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Rapid economic development leads to environmental pollution with widespread pollutants including heavy metals, chemical particulates, untreated industrial sewage, and microplastics. Chromium production and its application had upsurged from past few decades and at present it had stretched up to 41 million metric tons globally. Chromium is one of the most mutagenic and carcinogenic pollutant, exposure to this heavy metal pollutants leads to respiratory, reproductive, cardiovascular diseases in humans and other harmful effects on plants and animals. Conventional methods for the treatment of hexavalent chromium from the environment includes ion-exchange, adsorption, solvent extraction, coagulation, electrodialysis and chemical precipitation. These methods are labor intensive, costly, and simultaneously release toxic components to the environment. Alternatively, bioremediation is one of the most effective biological processes which utilizes native microorganisms and plants to remove toxic metal pollutants from the polluted habitats. Bioremediation offers a sustainable technology for the management of heavy metal pollutants released from various mining and mineral processing industries and anthropogenic activities. This review gives a brief idea of hexavalent chromium pollution, its harmful effect on environment and humans, bioremediation through the application of native microorganisms and plants and describes the bioremediation method as a significant role for the sustainable management of pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the genome sequence has become one of the emerging areas in the study of bioinformatics. It has led to an excessive demand for researchers to develop advanced methodologies for evolutionary relationships among species. The alignment-free methods have been proved to be more efficient and appropriate related to time and space than existing alignment-based methods for sequence analysis. In this study, a new alignment-free genome sequence comparison technique is proposed based on the biochemical properties of nucleotides. Each genome sequence can be distributed in four parameters to represent a 21-dimensional numerical descriptor using the Positional Matrix. To substantiate the proposed method, phylogenetic trees are constructed on the viral and mammalian datasets by applying the UPGMA/NJ clustering method. Further, the results of this method are compared with the results of the Feature Frequency Profiles method, the Positional Correlation Natural Vector method, the Graph-theoretic method, the Multiple Encoding Vector method, and the Fuzzy Integral Similarity method. In most cases, it is found that the present method produces more accurate results than the prior methods. Also, in the present method, the execution time for computation is comparatively small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inadequate control of diabetes and hypertension is a major concern in India because of rising mortality and morbidity. Few studies in India have explored factors that influence control of diabetes and hypertension. The current study aimed to improve the understanding of multifactorial influence on the control of diabetes and hypertension among patients in Primary Health Care Settings(PHC) of urban Karnataka. Methods: We used a mixed-method study design, within a project aiming to improve non-communicable disease (NCD) continuum of care across PHC in Mysore city, India, conducted in 2018. The quantitative study was conducted among 399 patients with diabetes and/or hypertension and a logistic regression model was used to assess the factors responsible for biological control levels of diabetes and hypertension measured through Glycated Haemoglobin(HbA1c) and blood pressure. Further, in-depth interviews(IDI) were conducted among these patients and the counsellors at PHCs to understand the barriers and enablers for better control. Result: The quantitative assessment found odds of poor control amongst diabetics' increased with older age, longer duration of disease, additional chronic conditions, and tobacco consumption. For hypertensives, odds of poor control increased with higher body mass index(BMI), alcohol consumption, and belongingness to lower social groups. These findings were elaborated through qualitative assessment which found that the control status was affected by stress as a result of family or financial worries. Stress, poor lifestyle, and poor health-seeking behaviour interplay with other factors like diet and exercise leading to poor control of diabetes and hypertension. Conclusion: A better understanding of determinants associated with disease control can assist in designing focused patient outreach plans, customized communication strategies, need-based care delivery plans, and specific competency-based capacity-building models for health care workers. Patient-centric care focusing on biological, social and behavioural determinants is pivotal for appropriate management of NCDs at community level in low-middle income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic Respiratory Diseases (CRDs) in Asian countries are a growing concern in terms of morbidity and mortality. However, a systematic understanding of the increasing age-adjusted mortality rate of chronic respiratory disease (CRD) and its associated factors is not readily available for many Asian countries. We aimed to determine country-level factors affecting CRD mortality using a panel error correction model.Methods: Based on data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, we estimated the trends and distribution of CRD mortality for selected Asian countries from 2010 to 2017. Furthermore, we evaluated the relationship between CRD mortality and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, average years of schooling, urbanization, and pollutant emission (PM2.5 concentration) using a fixed-effect model. We corrected the estimates for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation through Prais-Winsten adjustment along with robust standard error.Results: Between 2010 and 2017, approximately 21.4 million people died from chronic respiratory diseases in the countries studied. Age-standardized crude mortality rate from CRDs in the period had minimum and maximum values of 8.19 (Singapore in 2016) and 155.42 (North Korea in 2010) per 100,000 population, respectively. The coefficients corrected for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity based on the final model of our study (Prais-Winsten), showed that all explanatory variables were statistically significant (p < 0.001). The model shows that the 1% increase in GDP per capita results in a 20% increase (0.203) in the CRD mortality rate and that a higher concentration of air pollution is also positively associated with the CRD deaths (0.00869). However, an extra year of schooling reduces the mortality rate by 4.79% (- 0.0479). Further, rate of urbanization is negatively associated with the CRD death rate (- 0.0252).Conclusions: Our results indicate that both socioeconomic and environmental factors impact CRD mortality rates. Mortality due to CRD increases with rising GDP per capita and decreases with the percentage of the total population residing in urban areas. Further, mortality increases with greater exposure to PM2.5. Also, higher years of schooling mitigate rising CRD mortality rates, showing that education can act as a safety net against CRD mortality. These results are an outcome of sequential adjustments in the final model specification to correct for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complement component 9 (C9) plays a significant role in the formation of membrane attack complex (MAC) on the targeted cell surface. The current study is dealt with molecular characterization of C9 gene from rohu, Labeo rohita, an important cultured carp species in India. An open reading frame (ORF) of 1998 bp was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that encodes a polypeptide of 666 amino acids having a signal peptide of 19 amino acids and a mature peptide of 647 amino acids. The SMART domain architecture analysis revealed two thrombospondin type‐1 domains (TSP1), a low‐density lipoprotein receptor domain class A (LDLa), a membrane attack complex and perforin (MACPF) domain, and an epidermal growth factor (EGF)‐like domain. Multiple sequence alignment and evolutionary analysis revealed a primitive C9 sequence of rohu with maximum similarity and clustering with common carp, grass carp and zebrafish. C9 was highly expressed in liver and constitutively expressed in wide array of tissues except in eye of rohu juveniles. It was expressed during early developmental days of rohu including in milt. A variable level of up‐regulation in C9 expression was noticed upon poly I:C induction, Aeromonas hydrophila and Argulus siamensis infections in liver, spleen and gill tissues of rohu at different time points. A constitutive expression of C9 in different stages of rohu during the ontogeny and in response to pathogen exposures along with high degree of sequence homology with other fish species proved it as an important primitive immune molecule of the complement system lytic pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi-arid tropical regions in India and elsewhere face major challenges in the management of public water supply for drinking purpose. In such regions knowledge on base flow availability in major rivers is important in development of water management strategies and estimation of small to medium water supplies especially for semi-arid conditions where groundwater is contaminated with fluoride at variable depths. This study focuses on identification, exploitation and utilization of the unexploited base flow of the river Mayurakshi between Md. Bazar in the west and Sainthia in the east in Birbhum district, West Bengal, by understanding the subsurface hydrogeology of the river as well as a proper knowledge of the water budget, water resources in storage, and water quality. Exploratory drilling on the river bed revealed two aquifer settings: unconfined in the west, and semi-confined in the east. Water level is shallow occurring within 2 m below ground level. The sands of the unconfined aquifer are mostly coarse and that of the semi-confined aquifer are medium to coarse. The transmissivity values reveal that the potentiality of the aquifer in the western stretch of the river is higher than that of the eastern stretch. Water supply systems that can be constructed below the river are bed-mounted infiltration gallery and collector well with radials. Water quality does not exceed the permissible limit of Indian Drinking Water Standard except for manganese, iron and colliform bacteria. Therefore, the water needs to be treated for these parameters before supplying to the communities for drinking purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]