Spatial distribution of housing and household amenities:a district level analysis, Odisha

Housing and availability of household amenities is considered to be the most valuable economic asset and is an important indicator of lifestyle and socio-economic status. Though we are in the path of 60yrs of independence, majority of people have been deprived of standard housing, without access to basic minimum facilities of drinking water, sanitation and public hygiene etc which requires utmost attention. The access to basic amenities like electricity, drinking water, toilet facility, clean fuels etc are the determinants of quality of life. Access to basic amenities varies in accordance with the size, categories of cities and towns except for toilet and sanitation. The access to basic amenities like electricity, drinking water, toilet facility and clean fuel are critical determinants of quality of life in most of the developing countries like India. As per 2011 census, 13% of households have no access to electricity, 16% have no access to safe drinking water and 17% have no access to toilet facility. This paper attempts to study the availability of housing and household amenities in the 30 districts comprising both of urban and rural areas. Subsequently, this study categorizes all 30 districts as low, medium and high using a composite score

Centro-symmetry Parameter Studies of Defects in Deformed Copper Single Crystal

Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations of uniaxial tension at nano-scale was carried out for strain rate of 0.0001ps-1 and at temperatures of 10K and 50K respectively on perfect Cusingle crystal and having a horizontal and vertical surface defects in order to investigate the stress-strain response. Also the mechanical properties were investigated at the above stated temperatures. It was seen that mechanical properties were significantly influenced with respect to temperature and with respect to defects. The engineering stress-strain diagram observed for all the specimens showed a zig-zag behavior after the first drop. The first drop in the stress-strain curve is due to the yielding of the material and subsequent drops could be due to formation of deformation mechanism dominated by twins.The sub-structural features such as twins are observed using centro symmetry parameter studies with the help of Ovito software

Eliciting the Functional Taxonomy from protein annotations and taxa

The advances of omics technologies have triggered the production of an enormous volume of data coming from thousands of species. Meanwhile, joint international efforts like the Gene Ontology (GO) consortium have worked to provide functional information for a vast amount of proteins. With these data available, we have developed FunTaxIS, a tool that is the first attempt to infer functional taxonomy (i.e. how functions are distributed over taxa) combining functional and taxonomic information. FunTaxIS is able to define a taxon specific functional space by exploiting annotation frequencies in order to establish if a function can or cannot be used to annotate a certain species. The tool generates constraints between GO terms and taxa and then propagates these relations over the taxonomic tree and the GO graph. Since these constraints nearly cover the whole taxonomy, it is possible to obtain the mapping of a function over the taxonomy. FunTaxIS can be used to make functional comparative analyses among taxa, to detect improper associations between taxa and functions, and to discover how functional knowledge is either distributed or missing. A benchmark test set based on six different model species has been devised to get useful insights on the generated taxonomic rules

Full genome sequence-based comparative study of wild-type and vaccine strains of infectious laryngotracheitis virus from Italy

Infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT) is an acute and highly contagious respiratory disease of chickens caused by an alphaherpesvirus, infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV). Recently, full genome sequences of wild-type and vaccine strains have been determined worldwide, but none was from Europe. The aim of this study was to determine and analyse the complete genome sequences of five ILTV strains. Sequences were also compared to reveal the similarity of strains across time and to discriminate between wild-type and vaccine strains. Genomes of three ILTV field isolates from outbreaks occurred in Italy in 1980,2007 and 2011, and two commercial chicken embryo origin (CEO) vaccines were sequenced using the 454 Life Sciences technology. The comparison with the Serva genome showed that 35 open reading frames (ORFs) differed across the five genomes. Overall, 54 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 27 amino acid differences in 19 ORFs and two insertions in the UL52 and ORFC genes were identified. Similarity among the field strains and between the field and the vaccine strains ranged from 99.96% to 99.99%. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a close relationship among them, as well. This study generated data on genomic variation among Italian ILTV strains revealing that, even though the genetic variability of the genome is well conserved across time and between wild-type and vaccine strains, some mutations may help in differentiating among them and maybe involved in ILTV virulence/attenuation. The results of this study can contribute to the understanding of the molecular bases of ILTV pathogenicity and provide genetic markers to differentiate between wild-type and vaccine strains

Agroforestry systems practiced in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh, India

Chhattisgarh state has very diverse forest ecosystem and long history of traditional agroforestry. An agroforestry practice is location specific and depends on nature of agro-climatic zone. In Chhattisgarh, farmers are doing this farming practices based on fulfilling their diverse need and improvement of socioeconomic condition but stilldata is insufficient to explore more agroforestry practices in the state. In this context, assessment of different agroforestry models gives not only sufficient data but also open a door for conservation of biological diversity.. Different models like’s Boundary plantations, Agri-silviculture system, Horti-silvicuture, Silvi-pasture, Kitchen garden and Block plantation are used by farmers in Dhamtari. All models are dependent on location characteristic, land use type, soil type, climate and market requirement. This paper highlights the different models of Agroforestry, specific model for the specific sites, lacuna in models faced by farmers and role of agroforestry models in socioeconomic upliftment

La place de la relation soignant-soigné dans l'approche de soins transculturelle: travail de Bachelor

Introduction: En Suisse, en lien avec le phénomène migratoire, la prise en soin de patients de culture différente se révèle être fréquente. L’approche des soins transculturelle est déjà abordée par d’autres disciplines. Objectif: L’objectif de cette revue de littérature est de définir quelle est la place de la relation soignant-soigné dans l’approche de soins transculturelle. Méthode: Revue de littérature utilisant les bases de données Pubmed, Cinahl, Psychinfo entre 2000 et 2014. Sur 7'761 articles trouvés, 18 ont été retenus. Résultats: La relation soignant-soigné est un élément central de la définition de la transculturalité selon plusieurs modèles. La formulation culturelle se révèle être un des outils favorisant la relation et l’alliance thérapeutique. Les barrières aux soins transculturelles qui sont le plus rapportées sont des barrières linguistiques, culturelles, législatives. Conclusion: La congruence culturelle resulte des compétences culturelles des soignants dont la conscience est réveillée par un désir alimenté d’une formation orientée par les besoins d’une société de globalisation

Mapping and characterization of G-quadruplexes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis gene promoter regions

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide in 2015. The recent emergence of strains resistant to all current drugs urges the development of compounds with new mechanisms of action. G-quadruplexes are nucleic acids secondary structures that may form in G-rich regions to epigenetically regulate cellular functions. Here we implemented a computational tool to scan the presence of putative G-quadruplex forming sequences in the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and analyse their association to transcription start sites. We found that the most stable G-quadruplexes were in the promoter region of genes belonging to definite functional categories. Actual G-quadruplex folding of four selected sequences was assessed by biophysical and biomolecular techniques: all molecules formed stable G-quadruplexes, which were further stabilized by two G-quadruplex ligands. These compounds inhibited Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth with minimal inhibitory concentrations in the low micromolar range. These data support formation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis G-quadruplexes in vivo and their potential regulation of gene transcription, and prompt the use of G4 ligands to develop original antitubercular agents

Sox10 contributes to the balance of fate choice in dorsal root ganglion progenitors

The development of functional peripheral ganglia requires a balance of specification of both neuronal and glial components. In the developing dorsal root ganglia (DRGs), these compo- nents form from partially-restricted bipotent neuroglial precursors derived from the neural crest. Work in mouse and chick has identified several factors, including Delta/Notch signal- ing, required for specification of a balance of these components. We have previously shown in zebrafish that the Sry-related HMG domain transcription factor, Sox10, plays an unex- pected, but crucial, role in sensory neuron fate specification in vivo. In the same study we described a novel Sox10 mutant allele, sox10baz1, in which sensory neuron numbers are elevated above those of wild-types. Here we investigate the origin of this neurogenic pheno- type. We demonstrate that the supernumerary neurons are sensory neurons, and that enteric and sympathetic neurons are almost absent just as in classical sox10 null alleles; peripheral glial development is also severely abrogated in a manner similar to other sox10 mutant alleles. Examination of proliferation and apoptosis in the developing DRG reveals very low levels of both processes in wild-type and sox10baz1, excluding changes in the bal- ance of these as an explanation for the overproduction of sensory neurons. Using chemical inhibition of Delta-Notch-Notch signaling we demonstrate that in embryonic zebrafish, as in mouse and chick, lateral inhibition during the phase of trunk DRG development is required to achieve a balance between glial and neuronal numbers. Importantly, however, we show that this mechanism is insufficient to explain quantitative aspects of the baz1 phenotype. The Sox10(baz1) protein shows a single amino acid substitution in the DNA binding HMG domain; structural analysis indicates that this change is likely to result in reduced flexibility in the HMG domain, consistent with sequence-specific modification of Sox10 binding to DNA. Unlike other Sox10 mutant proteins, Sox10(baz1) retains an ability to drive neurogenin1 transcription. We show that overexpression of neurogenin1 is sufficient to produce supernu- merary DRG sensory neurons in a wild-type background, and can rescue the sensory neu- ron phenotype of sox10 morphants in a manner closely resembling the baz1 phenotype. We conclude that an imbalance of neuronal and glial fate specification results from the Sox10 (baz1) protein\u2019s unique ability to drive sensory neuron specification whilst failing to drive glial development. The sox10baz1 phenotype reveals for the first time that a Notch-dependent lat- eral inhibition mechanism is not sufficient to fully explain the balance of neurons and glia in the developing DRGs, and that a second Sox10-dependent mechanism is necessary. Sox10 is thus a key transcription factor in achieving the balance of sensory neuronal and glial fates

A Study of Students’ and Teachers’ Beliefs about Learning English as a Second Language in Hindi Medium Schools in India

The present study is an exploration of beliefs about learning English held by English as a second Language (ESL) students and teachers from Jharkhand, India. The basic premise of the study is that the learners’ and the instructors’ beliefs about learning a language affect the learning approach, learning strategy use, personal motivation, the choice of instructional material and the instructional method. Thus, beliefs indirectly affect language learning. The assumption of this study is also that the participants in this study hold debilitative beliefs about English language learning. A mixed method research approach was used in this study. The quantitative data was collected through a survey questionnaire and the qualitative data were collected through the semi-structured interviews. A hundred and three ESL students and ten ESL teachers from Jharkhand participated in this study. The findings of this study showed that the ESL/EFL students and teachers of Jharkhand, India held beliefs, most of which are consonant with what core beliefs theory suggests contributes to effective second language acquisition. Beliefs about the role of natural talent, motivation, learning and communication strategies are consonant with what core beliefs presume to contribute effectively to second language learning. There are beliefs, however, relating to the role of grammar rule, vocabulary learning, excellent pronunciation, structural correctness, counterproductive to second language acquisition