNPs solution and also among four different species of bacteria taken under studies. However, silver nanoparticles solution of 1: 9 and 1:4 were proved comparatively more efficient as antimicrobial agents against four species of bacteria.

Disability has been the inescapable part of human society from ancient times. With the thrust of disability right movements and development in field of disability studies, the mythical past of disability is worthy to study. Classic Indian Scriptures mention differently able character in prominent positions. There is a faulty opinion about Indian mythology is that they associate disability chiefly with evil characters. Hunch backed Manthara from Ramayana and limping legged Shakuni from Mahabharata are negatively stereotyped characters. This paper tries to analyze that these characters were guided by their motives of revenge, loyalty and acted more as dramatic devices to bring crucial changes in plot. The deities of lord Jagannath in Puri is worshipped , without limbs, neck and eye lids which strengthens the notion that disability is an occasional but all binding phenomena in human civilization. The social model of disability brings forward the idea that the only disability is a bad attitude for the disabled as well as the society. In spite of his abilities Dhritrashtra did face discrimination because of his blindness. The presence of characters like sage Ashtavakra and Vamanavtar of Lord Vishnu indicate that by efforts, bodily limitations can be transcended.

Now a day’s cancer is one of the main decreases in all over the world. Several peoples have died in a day. According to the survey conducted by the US government, 40000 people died in 2012 only due to breast cancer. Cancer decease is classified into four types named type 1, type 2, type 3 and type 4. A previous survey that if cancer is detected in the early stage (i.e., type 1 and type 2) then only it can be procuring. But most of the time cancer is detected in the third and fourth stage. Due to this reason cancer detection in the early stage is one of the favorite areas of the researcher. In the past few decades, several machine learning approach has been used by various researchers. Cancer detection is a classification approach where the main aim is to find the cancer stage in the early stage. There are several classification approaches that can be used in cancer detection. This paper discusses the comparative analysis of some of the existing cancer detection approaches.

Background: Coronavirus disease 19 was first reported in Wuhan, China and it was declared a pandemic by WHO in March 12, 2020. Vaccination has provided a very effective way to prevent the spread and reduce the severity of this disease. The two vaccines currently approved by the Government of India are Covaxin and Covishield. HRCT is the most valuable tool available to assess the pulmonary involvement in this disease. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of vaccination on the severity of pulmonary involvement in COVID-19. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a department of radio diagnosis of tertiary health care hospital of Bihar for period of 4 months from April 2021 to July 2021.Results: The study involved a total of 100 patients (74 were males and 26 females), where 50 were (50%) were unvaccinated and 50 (28.6%) were vaccinated with one or both doses Covishield vaccine. The frequency of disease was least in 14 (7.9%) among fully vaccinated subjects. The CT severity score is less in those who took both doses of the vaccine. The mean CT score of all the patients included in the study was 12.64±11.1. However, the patients who received complete vaccination had significantly low mean CT scores (14.18±7.223) in comparison to the non-vaccinated patients (11.1±6.016). Fully vaccinated patients had almost low CT severity score indicating mild form of disease.Conclusions: HRCT is the most sensitive modality to detect severity of COVID-19 pneumonia. Severe lung involvement is more common in the unvaccinated population (32%) as compared with the vaccinated group, in which only 25% members had severe lung involvement.

The majority of patients with advanced metastatic gynecological malignancies are difficult to treat, yet few patients respond exceptionally well to standard anticancer treatment as compared to others. These patients are termed as exceptional responders. Exceptional or super-responders to cancer drugs have been described in the literature. However, there is paucity of the literature regarding the exact mechanism behind such responses. Further research is needed to determine whether these responses are secondary to anticancer treatment or reflect underlying biology of the patient. The present article describes two such patients of advanced malignancies who showed extra ordinary response to standard treatment as compared to outcome data reported regarding similar cases in the literature. We describe two rare malignancies of advanced stage in terms of clinical characteristics, tumor type, extent of disease and stage of tumor, histopathological and immunohistochemical type, multimodality treatment received, depth of response and duration of response to the present treatment. The immunophenotypic and clinicopathologic features exhibited in this small series of cases are described to call attention to early diagnosis and prompt treatment of such cases for better outcome. Further research in this regard would unravel the mechanisms behind such responses and enable better management of advanced malignancies. It would also lead to new understandings of the basic tumor biology and help us to move closer to the goal of precision oncology

To compare the anatomical and functional outcomes of drainage through posterior retinotomy versus perfluorocarbon liquid (PFCL)-assisted drainage in vitreoretinal surgery for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment and to study intraoperative and postoperative complications.This was a prospective randomized study of 52 cases who underwent vitreoretinal surgery for rhegmatogenous retinal detachment. Group 1 underwent PFCL-assisted drainage through preexisting break, whereas Group 2 had posterior retinotomy to drain subretinal fluid. Cases were evaluated for retinal reattachment rates, visual outcomes, optical coherence tomography parameters, and postoperative metamorphopsia. The patients were followed up for minimum period of 3 months.Two groups were comparable in terms of demographic and preoperative parameters. Both groups had single surgery success rate of 100% by the end of follow-up. Final best-corrected visual acuity in Group 1 was 0.61 ± 0.33 and 0.61 ± 0.32 in Group 2 (P = 0.77). Optical coherence tomography parameters (foveal contour, retinal layers, central macular thickness, and epiretinal membrane formation) were similar between the two groups. Subjective metamorphopsia was present in 30.77% (8 of 26) patients in Group-1 and 69.23% (18 of 26) patients in Group-2 (P = 0.034). One eye had retained subretinal PFCL away from the macula in Group 1.Anatomical and functional outcomes were similar in vitrectomy using PFCL-assisted drainage versus posterior retinotomy drainage. Postoperative metamorphopsia was lesser in patients who underwent PFCL-assisted drainage through the pre-existing break.

Continuing on our antiviral drug discovery research, we intended to diversify our lead anti-HIV-1 inhibitor by non-classical isosteric replacement of amide to 1,2,4-oxadiazoles. The resulting molecules isoxazole-1,2,4-oxadiazole analogs were synthesized using mild bases in ethanol under microwave irradiation. The anti-HIV potential was checked in human CD4

Stem cell therapies are becoming increasingly popular solutions for neurological disorders. However, there is a lower survival rate of these cells after transplantation. Oxidative stress is linked to brain damage, and it may also impact transplanted stem cells. To better understand how transplanted cells respond to oxidative stress, the current study used H2O2. We briefly illustrated that exogenous H2O2 treatment exaggerated oxidative stress in the human dental pulp and mesenchymal stem cells. 2′,7′-Dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCFDA), MitoSOX confirms the reactive oxygen species (ROS) involvement, which was remarkably subsided by the ROS inhibitors. The findings showed that H2O2 activates autophagy by enhancing pro-autophagic proteins, Beclin1 and Atg7. Increased LC3II/I expression (which co-localized with lysosomal proteins, LAMP1 and Cathepsin B) showed that H2O2 treatment promoted autophagolysosome formation. In the results, both Beclin1 and Atg7 were observed co-localized in mitochondria, indicating their involvement in mitophagy. The evaluation of Erk1/2 in the presence and absence of Na-Pyruvate, PEG-Catalase, and PD98059 established ROS-Erk1/2 participation in autophagy regulation. Further, these findings showed a link between apoptosis and autophagy. The results conclude that H2O2 acts as a stressor, promoting autophagy and mitophagy in stem cells under oxidative stress. The current study may help understand better cell survival and death approaches for transplanted cells in various neurological diseases. The current study uses human Dental Pulp and Mesenchymal Stem cells to demonstrate the importance of H2O2-driven autophagy in deciding the fate of these cells in an oxidative microenvironment. To summarise, we discovered that exogenous H2O2 treatment causes oxidative stress. Exogenous H2O2 treatment also increased ROS production, especially intracellular H2O2. H2O2 stimulated the ErK1/2 signaling pathway and autophagy. Erk1/2 was found to cause autophagy. Further, the function of mitophagy appeared to be an important factor in the H2O2-induced regulation of these two human stem cell types. In a nutshell, by engaging in autophagy nucleation, maturation, and terminal phase proteins, we elucidated the participation of autophagy in cell dysfunction and death.

The current study aimed to achieve the enhanced phytase production from Aspergillus niger NT7 using the statistical method in solid-state fermentation to diminish their cost significantly for commercial purposes. The six different variables — the substrate’s amount, temperature, incubation time, pH, the concentration of mannitol, and ammonium sulfate — identified as critical parameters from the one variable at a time (OVAT) approach, were further modeled and optimized in solid-state fermentation using response surface methodology (RSM). Increased phytase production (521 ± 28.16 Ugds−1) by RSM was attained with 5-g wheat bran supplemented with 2% mannitol, 0.5% ammonium sulfate, and pH 4.3 at 35 °C after five days of fermentation. The phytase production was enhanced by 6.8- and 2.5-fold after statistical optimization compared to unoptimized culture conditions and OVAT methodology, respectively. Further, dephytinization of maize bran using crude phytase preparation resulted in ameliorated nutritional status with the release of phosphorous, reducing sugars, proteins, and minerals (Mn, Fe, Mg, Zn, and Ca). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing the nutritional enhancement of maize bran and the analysis of released minerals by ICP-MS using crude enzyme preparation. The current study successfully demonstrates the potential application of A. niger NT7 phytase for mitigating the antinutrient nature of phytate molecules in feed supplementation.

Lichens show mutualistic relationship between algae/cyanobacteria and fungi and are found in diverse environmental conditions ranging from sea levels to high alpine elevations. They can tolerate and survive in harsh environmental conditions such as habitats having low temperature, desiccation, high temperature and ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Lichens have developed several photoprotective mechanisms such as light scattering, radiation screening, activation of antioxidants and macromolecules, thermal dissipation, membrane repair and synthesis of UV protective compounds such as despides, diphenyl ether, xanthones, anthraquinones, mycosporines, mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) and scytonemin to cope up with damaging UVR. MAAs are water-soluble molecules that absorb short wavelength solar UVR and disperse the energy as heat. Scytonemin is a small hydrophobic alkaloid pigment present in the extracellular sheath of several cyanobacteria as a protective mechanism against UVR. In the present study, bioprospection of lichen was done for screening of UV-absorbing compounds MAAs and scytonemin from different regions of Sikkim, India. Tentative identification and partial purification of these compounds was done with the help of high-performance liquid chromatography. Scytonemin showed absorption maxima at 252, 278, 385 nm and peaks at 347 and 410 nm showed the presence of scytonemin-3a-imine and gloeocapsin respectively. MAAs showed absorption maxima at 325.1 and 308 nm corresponding to mycosporine-NMA:Ser and mycosporine-taurine respectively. Scytonemin and MAAs display multiple roles, functioning as a potent UV-sunscreen and antioxidant molecules, and can be exploited in cosmetic and other industries for the development of novel drugs and pharmaceuticals, hence their bioprospection from different sources becomes crucial

Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy and other medications are employed to treat various types of cancer. However, each treatment has its own set of side effects, owing to its low specificity. As a result, there is an urgent need for newer therapeutics that do not disrupt healthy cells' normal functioning. Depriving nutrient or non/semi-essential amino acids to which cancerous cells are auxotrophic remains one such promising anticancer strategy. L-Arginine (Arg) is a semi-essential vital amino acid involved in versatile metabolic processes, signaling pathways, and cancer cell proliferation. Hence, the administration of Arg depriving enzymes (ADE) such as arginase, arginine decarboxylase (ADC), and arginine deiminase (ADI) could be effective in cancer therapy. The Arg auxotrophic cancerous cells like hepatocellular carcinoma, human colon cancer, leukemia, and breast cancer cells are sensitive to ADE treatment due to low expression of crucial enzymes argininosuccinate synthetase (ASS), argininosuccinate lyase (ASL), and ornithine transcarbamylase (OCT). These therapeutic enzyme treatments induce cell death through inducing autophagy, apoptosis, generation of oxidative species, i.e., oxidative stress, and arresting the progression and expansion of cancerous cells at certain cell cycle checkpoints. The enzymes are undergoing clinical trials and could be successfully exploited as potential anticancer agents in the future.

Neonatal thrombocytopenia is one of the common haematological problems encountered in neonatal intensive care unit. Severe neonatal thrombocytopenia is defined as a platelet count 3/µl and is relatively uncommon. Based on the time-of-onset, neonatal thrombocytopenia can be categorized into early-onset (72 h after birth) thrombocytopenia. Neonatal autoimmune thrombocytopenia should be considered in any neonate who has early-onset thrombocytopenia and a maternal history of either immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) or an autoimmune disease (with or without thrombocytopenia). A term male baby, born to a 23-year-old primi-gravida with ITP was found to be thrombocytopenic at birth (platelets-85×103/µl) without any sign of neonatal sepsis. On serial monitoring, platelet counts kept falling and on day 3, the child developed severe thrombocytopenia (platelets-6.5×103/µl). No obvious signs of bleeding were present and the child was clinically well. Given the history of maternal thrombocytopenia (likely ITP), a possibility of neonatal autoimmune thrombocytopenia was considered. Owing to the risk of massive bleed, the baby was transfused random donor platelets and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) was started on day 3. Thereafter, the platelets showed an increasing trend and child was discharged on day 7 with a platelet count of 170×103/µl. However, on follow-up platelet count was again found to be low (84×103/µl). It normalised subsequently, without any further requirement of IVIg. High index of suspicion, immediate work-up and diagnosis, with close monitoring and prompt management is required to prevent hemorrhagic complications in such children. Counselling for risk of thrombocytopenia in future pregnancies should be provided to parents.

The 1, 5-benzothiazepine derivatives are of particular interest for lead discovery since they have been found active against different families of targets.1,5-Benzothaizepines representatives of benzologs of 1,4-thiazepine and one of the three possible benzo-condensed derivatives, i.e. the 1,5-benzothiazepines are useful compounds in the drug research which has stimulated the invention of a wide range of synthetic methods for their preparation and chemical transformations. 1,5-Benzothiazepine and its derivatives exhibit diverse biological activities such as tranquilizer, antidepressant, antihypertensive, calcium channel blocker, antimicrobial, anticancer, antifungal, anthelmintic, anti-diabetic, amyloid imagining agents and anticancer agents. This review also discusses the structure-activity relationship of the most potent compounds. It can act as an important tool for medicinal chemists to develop newer compounds possessing 1, 5-benzothiazepines moiety that could be better agents in terms of efficacy and safety.

The exponential increase in demand for energy globally has created an urge to increase the production and its efficient supply. Microgrids are one such solution to meet the energy needs of a growing population. Microgrids are stand-alone distributed systems [DS] which are based on renewable energy for better environmental stability. These are highly reliable and cheap, hence are widely being used. With an increase in the popularity of microgrids, the increasing need for effective monitoring and control of the grids is required. This can be achieved through state estimation [SE]. This brings out the need for distributed system state estimation [DSSE]. One of the ways to perform DSSE is through Kalman filter [KF]. This paper focuses on Kalman filter and its variants. The authors move further to discuss all the possible ways to use the variants and to compare them to suggest the ideal filter for various requirements.

Aquatic ecosystems comprise the largest portion (~72%) of the biosphere and play a crucial role in stabilizing the global climate as well as providing a large array of services for a fast-growing human population. Nowadays, there is a growing amount of data that prove that many anthropogenic pollutants from agricultural, urban and industrial wastes are dumped in the aquatic ecosystems and accumulate in many environments, including the habitats of marine and freshwater cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria, as a natural part of phytoplankton assemblages, are known for their role as dominant primary producers and base of aquatic food webs. These microorganisms are continuously exposed to various concentrations of the pollutants that are present in their habitats and affect cyanobacterial communities at different levels such as abundance, growth strategies, succession patterns and dominance. Even if no direct changes in cyanobacterial communities are visible, the pollutants may accumulate in cyanobacteria and be passed onto higher trophic levels in a cascading manner, resulting in biomagnifications of certain pollutants. The most common pollutants in aquatic ecosystems are heavy metals, herbicides, pesticides, nutrients, pharmaceuticals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and microplastics. It is important to determine their concentrations in cyanobacterial cells and in their environment to know the possibility of contaminants that might be transferred to higher trophic levels. However, some strains of cyanobacteria are capable of metabolizing these pollutants that makes them less toxic or sometimes they even remove pollutants from the environment. This chapter highlights the toxic effects of different types of pollution (both point sources and non-point sources) on cyanobacterial communities in aquatic habitats. The anthropocentric concept of “pollution” and the links between pollution, eutrophication and harmful algal blooms (HABs) are also analyzed. An understanding of the synergistic interactions between these aspects and climate change effects will be useful to devise suitable remediation strategies for future use.

Background and aimPreterm birth is one of the major cause of neonatal death in the developing countries and environmental factors are playing vital role in pre term birth. Nowadays Machine learning techniques are very useful for finding the hidden factors and classifications. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the importance of machine learning classification models and to identify the significant environmental factors behind pre-term birth.MethodWe have used 90 pregnant mothers, of whom 40 are preterm and 50 are full-term births. We have checked the model accuracy of the dataset through logistic regression and decision tree classifier model.ResultsThe comparative outcome of the logistic and decision tree model reveals that logistic regression is stronger in terms of metrics (precision = 0.92, F1-score = 0.96 and AUROC = 0.97), while the weak result shows by the decision tree (precision = 0.75, F1-score = 0.86 and AUROC = 0.87).ConclusionsThe conclusion shows that logistic regression is more appropriate as compare to decision tree classification model in the preterm birth data. The most influential factors for preterm birth are variables like α -HCH, total HCH and MDA (Malondialdehyde).

The Midday meal is a program run by the Government of India. It is planned to strengthen the nutritional level of school-age children. The program encourages attendance in the school nationwide. The government of India reviews the mission on the Midday meal program, comprising members from the central government, state government, UNICEF, and the Supreme Court commissioner. But the management of the existing program has some limitations. It is based on the traditional way of keeping records of the students which can be manipulated. Delay in payment to various schools enrolled with this program is also seen over time. This paper proposes a model to strengthen the management of the existing Midday meal program using the smart contract in the Ethereum environment of blockchain. Decentralization, transparency, and immutability are the three prime features that have helped in overcoming the loopholes of the existing Midday meal management program. Our main purpose is to remove the intermediaries and to bring transparency and trust in the existing system using blockchain. The smart contract here shows how to improve authenticity, efficiency and bring transparency among schools and concerned government authorities in the whole Midday meal management program.

The adoption of an efficient approach for tuning inertia weight is one of the most effective methods of improving the performance of particle swarm optimization (PSO). Recently, the introduction of the modulation index in the nonlinearly decreasing inertia weight enhances the convergence characteristics of PSO. Economic load dispatch (ELD) is a famous optimization problem, and it is effectively solved by PSO with certain advantages. In this paper, influences of modulation index on PSO have been presented for ELD problem of IEEE 5, 14, and 30 bus systems. The minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation of generation cost, average power loss, average iteration, and average computational time of 20 trial runs for ten different values of modulation index are computed using MATLAB program. The simulation results conclude that the value of modulation index 0.8, 0.4, and 1.8 provides high-quality solutions for IEEE 5, 14, and 30 bus systems, respectively.

With the introduction of parametric types in Java, the type system becomes more complex to handle. The Java generics requires more programming efforts to instantiate appropriate types. In such a situation, a sound type inference algorithm may reduce programming load and ensure safety. Java type inference algorithm has eased programming efforts by reducing explicit instantiation of types. The Java type inference algorithm is being expanded. Still, the impact of inference in mainstream programming is limited. Moreover, the unsound approach for inference causes unpredictable behavior in program code. The limitations and unsoundness of Java type inference need to be discussed to avoid the failure of codes. In this paper, we discuss limitations and issues of type inference algorithm, such as the incapability to infer wildcards as return type in generic methods, and limitations of local variable type inference. Further, we discuss how the machine learning approaches can help to develop a safe type inference algorithm.

Identification of protective antigens for designing a high-efficacy tuberculosis vaccine is the need of the hour. Till date only 7% of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome has been explored for discovering antigens capable of activating T-cell responses. Therefore, it becomes crucial to screen the remaining Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome for more immunodominant T-cell epitopes. An extensive knowledge of the epitopes recognized by our immune system can aid this process of finding potential T cell antigens for development of a better TB vaccine. In the present in-silico study, 237 proteins belonging to the 'virulence, detoxification, and adaptation' category of Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteome were targeted for T-cell epitope screening. 50825 MHC Class I and 49357 MHC Class II epitopes were generated using NetMHC3.4 and IEDB servers respectively and tested for their antigenicity and cytokine stimulation. The highest antigenic epitopes were analyzed for their world population coverage and epitope conservancy. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies were performed to corroborate the binding affinities and structural stability of the peptide-MHC complexes. We predicted a total of 3 MHC Class I (ILLKMCWPA, FAVGMNVYV, and SLAGNSAKV) and 7 MHC Class II (DLTIGFFLHIPFPPV, RPDLTIGFFLHIPFP, LTIGFFLHIPFPPVE, VLVFALVVALVYLQF, LVFALVVALVYLQFR, PNLVAARFIQLTPVY, and LVLVFALVVALVYLQ) epitopes that can be promising vaccine candidates. These predicted epitopes belong to 6 distinct proteins: Rv0169 (mce1a), Rv3490 (ostA), Rv3496 (mce4D), Rv1085c, Rv0563 (HtpX), Rv3497c (mce4C). All these proteins are expressed at different stages in the life cycle of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and thus, the predicted epitopes could be employed as candidates for designing a multistage-multiepitopic vaccine.

Objective The main objective of this paper is to compare the performance of logistic regression and decision tree classification methods and to find the significant environment determinants that causes pre-term birth. Design, setting and population Between 2017 to 2018, 90 pregnant females underwent birth outcome followed by research staff at our institutions, out of those 50 are full-term and 40 are preterm births in this study. Method Before and after feature selection logistic regression and decision tree classifier model has been compared in this dataset and to evaluate the model accuracy. Main outcome measures Preforming the accuracy of machine learning classification model and important factors on pre-term birth. Results: Using chi-square test and find the Area of residence and GSH, MDA, α-HCH, total HCH and total DDT are responsible for the preterm birth. Using the multiple logistic regression, pre term birth was associated with MDA and α-HCH (95% CI 0.04 to 0.48 and 95% CI 0.82 to 0.97). The logistic and decision tree model comparison result shows that logistic regression is better in terms of metrics (precision = 0.92, F1-score = 0.96 and AUROC = 0.97), while decision tree performs the poor (precision = 0.75, F1-score = 0.86 and AUROC = 0.87). Conclusions The logistic regression is accurate model to predict the pre-term as compare to decision tree method. The variables like α-HCH , total HCH and MDA (Malondialdehyde) are the most influential factors for preterm birth.