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To reach the Paris Agreement, societies need to increase the global terrestrial carbon sink. There are many climate change mitigation solutions (CCMS) for forests, including increasing bioenergy, bioeconomy, and protection. Bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions use climate-smart, intensive management to generate high quantities of bioenergy and bioproducts. Protection of (semi-)natural forests is a major component of “natural climate solution” (NCS) since forests store carbon in standing biomass and soil. Furthermore, protected forests provide more habitat for biodiversity and non-wood ecosystem services (ES). We investigated the impacts of different CCMS and climate scenarios, jointly or in isolation, on future wood ES, non-wood ES, and regulating ES for a major wood provider for the international market. Specifically, we projected future ES given by three CCMS scenarios for Sweden 2020–2100. In the long term, fulfilling the increasing wood demand through bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions will decrease ES multifunctionality, but the increased stand age and wood stocks induced by rising greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will partially offset these negative effects. Adopting bioenergy and bioeconomy solutions will have a greater negative impact on ES supply than adopting NCS. Bioenergy or bioeconomy solutions, as well as increasing GHG emissions, will reduce synergies and increase trade-offs in ES. NCS, by contrast, increases the supply of multiple ES in synergy, even transforming current ES trade-offs into future synergies. Moreover, NCS can be considered an adaptation measure to offset negative climate change effects on the future supplies of non-wood ES. In boreal countries around the world, forestry strategies that integrate NCS more deeply are crucial to ensure a synergistic supply of multiple ES.

With the sudden upswing in digitization, usage of Android smartphones has evidently become conventional and common. Nevertheless, such extensive popularity of Android systems comes with a major trade-off between usage and security. Time and again, it has been proven that the existence of malicious applications leverage permissions given by the Android systems in order to compromise them. However, there exist certain combinations of permission sets that could potentially lead to such attacks. To address this, we propose a two-layer architecture, where each layer has an implicit handshake with a Machine Learning ensemble model, that aims at vulnerability detection as well as classification of these detected vulnerabilities into one among the three levels of severity – High Risk, Medium Risk and Low Risk. Efficiency of the proposed system has been evaluated against existing Machine Learning based models such as K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Decision Tree Algorithms and Multi-Layered Perceptron (MLP) on an Android Permission-Based Dataset. Results show that our proposed model outperforms the existing approaches, which has been quantitatively evaluated using accuracy and F1-score.

Objectives To study the intraoperative morphology of the glenoid labrum and capsule in recurrent shoulder dislocation and to study the relationship between the number of dislocations and the changes in the glenoid and labrum. Methods Over a period of 18 months, 108 patients with traumatic anterior dislocations were included in the study, of which 102 men and 6 women with mean age of 33.4yrs range from 18 to 45. The patients with bony bankart, other labral lesions, ligamentous laxity, SLAP tear were excluded from the study. All the patients underwent arthroscopic bankart repair. We have classified the morphology of labrum and capsule on their appearance intraoperatively. Labrum is named as Normal, Desiccated or Shredded and Capsule as Normal or Damaged. Results Six varieties of appearances were observed. Namely, Normal capsule and Normal labrum (NN), Normal capsule and Desiccated labrum (ND), Normal capsule and Shredded labrum (NS), Damaged capsule and Normal labrum (DN), Damaged capsule and Desiccated labrum(DD), Damaged capsule and Shredded labrum(DS). Among them, DD (33.3%) and DS (29.6%) variety had highest number of dislocations suggesting the labrum and capsule lose normal anatomy with more recurrence of dislocations. Conclusion These findings support that reproducing normal anatomy after surgical repair is possible when the intervention is done sooner than later. Level of evidence III.

Bioassay of biocontrol agents and fungicides against Maize Banded Leaf and Sheath Blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani showed inhibition. Among the biocontrol agents, Bacillus subtilis and among the fungicides Hexaconazole was found to be effective under field conditions with the percent disease incidence of 2.25% and 3.00% respectively over control 10.45%. Seed treatment (4g/kg) and soil application (2.5kg/ha) of Bacillus subtilis recorded 78.46% reduction in sheath blight incidence and highest grain yield of 6.7t/ha. Foliar spraying of Hexaconazole (0.2%) showed 71.30% reduction and grain yield of 6.4t/ha. Hence, seed treatment and soil application of Bacillus subtilis is considered to be effective against BLSB under field condition. Seed treatment and soil application of Bacillus subtilis, Foliar spraying of Hexaconazole may be recommended for Banded Leaf and Sheath Blight of Maize.

Background: Gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors are rare slow-growing tumors with distinct histological, biological, and clinical characteristics that have increased in incidence and prevalence in the last few decades. This study is aimed to find out the incidence of neuroendocrine tumors among the gastrointestinal tumors and to grade gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors. Materials and Methods: A total of 119 cases of gastrointestinal tumors of gastrointestinal neuroendocrine was included in the study. The paraffin blocks were retrieved and slides were stained with routine Hematoxylin and Eosin, synaptophysin, chromogranin, and Ki67. The histologic grading was done based on mitosis and Ki-67 index as per WHO 2017 classification. Results: Out of 119 cases of Gastrointestinal Tract tumor, 13 (10.92%) constituted neuroendocrine tumors. Duodenum was the most common site (38%) followed by the appendix (23%). The majority (1.9%) of the cases were categorized as of grade 1 followed by 2.3% of grade 2 and 1.19% of grade 3. Immunohistochemically, chromogranin, and synaptophysin were strongly expressed in all ten cases of neuroendocrine tumors. The Ki67 labeling index was 20 % in one case. Conclusions: The incidence of gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors is on the rise. They should be considered in developing a differential diagnosis. Hence use of diagnostic modalities such as immunohistochemistry should be implemented for better treatment.

Exploring the catalytic efficiency of ionic liquid supported on mesoporous material as heterogeneous organ catalysts for example, 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazolium triflate and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazoliu...

The ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) protein kinase is, as the name implies, mutated in the human genetic disorder ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). This protein has its “finger in many pies”, being responsible for the phosphorylation of many thousands of proteins in different signaling pathways in its role in protecting the cell against a variety of different forms of stress that threaten to perturb cellular homeostasis. The classical role of ATM is the protection against DNA damage, but it is evident that it also plays a key role in maintaining cell homeostasis in the face of oxidative and other forms of non-DNA damaging stress. The presence of ATM is not only in the nucleus to cope with damage to DNA, but also in association with other organelles in the cytoplasm, which suggests a greater protective role. This review attempts to address this greater role of ATM in protecting the cell against both external and endogenous damage.

The online presence of organizations is increasing at a rapid pace with the major adaptation of work from home. Organizations have new digital infrastructure being added to their digital portfolio on a regular basis. The threats that organizations face are also increasing at an alarming rate. It is crucial in such a scenario to safeguard and test the new and growing digital infrastructure without causing any interruption to the services provided by these organizations. Through this paper, we would like to inspect six non-intrusive detection methodologies which are useful in the identification of web application vulnerabilities without hampering the organization’s service model. The dataset that was used for real-world analysis consisted of government agencies and reputable organizations. We have assessed these vulnerabilities on the criterion of the statistical probability of finding these vulnerabilities on the dataset. We were able to identify 44 sub-domain takeover vulnerability in 1628 domains (0.02%), 263 cryptographic vulnerabilities (0.17%) and 167 open port vulnerabilities (0.10%) in 1538 domains, and 10,491 GitHub API Leaks were found within 27 organization’s GitHub repository, 3 Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) misconfigurations in 1213 domains (0.002%) and 0 Wayback machine API leaks from 800 domains.

Females are endowed at birth with a fixed reserve of oocytes, which declines both in quantity and quality with advancing age. Understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating oocyte quality is crucial for improving the chances of pregnancy success in fertility clinics. In vitro culture systems enable researchers to analyse important molecular and genetic regulators of oocyte maturation and fertilisation. Here, we describe in detail a highly reproducible technique for the isolation and culture of fully grown mouse oocytes. We include the considerations and precautionary measures required for minimising the detrimental effects of in vitro culture conditions. This technique forms the starting point for a wide range of experimental approaches such as post-transcriptional gene silencing, immunocytochemistry, Western blotting, high-resolution 4D time-lapse imaging, and in vitro fertilization, which are instrumental in dissecting the molecular determinants of oocyte quality. Hence, this protocol serves as a useful, practical guide for any oocyte researcher beginning experiments aimed at investigating important oocyte molecular factors. Graphic abstract: [Image: see text] A step-by-step protocol for the isolation and in vitro culture of oocytes from mice.

Females are endowed at birth with a fixed reserve of oocytes, which declines both in quantity and quality with advancing age. Understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating oocyte quality is crucial for improving the chances of pregnancy success in fertility clinics. In vitro culture systems enable researchers to analyse important molecular and genetic regulators of oocyte maturation and fertilisation. Here, we describe in detail a highly reproducible technique for the isolation and culture of fully grown mouse oocytes. We include the considerations and precautionary measures required for minimising the detrimental effects of in vitro culture conditions. This technique forms the starting point for a wide range of experimental approaches such as post-transcriptional gene silencing, immunocytochemistry, Western blotting, high-resolution 4D time-lapse imaging, and in vitro fertilization, which are instrumental in dissecting the molecular determinants of oocyte quality. Hence, this protocol serves as a useful, practical guide for any oocyte researcher beginning experiments aimed at investigating important oocyte molecular factors. Graphic abstract: A step-by-step protocol for the isolation and in vitro culture of oocytes from mice.

Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the sizzling technology that connects everything to everyone, everywhere. Security and privacy with confidentiality, integrity, and availability to data are among the most pressing challenge faced by IoT as well as the Internet. Networks are getting more expanded and are becoming more open, and security practices has to be uplifted to ensure protection of this rapidly growing Internet, its users, and data. In this paper, we propose a new authentication and access control mechanism for the IoT devices through a blazing blockchain technology, Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source distributed ledger platform for developing enterprise-grade permissioned blockchains. Blockchain is typically a hash-chain of blocks consisting of a number of (ordered) transactions. Fabric provides a secure and scalable permissioned platform with plug-in components that support data privacy and smartcontracts, rather than a permission-less system where anybody can access and transact data. The authentication and access control of the IoT devices is achieved by making use of newly introduced features in managing channel, chaincodes, policies, Certificate Authority (CA), and others in Hyperledger Fabric version 2.0. Our architecture has the potential to act upon different layers of the IoT in authentication and access control safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

Information sharing is the basic necessity for advancement in research works. Information sharing in the existing technology is relied on trusted third parties (TTP). There is a lack of trust for transparency, security, and immutability in these systems because of the participation of TTP. For these issues, the blockchain technology can be used to secure the information sharing in the decentralized network by maximizing the advantages of the decentralized file system (DFS). Blockchain faces serious issues with data privacy, which is an obstacle for the application of the blockchain. This paper introduces the usage of the Shamir’s secret sharing (SSS) system to the blockchain. The proposal resists passive and disguise attacks. The proposed systems with SSS have results with lesser computational time compared to the advanced encryption standard (AES) 128. In non-transactional scenarios, the proposed system is functional and effective.

Premature loss of ovarian activity before 40 years of age is known as primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) and occurs in ∼1% of women. A more subtle decline in ovarian activity, known as premature ovarian ageing (POA), occurs in ∼10% of women. Despite the high prevalence of POA, very little is known regarding its genetic causation. Senataxin (SETX) is an RNA/DNA helicase involved in repair of oxidative stress-induced DNA damage. Homozygous mutation of SETX leads to the neurodegenerative disorder, ataxia oculomotor apraxia type 2 (AOA2). There have been reports of POI in AOA2 females suggesting a link between SETX and ovarian ageing. Here, we studied female mice lacking either one (Setx+/−) or both (Setx−/−) copies of SETX over a 12- to 14-month period. We find that DNA damage is increased in oocytes from 8-month-old Setx+/− and Setx−/− females compared with Setx+/+ oocytes leading to a marked reduction in all classes of ovarian follicles at least 4 months earlier than typically occurs in female mice. Furthermore, during a 12-month long mating trial, Setx+/− and Setx−/− females produced significantly fewer pups than Setx+/+ females from 7 months of age onwards. These data show that SETX is critical for preventing POA in mice, likely by preserving DNA integrity in oocytes. Intriguingly, heterozygous Setx loss causes an equally severe impact on ovarian ageing as homozygous Setx loss. Because heterozygous SETX disruption is less likely to produce systemic effects, SETX compromise could underpin some cases of insidious POA.

An increasing trend to postpone parenthood over the last three decades has intensified the incidence of age-related infertility in the developed world. In women, fertility begins to decline from 30 years of age and subsequently leads to increased risk of miscarriages and birth defects from 35 years onwards. This decline in female fertility is primarily due to depletion of the ovarian reserve of follicles and deterioration of oocyte quality with ageing. Mammalian oocytes remain arrested at dictyate stage of prophase I post-recombination for the entire reproductive life span of a female (lasting up to 50 years in women). This protracted arrest makes oocytes particularly vulnerable to DNA damage by several exogenous and endogenous chemicals that compromise genomic integrity and developmental competence. Cells have evolved several DNA damage response (DDR) and DNA repair mechanisms that function to ensure genomic integrity is maintained throughout their lifespan.Nucleic acid binding proteins (NABPs) form part of a complex molecular signalling network and undergo specific modifications to identify and elicit an apt response that activates cell cycle checkpoints or repair mechanisms. Notably, age-related decline in expression or spontaneous mutations of these genes are associated with several conditions including neurodegenerative diseases and infertility. In this thesis, I study the physiological roles of two such NABPs – Ssb1,2 and Setx in the context of female fertility.In chapter 3, I investigated the roles of single stranded-DNA binding proteins (Ssb1/Nabp2 and Ssb2/Nabp1) using an oocyte-specific knockout mice model. Ssb1 and Ssb2 are known to regulate multiple DNA metabolic processes including transcription, replication and the DDR. While lack of Ssb1 impairs fertility in males, its role in oocyte development and female fertility remains unknown.Here, I found that oocyte-specific deletion of Ssb1 and Ssb2 (Ssb1,2 DKO) causes female infertility in mice. Interestingly, the infertility was not due to widespread elimination of oocytes, but due to defective follicle development and severe impairment of oocyte developmental competence. Specifically, the numbers of dominant pre-ovulatory follicles in Ssb1,2 DKO ovaries were dramatically reduced, with all earlier stages of follicle development remaining intact. Moreover, the majority of oocytes obtained from Ssb1,2 DKO mice were significantly smaller in size, devoid of cumulus cover and were transcriptionally active. Notably, oocyte-secreted factors bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15) and growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF9), known to be responsible for cumulus expansion and ovulation, were severely downregulated both at mRNA transcript as well as protein levels, indicating upstream regulatory control by Ssb1,2.Taken together, these findings establish the importance of Ssb1,2 for the acquisition of oocyte developmental competence and in the maintenance of female fertility in mammalian system by regulating the final phases of oocyte growth and antral follicle development.Next, I investigated the role of Senataxin (SETX) in female fertility. SETX is a putative DNA/RNA helicase that protects genomic integrity against oxidative DNA damage. The absence of Setx causes male infertility due to persistence of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) produced during meiotic recombination, highlighting its important role in DNA repair. Chapter 4 provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of Setx in protecting oocyte genomic integrity during development and ageing using Setx-knockout mice.I found that both the ovarian reserve and oocyte yield were intact in young (2-4 months old) mice. In striking contrast, oocyte yield and ovarian reserve were dramatically reduced in older (6-8 months old) females. This showed that loss of Setx did not have any impact on female fertility whilst young, but subsequently leads to severe depletion of the ovarian reserve with ageing. The declines in ovarian reserve and oocyte yield were accompanied by a significant increase in DSBs in oocytes both at the growing stage in ovarian follicles and at full growth. Further, I found that the increased DSBs in Setx-mutant oocytes was due to an inability to repair DNA damage induced by increasing levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) brought about by ageing. Early ovarian failure and other observations made in the Setx mouse model reflect clinical manifestations reported in patients diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency (POI, previously known as premature ovarian failure), an idiopathic condition that affects 1% of women worldwide. Significantly, POI has been reported in patients suffering from ataxia oculomotor apraxia type 2, a neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutations in SETX gene. Investigation carried out using Setx mouse model not only uncovered SETX as a genetic factor but also provided an insight into the pathogenesis of POI.Increased DNA damage caused severe inhibition of germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) in older Setx-mutant oocytes, indicating the presence of a G2/M DDR checkpoint. This was significant because previous studies investigating the G2/M DDR in fully-grown oocytes have almost always used an in vitro model involving treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs. In these previous studies, DNA-intact oocytes isolated from antral follicles were subjected to severe short-lived treatment (1-3 h) with genotoxic agents. Despite incurring severe DNA damage, these oocytes enter M-phase with minimal disruption, showing that fully-grown oocytes are unable to mount an immediate G2/M DDR checkpoint. In vitro studies focusing on the immediate G2/M DDR checkpoint primarily investigated the activation of the canonical phosphorylation pathway mediated by the master kinases ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM)/ ataxia-telangiectasia and Rad 3 related (ATR). However, in chapter 5, using Setx-mutant oocytes and a commonly used chemotherapeutic drug, etoposide, I found that fully-grown oocytes could respond to DNA damage which has been present for several hours. I also identified that this DDR that took longer to evolve, involved anaphase promoting complex (APC)-Cdh1 (APC-Cdh1) mediated proteolysis of cyclin B1, a co-activator of the master M-phase kinase cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (Cdk1). This shows that fully-grown oocytes can mount a strong non-canonical DDR checkpoint at the G2/M boundary in response to persistent damage. Overall, the outcomes of this thesis have demonstrated novel roles of NABPs in regulating gene expression and genomic integrity that contribute to oocyte development and maintenance of female fertility. Persistent DNA damage observed in the Setx-/- model also aided in the identification of a novel G2/M DDR mechanism. This is significant because oocytes that ovulate in middle-aged women are prone to increased DNA damage that may have accumulated over the span of ~3-4 decades. Hence this model of persistent DNA damage better reflects the physiological scenario and deepens our understanding of how oocytes marshal threats to their genomic integrity.

In general, Cloud storage is considered as a distributed model. Here, the data is usually stored on remote servers to properly maintain, back up and make it accessible to clients over a network, whenever required. Cloud storage providers keep the data and processes to oversee it on capacity servers based on secure virtualization methods. A security framework is proposed for auditing the cloud data, which makes use of the proposed blockchain technology. This ensures to efficiently maintain the data integrity. The blockchain structure inspects the mutation of operational information and thereby ensures the data security. Usually, the data auditing scheme is widely used in a Third Party Auditor (TPA), which is a centralized entity that the client is forced to trust, even if the credibility is not guaranteed. To avoid the participation of TPA, a decentralised scheme is suggested, where it uses a smart contract for auditing the cloud data. The working of smart contracts is based on blockchain. Ethereum is used to deploy a smart contract thereby eliminating the need of a foreign source in the data auditing process.

Using an in vivo model of DNA damage involving Senataxin knockout mice along with in vitrogenotoxic treatments, Subramanian et al. identify a DNA damage response in oocytes that builds slowly following damage induction and is mediated by increased APC-Cdh1–mediated cyclin B1 proteolysis., In mitotic cells, DNA damage induces temporary G2 arrest via inhibitory Cdk1 phosphorylation. In contrast, fully grown G2-stage oocytes readily enter M phase immediately following chemical induction of DNA damage in vitro, indicating that the canonical immediate-response G2/M DNA damage response (DDR) may be deficient. Senataxin (Setx) is involved in RNA/DNA processing and maintaining genome integrity. Here we find that mouse oocytes deleted of Setx accumulate DNA damage when exposed to oxidative stress in vitro and during aging in vivo, after which, surprisingly, they undergo G2 arrest. Moreover, fully grown wild-type oocytes undergo G2 arrest after chemotherapy-induced in vitro damage if an overnight delay is imposed following damage induction. Unexpectedly, this slow-evolving DDR is not mediated by inhibitory Cdk1 phosphorylation but by APC-Cdh1–mediated proteolysis of the Cdk1 activator, cyclin B1, secondary to increased Cdc14B-dependent APC-Cdh1 activation and reduced Emi1-dependent inhibition. Thus, oocytes are unable to respond immediately to DNA damage, but instead mount a G2/M DDR that evolves slowly and involves a phosphorylation-independent proteolytic pathway.

BACKGROUND In adult epilepsy patients, nonadherence to treatment regimes has been found to be associated with high morbidity, raised mortality and higher health care costs. The present study was undertaken with an aim to evaluate the medication compliance among patients undergoing treatment for epilepsy and study the factors affecting medication compliance. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present study was carried out as a cross sectional study among 100 patients diagnosed with seizure disorders who are already on treatment for a period of at least six months. Drug noncompliance was studied with the help a self-reported questionnaire which was derived from the Brief Medication Questionnaire. The items in the questionnaire recorded information regarding: awareness of drug therapy in terms of dose, timings and name of the drugs, missed medication, factors affecting compliance, aids to compliance, frequency of drug default and relapse. All data was entered in Epidata and statistical analysis was done using the software SPSS version 22.0. Chi square test was applied to test for statistical significance in difference between proportions. A p value

The growth rate of most tree species in boreal forests will increase with changing climate. This increase is counterbalanced by an increased risk of damage due to extreme weather events. It is beli...

Background: Tuberculous, parapneumonic and traumatic loculated pleural-effusions pose therapeutic challenges due to resultant pleural-thickening and compromised lung-function for life. Tuberculosis is widely prevalent in developing countries, necessitating appropriate, effective, and economical treatment for loculated pleural-effusion to reduce the burden and sequelae. Objective: An uncontrolled and blind before-after intervention study to determine the effectiveness of intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy (IPFT) using urokinase in loculated pleural effusions was conducted at a tertiary-care respiratory center after obtaining approval and written informed consent. Methods: Fifty-one patients with loculated pleural effusion were administered with repeated cycles of three doses of 1 Lakh IU of urokinase intrapleurally until complete drainage of pleural fluid. Pre- and post-IPFT clinical and radiological responses were compared using removal of fluid, ultrasound, and chest radiography were compared. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and paired t test with significance at a P value less than 0.05 were applied to test statistically significant differences in proportions and means, respectively. Results: Tuberculosis was the most common etiology leading to loculated pleural effusion (80%), and 82.4% of tuberculosis patients required at least two cycles of IPFT. Complete resolution in chest radiograph after IPFT was observed in 80.4% of patients. Chest pain (13.7%) and fever (9.8%) were the most common undesired effects associated with IPFT. A statistically significant reduction in mean intrapleural fluid levels pre- and post-IPFT from 184±81 ml to 67±52 ml was observed. Conclusion: IPFT with urokinase is an effective treatment modality in patients with post-tubercular loculated pleural effusions. IPFT has minimal and tolerable undesired effects and prevents sequelae such as pleural thickening and consequent compromise of respiratory function.

New mortality models were developed for the purpose of improving long-term growth and yield simulations in Finland, Norway, and Sweden and were based on permanent national forest inventory plots from Sweden and Norway. Mortality was modelled in two steps. The first model predicts the probability of survival, while the second model predicts the proportion of basal area in surviving trees for plots where mortality has occurred. In both models, the logistic function was used. The models incorporate the variation in prediction period length and in plot size. Validation of both models indicated unbiased mortality rates with respect to various stand characteristics such as stand density, average tree diameter, stand age, and the proportion of different tree species, Scots pine ( L.), Norway spruce ( (L.) Karst.), and broadleaves. When testing against an independent dataset of unmanaged spruce-dominated stands in Finland, the models provided unbiased prediction with respect to stand age.Pinus sylvestrisPicea abies