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Background: Though reports of neurological manifestations of COVID-19 have emerged from various parts of the world, the cohorts reported are from the West and mostly derived from electronic databases. Much remains unknown regarding neuro-COVID in developing countries. India is the second-worst affected country, and this study reports the neurological manifestations of COVID-19 in a comprehensively evaluated cohort. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the range of neurological manifestations of COVID-19 in India with an emphasis on the risk factors, laboratory and imaging findings and short-term outcome. Methods: Retrospective review of hospital records of all confirmed COVID-19 patients with neurological manifestations, receiving inpatient care in two neurology referral hospitals were done. All demographic, clinical details, investigations, and treatment were analysed. Results: A total of 120 confirmed COVID-19 cases presenting with neurological symptoms were included. The mean age of illness and duration of illness was 48.03 ± 17.3 years and 10.9 ± 17.3 days respectively. New onset of neurological symptoms occurred in 100 cases while 20 patients had worsening of pre-existing neurological illness. Stroke was the commonest neurological disorder (43%), followed by encephalopathy (23%) and Guillain-Barre syndrome (10%). Other unusual neurological manifestations included new-onset headache (7%), seizures including denovo status epilepticus (5%) and meningo-encephalitis (5%). Nearly half of the patients had preceding COVID-19 symptoms. Poor outcome at discharge was seen in 40% and mortality occurred in 15%. Conclusion: Stroke and encephalopathy constitute the most common neurological manifestations. The absence of preceding COVID-19 symptoms in nearly half the cases is striking. Poor outcome was seen in nearly 50% despite early recognition and management.

The present study deals with the synthesis and characterization of nanocrystalline vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanoparticles and their antibacterial and antifungal activity on Staphylococcus aureus and Aspergillus niger, respectively, by agar diffusion method. The metal oxide has been synthesized by employing the sol-gel method, polyaniline (PANI) has been synthesized by chemical oxidation, and PANI/V2O5 composites have been synthesized by in situ polymerization method with different ratios (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 weight%) of V2O5 in PANI. The newly prepared composites were characterized by FTIR and powder X-ray diffraction (P-XRD) techniques and are found to be formed of PANI/V2O5 nanocomposites, and also the compounds showed moderate antibacterial and antifungal activity.

Aerial imaging provides a landscape view of crop fields that can be utilized to monitor plant diseases. Phymatotrichopsis root rot (PRR) is a serious root rot disease affecting several dicotyledonous hosts, including the perennial forage crop alfalfa. PRR disease causes stand loss by spreading as circular to irregular diseased areas that increase over time, but disease progression in alfalfa fields is poorly understood. The objectives of this study were to develop a workflow to produce PRR disease maps from sets of high-resolution red, green and blue (RGB) images acquired from two different platforms and to assess the feasibility of using these PRR disease maps to monitor disease progression in alfalfa fields. Aerial RGB images, two from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and four images from a manned aircraft platform were acquired at different time points during the 2014–2015 growing seasons from a center-pivot irrigated, PRR-infested alfalfa field near Burneyville, OK. Supervised classification of images acquired from both platforms were performed using three spectral signatures: image-specific, UAS-platform-specific and manned-aircraft platform-specific. Our results showed that the UAS-platform-specific spectral signature was most efficient for classifying images acquired with the UAS, with accuracy ranging from 90 to 96%. In contrast, manned-aircraft-acquired images classified using image-specific spectral signatures yielded 95 to 100% accuracy. The effect of hue, saturation and value color space transformations (HSV and Hrot60SV) on classification accuracy was determined, but the accuracy estimates showed no improvement in their efficiency compared to the RGB color space. Finally, the data showed that the classification of the bare ground increased by 74% during the study period, indicating the extent of alfalfa stand loss caused by PRR disease. Thus, this study showed the utility of high-resolution RGB aerial images for monitoring PRR disease spread in alfalfa.

Maize is an important base crop in intensive irrigated cereal based cropping system because of its wider climatic acclimatization. In contrast, a certain microclimate is needed for commercial mushroom production. Favourable microclimatic condition that prevails in maize field created a greater opportunity to grow the warm loving Paddy Straw Mushroom \"Volvariella volvacea\" as intercrop. In this context, a comparative study was taken up at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University to determine the performance of paddy straw mushroom as intercrop under different micro-climate created in irrigated maize and polyhouse during summer and kharif2022. Study concluded that the microclimate variables during kharif season was more favourable for obtaining higher straw mushroom yield as maize intercrop, but the summer season was also an economically viable one. The study found that the most ideal limits of microclimate variables such as morning and afternoon temperature, morning and afternoon RH for paddy straw mushroom was 26 to 29°C, 29 to 33°C, 80 to 98 per cent and 66 to 88 per cent, respectively. The polyhouse showed its superiority in providing controlled favourable microclimate for paddy straw mushroom than the fluctuating microclimate under maize canopy, however the higher infrastructural investment in polyhouse farming is not affordable for the small and marginal farmers. The microclimate prevailed in between maize rows could support paddy straw mushroom intercropping as a viable system, which had Land Equivalent Ratio of more than 1.6 and double the time of Crop Equivalent Yield when compare to sole cropped maize.

A comparative study of spherical and rod-like nanocrystalline Gd O :Eu (Gd Eu O ) red phosphors prepared by solution combustion and hydrothermal methods have been reported. Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) results confirm the as-formed product in combustion method showing mixed phase of monoclinic and cubic of Gd O :Eu . Upon calcinations at 800 C for 3 h, dominant cubic phase was achieved. The as-formed precursor hydrothermal product shows hexagonal Gd(OH) :Eu phase and it converts to pure cubic phase of Gd O :Eu on calcination at 600 C for 3 h. TEM micrographs of hydrothermally prepared cubic Gd O :Eu phase shows nanorods with a diameter of 15 nm and length varying from 50 to 150 nm, whereas combustion product shows the particles to be of irregular shape, with different sizes in the range 50–250 nm. Dominant red emission (612 nm) was observed in cubic Gd O :Eu which has been assigned to transition. However, in hexagonal Gd(OH) :Eu , emission peaks at 614 and 621 nm were observed. The strong red emission of cubic Gd O :Eu nanophosphors by hydrothermal method are promising for high performance display materials. The variation in optical energy bandgap ( ) was noticed in as-formed and heat treated systems in both the techniques. This is due to more ordered structure in heat treated samples and reduction in structural defects.

Molecular chaperones (Hsps) have been shown to facilitate protein folding or assembly under various developmental and adverse environmental conditions. The aim of this study was to unravel a possible role of heat-shock proteins in conferring abiotic stress tolerance to plants. We isolated a cDNA encoding a cytoplasmic Hsp70 (PgHsc70) from Pennisetum glaucum by screening heat-stress cDNA library. PgHsc70 cDNA encoding 649 amino acids represents all conserved signature motifs characteristic of Hsp70s. The predicted molecular model of PgHsc70 protein suggests that the N-terminus ATP-binding region is evolutionarily conserved, in comparison to C-terminus peptide-binding domains. A single intron in ATPase domain coding region of PgHsc70 exhibited a high degree of conservation with respect to its position and phasing among other plant Hsp70 genes. Recombinant PgHsc70 protein purified from E. coli possessed in vitro chaperone activity and protected PgHsc70 expressing bacteria from damage caused by heat and salinity stress. Nucleotide sequence analysis of 5′ flanking promoter region of PgHsc70 gene revealed a potential heat-shock element (HSE) and other putative stress-responsive transcription factor binding sites. Positive correlation existed between differentially up-regulated PgHsc70 transcript levels and the duration and intensity of different environmental stresses. Molecular and biochemical analyses revealed that PgHsc70 gene was a member of the Hsp70 family and suggested that its origin was from duplication of a common ancestral gene. Transcript induction data, presence of several putative stress-responsive transcription factor-binding sites in the promoter region of PgHsc70 and the presence of a protective in vitro chaperone activity of this protein against damage caused by heat and salinity, when expressed in E. coli, suggest its probable role in conferring abiotic stress tolerance to this plant.