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This study investigated the influence of two different devices with lower torso sports training in patients with asthma. Patients with asthma ( n = 300 ) aged 55-60 years with FEV 1 / FVC ratio < 65 % , who were repeatedly admitted to a pulmonary rehabilitation centre, participated. Patients were evaluated and randomized into two groups (experimental group 1; EXP-1, n = 150 , who applied a conventional threshold loading device, and experimental group 2; EXP-2, n = 150 , who used an innovative respiratory training device). Patients were included only if they met the global criteria for asthma. The experimental intervention period lasted 10 weeks with 3 weekly training sessions lasting 30-40 min. The maximal inspiratory pressure (PI, max), pulmonary function test, baseline dyspnoea index (BDI), oxygen saturation, and 6 min walking test (6MWT) performance were all measured at baseline and postintervention. Also, an assessment of the 1 min repeated exercise performance (leg extension and leg press) was performed. Moreover, St. George Respiratory Questionnaire was used to quantify the quality of life (SGRQ). Statistical analysis displayed significant favourable effects on 6MWT, leg press, and FRV1, for patients using both devices (EXP-1 and EXP-2, respectively) with lower torso athletic training. The other variables, weight SPO2 and SGRO, also showed no significant change in neither EXP-1 nor EXP-2. Thus, the new respiratory training device (EXP-2) appeared to be as effective as the conventional threshold loading device (EXP-1). In conclusion, our findings demonstrated beneficial effects of combining respiratory training with athletic training in asthma patients. Additionally, the validity of a unique respiratory training device for asthma patients was confirmed.

Introduction-Iron is an important micronutrient which is Very Important for various functions in human body. It is essential for cellular growth and differentiation, oxygen binding, transport and storage, enzymatic reactions, immune function, cognitive function, mental and physical growth etc. So, deficiency of iron due to either physiological or pathological reason can affect mental and physical growth resulting in decreased learning capacity and work productivity. Iron Deficiency Anemia is characterized by a defect in haemoglobin synthesis, resulting in hypochromic and microcytic red blood cells. Iron deficiency can result either due to less nutritional supply, increased demand or blood loss due to any reason. Anemia is a serious global public health problem that particularly affects young children, Adolescent and pregnant women. Although IDA occurs at all ages and involves both sexes, adolescent girls are more prone to it. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined adolescents as the population of 10-19 years of age.

With the rapid emergence of variants of concern (VOC), the efficacy of currently licensed vaccines has reduced drastically. VOC mutations largely occur in the S1 subunit of Spike. The S2 subunit of SARS-CoV-2 is conserved and thus more likely to elicit broadly protective antibody and T-cell responses. However, the contribution of the S2 subunit in improving the overall efficacy of vaccines remains unclear. Therefore, we designed, characterized, and evaluated the immunogenicity and protective potential of a stabilized SARS-CoV-2 Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) fused to a stabilized S2. Designed immunogens were expressed as soluble proteins with significantly higher purified yield than the Spike ectodomain. Squalene-in-water emulsion (SWE) formulated fusions were highly immunogenic. S2 immunization failed to elicit a neutralizing immune response but significantly reduced lung viral titers in mice challenged with the heterologous Beta variant, while RBD-S2 fusions elicited broad neutralization including against the Clade 1a WIV-1 variant, and were highly efficacious. A lyophilized RBD-S2 fusion retained antigenicity and immunogenicity even after incubation at 37 °C for a month. In hamsters, SWE-formulated RBD-S2 showed enhanced immunogenicity and efficacy relative to corresponding RBD and Spike formulations.

The Nuclear Receptor (NR) superfamily includes phylogenetically related ligand-activated proteins, which play a key role in various cellular activities. NR proteins are subdivided into seven subfamilies based on their function, mechanism, and nature of the interacting ligand. Developing robust tools to identify NR could give insights into their functional relationships and involvement in disease pathways. Existing NR prediction tools only use a few types of sequence-based features and are tested on relatively similar independent datasets; thus, they may suffer from overfitting when extended to new genera of sequences. To address this problem, we developed Nuclear Receptor Prediction Tool (NRPreTo); a two-level NR prediction tool with a unique training approach where in addition to the sequence-based features used by existing NR prediction tools, six additional feature groups depicting various physiochemical, structural and evolutionary features of proteins were utilized. The first level of NRPreTo allows for the successful prediction of a query protein as NR or non-NR, and further subclassifies the protein into one of the seven NR subfamilies in the second level. We developed Random Forest classifiers to test on benchmark datasets, as well as the entire human protein datasets from RefSeq and Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD). We observed that using additional feature groups improved performance. We also observed that NRPreTo achieved high performance on the external datasets and predicted 59 novel NRs in the human proteome. The source code of NRPreTo is publicly available athttps://github.com/bozdaglab/NRPreTo.

Beachpea (Vigna marina) is a halophytic wild leguminous plant which occurs throughout tropical and subtropical beaches of world. As quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for salt tolerance in V. marina and its crossability with other Vigna species are known, the current study was undertaken to know the presence of these QTLs in the V. marina accessions along with check varieties of pulses. Accordingly, 20 Vigna genotypes (15 accessions of V. marina collected from sea-shore areas of Andaman and Nicobar Islands along with five check varieties of green gram and black gram) were subjected to molecular characterization using seven simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers associated with salt tolerance. Of the markers used, only four SSR markers amplified in the studied germplasm. Number of alleles detected per primer and size of alleles ranged from 1 to 3 and 100 to 325 bp, respectively. Polymorphism information content and heterozygosity values ranged from 0.305 to 0.537 and 0.375 to 0.612, respectively. Three major clusters, cluster I, II and III were obtained at Jaccard's similarity coefficient value of 0.48 through the un-weighted paired group method with arithmetic means method of cluster analysis. It grouped green gram and black gram genotypes in clusters I (04) and II (01), whereas all V. marina genotypes were grouped in cluster III (15). Principal co-ordinate analysis explained 85.9% of genetic variation among genotypes which was further confirmed by cluster analysis. This study indicated the effectiveness of SSR markers in separating cultivated Vigna species from wild V. marina. The findings will be useful for transferring trait of robust salt tolerance of V. marina in cultivated Vigna species using marker-assisted breeding.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technique has emerged as a non- or minimally invasive modality in the clinical pathogenesis such as deep tissue examining and optical biopsy etc. The OCT imaging increases the Depth of Focus (DoF) by devising mechanisms to increase an Optical Transfer Function (OTF) of the imaging system. This is achieved through an apodization technique on the surface of lens in conjugation with the femtosecond Bessel-type laser beam. An investigation on postulation of OTF through a masked aperture, or specifically a micro-dot is investigated to measure variations of intensity profile at the optical coordinates in the radial as well as axial directions. The intensity variations in the radial and axial coordinates are calibrated to obtain the information, which significantly helps in devising of OCT imaging system. A theoretical investigation of OTF matching the experimental relationship between spot size and DoF in response to obscuration ratio is presented in this paper. This mathematical approach could be applied to different types of masking functions by meticulously exploring the parameters of optical coordinates.

Nanostructured CdS (nCdS) and ternary SnxCd1−xS thin films capped with thioglycerol and methanol in 1:1 ratio in aqueous medium were prepared using hydrated stannous chloride (SnCl2·2H2O), anhydrous cadmium acetate (CH3COO)Cd·2H2O and thiourea (CS(NH2)2) as sources of Sn, Cd and S ions, respectively. Thickness of the film drastically decreases for low concentrations (0–2%) of Sn doping, then increases for (2–3%) and 5% Sn doping. Effects of Sn concentration variation on the optical properties, photoluminescence and structural properties of the nanoparticles were studied. The optical transmittance measurement using ultraviolet–visible–near infrared spectroscopy showed more than 80% transparency in the wavelength range 450–800 nm for 3% and 5% Sn doping. The direct optical band gap value of nanoCdS thin films was obtained as 2.91 eV, which decreased with Sn doping for its varying concentrations. Photoconductivity gain was negligible. A decrease in intensity of lower wavelength emission at 430 nm in nCdS was observed to have (2–5)% Sn content. X-ray diffraction patterns and selected area electron diffraction patterns confirmed formation of the nanocrystalline hexagonal CdSnS phase. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope measurements of the CdSnS thin films show that the particle size lies well under 20 nm.

The Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 is the primary target of neutralizing antibodies. We designed a trimeric, highly thermotolerant glycan engineered RBD by fusion to a heterologous, poorly immunogenic disulfide linked trimerization domain derived from cartilage matrix protein. The protein expressed at a yield of ∼80-100 mg/liter in transiently transfected Expi293 cells, as well as CHO and HEK293 stable cell lines and formed homogeneous disulfide-linked trimers. When lyophilized, these possessed remarkable functional stability to transient thermal stress of upto 100 °C and were stable to long term storage of over 4 weeks at 37 °C unlike an alternative RBD-trimer with a different trimerization domain. Two intramuscular immunizations with a human-compatible SWE adjuvanted formulation, elicited antibodies with pseudoviral neutralizing titers in guinea pigs and mice that were 25-250 fold higher than corresponding values in human convalescent sera. Against the beta (B.1.351) variant of concern (VOC), pseudoviral neutralization titers for RBD trimer were ∼ three-fold lower than against wildtype B.1 virus. RBD was also displayed on a designed ferritin-like Msdps2 nanoparticle. This showed decreased yield and immunogenicity relative to trimeric RBD. Replicative virus neutralization assays using mouse sera demonstrated that antibodies induced by the trimers neutralized all four VOC to date, namely B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1 and B.1.617.2 without significant differences. Trimeric RBD immunized hamsters were protected from viral challenge. The excellent immunogenicity, thermotolerance, and high yield of these immunogens suggest that they are a promising modality to combat COVID-19, including all SARS-CoV-2 VOC to date.

Current influenza vaccines need to be updated annually due to mutations in the globular head of the viral surface protein, hemagglutinin (HA). To address this, vaccine candidates have been designed based on the relatively conserved HA stem domain and have shown protective efficacy in animal models. Oligomerization of the antigens either by fusion to oligomerization motifs or display on self-assembling nanoparticle scaffolds, can induce more potent immune responses compared to the corresponding monomeric antigen due to multivalent engagement of B-cells. Since nanoparticle display can increase manufacturing complexity, and often involves one or more mammalian cell expressed components, it is important to characterize and compare various display and oligomerization scaffolds. Using a structure guided approach, we successfully displayed multiple copies of a previously designed soluble, trimeric influenza stem domain immunogen, pH1HA10, on the ferritin like protein, MsDps2 (12 copies), Ferritin (24 copies) and Encapsulin (180 copies). All proteins were expressed in Escherichia coli. The nanoparticle fusion immunogens were found to be well folded and bound to the influenza stem directed broadly neutralizing antibodies with high affinity. An 8.5 Å Cryo-EM map of Msdps2-pH1HA10 confirmed the successful design of the nanoparticle fusion immunogen. Mice immunization studies with the soluble trimeric stem and nanoparticle fusion constructs revealed that all of them were immunogenic, and protected mice against homologous (A/Belgium/145-MA/2009) and heterologous (A/Puerto Rico/8/1934) challenge with 10MLD50 mouse adapted virus. Although nanoparticle display conferred a small but statistically significant improvement in protection relative to the soluble trimer in a homologous challenge, heterologous protection was similar in both nanoparticle-stem immunized and trimeric stem immunized groups. Such rapidly producible, bacterially expressed antigens and nanoparticle scaffolds are useful modalities to tackle future influenza pandemics.

Clustering plays a vital role in extending the lifespan and optimized direction of a wireless sensor network by integrating sensor nodes through clusters and choosing cluster heads (CHs) and non-cluster heads (NCHs). Cluster head aggregated data and non-cluster heads forward to the base station (BS). In this paper, we have introduced a new Dynamic Multipath Routing Protocol (DMPRP) for selections of cluster heads (CHs) and non-cluster heads (NCHs), which is ideally selected using M-PSO algorithm. After calculating the probabilities, the best selection of cluster heads has taken, and results have used to find the optimized shortest path using the Genetic Algorithm (GA). The GA algorithm uses an objective function consisting of a network to determine the optimal path.

In the present paper static analysis of laminated composite conoidal shells in the presence of delamination is investigated. Simply supported conoidal shells are subjected to uniform loading. Finite element method using eight-noded curved quadratic isoparametric shell element with 5 degrees of freedom (d.o.f) per node is used in the present research work. To ensure compatibility between deflection and equilibrium of moments and forces, an advance feature known as MPC algorithm is integrated in the present model. This generates an unsymmetrical stiffness matrix. The exactness of present model is verified by comparing with the results of previous researchers’ works. Studies are done by varying the lamination schemes, extent of delamination and aspect ratio for composite conoidal shells. Boundary condition is kept as simply supported for all the shells considered in the present study.

Will man Bedingungen fur ein gutes Sterben schaffen, so spielen kulturell-religiose Unterschiede zwischen Menschen eine wichtige Rolle. Das Lebensende ist von verschiedenen Sterbekulturen gepragt, die meist stark in religiosen Weltanschauungen verankert sind. Zu den Faktoren, die zu berucksichtigen sind, zahlen die personlichen Einstellungen zu Leben und Tod, zum „Danach“, zu Leiden und Schmerzerleichterung, zur Ernahrung und Korperpflege, zu religiosen Observanzen in der letzten Lebensphase, zu Therapieverzicht oder Therapieabbruch und Sterbehilfe, zu Sterbe- und Totenritualen, zu Verlust und Trauer. Daraus ergeben sich Orientierungen sowie spirituelle Bedurfnisse von schwerstkranken, sterbenden Menschen und ihren Angehorigen, die zunachst einmal Sensibilitat, Respekt und Offenheit aufseiten der betreuenden Berufsgruppen erfordern. Die Einsicht, dass das gute Sterben nicht fur alle Menschen dasselbe bedeutet, bildet ein Korrektiv fur Idealbildungen und normative Qualitatsstandards am Lebensende. Sie ist Ausgangspunkt der interkulturellen und interreligiosen Herausforderung der Palliative Care.

Spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV2 exists chiefly in two conformations, open and closed. Most previous structural studies on S protein have been conducted at pH 8.0, but knowledge of the conformational propensities under both physiological and endosomal pH conditions is important to inform vaccine development. Our current study employed single-particle cryoelectron microscopy to visualize multiple states of open and closed conformations of S protein at physiological pH 7.4 and near-physiological pH 6.5 and pH 8.0. Propensities of open and closed conformations were found to differ with pH changes, whereby around 68% of S protein exists in open conformation at pH 7.4. Furthermore, we noticed a continuous movement in the N-terminal domain, receptor-binding domain (RBD), S2 domain, and stalk domain of S protein conformations at various pH values. Several key residues involving RBD-neutralizing epitopes are differentially exposed in each conformation. This study will assist in developing novel therapeutic measures against SARS-CoV2., Graphical abstract, In this study, Pramanick et al. demonstrate inherent structural flexibility of NTD, RBD, and stalk domain of SARS-CoV2 Spike glycoprotein. Eleven high-resolution cryo-EM structures obtained over a range of near-physiological pH values indicate a trend of increasing open conformational state of S protein at physiological pH 7.4.

In this, we provide the frontline Internet of Things (IoT), enabler of the newest oral communication class between humans and devices. A most crucial strength of the IoT concept is that the great have an impact on it is on manner via growing a change dimension to the world, pretty like what the online as soon as did. The paper pronounces the definitions of IoT, associated challenges, and discusses the usage of IoT in the various fields and day-to-day environments. The content material consists of the strengths and obstacles of purposes supported the IoT inactivity, transportation, healthcare, environment, and disaster.

Virtually all SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently in clinical testing are stored in a refrigerated or frozen state prior to use. This is a major impediment to deployment in resource-poor settings. Several use viral vectors or mRNA. In contrast to protein subunit vaccines, there is limited manufacturing expertise for these novel, nucleic acid based modalities, especially in the developing world. Neutralizing antibodies, the clearest known correlate of protection against SARS-CoV-2, are primarily directed against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the viral spike protein. We describe a monomeric, glycan engineered RBD protein fragment that is expressed at a purified yield of 214mg/L in unoptimized, mammalian cell culture and in contrast to a stabilized spike ectodomain, is tolerant of exposure to temperatures as high as 100°C when lyophilized, upto 70°C in solution and stable for over four weeks at 37°C. In prime:boost guinea pig immunizations, when formulated with the MF59 like adjuvant AddaVax™, the RBD derivative elicited neutralizing antibodies with an endpoint geometric mean titer of ~415 against replicative virus, comparing favourably with several vaccine formulations currently in the clinic. These features of high yield, extreme thermotolerance and satisfactory immunogenicity suggest that such RBD subunit vaccine formulations hold great promise to combat COVID-19.

Over‐the‐top (OTT) services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube generate the most dominant form of traffic on the Internet today. There is increasingly high demand for resource intensive 3D contents, interactive media, 360 media, and user‐generated contents. As the amount of contents keep increasing in multiple folds, it is important to cache contents intelligently. Caching algorithm needs to exploit in‐network caching, community‐based pre‐caching, and a combined approach. Hence, we survey CDN‐based edge caching infrastructures including OpenConnect (Netflix) and Google Edge, followed by CCN based in‐network caching. We implement and compare four different approaches for caching contents including (1) in‐network caching, (2) edge caching, (3) community‐based in‐network caching, and (4) community‐based edge caching. We run our algorithms on adaptive network conditions with different topologies, cache size, content popularity, and request arrivals in and compared the delay for all these four approaches. We verify our model by calculating important performance parameters including hop count, redundancy, and hop count variances. Hopcount is an important performance parameter as it influences the processing, queuing, and transmission delays. We focus on determining if an in‐network caching approach is any better than edge caching. We reach several conclusions. First, in most of the scenarios, community‐based in‐network caching performs the best. Second, if the cache size is lesser than 30% of the total content size then community‐based edge caching is better for less popular contents. Finally, our statistical analysis also reveals that a community‐based edge caching mechanism is least affected by varying cache sizes and dynamic user behavior, which makes it a better choice for providing Service Level Agreement.

Large column-free areas are a need of today’s industrial units. This need can be fulfilled by thin laminated shell structures made of composite material. Conoidal shell, being a doubly curved shell structure with a ruled surface, is comparatively easy to construct and is ideal for roofing purposes of such large areas. High specific strength of composite materials and curved form of shells provide greater stability to these shell roofs. The behaviour of these shell structures under loading largely depends on support conditions. Now, separation of layers, known as delamination, is considered to be a major critical defect of composite laminates, which occurs due to repeated cyclic stresses, impact and manufacturing defects. Delamination causes remarkable loss in mechanical toughness and ultimate failure. The most notable thing regarding delamination is that, in most cases, it is not visible from outside. Hence, this type of damage needs a wider attention from researchers. In this paper, the composite conoidal shells with delamination under static loading have been studied. A finite element formulation has been developed with Fortran code to observe the change in deflection in a conoidal shell with varying number of support conditions. An in-depth analysis is done based on number of supports, laminations, stacking sequences and percentage of damage; thereafter, some helpful observations have been highlighted so as to narrate the characteristics of this shell structure as a roofing unit.

Virtually all SARS-CoV-2 vaccines currently in clinical testing are stored in a refrigerated or frozen state prior to use. This is a major impediment to deployment in resource-poor settings. Furthermore, several of them use viral vectors or mRNA. In contrast to protein subunit vaccines, there is limited manufacturing expertise for these nucleic-acid-based modalities, especially in the developing world. Neutralizing antibodies, the clearest known correlate of protection against SARS-CoV-2, are primarily directed against the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the viral spike protein, suggesting that a suitable RBD construct might serve as a more accessible vaccine ingredient. We describe a monomeric, glycan-engineered RBD protein fragment that is expressed at a purified yield of 214 mg/l in unoptimized, mammalian cell culture and, in contrast to a stabilized spike ectodomain, is tolerant of exposure to temperatures as high as 100 °C when lyophilized, up to 70 °C in solution and stable for over 4 weeks at 37 °C. In prime:boost guinea pig immunizations, when formulated with the MF59-like adjuvant AddaVax, the RBD derivative elicited neutralizing antibodies with an endpoint geometric mean titer of ∼415 against replicative virus, comparing favorably with several vaccine formulations currently in the clinic. These features of high yield, extreme thermotolerance, and satisfactory immunogenicity suggest that such RBD subunit vaccine formulations hold great promise to combat COVID-19.

Cloud computing gives on-demand access to conveyed assets on paid premise. Everyone needs to utilize these administrations to decrease the expense of framework and support, in this way the load on cloud is expanding step by step. Balancing the load is a standout amongst the most critical issue that distributed computing is confronting today. The load should to be appropriated reasonably among every one of the hubs. Load balancing can reduce the energy utilization. Every one of these algorithms works in various ways and has a few favorable circumstances and restrictions. The most imperative for load balancing calculations is to consider the qualities like throughput, adaptation to internal failure, overhead, execution, and reaction time and asset usage. This paper primarily centers on the idea of load Balancing, writing review on load Balancing systems and diverse estimation parameters.

Observing the dynamic scenarios that change quickly with time is the prime utilization of remote sensor systems. This difference in conduct is contemplated to either certain outside variables or impediment of some framework structures itself in unpredicted causality. To adjust such conditions, machine learning procedures are esteemed to be valuable in disposing of the requirement for pointless update. Further, the method dependent on machine learning urges numerous viable answers for boost utilizations of asset and in this manner improves the life expectancy of the sensor arrange. In this paper, simply discussion over wireless sensor network, its characteristics, comparing with wireless ad hoc networks along with various application of wireless sensor network in different fields has been extended.

Substrate-binding proteins (SBPs) are periplasmic proteins consisting of two α/β domains joined by a hinge region with specificity towards cognate ligands. Based on three-dimensional fold, sugar-specific SBPs have been classified into cluster B and cluster D-I. The analysis of sequences and structures of sugar-binding pocket of cluster D-I SBPs revealed the presence of extra residues on two loops (L1, L2) and a helix (H1) in few members of this family, that binds specifically to monosaccharides. Presence of conserved histidine in L2 and tryptophan in H1 can be considered as the identity marks for the cluster D-I monosaccharide-binding SBPs. A glucose binding protein (ppGBP) from Pseudomonas putida CSV86 was found to contain a structural fold similar to oligosaccharide-binding cluster D-I SBPs, but functionally binds to only glucose due to constriction of its binding pocket mainly by L2 (375–382). ppGBP with partial deletion of L2 (ppGBPΔL2) was created, crystallized and biochemical characterization was performed. Compared to wild type ppGBP, the ppGBPΔL2 structure showed widening of the glucose-binding pocket with ∼80% lower glucose binding. Our results show that the substrate specificity of SBPs can be altered by modulating the size of the binding pocket. Based on this, we propose a sub classification of cluster D-I SBPs into (i) cluster D-I(a)-monosaccharide-binding SBPs and (ii) cluster D-I(b)-oligosaccharide-binding SBPs. This study also provides the direct structural and functional correlation indicating that divergence of proteins may occur through insertions or deletions of sequences in the already existing SBPs leading to evolution at the functional level.

Global warming poses a major threat to our civilization that has led to unsustainable development worldwide. Though there are different strategies for global warming mitigation, carbon sequestration in water column via microalgae is the eco-friendly, cost effective and sustainable tool to capture and utilize carbon in a beneficial way. Microalgae, Chlorella sp. was cultured in ex situ using (a) standard basal medium as control, (b) culture medium aerated, (c) exogenously introduced liquid carbon dioxide into the culture medium. The growth of Chlorella was also examined under different pH (4 - 11) of the culture medium as well as in various dilutions (0, 25, 50%) of effluents of a Brewery under autoclaved and non- autoclaved conditions. There was no marked difference in growth of Chlorella sp. between 0 - 166 hours and between 218 - 272 hours either, but significant difference (P < 0.05) in growth was clearly discernable during the peak period among the treatments. Exogenously introduced CO2 or aeration of the culture medium did not significantly improve the growth over basal medium suggesting that optimal conditions of carbon or oxygen have prevailed in the basal medium of culture. There was a sharp dichotomy of pH effects on the growth of Chlorella as growth was distinctly higher at pH 8 to 11 compared to the remaining pH (4 - 6) showing no significant differences (P > 0.05) among themselves. Chlorella sp. grown in brewery effluent showed the maximum growth in 50% and 25% dilution of non autoclaved and autoclaved effluent of beverage factory respectively suggesting that autoclaving saved 25% of bacteria driven nutrient demand.

One of the popular models for the low/hard state of Black Hole Binaries is that the standard accretion disk is truncated and the hot inner region produces via Comptonization, the hard X-ray flux. This is supported by the value of the high energy photon index, which is often found to be small $\sim$ 1.7 ($$ 2. This would mean that the medium is not photon deficient, reconciling the presence of a broad Fe line in the observed hard state. To test this hypothesis, we have analyzed the RXTE observations of GX 339-4 from the four outbursts during 2002-2011 and identify the observations when the system was in the hard state and showed a broad Fe line. We have then attempted to fit these observations with models, which include smeared reflection to understand whether the intrinsic photon index can indeed be large. We find that, while for some observations the inclusion of reflection does increase the photon index, there are hard state observations with broad Fe line that have photon indices less than 2., Comment: 12pages, 5figues, submitted to RAA