No abstract

Hydrilla verticillata (L.f.) Royle, an aquatic plant, best documented example of an inducible C 4 photosynthetic system, which concentrates CO 2 in the chloroplasts without enzymatic compartmentation in mesophyll and bundle sheath cells. H. verticillata is a facultative C 4 plant, which shifts from C 3 to C 4 photosynthesis under certain conditions, but lacks Kranz anatomy. Little is known about the molecular changes required for the transition to the C 4 carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM). To gain insight into the processes that are involved in the C 3 to the C 4 transition, high throughput transcriptome sequencing and analysis were carried out using 454-GS FLX Titanium technology. A total of 533,595 reads were obtained after quality filtering. From these reads, 1,813 "Expressed sequence tags (ESTs)" were generated yielding 1,538 unigenes. Almost 95% of these unigenes aligned to the "Nonredundant (nr)" database, whereas 4.88% did not show homology to any other known gene. "Reads per kilobase per million sequenced reads (RPKM)" analysis indicated that 283 unigenes were up-regulated and 383 unigenes were down-regulated in the C 4 state as compared to the C 3 state. A number of transcription factors found in our study were involved in photosynthesis. These consisted of, HAP3/NF-YB, AP/EREBP and C2H2 family. GO, COG and KEGG analysis indicated that many genes were involved in energy metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, photosynthesis, signal transduction, stress responses and are worthy of further investigation. This transcriptome analysis is an important first step towards understanding the molecular changes underpinning the transition from the C 3 to the C 4 photosynthesis in H. verticillata. It could also be a useful genomic resource for engineering C 4 photosynthetic CCM in C 3 crops.

Diabetes is a chronic progressive endocrine disease characterized by elevation of blood glucose level. This disease is associated with decreased life expectancy; increased morbidity and diminished quality of life. The objective of the study is to assess the correlation of glycaemic control, age and duration of disease with quality of life in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present cross-sectional study was conducted in 200 patients (100 each from rural and urban centers), at field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, P.K.DAS, Pallakad. The study was conducted with the help of pretested, semi-structured questionnaire. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel and analysis was done with IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 21. In the present study, 42% of the participants were in the age group of 61 to 70 years. Amongst them, 55.5% were males and about 24% of the participants have had the disease for the past 11 to 15 years. Males had higher quality of life (QOL) scores than females. QOL scores were also higher in participants of rural areas, without any complications/co-morbidities who were employed and with HbA1c level less than 7. Scores were minimum for the participants belonging to the age group of >70 years and of upper socioeconomic class. Poor QOL was associated with increasing age, duration of disease and poor glycaemic control.

Abstract-The challenging nature of strata dynamics in and around goaf edge of a depillaring operation warrants continuous vigilance over the dynamics for a safe and efficient working. Depending upon the nature of the working and surrounding rock mass, a variety of geo-technical instruments are, generally, deployed for the vigilance. Selection of positions and installation of these instruments involve good understanding of behavoiur of the associated rock mass, but continuous monitoring of their observations becomes an important issue. In a conventional depillaring working, most of the observations are monitored manually, which may lead to safety threat and unsafe design of the mining structures. Some of the observations of a data-logger based monitoring are proved to be very useful, but the involved financial constraints have restricted its large scale application. Simple incorporation of an electronic continuity circuit in the single point borehole extensometer is known as auto warning tell-tale (AWTT), which has enabled to watch a given value of the roof lowering continuously. This ability of AWTT has proved to be an advantage while depillaring: especially mechanized depillaring. However, it requires a vital input about the rock mass behaviour: the limit of strata deformation to trigger and flashing the alarm light. Explaining the role of design and safety instruments for given conditions of a depillaring panel, this paper provides experience based examples to choose type and positions of the instruments for the monitoring. Briefly discussing the role of combined instrument approach to compensate the error in estimating the rock mass behaviour at the time of instrumentation, the role of continuous monitoring is illustrated with the help of some field measurements in depillaring panels. With the help of a good input of the estimation of strata characteristics in advance, examples of successful use of AWTTs are presented to show its ability to work as a safety instrument. Experiences and measurements found that the AWTT works well under moderate roof strata. Apart from the nature of overlying strata, the field monitoring indicated a need of supervision in observations of this instrument if the working is influenced by barrier effect, leftour pillars/fenders inside the goaf or by a geological structure. Requirement of other supporting instruments are also mentioned on the basis of the noticed problems of this single point measurement below extreme strata conditions (strong and massive or weak and laminated roof strata).