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Viral infections have caused wide-scale suffering and death globally throughout the history, very recent being the deadly Covid-19 infection. Many bacterial infections also result in various serious diseases. It is well known that microbial, especially viral infections are mainly transmitted between individuals through the respiratory and oral tract. Several chemicals based antimicrobial substances, like sanitizers and disinfectants are available to break this chain of transmission and prevent the development of disease. But these have some long-lasting side effects in human e.g. making the skin rough and scaly, depletion of beneficial microflora and even contributing to antimicrobial resistance. On the other hand, the use of natural and herbal based products addresses these drawbacks quite effectively. India has been traditionally known to possess a rich source of many plants and herbs, possessing potent antimicrobial, especially antiviral property. Thus, in the present study, the antiviral property of certain natural extracts e.g. beet, orange, drumsticks, cinnamon, ginger, neem and oregano, was evaluated by checking their inhibitory potential against bacteriophages, as bacteriophages are viruses with similar morphological and physiological features. It was observed that among these cinnamon, ginger and oregano exhibited the highest activity against the bacteriophages, which clearly demonstrated their potential to be used as antiviral therapeutics. Further this study also highlighted the need for further exploration of other natural extracts for treatment and prevention of various diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The planet earth is covered with 97% water, which is largely found in the seas and oceans of the planet. Marine diversity can become a huge scope for sources of chemical drugs/compounds that are naturally obtained from a variety of marine population from microorganisms to phytoplanktons and animals like fish and mollusks. Such naturally extracted molecules are researched and studied for their efficacy to work against serious health issues like cancer, HIV etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biosurfactants are amphiphilic microbial molecules with hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties that partition at liquid/liquid, liquid/gas or liquid/solid interfaces. These unique characteristics allow these biomolecules to play a key role in emulsification, foam formation, detergency and dispersal, which makes them ideal for use in different industrial sectors. The production of biosurfactants is considered to be the prime development in industrial technology in the 21st century. Coupled with this feature, increasing public awareness of environmental pollution promotes the search and development of emerging technologies that help in cleaning up of organic and inorganic contaminants. Biosurfactants and biosurfactant producing microorganisms provides an alternative and eco-friendly method of remediation technology of environment contamination with these pollutants. Thus, biosurfactant production, possibility of their application as renewable resources and "green" products has now been the subject of extensive research in recent years. This review deals with the accumulated knowledge regarding biosurfactants gained over the years and possibility of their applications in various industrial fields, in oil recovery, in keeping the environments green, in medicinal sectors. The economic issue regarding the production of biosurfactants on an industrial basis in this regard also has been critically dealt with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radioactive ion beams of 111In (indium-111, half-life 2.8 days) have been produced using the plasma sputtering method in an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source at the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre RIB facility. Indium isotopes were first produced by bombarding a natural silver target with a 32 MeV, 40 μA alpha particle beam from the K-130 cyclotron. After radio-chemical separation, about 25 mCi In-chloride was deposited on an aluminum electrode and inserted in the plasma chamber of the ECR. Indium ions produced by ion induced sputtering in the plasma were extracted from the ion source, isotopically separated, and a pure 111In beam was measured at the focal plane of the separator. The measured 111In beam intensity was 2.67 × 105 particles/s for a beam energy of 5 keV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern radio front ends are required to operate over diverse channel conditions requiring the incorporation of significant performance overheads into their design. This results in significantly higher power consumption over most of the operational period since the worst case channels are not statistically prevalent. Adaptive systems solve this problem by adapting the performance and power consumption depending on channel conditions. In this paper, it is demonstrated that depending upon the throughput requirements of the system multiple low-power adaptation modes can be designed. These modes ensure either highest throughput operation or lowest energy-per-bit operation. The operation of these modes is demonstrated in simulation using multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) receiver and transmitter front ends. Subsequently, the concepts are demonstrated in hardware for both MIMO and single-input-single-output front ends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Antimicrobial peptides play a significant role in the innate immune response of crustaceans. The gene coding for a phosphatase-like protein (PLP) from the black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon was cloned using pQE-30-UA expression vector and expressed in Escherichia coli M15 host cells. The recombinant protein purified by nickelnitrilotriacetic acid affinity chromatography, gave a single distinct band of approximately 25 kDa by 15% sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The antibacterial activity of the recombinant phosphatase-like protein (rPLP) was characterized in vitro. Solid phase agar based assay revealed its inhibitory effect against several gram positive and gram negative bacteria. The minimal inhibitory concentration of the rPLP against Vibrio harveyi, by micro dilution method, was 1 μg/ml. This protein offers promise for use in hatcheries to control luminous vibriosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several case series, in the recent past, have postulated an association between plasma cell myeloma (MM) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Population based data have revealed a bi directional association between these two malignancies, which points to shared risk factors, similar cytokine (Interleukin-6, IL-6) requirements for growth and survival, and overlapping clinical presentation. The presence of lytic lesions in a patient with prior RCC may simulate bone metastasis; thus, leading to a diagnostic pitfall with potentially adverse clinical implications. Besides these, therapeutic strategies employed for MM have been tried for RCCs with partial success. We aimed to describe two patients, aged 64 and 54 years, with RCC-MM association, with review of relevant literature; and create awareness among pathologists/hematologists, and oncologists. Elucidating a common genetic basis might throw some light in understanding the pathobiology of these tumors and development of newer targeted therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]