Molecular characterisation of membrane glycoprotein and 5b protein of nephropathogenic infectious bronchitis virus

Background: Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) affects the upper respiratory tract and the reproductive tract, and some strainscan cause nephritis. Large number of serotypes and genotypes of the virus have been identified and for the most part do notcross-protect. Identifying the genotype or serotype of IBV field strains is empirical for selecting an appropriate candidate toserve as vaccine strain for prevention of infectious bronchitis (IB) disease in chickens. The variant strains of IBV could becirculating among chickens in India and recently nephropathogenic IB was reported. Hence, the present work was aimed tocarry out molecular characterization of nephropathogenic IBV isolates obtained from two different geographical locations ofsouth India, involving relatively conserved regions.Materials and Methods: MIBVPCR and NIBVPCR primers were used to amplify partial M and N gene after synthesizingcDNA. Isolates Ind/KA/07/1 and Ind/TN/07/2 were subjected to direct sequencing as these two isolates are two differentgeographical regions and scored better in induction of lesions during pathotyping.Results: Amino acids of membrane glycoprotein varied on five occasions for the isolate Ind/KA/07/1 when aligned with thatof M 41 strain and isolate Ind/TN/07/2. Eight amino acids of both isolates in 5b protein were different from that of M41 strain.Few point mutations, short deletions and insertions were noticed in the amplified genome, based on the membrane proteinnucleotide sequence comparison.Conclusion: Prevalence of IBV strains with few modifications in conserved regions indicated that there was presence ofvariant IBVin south India

Protocolised non-invasive compared with invasive weaning from mechanical ventilation for adults in intensive care : the Breathe RCT

Background: Invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) is a life-saving intervention. Following resolution of the condition that necessitated IMV, a spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) is used to determine patient readiness for IMV discontinuation. In patients who fail one or more SBTs, there is uncertainty as to the optimum management strategy. Objective: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of using non-invasive ventilation (NIV) as an intermediate step in the protocolised weaning of patients from IMV. Design: Pragmatic, open-label, parallel-group randomised controlled trial, with cost-effectiveness analysis. Setting: A total of 51 critical care units across the UK. Participants: Adult intensive care patients who had received IMV for at least 48 hours, who were categorised as ready to wean from ventilation, and who failed a SBT. Interventions: Control group (invasive weaning): patients continued to receive IMV with daily SBTs. A weaning protocol was used to wean pressure support based on the patient’s condition. Intervention group (non-invasive weaning): patients were extubated to NIV. A weaning protocol was used to wean inspiratory positive airway pressure, based on the patient’s condition. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was time to liberation from ventilation. Secondary outcome measures included mortality, duration of IMV, proportion of patients receiving antibiotics for a presumed respiratory infection and health-related quality of life. Results: A total of 364 patients (invasive weaning, n = 182; non-invasive weaning, n = 182) were randomised. Groups were well matched at baseline. There was no difference between the invasive weaning and non-invasive weaning groups in median time to liberation from ventilation {invasive weaning 108 hours [interquartile range (IQR) 57–351 hours] vs. non-invasive weaning 104.3 hours [IQR 34.5–297 hours]; hazard ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.89 to 1.39; p = 0.352}. There was also no difference in mortality between groups at any time point. Patients in the non-invasive weaning group had fewer IMV days [invasive weaning 4 days (IQR 2–11 days) vs. non-invasive weaning 1 day (IQR 0–7 days); adjusted mean difference –3.1 days, 95% CI –5.75 to –0.51 days]. In addition, fewer non-invasive weaning patients required antibiotics for a respiratory infection [odds ratio (OR) 0.60, 95% CI 0.41 to 1.00; p = 0.048]. A higher proportion of non-invasive weaning patients required reintubation than those in the invasive weaning group (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.27 to 3.24). The within-trial economic evaluation showed that NIV was associated with a lower net cost and a higher net effect, and was dominant in health economic terms. The probability that NIV was cost-effective was estimated at 0.58 at a cost-effectiveness threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year. Conclusions: A protocolised non-invasive weaning strategy did not reduce time to liberation from ventilation. However, patients who underwent non-invasive weaning had fewer days requiring IMV and required fewer antibiotics for respiratory infections. Future work: In patients who fail a SBT, which factors predict an adverse outcome (reintubation, tracheostomy, death) if extubated and weaned using NIV? Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN15635197. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 23, No. 48. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Autonomous Navigation of Distributed Spacecraft using Graph-based SLAM for Proximity Operations in Small Celestial Bodies

Establishment of a sustainable human presence beyond the cislunar space is a major milestone for mankind. Small celestial bodies (SCBs) like asteroids are known to contain valuable natural resources necessary for the development of space assets essential to the accomplishment of this goal. Consequently, future robotic spacecraft missions to SCBs are envisioned with the objective of commercial in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). In mission design, there is also an increasing interest in the utilization of the distributed spacecraft, to benefit from specialization and redundancy. The ability of distributed spacecraft to navigate autonomously in the proximity of a SCB is indispensable for the successful realization of ISRU mission objectives. Quasi-autonomous methods currently used for proximity navigation require extensive ground support for mapping and model development, which can be an impediment for large scale multi-spacecraft ISRU missions in the future. It is prudent to leverage the advances in terrestrial robotic navigation to investigate the development of novel methods for autonomous navigation of spacecraft. The primary objective of the work presented in this thesis is to evaluate the feasibility and investigate the development of methods based on graph-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), a popular algorithm used in terrestrial autonomous navigation, for the autonomous navigation of distributed spacecraft in the proximity of SCBs. To this end, recent research in graph-based SLAM is extensively studied to identify strategies used to enable multi-agent navigation. The spacecraft navigation requirement is formulated as a graph-based SLAM problem using metric GraphSLAM or topometric graph-based SLAM. Techniques developed based on the identified strategies namely, map merging, inter-spacecraft measurements and relative localization are then applied to this formulation to enable distributed spacecraft navigation. In each case, navigation is formulated in terms of its application to a proximity operation scenario that best suits the multi-agent navigation technique. Several challenges related to the application of graph-based SLAM for spacecraft navigation, such as computational cost and illumination variation are also identified and addressed in the development of these methods. Experiments are performed using simulated models of asteroids and spacecraft dynamics, comparing the estimated states of the spacecraft and landmarks to the assumed true states. The results from the experiments indicate a consistent and robust state determination process, suggesting the suitability of the application of multi-agent navigation techniques to graph-based SLAM for enabling the autonomous navigation of distributed spacecraft near SCBs

Customer Satisfaction in Home Loan Services: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Sector Banks in Karnataka

The banking sector today faces intense competition, with customers having a wide range of options to choose from. In India, the demand for home loans has surged, with various housing finance institutions offering convenient, fast loan processing. This study aims to compare the level of satisfaction among home loan borrowers in Karnataka, focusing on those who obtained their loans from public and private sector banks. The research specifically examines borrowers from SBI and Canara Bank (public sector) and HDFC and ICICI (private sector). By analyzing key satisfaction variables, the study provides valuable insights for lending institutions to enhance their services in line with the evolving needs of home loan customers. Additionally, the findings can guide policymakers in updating home loan regulations. The results show that borrowers express generally high levels of satisfaction with both public and private sector banks, supporting the hypothesis that satisfaction is largely positive. Based on the study’s findings, it is recommended that banks—both public and private—focus on offering competitive interest rates, affordable EMIs, and quicker loan disbursement to attract a larger customer base in the future

Phylogenomic analysis of Escherichia coli from dogs with clinical symptoms of uropathogenic disease: An Australian study

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Australia has one of the highest numbers of dog ownership in the world and most dog owners often report high levels of physical contact with them. ExPEC is the leading cause of UTIs in dogs and is the most common gram-negative bacterial pathogen in humans. WGS based analyses of E. coli of canine origin from Australia are very limited. We carried out the largest WGS based phylogenomic analyses of canine E. coli from Australia using 377 isolates originating from dogs with clinical symptoms of UTI collected from 2007 to 2017. The five most predominant STs were ST372, ST73, ST127, ST80 and ST58, most of which are predominant human ExPEC lineages. Phylogroup B2 was dominant followed by phylogroups B1, D, and A. Distribution of ARGs, VAGs and plasmids for specific STs were generally reflective of those seen in humans. Results indicated evidence for household sharing of E. coli between humans and their pets. More in-depth phylogenomic analyses using global cohorts of ST372, ST73 and ST127 sequences of diverse epidemiological origin indicated evidence for potential cross species transmission of these STs between humans and companion animals. This research study affirms the one health perspective of understanding human health

Orthotopic Liver Transplantation in a Case of Novel YAP1-TFE3 Hepatic Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma [HEHE]; Case Report and Review of Literature

Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma is an extremely rare vascular neoplasm arising in soft-tissues and different visceral organs, with liver being the most commonly involved viscera. Hepatic epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (HEHE) is a malignant tumour with an indolent behaviour and unpredictable clinical course. It has a better prognosis among the malignant tumours of the liver, in spite of being a diffuse multifocal liver disease or metastatic at the time of presentation. HEHE is usually found to be noted in the fifth decade with slight female preponderance. No single treatment strategy has yet been established owing to its variable clinical course, ranging from an indolent tumour with prolonged survival to an aggressive, metastatic disease with a fatal outcome. Here, we present a case of a novel HEHE in a 25-year-old female who was treated successfully with orthotopic living donor liver transplantation and discuss the presentation, histopathology and management of this rare, fatal yet treatable malignant tumour

Genomic and Temporal Trends in Canine ExPEC Reflect Those of Human ExPEC.

Companion animals and humans are known to share extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC), but the extent of E. coli sequence types (STs) that cause extraintestinal diseases in dogs is not well understood. Here, we generated whole-genome sequences of 377 ExPEC collected by the University of Melbourne Veterinary Hospital from dogs over an 11-year period from 2007 to 2017. Isolates were predominantly from urogenital tract infections (219, 58.1%), but isolates from gastrointestinal specimens (51, 13.5%), general infections (72, 19.1%), and soft tissue infections (34, 9%) were also represented. A diverse collection of 53 STs were identified, with 18 of these including at least five sequences. The five most prevalent STs were ST372 (69, 18.3%), ST73 (31, 8.2%), ST127 (22, 5.8%), ST80 (19, 5.0%), and ST58 (14, 3.7%). Apart from ST372, all of these are prominent human ExPEC STs. Other common ExPEC STs identified included ST12, ST131, ST95, ST141, ST963, ST1193, ST88, and ST38. Virulence gene profiles, antimicrobial resistance carriage, and trends in plasmid carriage for specific STs were generally reflective of those seen in humans. Many of the prominent STs were observed repetitively over an 11-year time span, indicating their persistence in the dogs in the community, which is most likely driven by household sharing of E. coli between humans and their pets. The case of ST372 as a dominant canine lineage observed sporadically in humans is flagged for further investigation. IMPORTANCE Pathogenic E. coli that causes extraintestinal infections (ExPEC) in humans and canines represents a significant burden in hospital and veterinary settings. Despite the obvious interrelationship between dogs and humans favoring both zoonotic and anthropozoonotic infections, whole-genome sequencing projects examining large numbers of canine-origin ExPEC are lacking. In support of anthropozoonosis, we found that most STs from canine infections are dominant human ExPEC STs (e.g., ST73, ST127, ST131) with similar genomic traits, such as plasmid carriage and virulence gene burden. In contrast, we identified ST372 as the dominant canine ST and a sporadic cause of infection in humans, supporting zoonotic transfer. Furthermore, we highlight that, as is the case in humans, STs in canine disease are consistent over time, implicating the gastrointestinal tract as the major community reservoir, which is likely augmented by exposure to human E. coli via shared diet and proximity