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Tuberculosis (TB) strains with drug resistance are more difficult to treat than drug susceptible ones and jeopardise global progress towards the targets set by the World Health Organisation’s End TB Strategy. Although disseminated TB is well known as an opportunistic infection in HIV infected individuals, it is uncommon in HIV negative individuals. The present case is a rare case of Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR)-TB in disseminated TB involving the extrapulmonary sites in an immunocompetent adult. We report a case of a young man who has disseminated TB involving pleura and peritoneum. Prior to this, he had taken category II anti-TB treatment with no satisfactory response. Drug sensitivity test of pleural fluid revealed resistance to quinolones, kanamycin, isoniazid and rifampicin. Patient was administered second line anti-TB therapy with remarkable response. Therefore, this case highlights the importance of investigating aggressively for Drug Resistance (DR) in suspected cases of extrapulmonary TB.

Capsicum is generally infested with many biotic agents mainly sucking insects, among them the major is aphid (Myzus persicae). Chemical management is one of the most common strategies for their management. However, there are no recommended insecticides for insect management in polyhouse. An experiment was designed to assess the bio-potency of four popularly used insecticides (Imidacloprid-17.8SL, Acephate-75SP, Dimethoate-30EC and Buprofezin-25SC), a botanical (Neem oil 10000 ppm) and two entomopathogenic fungi (Metarhizium anisopliae 1.15%WP and Lecanicillium lecanii 1.15%WP) for two consecutive seasons. Most effective and the highest reduction of aphid population (78.14–81.92 %) were found in imidacloprid (17.8SL) treated plots. This effective molecule imidacloprid was further studied for its dissipation pattern under polyhouse and open condition and found that the imidacloprid residues in capsicum fruit dissipated below quantification limit (BQL) within 10days after final spray and the residues in the soil sampled at harvest time were found below the detection level. The half-lives of imidacloprid were 1.88 and 2.61 days under polyhouse and 1.07 and 1.52 days in open field at recommended doses (25 g a.i. ha−1) and double doses (50 g a.i. ha−1) of application respectively. The dietary exposure of imidacloprid on capsicum fruit under both conditions exposed that hazard quotient (HQ) values obtained from the different treatment doses have not exceeded the upper limit of toxicity (HQ

Due to increased awareness regarding the health-promoting profile of millets, inclination towards their consumption has increased considerably. In the Himalayan region of India, cultivars of the two species of barnyard millet, namely Indian (Echinochloa frumentacea) and Japanese barnyard millet (E. esculenta), are grown. To compare the dehulled grain recovery, grain physical parameters, nutritional profile and antioxidant activity, an experiment was carried out at ICAR-VPKAS, Almora, Uttarakhand hills for two years using released and popular cultivars of Indian barnyard millet (VL 207 and VL 172) and Japanese barnyard millet (PRJ-1). The results indicated that the whole grain yield of Japanese barnyard millet cultivar PRJ-1 was significantly higher than Indian Barnyard millet cultivars VL 172 and VL 207; however, the dehulled grain recovery was considerably higher in VL 172 and VL 207 than PRJ-1. Similarly, the physical grain parameters were significantly higher in PRJ-1, but most dehulled grain parameters were at par in cultivars of both species. The nutritional estimation of dehulled grains of both species did not show remarkable differences for most traits. Still, crude fibre, Mn, and Zn were high in PRJ-1, while total digestible nutrients and phosphorous were high in VL 172 and VL 207. Dehulled grains exhibited much more crude protein, ash, minerals, and total digestible nutrients, but the husk accumulated significantly higher crude fibre and total polyphenols.

Psoriasis is a common genetic autoimmune disorder with a global prevalence of 2–3%. The clear pathogenesis of psoriasis is not fully understood, but hyperproliferation and inflammation of the epidermis with marked infiltration of immune cells have been indicated in psoriasis with such cells producing different types of cytokines- interleukin. As such a new member of the IL-1 cytokine family, in some research, IL-33 has been linked with psoriasis showing high serum concentration of IL-33 in human psoriatic plaques compared to normal healthy skin. Despite this, the association between IL-33 and psoriasis is not clear. Herein, in this review, we aim to investigate the correlation between serum IL-33 levels and psoriasis. We conducted meta-analysis using fixed or random-effects models to calculate pooled standard mean differences. We found that the mean IL-33 serum levels were reported between 0.35 pg/mL to 586 pg/mL in the psoriatic group and 0 pg/mL to 87.7 pg/mL in the healthy control group. Out of five, four individual studies included in the analysis reported statistically significant differences in IL-33 levels, the pooled estimate (SMD = 0.340 95% CI: −0.308 to 0.988), however, did not indicate a significant relation between IL-33 and psoriasis. This analysis revealed no significant difference between serum IL-33 levels in the psoriatic population in comparison to healthy controls. This may be because we did not include any animal studies, lab-based studies, any other markers mixed together, or any other cases of diseases mixed together. However, further research is warranted to confirm the reported association as this analysis is limited by the low-quality and observational nature of the included studies.

The vast diversity of nematodes has adapted to endure in different trophic groups as free living and parasites of plants and animals. In search of potential entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), soil samples were collected from, the rhizosphere of Apple orchard in Darima, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India north-western Himalaya in August 2019. The whole experimental activity carried out at ICAR-Vivekanada Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora during 2019–2021. In present study, Pristionchus pacificus was isolated using Corcyra bait trap, identified based on morphological and molecular approaches, studied its host range, evaluated the phylogenetic tree of P. pacificus and isolated and characterized the nematode associated bacteria. The reproduction potential and frequency of emergence of P. pacificus differs significantly among the tested hosts on Corcyra, Spodoptera and Holotrichia larvae. The molecular diagnostics of associated bacteria based on 16S gene displayed the highest homology with Myroides marinus strain. The discovery of P. pacificus VLPP01 represents the first record from India and Himalayan region.

The paper presents simple but accurate analytical expressions for the estimation of variation of signal and pump intensity with normalised radial distance in case of erbium doped fiber amplifier. Choosing two typical single-mode step index fibers in our investigation, we hereby predict the said variations relating to both pump and signal in presence as well as absence of Kerr nonlinearity. The stated formulation uses power series expression for the fundamental modal field of graded index optical fiber as derived by Chebyshev formalism. Method of iteration is applied for the prediction of concerned parameters in presence of Kerr type nonlinearity. Our results have been shown to be agreeing excellently with the numerical exact ones in absence and also in presence of Kerr nonlinearity. Exact results in case of Kerr nonlinearity are determined using the cumbersome finite element method. It is noteworthy that execution of our proposed method requires very less computation and as such it will be remarkably user friendly for researchers and technologists associated with nonlinear optical engineering.