Background: Glioblastoma (GB) is the most malignant primary brain tumor. Isolated restricted diffusion (IRD) is restricted diffusion outside the confines of enhancing tumor with no corresponding enhancement on post contrast study. The aim of our study was to prospectively assess the incidence of IRD in GB patients, determine how often these foci proceed to contrast enhancement on follow up, and analyze the survival pattern. Methods: In a prospective pilot cohort study, consecutive adult patients with GB on initial MRI of brain, were included and screened for IRD. All images were independently analyzed by two experienced radiologists. The survival pattern of patients with IRD was assessed with Cox-regression and Kaplan-Meier curve analysis. Results: Of the 52 patients (median age- 63 years; male-63.5%), 21% (11 of 52) exhibited IRD. Inter-rater agreement on the diagnosis of IRD foci was fair (kappa=0.29). Seven (64%) showed enhancement in the IRD focus. The Kaplan Meier analysis revealed a significant decrease (p=0.035) in the survival was observed among patients with IRD focus. Conclusions: IRD focus was seen in 21% of patients with GB, with 64% of these demonstrating enhancement at the IRD focus on follow up imaging. A shorter survival was associated with IRD foci.

In this study, morphological and molecular features were used to identify a new Steinernema sp. from Kerala, India. Morphological and molecular features provide evidence for placing the new species into the longicaudum clade. The new species is characterized by the following morphological features: infective juveniles with a body length of 1067 μm (914–1268 μm); a distance from the anterior end to excretory pore of 82 μm (73–92 μm); a distance from anterior end to nerve ring of 105 μm (91–118 μm). The distinguishing feature of the infective juveniles of S. keralense n. sp. is the presence of seven ridges in the mid-body region, while all other species classified within the logicaudum clade to date are characterized by eight ridges. The first-generation males are characterised by 25 genital papillae, very short spicules, with a length of 68 μm (60–72 μm), and the SW% ratio is 136 (114–169). The new species is further characterized by sequences of the internal transcribed spacer and partial 28S regions of the ribosomal DNA. Phylogenetic analyses show that S. keralense n. sp. is closely related to species within the longicaudum clade.

Indigofera oblongifolia Forssk. locally known as ‘Goilia or Jhil’, is an important underutilized leguminous browse shrub for small ruminants in hot arid region of India and traditionally utilized for its medicinal value. Its irregular patchy distribution was observed in depression of rocky areas, bunds of farmer fields and along the depression on the road sides in Jaisalmer and Pali district during collection. Soil samples collected from Pali district have high level of pH and electrical conductivity as compared to Jaisalmer which indicates its suitability to saline areas. It exhibited good plant growth under Jodhpur conditions with respect to plant height (171.5 cm), number of branches (47.9) and canopy diameter (100–210 and 115–180 cm in north-south and east-west direction, respectively) after 12 months of planting in fields under protected condition. Morphological characterization showed the presence of high coefficient of variation (%) in the number of raceme per branch (27.3) followed by raceme length (22.9), pod length (21.0) and least in pod width (8.1). Phytochemical results revealed that leaves of I. oblongifolia contained considerable amounts of total phenols (31.44 mg g−1), flavonoids (29.73 mg g−1) and antioxidant capacity (6.26 FRU g−1) which make its suitability as a browse species to ruminants in rangelands. Along with these finding, its traditional knowledge and utilization are detailed in this paper as to hasten further research on its various aspects for its sustainable utilization in rangelands or in alternate land use systems in the Indian hot arid region.

Mung bean is highly susceptible to insect attack during storage. Hermetic storage is an effective technique to control insect damage. This study investigated the potential of the hermetic SuperGrain bag (SGB) for controlling bruchids during storage. The dry samples were packed in SGB infested with adult bruchids (SGB-I), SGB natural field infested (SGB-N), woven polypropylene bags (WPP-I and WPP-N) and kept at room temperature for 180 days. Oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations were measured at 15 days intervals. Moisture content, infestation level, seed damage and weight loss were determined at 60 days intervals. Seed colour, hardness, crude protein and fat contents were analysed before and after storage. The O2 level decreased to 10.09%, whereas the CO2 level increased to 8.87% in both SGB-I and SGB-N treatments. The moisture content of mung bean was maintained as onset storage in both SGB-N and SGB-I treatments, whereas reduced in WPP-N (9.26% db) and WPP-I (9.21% db). In SGB treatments, no significant bruchids were detected, but they increased drastically in WPP-N (52 ± 9) and WPP-I (377 ± 14). Seed damage (2–3%) and weight loss (0.8–1.0%) were recorded in both SGB-N and SGB-I. Conversely, seed damage reached 26.67 and 54.17%, corresponding to weight losses of 12.33 and 20.82% in WPP-N and WPP-I, respectively. Seed colour, hardness, crude protein and fat contents in SGBs showed no significant changes than in the WPP bags. The study illustrated that the SGB is an efficient hermetic device in protecting mung beans against bruchids attacks compared to the WPP bags.

Background: Chordomas are rare malignant skull-base/spine cancers with devastating neurological morbidities and mortality. Unfortunately, no reliable prognostic factors exist to guide treatment decisions. This work identifies DNA methylation-based prognostic chordoma subtypes that are detectable non-invasively in plasma. Methods: Sixty-eight tissue samples underwent DNA methylation profiling and plasma methylomes were obtained for available paired samples. Immunohistochemical staining and publicly available methylation and gene expression data were utilized for validation. Results: Unsupervised clustering identified two prognostic tissue clusters (log-rank p=0.0062) predicting disease-specific survival independent of clinical factors (Multivariable Cox: HR=16.5, 95%CI: 2.8-96, p=0.0018). The poorer-performing cluster showed immune-related pathway promoter hypermethylation and higher immune cell abundance within tumours, which was validated with external RNA-seq data and immunohistochemical staining. The better-performing cluster showed higher tumour cellularity. Similar clusters were seen in external DNA methylation data. Plasma methylome-based models distinguished chordomas from differential diagnoses in independent testing sets (AUROC=0.84, 95%CI: 0.52-1.00). Plasma methylomes were highly correlated with tissue-based signals for both clusters (r=0.69 & 0.67) and leave-one-out models identified the correct cluster in all plasma cases. Conclusions: Prognostic molecular chordoma subgroups are for the first time identified, characterized, and validated. Plasma methylomes can detect and subtype chordomas which may transform chordoma treatment with personalized approaches tailored to prognosis.

With type 2 diabetes presenting at younger ages, there is a growing need to identify biomarkers of future glucose intolerance. A high (20%) prevalence of glucose intolerance at 18 years was seen in women from the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS) birth cohort. We investigated the potential of circulating microRNAs in risk stratification for future pre-diabetes in these women. Here, we provide preliminary longitudinal analyses of circulating microRNAs in normal glucose tolerant (NGT@18y, N = 10) and glucose intolerant (N = 8) women (ADA criteria) at 6, 12 and 17 years of their age using discovery analysis (OpenArray™ platform). Machine-learning workflows involving Lasso with bootstrapping/leave-one-out cross-validation identified microRNAs associated with glucose intolerance at 18 years of age. Several microRNAs, including miR-212-3p, miR-30e-3p and miR-638, stratified glucose-intolerant women from NGT at childhood. Our results suggest that circulating microRNAs, longitudinally assessed over 17 years of life, are dynamic biomarkers associated with and predictive of pre-diabetes at 18 years of age. Validation of these findings in males and remaining participants from the PMNS birth cohort will provide a unique opportunity to study novel epigenetic mechanisms in the life-course progression of glucose intolerance and enhance current clinical risk prediction of pre-diabetes and progression to type 2 diabetes.

Early detection of karyotype abnormalities, including aneuploidy, could aid producers in identifying animals which, for example, would not be suitable candidate parents. Genome-wide genetic marker data in the form of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are now being routinely generated on animals. The objective of the present study was to describe the statistics that could be generated from the allele intensity values from such SNP data to diagnose karyotype abnormalities; of particular interest was whether detection of aneuploidy was possible with both commonly used genotyping platforms in agricultural species, namely the Applied BiosystemsTM AxiomTM and the Illumina platform. The hypothesis was tested using a case study of a set of dizygotic X-chromosome monosomy 53,X sheep twins. Genome-wide SNP data were available from the Illumina platform (11 082 autosomal and 191 X-chromosome SNPs) on 1848 male and 8954 female sheep and available from the AxiomTM platform (11 128 autosomal and 68 X-chromosome SNPs) on 383 female sheep. Genotype allele intensity values, either as their original raw values or transformed to logarithm intensity ratio (LRR), were used to accurately diagnose two dizygotic (i.e. fraternal) twin 53,X sheep, both of which received their single X chromosome from their sire. This is the first reported case of 53,X dizygotic twins in any species. Relative to the X-chromosome SNP genotype mean allele intensity values of normal females, the mean allele intensity value of SNP genotypes on the X chromosome of the two females monosomic for the X chromosome was 7.45 to 12.4 standard deviations less, and were easily detectable using either the AxiomTM or Illumina genotype platform; the next lowest mean allele intensity value of a female was 4.71 or 3.3 standard deviations less than the population mean depending on the platform used. Both 53,X females could also be detected based on the genotype LRR although this was more easily detectable when comparing the mean LRR of the X chromosome of each female to the mean LRR of their respective autosomes. On autopsy, the ovaries of the two sheep were small for their age and evidence of prior ovulation was not appreciated. In both sheep, the density of primordial follicles in the ovarian cortex was lower than normally found in ovine ovaries and primary follicle development was not observed. Mammary gland development was very limited. Results substantiate previous studies in other species that aneuploidy can be readily detected using SNP genotype allele intensity values generally already available, and the approach proposed in the present study was agnostic to genotype platform.

Human parechoviruses (HPeVs) are known to cause various clinical manifestations including acute gastroenteritis. Although HPeV infections and their genotypes have been detected in human patients worldwide, no such reports are available from India to ascertain the association of HPeVs in acute gastroenteritis. The present study was conducted to determine the clinical features and genetic diversity of HPeVs detected in children hospitalised for acute gastroenteritis. Stool specimens (n = 979) collected from children aged ⩽5 years hospitalised for acute gastroenteritis in Pune, western India during January 2006–December 2010 were included. HPeV RNA was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) (5′UTR) followed by genotyping using VP1 gene-based PCR and phylogenetic analysis. HPeV was detected in 13·9% (136/979) of the cases, co-infections with other enteric viruses were found in 43·4%. HPeV was more frequent in children ⩽1 year age with infections reported throughout the year. A total of 102/136 (75%) HPeV strains were genotyped, which comprised 13 different HPeV genotypes. Of these, HPeV1 was the most predominant genotype detected and phylogenetically clustered with the Harris strain which is rarely reported. The study documents circulation of heterogeneous HPeV genotypes. Two variant strains of HPeV4 and ‘RGD absent’ HPeV5 and 6 strains were also detected. This is the first report of HPeV with diversified genotypes identified in acute gastroenteritis patients from India.

This paper presents the numerical simulations of flowfield over a typical Crew Module at Mach 4 for different angles-of-attack ranging from 0 to –25°. Detailed flow features such as contour of density gradient over the model, numerical oil flow and near wake vortex structures are captured very well in the present simulations. The location of the sonic line and its behaviour due to angles-of-attack is also captured in the simulations. The CP distribution on the windward and leeward side shows excellent match with the experimental results. Also, the prediction of aerodynamic coefficients shows very good agreement with the experimental results. The numerical simulation predicts CMcg, CN and CA within 8%, 4% and 3·5% respectively with respect to experimental values.