Observation of non-equilibrium fluctuation in the shear-stress-driven hemoglobin aggregates.

Non-equilibrium fluctuations caused by the rearrangement of hemoglobin molecules into an aggregate state under shear stress have been investigated experimentally. The flow response under the shear stress (σ) corroborates the presence of contrasting aggregate and rejuvenation states governed by entropy production and consumption events. From the time-dependent shear rate fluctuation studies of aggregate states, the probability distribution function (PDF) of the rate of work done is observed to be spread from negative to positive values with a net positive mean. The PDFs follow the steady-state fluctuation theorem, even at a smaller timescale than that desired by the theorem. The behavior of the effective temperature (Teff) that emerges from a non-equilibrium fluctuation and interconnects with the structural restrictions of the aggregate state of our driven system is observed to be within the boundary of the thermodynamic uncertainty. The increase in Teff with the applied σ illustrates a phenomenal nonlinear power flux-dependent aggregating behavior in a classic bio-molecular-driven system.

Impact of long-term resource conservation techniques on biogeochemical characteristics and biological soil quality indicators in a rice green-gram farming system.

Nutrient management in resource conservation practices influence the structural and functional microbial diversities and thereby affect biological processes and biochemical properties in soil. We studied the long-term effects of resource conservation technologies on functional microbial diversity and their interactions with soil biochemical properties and enzymatic activities in tropical rice-green gram cropping system. The experiment includes seven treatments viz., conventional practice (CC), brown manuring (BM), green manuring (GM), wet direct drum sowing, zero tillage, green manuring-customized leaf colour chart based-N application (GM-CLCC-N) and biochar (BC) application. The result of the present study revealed that microbial biomass nitrogen (N), carbon (C) and phosphorus (P) in GM practice were increased by 23.3, 37.7 and 35.1%, respectively than CC. GM, BM and GM-CLCC-N treatments provide higher yields than conventional practice. The average well color development value, Shannon index and McIntosh index were significantly higher by 26.6%, 86.9% and 29.2% in GM as compared to control treatment. So, from this study we can conclude that resource conservation practices like GM, GM-CLCC N and BM in combination with chemical fertilizers provide easily decomposable carbon source to support the microbial growth. Moreover, dominance of microbial activity in biomass amended treatments (GM, GM-CLCC N and BM) indicated that these treatments could supply good amount of labile C sources on real time basis for microbial growth that may protect the stable C fraction in soil, hence could support higher yield and soil organic carbon build-up in long run under rice-green gram soil.

Elucidation of dominant energy metabolic pathways of methane, sulphur and nitrogen in respect to mangrove-degradation for climate change mitigation.

Mangroves play a key role in ecosystem balancing and climate change mitigation. It acts as a source and sink of methane (CH4), a major greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Energy metabolic pathways of methane production (methanogenesis) and oxidation (methanotrophy) are directly driven by sulphur (S) and nitrogen (N) metabolism and salinity in coastal wetlands. To investigate, how mangrove-degradations, affect the source-sink behaviour of CH4; the pathways of CH4, S and N were studied through whole-genome metagenomic approach. Soil samples were collected from degraded and undisturbed mangrove systems in Sundarban, India. Structural and functional microbial diversities (KEGG pathways) of CH4, S and N metabolism were analysed and correlated with labile carbon pools and physico-chemical properties of soil. Overall, the acetoclastic pathway of methanogenesis was dominant. However, the relative proportion of conversion of CO2 to CH4 was more in degraded mangroves. Methane oxidation was higher in undisturbed mangroves and the serine pathway was dominant. After serine, the ribulose monophosphate pathway of CH4 oxidation was dominant in degraded mangrove, while the xylulose monophosphate pathway was dominant in undisturbed site as it is more tolerant to salinity and higher pH. The assimilatory pathway (AMP) of S-metabolism was dominant in both systems. But in AMP pathway, adenosine triphosphate sulfurylase enzyme reads were higher in degraded mangrove, while NADPH-sulfite reductase abundance was higher in undisturbed mangrove due to higher salinity, and pH. In N-metabolism, the denitrification pathway was predominant in degraded sites, whereas the dissimilatory nitrate reduction pathway was dominant in undisturbed mangroves. The relative ratios of sulphur reducing bacteria (SRB): methanogens were higher in degraded mangrove; however, methanotrophs:methanogens was higher in undisturbed mangrove indicated lower source and greater sink capacity of CH4 in the system. Microbial manipulation in mangrove-rhizosphere for regulating major energy metabolic pathways of methane could open-up a new window of climate change mitigation in coastal wetlands.

Association mapping reveals multiple QTLs for grain protein content in rice useful for biofortification.

Rice is the staple food for majority of the global population. But, rice grain has low protein content (PC). Mapping of QTLs controlling grain PC is essential for enhancement of the trait through breeding programs. A shortlisted panel population for grain protein content was studied for genetic diversity, population structure and association mapping for grain PC. Phenotyping results showed a wide variation for grain PC. The panel population showed a moderate level of genetic diversity estimated through 98 molecular markers. AMOVA and structure analysis indicated linkage disequilibrium for grain PC and deviation of Hardy-Weinberg's expectation. The analysis showed 15% of the variation among populations and 73% among individuals in the panel population. STRUCTURE analysis categorized the panel population into three subpopulations. The analysis also revealed a common primary ancestor for each subpopulation with few admix individuals. Marker-trait association using 98 molecular markers detected 7 strongly associated QTLs for grain PC by both MLM and GLM analysis. Three novel QTLs qPC3.1, qPC5.1 and qPC9.1 were detected for controlling the grain PC. Four reported QTLs viz., qPC3, QPC8, qPC6.1 and qPC12.1 were validated for use in breeding programs. Reported QTLs, qPC6, qPC6.1 and qPC6.2 may be same QTL controlling PC in rice. A very close marker RM407 near to protein controlling QTL, qProt8 and qPC8, was detected. The study provided clue for simultaneous improvement of PC with high grain yield in rice. The strongly associated markers with grain PC, namely qPC3, qPC3.1, qPC5.1, qPC6.1, qPC8, qPC9.1 and qPC12.1, will be useful for their pyramiding for developing protein rich high yielding rice.

Assessment of long-term impact of formal certified cardiopulmonary resuscitation training program among nurses.

CONTEXT: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and emergency cardiovascular care guidelines are periodically renewed and published by the American Heart Association. Formal training programs are conducted based on these guidelines. Despite widespread training CPR is often poorly performed. Hospital educators spend a significant amount of time and money in training health professionals and maintaining basic life support (BLS) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) skills among them. However, very little data are available in the literature highlighting the long-term impact of these training. AIMS: To evaluate the impact of formal certified CPR training program on the knowledge and skill of CPR among nurses, to identify self-reported outcomes of attempted CPR and training needs of nurses. SETTING AND DESIGN: Tertiary care hospital, Prospective, repeated-measures design. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A series of certified BLS and ACLS training programs were conducted during 2010 and 2011. Written and practical performance tests were done. Final testing was undertaken 3-4 years after training. The sample included all available, willing CPR certified nurses and experience matched CPR noncertified nurses. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: SPSS for Windows version 21.0. RESULTS: The majority of the 206 nurses (93 CPR certified and 113 noncertified) were females. There was a statistically significant increase in mean knowledge level and overall performance before and after the formal certified CPR training program (P = 0.000). However, the mean knowledge scores were equivalent among the CPR certified and noncertified nurses, although the certified nurses scored a higher mean score (P = 0.140). CONCLUSIONS: Formal certified CPR training program increases CPR knowledge and skill. However, significant long-term effects could not be found. There is a need for regular and periodic recertification.

Four pro-inflammatory cytokines of rohu (Labeo rohita) during early developmental stages, their tissue distribution and expression by leucocytes upon in-vitro stimulation.

Cytokines are important components of both adaptive and innate immunity, and are required to initiate and regulate immune responses following infection. The ontogeny and tissue specific distribution of four pro-inflammatory cytokines, interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), IL-8 and IL-1ß in rohu (Labeo rohita), and their responses by leucocytes from anterior-kidney/head-kidney (HKLs), spleen (SPLs) and peripheral blood (PBLs) following stimulation with concanavalin A (ConA), ConA with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (ConA/PMA) and formalin-killed Aeromonas hydrophila cells (FAH) were studied. In ontogeny study, mRNA levels of IL-6 and IL-1ß were evident in unfertilized egg stages of L. rohita whereas IL-8 and TNF-α transcripts were found from 1 to 3 h post-fertilization (hpf) onwards till day 15 post-fertilization, respectively. Basal level of all four cytokines was observed in all twelve tissues (eye, brain, heart, gill, anterior kidney, posterior kidney, spleen, liver, skin, muscle, hindgut and foregut) of L. rohita juveniles. Expression levels of IL-6 and IL-8 were found to be the highest in liver and heart tissues, respectively, while TNF-α transcripts were high in anterior kidney and liver tissues. Transcripts of IL-1ß showed high expression in muscle, heart and spleen. Upon in vitro stimulation of leucocytes, there was variable up-regulation of all the four cytokines following different treatments throughout the experimental time period. Induction of cytokines was more pronounced in PBLs stimulated with FAH compared to other stimuli. However, an up-regulated IL-8 expression was evident in all the leucocytes following stimulation with FAH thus indicating IL-8 could be used as an indicator or indirect marker to monitor vaccine status or health status of L. rohita during bacterial infection.

Lineage shift of dengue virus in Eastern India: an increased implication for DHF/DSS.

Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease, has become a major public health problem with marked expansion in recent decades. Dengue has now become hyperendemic in India with co-circulation of all the four serotypes. Herein, we report an unprecedented outbreak which occurred during August to October 2011 in Odisha, eastern India. This is the first report of a large epidemic in Odisha. Detailed serological and molecular investigation was carried out to identify the aetiology. Almost half of the samples were found to be dengue antigen (NS1) positive. Further molecular assays revealed circulation of mixed dengue serotypes (DENV-2 and DENV-3). Cosmopolitan genotype of DENV-2 and -3 were identified as the aetiology by phylogenetic analysis. Interestingly, a new lineage of DENV-3 within cosmopolitan genotype was incriminated in this outbreak. The emergence of the unprecedented magnitude of the dengue outbreak with the involvement of a novel lineage of DENV in a newer state of India is a major cause for concern. There is an urgent need to monitor phylodynamics of dengue viruses in other endemic areas.

Immune responses and protective efficacy of recombinant outer membrane protein R (rOmpR)-based vaccine of Aeromonas hydrophila with a modified adjuvant formulation in rohu (Labeo rohita).

Despite the importance and success of developing a candidate vaccine against Aeromonas hydrophila infection in fish, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of the vaccine-induced immunoprotection in Indian major carp, Labeo rohita, primarily due to lack of information on most of the immune related genes of the species. In this study, a novel candidate antigen recombinant outer membrane protein R (rOmpR) of A. hydrophila was evaluated as a vaccine candidate along with a modified adjuvant formulation. Protective efficacy of the rOmpR immunization was assessed in terms of survival against A. hydrophila challenge as well as modulation of immune response in vaccinated fish after 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 72 h and 10 days post-injection (using immune gene expression analysis) and 10, 28, 56 and 140 days post-injection (serum immune parameter analysis). The generated immune response was compared with a formalin-killed A. hydrophila antigen preparation using mineral oil only and modified adjuvant alone. We report a variable up-regulation of the immune-related genes viz., lysozyme G, complement factor 4, immunoglobulin M, ß2-microglobulin, major histocompatibility complex I and II, and interleukin-1ß in anterior kidney and spleen tissues at early time points post-immunization in all the groups, when compared to the control fish. The vaccinated fish also showed an increase in serum natural hemolysin titer, lysozyme and myeloperoxidase activities, and antibody titer irrespective of vaccine formulations as compared to control fish on days 10, 28 and 56. However, the increase in the serum parameters was more pronounced on day 140 in rOmpR-modified adjuvant injected group, indicating the modulatory role of this new vaccine formulation. Upon challenge with live A. hydrophila on days 56 and 140 post-immunization, significantly reduced percent mortality was noted in the group immunized with modified adjuvant based rOmpR vaccine formulation. Taken together, our results suggest that rOmpR along with modified adjuvant could potentially be used as a vaccine formulation to handle A. hydrophila infection on a long-term basis.

Unusual and rare manifestations of dengue during a dengue outbreak in a tertiary care hospital in South India.

Dengue is the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, and as a larger proportion of the population is being affected, more unusual manifestations are being reported. Very few studies have documented unusual manifestations of dengue in South India. This prospective study was undertaken from July 2011 to June 2013 to document rare manifestations of dengue fever in 175 hospitalized patients. The clinical diagnosis was confirmed by the detection of NS1Ag, dengue IgM, or IgG by ELISA and/or a RT-PCR and CDC real-time PCR for dengue virus (DENV) RNA. The daily profiles of the hematological and biochemical investigations were followed and recorded. Unusual and rare manifestations of dengue were documented for 115 patients (66 %). Hepatitis was observed in 70 % of the cases. Pleural effusion was seen in 11 %, acute renal failure in 10 %, neurological complications such as encephalitis in 7.4 %, myocarditis in 9 %, and bleeding gastric ulcers in 3.4 % of the cases. DENV serotype 2 was more prevalent in patients with unusual manifestations of dengue in our study. The WHO classification system does not include unusual and rare manifestations; hence, it is essential to be aware of these manifestations and closely monitor them for better clinical management and outcome of patients.

Entropy-driven nonequilibrium phonon-stimulated electron-phonon coupling in tin dioxide nanorods.

Nonequilibrium (NEQ) phonon fluctuation in a nanosystem has been studied through the statistical assessment of the entropy-production and -consumption events in ultrasmall tin dioxide (SnO_{2}) nanorods. Size- and shape-dependent alteration in free energy leading to modulation of the probability distribution function of the phonon dynamics has been observed from the x-ray diffraction and Raman scattering characterizations. The Gallavotti-Cohen nonequilibrium fluctuation theorem has been utilized to qualitatively describe the aforementioned behaviors under the influence of a global flux. The observation of entropy consumption and thermodynamically favorable entropy-production events indicates the presence of NEQ fluctuations in the phonon modes. The effective energy scale of fluctuation in driven phonon modes, dissipating energy faster than relaxation time, is quantified on the order of nanojoules. From optical absorption and photoluminescence studies, the observation of the electron-phonon coupled state confirms the interaction of the NEQ phonons with electrons. The strength of the coupling has been estimated from the temperature-independent Barry center shift and found to be enhanced to 5.35. Valence band x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy analyses reconcile NEQ phonon mediated alteration of the valence band density of states, activation of silent phonon modes, and superior excitonic transitions, suitable for the new generation of ultrafast quantum device applications.

Culprit vessel only versus complete revascularization following thrombolysis in patients with ST elevation myocardial infraction and multivessel coronary artery disease - A prospective study.

OBJECTIVE: The present study compares the treatment outcomes of only culprit vessel PCI and complete revascularization in patients with STEMI and multivessel disease (MVD) following thrombolysis. METHODS: This was a single-center, prospective randomized study including a total of 108 patients presenting at a tertiary care center within 3-24 h post-thrombolysis and undergoing pharmacoinvasive PCI, and randomized into two groups: complete revascularization PCI group and culprit only PCI group. The primary outcomes were evaluated by cardiac mortality, repeat myocardial infarction (MI)/acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and refractory angina. The secondary outcomes include repeat revascularization and safety outcomes namely contrast induced nephropathy (CIN), cerebrovascular accident (CVA) and major bleeding were compared among both the groups at one year follow-up. RESULTS: Complete revascularization PCI group and culprit only PCI group had 54 patients in each group. Left ventricular ejection fraction did not show significant difference at discharge (p = 1) but was significantly improved in complete revascularization PCI group (p = 0.001) at one year follow-up. Reduced number of outcomes with a significant difference in both the groups were seen for primary outcomes such as cardiac mortality (p = 0.01), repeat MI/ACS (p = 0.01) and refractory angina (p = 0.038) along with repeat revascularization (p = 0.001) at one year follow-up. Complete revascularization did not show any statistically significant difference for CIN (p = 0.567), CVA (p = 0.153) and major bleeding (p = 0.322) then culprit only revascularization group. CONCLUSION: In patients with STEMI and MVD, complete revascularization was found more favourable in terms of primary and secondary outcomes compared to culprit only revascularization.

Delayed gastric emptying time in adult cerebral Falciparum malaria.

OBJECTIVE: We hypothesize that upper gastrointestinal symptoms in cerebral malaria are due to gastric motor dysfunction. But gastric motility studies in cerebral malaria are scarce. METHODS: We determined gastric emptying half-time (GET½) of liquid meals quantitatively by radio isotope scintigraphy in 25 patients of cerebral malaria and 10 healthy controls. RESULTS: GET½ was prolonged (46.5 ± 4.8 min) significantly (p <0.001) in patients of cerebral malaria compared to healthy controls (27.6 ± 5.3 min). CONCLUSION: Cerebral malaria can cause prolongation of gastric emptying time of liquid foods.

Detection of faults and DG islanding in PV-Wind DC ring bus microgrid by using optimized VMD based improved broad learning system.

This paper presents a novel approach for the detection and classification of photovoltaic with wind based DC ring bus microgrid DC faults and DG (distributed generation) islanding events. This novel approach consists of adaptive variational mode decomposition (AVMD) and an improved broad learning system (IBLS). Initially, DC fault current signals are captured from the DC bus under different operating conditions and processed through the AVMD to decompose the signals into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). The VMD is made adaptive by minimizing the objective function of the L-kurtosis index for optimal modal number (K) and penalty factor (σ) through the improved whale optimization (IWO) algorithm. From the optimal IMFs, the most significant IMFs are chosen based on the threshold of the L-kurtosis index, and they are passed through statistical features to extract efficient data. Further, the training and testing of this data set is carried out through IBLS for obtaining the accurate detection and discrimination of DC faults. The conventional BLS method is improved through elastic net ridge regression for calculating the weights. The effectiveness of the proposed AVMD based IBLS algorithm is verified by its superiority in terms of relative computation time (RCT), classification accuracy (CA) with the confusion matrix, and their performance indices by comparing with other existing methods under different case studies. Finally, the simplicity and practicability of the proposed work are tested and implemented in the dSPACE 1104 embedded processor.

Emergence of dengue virus type 4 (genotype I) in India.

Dengue is an emerging arboviral disease and currently poses the greatest arboviral threat to human health. In recent decades, there has been a substantial increase in dengue outbreaks in many parts of the world including India. We performed an in-depth investigation of a major dengue outbreak in Andhra Pradesh, southern India in 2007 by serology, virus isolation, RT-PCR and genotyping. The results revealed an unusual emergence of dengue virus type 4 (DENV-4) along with the prevailing DENV-3. Phylogenetic analysis based on complete envelope gene of 182 globally diverse DENV-4 isolates demonstrated the involvement of a unique clade of genotype I of DENV-4 in the outbreak. This study also demonstrated a clear shift in the dominant serotype from DENV-3 to DENV-4 in India. This is the first report regarding the molecular characterization of Indian isolates of DENV-4, which has the potential to be involved in future outbreaks.

Assessment of right ventricular systolic function by two dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography in rheumatic mitral valve disease.

We assessed the Right Ventricular (RV) systolic function using two dimensional (2D) speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) in Mitral valve disease before and after intervention. 90 patients divided into 3 groups of Mitral stenosis [MS], Mitral regurgitation [MR] and MS with MR were the study subjects. All the patients were subjected to conventional echocardiography and measurement of Right ventricular global longitudinal strain (RVGLS). Prior to intervention, subjects who demonstrated normal RV function by conventional methods, it was found that RVGLS was impaired significantly in the MS and MS with MR groups but normal in the MR group. After intervention, the RVGLS improved significantly in the MS group but not in the other groups. Right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) had a significant negative correlation to RVGLS in all 3 groups.

Pulsatile flow in descending aorta: Can coarctation of aorta be ruled out by transesophageal echocardiography?

A 5-year-old child with L posed great arteries, large subpulmonic ventricular septal defect (VSD), atrial septal defect (ASD), and a large patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) with mild isthmic narrowing was scheduled for surgical correction. Intraoperatively, it was a case of anatomically corrected malposition of great arteries. Due to abnormal positioning of great vessels, the isthmus was ligated instead of the large PDA. The postoperative transesophageal echocardiography showed pulsatile flow in descending aorta as it was being filled by large PDA, and thus iatrogenic coarctation (CoA) was missed. It was detected in the intensive care unit due to the onset of acidosis on blood gas analysis and the presence of gradient between radial and femoral arterial line pressures. The patient was taken for redo surgery, the PDA was then ligated, resection of the isthmic narrowing and repair by end-to-end anastomosis was done.

Multifuse multilayer multikernel RVFLN+ of process modes decomposition and approximate entropy data from iEEG/sEEG signals for epileptic seizure recognition.

In this paper, the extracted features using variational mode decomposition (VMD) and approximate entropy (ApEn) privileged information of the input EEG signals are combined with multilayer multikernel random vector functional link network plus (MMRVFLN+) classifier to recognize the epileptic seizure epochs efficaciously. In our experiment Bonn University single-channel intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) and Children's Hospital Boston-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (CHB-MIT) multichannel scalp EEG (sEEG) recordings are considered to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed method. The VMD is applied on chaotic, non-stationary, nonlinear, and complex EEG signal to decompose it into three band-limited intrinsic mode functions (BLIMFs). The Hilbert transform (HT) is applied on BLIMFs to extract informative spectral and temporal features. The ApEn is computed from the raw EEG signals as the privileged information and given to the multi-hidden layer structure to obtain the most discriminative compressed form. The scatter plots show the distinct nature of compressed privileged ApEn information among the seizure pattern classes. The linear as well as nonlinear mapping, local and global kernel function, high-learning speed, less computationally complex MMRVFLN+ classifier is proposed to recognize the seizure events accurately by importing the efficacious features with ApEn as the input. The advanced signal processing algorithm i.e., Hilbert Huang transform (HHT) with ApEn and MMRVFLN+ are combined to compare the performance with the proposed VMDHTApEn-MMRVFLN+ method. The proposed method has remarkable recognition ability, superior classification accuracy, and excellent overall performance as compared to other methods. The digital architecture of the multifuse MMRVFLN+ is developed and implemented on a high-speed reconfigurable FPGA hardware platform to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The superior classification accuracy, the negligible false positive rate per hour (FPR/h), simplicity, feasibility, robustness, and practicability of the proposed method validate its ability to recognize the epileptic seizure epochs automatically.

A unique bacterial and archaeal diversity make mangrove a green production system compared to rice in wetland ecology: A metagenomic approach.

Mangrove provides significant ecosystem services, however, 40% of tropical mangrove was lost in last century due to climate change induced sea-level rise and anthropogenic activities. Sundarban-India, the largest contiguous mangrove of the world lost 10.5% of its green during 1930-2013 which primarily converted to rice-based systems. Presently degraded mangrove and adjacent rice ecology in Sundarban-India placed side by side and create typical ecology which is distinct in nature in respect to soil physicochemical properties, carbon dynamics, and microbial diversities. We investigated the structural and functional diversities of bacteria and archaea through Illumina MiSeq metagenomic analysis using V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA gene approach that drives greenhouse gases emission and carbon-pools. Remote sensing-data base were used to select the sites for collecting the soil and gas samples. The methane and nitrous oxide emissions were lower in mangrove (-0.04 mg m-2 h-1 and -52.8 µg m-2 h-1) than rice (0.26 mg m-2 h-1 and 44.7 µg m-2 h-1) due to less availability of carbon-substrates and higher sulphate availability (85.8% more than rice). The soil labile carbon-pools were more in mangrove, but lower microbial activities were noticed due to stress conditions. A unique microbial feature indicated by higher methanotrophs: methanogens (11.2), sulphur reducing bacteria (SRB): methanogens (93.2) ratios and lower functional diversity (7.5%) in mangrove than rice. These could be the key drivers of lower global warming potential (GWP) in mangrove that make it a green production system. Therefore, labile carbon build-up potential (38%) with less GWP (63%) even in degraded-mangrove makes it a clean production system than wetland-rice that has high potential to climate change mitigation. The whole genome metagenomic analysis would be the future research priority to identify the predominant enzymatic pathways which govern the methanogenesis and methanotrophy in this system.

Aorto-left ventricular tunnel - A case report.

Aorto-left ventricular tunnel (ALVT) is a rare congenital anomaly with extracardiac channel connecting ascending aorta to the ventricle. It presents early in life due to congestive cardiac failure. We present a case of ALVT with unusual morphology in an 11-year-old male child with palpitations and dyspnea. We also describe the transesophageal echocardiography evaluation of ALVT.

Seasonal fluctuation in three mode of greenhouse gases emission in relation to soil labile carbon pools in degraded mangrove, Sundarban, India.

Tropical mangrove represents one of the most threatened ecosystems despite their huge contribution to ecosystem services, carbon (C) sequestration and climate change mitigation. Understanding the system in light of seasonal fluctuations on greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions due to human interferences and the tidal effect is important for devising site-specific real-time climate change mitigation strategies. In order to capture the seasonal variations, the three modes of transport of GHGs through pneumatophore, ebullition as bubbles and water-soluble diffusion was quantified. The three unique techniques for the gas collection were used to estimate the GHGs [methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2)] emission, at three degraded-mangrove sites in Sundarban, India. We identified three degraded mangrove ecologies based on the remote sensing data of 1930 and 2013 (mangrove-covered area in Sundarban; 2387, 2136 km2, respectively). Samples were collected and analyzed for four seasons [winter (November-January), summer (February-April), pre-monsoon (May-June) and monsoon (July-October)], at three representative sites (Sadhupur, Dayapur, and Pakhiralaya). Monsoonal CH4 and CO2 fluxes (0.353 ± 0.026 and 64.5 ± 6.1 mmol m-2 d-1, respectively) were higher than winter and summer. However, the soil labile C pools showed the opposite trend i.e. more in summer followed by winter and monsoon. In contrast, the N2O fluxes were more during summer (54.2 ± 3.2 µmol m-2 d-1). The stagnant water had higher dissolved GHGs concentration compared to tidewater due to less salinity and a long time of stagnation. The mode of transport of GHGs through pneumatophore, ebullition, and water-soluble diffusion was also significantly varied with seasons, soil­carbon status and tidewater intrusion. Therefore, seasonal fluctuations of GHGs emission and tidal effect must be considered along with soil labile C pools for GHG-C budgeting and climate change mitigation in the mangrove ecosystem.