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Lymnaeidae/planorbidae snails are the intermediate hosts of Fasciola hepatica and Fasciola gigantica. Distribution of these vector snails explains the infection of fasciolosis as per geography and climatic condition of place. It also plays a vital role in the pattern of fasciolosis transmission. India is a large country, having varied climatic conditions in different states, so that in the present chapter distribution and habitat of snails in different states of India is given, which represents the statewise consolidated information to explore the vector snail presence.

India is a large country having three seasons that is winter, summer, and monsoon, and seven distinct climatic zones. In the present chapter, constrain of fasciolosis caused by Fasciola hepatica and Fasciola gigantica in different climatic zones is discussed as per earlier studies of different workers in India. Fasciola hepatica is only found in temperate/subtemperate region and mountain climate of India, whereas Fasciola gigantica is found in all the climatic zones. Percent fasciolosis infection rate is given in all the states of India. Infection of fasciolosis in cattle across the India is between 1.69% and 94%.

Unprecedented success and availability of enormous next-generation sequencing data of host-pathogen in the public domain give us opportunities to understand the disease system biologically. The availability of genome data of host-pathogen in popular depository systems provides strong and proper help to retrieve, annotate, analyze and identify the functional elements for characterization at gene and genome levels for application development. The primary goal of bioinformatics is to enhance the understanding of biological processes using sequence pattern recognition, biological data mining, machine learning algorithms for biological datasets and visualization of biological data and molecules. Significant research efforts in the field include databases, software and tools development, genome analysis, anthropology, forensic genetics, sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, drug design, drug discovery, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, gene expression analysis, microarray data analysis, protein–protein interactions and genome-wide association studies. Scientists, Paulien Hogeweg and Ben Hesper coined the term in 1970 to refer to the study of biological information processes in biotic systems. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, the mother and father of bioinformatics compiled one of the first protein sequence databases. Elvin A. Kabat, the scientist who pioneered biological sequence analysis, developed the approach in 1970. Bioinformatics tools, techniques and databases can be used to identify potential genes, and target protein for host–pathogen interaction, drug designing and discovery and harvesting biological information from the plant genomes and their genes. Bioinformatics applications can be very beneficial in the improvement of crops and helpful for the development of designer crops.

Controlled low-strength material (CLSM) also known by names such as flowable fill or controlled density fill is self-compacted in nature and used in civil engineering works such as backfills, void fills, conduit bedding and many more. These materials have strength lesser than 8.3 MPa. Generally, it consists of Portland cement, fine aggregate, fly ash and water but several other materials such as foundry dust and quarry dust can also be used. In this study, the different engineering properties of CLSM with different mix proportion were evaluated. Mix proportion mainly consists of red mud having 70%, 60% and 50% by weight of total composition along with fly ash of 20%, 30% and 40%, respectively, and phosphogypsum of 10% was studied. Portland cement was used as the binder material in all the composition in the proportion of 10% and 7% of the above composition. For different mix proportions considering flow value as an important parameter firstly percentage of water required for desired flow value (0.15–0.3 m) was evaluated by the trial method and then at those water content along with above mixture, other important engineering properties of CLSM such as compressive strength, bleeding and durability were evaluated. Except for the property of reexcavatibility (strength lesser than 2.1 MPa) for some composition all the other properties of all the composition were within the permissible limit. Overall it can be stated that red mud can be effectively used as one of the materials in CLSM.

The complexity of the 3D structure of a protein is still challenging in the area of structural biology. Thermodynamics-based methods, including molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, enable our understanding of protein’s conformational detail at the atomic level. Proteins are flexible molecules. MD simulation provides information about the dynamic perturbations that occur in a protein or protein–ligand complex. As compared to docking, MD simulation also considers the physiological conditions such as temperature, pH, presence of water, ions, and other molecules of the system. The force field and the software packages are several choices involved in large-scale simulation, which analyze the single protein, protein–ligand, and protein–protein structure, respectively. In this chapter, we discuss all the approaches along with packages that cover the entire molecular-level to cellular-level features of proteins. MD simulation approaches are very useful in assessing the stability of a protein model or protein–ligand complex and mutational study as well.

Asymmetric cyclic stressing of structural components causes accumulation of plastic strain known as ratcheting. It is an important factor in design of nuclear power plants as the accumulated plastic strain causes severe reduction in life of the structural components. Operating variables such as the rate of stressing \(\left( {\dot{\sigma }} \right)\), mean stress (σm) and amplitude of stress (σa) control the ratcheting fatigue behaviour. Fatigue tests were conducted with σm from 190–210 MPa, σa from 400 to 420 MPa and the \(\dot{\sigma }\) from 50 to 450 MPa/s. The accumulation of plastic strain and its influence on cyclic life of the modified 9Cr–1Mo steel was studied. Increase in the σm and σa led to the increase in the accumulated plastic strain and reduction in fatigue life. On the other hand, increase in the \(\dot{\sigma }\) caused increase in fatigue life because of less plastic strain accumulation. There was cyclic softening with increase in σm and σa, whereas there was cyclic hardening from rise in the \(\dot{\sigma }\).