Guidelines for green certification of freshwater ornamental fish

Keeping colourful and fancy fishes known as ornamental fishes, aquarium fishes, or live jewels is one of the oldest and most popular hobbies in the world. The growing interest in aquarium fishes has resulted in steady increase in aquarium fish trade globally. The ornamental fish trade with a turnover of US $ 6 Billion and an annual growth rate of 8 percent offers lot of scope for development. Unfortunately India’s share in ornamental fish trade is estimated to be less than 1 % of the global trade. The major part of the export trade is based on wild collection. There is very good domestic market too, which is mainly based on domestically bred exotic species

QUANTITATIVE APPROACH TO DETERMINE PEDESTRIAN DELAY AND LEVEL OF SERVICE AT SIGNALIZED INTERSECTION

Purpose: Level of Service is a widely adopted terminology to determine the efficiency of any transport system. From the literature it was studied that the multiple linear regression models established by many researchers to determine PLoS evolved with addition or removal of one or more physical parameters or with respect to the perception of users from different locations. At an intersection, there is little or no established methodology developed so far to determine a quantitative approach for PLoS similar to Vehicular Level of Service (VLoS). It was also pointed out that under heterogeneous traffic conditions, pedestrians are most vulnerable at intersections and they share the same space with motorized vehicles for crossing movements. Methodology: Thus, this study was built on the hypothesis that pedestrian delay of a signalized intersection is quantitatively dependent on pedestrian volume, vehicular volume and cycle time. Two signalized intersections operating as fully actuated and fixed cycle time were considered for study for period of four hours each, covering two hours of morning peak and off-peak hour traffic data. Main Findings: Using various statistical techniques, an empirical model was developed between the pedestrian delay and independent variables namely cycle time, pedestrian volume and vehicular volume. PLoS range was also determined through k-means clustering technique. Implications: The empirical model developed was validated and the application of this research was also explained. Novelty: The study is a new quantitative approach to determine PLoS and was limited to two intersections. Increase in the data may improve the accuracy of the model

Application of PCR-based DNA sequencing technique for the detection of Leptospira in peripheral blood of septicemia patients

ABSTRACT Aim: Isolation, dark field detection and microscopic agglutination test (MAT) are considered -gold standard‖ tests for diagnosis of Leptospirosis. Several PCR assays are reported but very few have been evaluated for detection of Leptospirosis. Therefore, this study was undertaken. This study aims to design and standardize polymerase chain reaction (PCR) -based DNA sequencing technique for the detection of pathogenic Leptospira from peripheral blood of patients clinically diagnosed with septicemia. Methodology and Results: Two hundred and seven (207) blood samples from patients were diagnosed with septicemia which includes 100 bacterial (other than Leptospira) culture positive and 107 bacterial culture negative samples were studied. Primers for Nested PCR targeting LipL32 gene of Leptospira interrogans were designed and the specificity of primers was tested against serum samples positive/negative by either MAT or dark field microscopy. PCR amplified products were further confirmed by DNA sequencing. The standardized nPCR was sensitive and specific to Leptospira interrogans. Twenty-one (21%) out of 100 culture positive blood samples, three (2.8%) out of 107 culture negative samples showed nPCR positivity and were confirmed as Leptospira interrogans by DNA sequencing (p<0.001). A sensitive nPCR specific to Leptospira interrogans was developed. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: The p value (<0.001) signifies that Leptospira is commonly associated with other bacteria circulating in blood indicating that a decreased immune status is created primarily by a bacterium with enhanced possibility of development of Leptospiral infection probably be of an endogenous origin

Using a simple open-source automated machine learning algorithm to forecast COVID-19 spread: A modelling study

Introduction: Machine learning algorithms have been used to develop prediction models in various infectious and non-infectious settings including interpretation of images in predicting the outcome of diseases. We demonstrate the application of one such simple automated machine learning algorithm to a dataset obtained about COVID-19 spread in South Korea to better understand the disease dynamics.Material and methods: Data from 20th January 2020 (when the first case of COVID-19 was detected in South Korea) to 4th March 2020 was accessed from Korea’s centre for disease control (KCDC). A future time-series of specified length (taken as 7 days in our study) starting from 5th March 2020 to 11th March 2020 was generated and fed to the model to generate predictions with upper and lower trend bounds of 95% confidence intervals. The model was assessed for its ability to reliably forecast using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as the metric.Results: As on 4th March 2020, 145,541 patients were tested for COVID-19 (in 45 days) in South Korea of which 5166 patients tested positive. The predicted values approximated well with the actual numbers. The difference between predicted and observed values ranged from 4.08% to 12.77% . On average, our predictions differed from actual values by 7.42% (MAPE) over the same period.Conclusion: Open source and automated machine learning tools like Prophet can be applied and are effective in the context of COVID-19 for forecasting spread in naïve communities. It may help countries to efficiently allocate healthcare resources to contain this pandemic

Clinical outcome, viral response and safety profile of chloroquine in COVID-19 patients — initial experience

Introduction: Chloroquine and its analogues are currently being investigated for the treatment and post exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 due to its antiviral activity and immunomodulatory activity.Material and methods: Confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 were included in the study. Patients were supposed to receive chloroquine (CQ) 500 mg twice daily for 7 days. Due to a change in institutional protocol, initial patients received chloroquine and subsequent patients who did not receive chloroquine served as negative controls. Clinical effectiveness was determined in terms of timing of symptom resolution and conversion rate of reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on day 14 and day 15 of admission.Results: Twelve COVID-19 patients formed the treatment arm and 17 patients were included in the control arm. The duration of symptoms among the CQ treated group (6.3 ± 2.7 days) was significantly (p-value = 0.009) lower than that of the control group (8.9 ± 2.2 days). There was no significant difference in the rate of RT-PCR negativity in both groups. 2 patients out of 12 developed diarrhea in the CQ therapy arm.  Conclusion: The duration of symptoms among the treated group (with chloroquine) was significantly lower than that of the control group. RT-PCR conversion was not significantly different between the 2 groups

Enhanced hydrogen production from thermochemical processes

To alleviate the pressing problem of greenhouse gas emissions, the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies is necessary. One potentially viable approach for replacing fossil fuels is the development of a H2 economy. Not only can H2 be used to produce heat and electricity, it is also utilised in ammonia synthesis and hydrocracking. H2 is traditionally generated from thermochemical processes such as steam reforming of hydrocarbons and the water-gas-shift (WGS) reaction. However, these processes suffer from low H2 yields owing to their reversible nature. Removing H2 with membranes and/or extracting CO2 with solid sorbents in situ can overcome these issues by shifting the component equilibrium towards enhanced H2 production via Le Chatelier's principle. This can potentially result in reduced energy consumption, smaller reactor sizes and, therefore, lower capital costs. In light of this, a significant amount of work has been conducted over the past few decades to refine these processes through the development of novel materials and complex models. Here, we critically review the most recent developments in these studies, identify possible research gaps, and offer recommendations for future research