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This study evaluates the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use and land cover (LULC) in Kannur and Kasaragod districts of Kerala from 1985 to 2011 using satellite remote sensing and GIS techniques. Multi-temporal satellite data from Landsat-4 MSS (1985), Landsat-7 ETM+ (1995), Resourcesat-1 LISS-III (2005), Resourcesat-2 LISS-III (2011) were acquired from the Bhuvan NRSC portal. Visual interpretation, supported by GIS-based digitization, delineated 13 LULC categories namely: Deciduous Forest, Cropland, Built-up land, Mixed Forest, Shrubland, Barren land, Fallow land, Wasteland, Water bodies Plantations, Mangrove Forest, Grassland and Evergreen Forest. Deciduous forest decreased from 217 km² to 119.70 km² (–97.30 km²), mixed forest from 24 km² to 15.27 km² (–8.73 km²), shrubland from 529 km² to 465.89 km² (–63.11 km²), barren land from 29 km² to 12.95 km² (–16.05 km²), and wasteland from 9 km² to 1.35 km² (–7.65 km²). Plantations, the dominant land cover, declined substantially from 3476 km² to 3148.23 km² (–327.77 km²). In contrast, built-up land increased sharply from 142 km² to 417.07 km² (+ 275.07 km²). Cropland increased from 71 km² to 116.06 km² (+ 45.06 km²), fallow land from 14 km² to 36.42 km² (+ 22.42 km²), grassland from 1 km² to 13.06 km² (+ 12.06 km²), and evergreen forest from 302 km² to 361.95 km² (+ 59.95 km²). Water bodies increased slightly from 129 km² to 131.39 km² (+ 2.39 km²), while mangrove forest remained unchanged at 3 km² (1995–2011). Classification accuracy assessment showed strong reliability, with overall accuracies of 70%, 91.23%, 98.16%, and 91.92% and Kappa coefficients of 0.67, 0.90, 0.89, and 0.91 for 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2011, respectively. The results highlight intense anthropogenic pressure, rapid urban expansion, and substantial shifts in agricultural and forest land systems. The study demonstrates the utility of geospatial techniques in long-term LULC monitoring and provides essential input for sustainable land-use planning and coastal environmental management.

The present study deciphers the impact of anthropogenic inputs on the grain size and mineralogical properties of surface sediments in selected urban ponds in Lucknow city; Lucknow of Uttar Pradesh, India. Due to the partially planned or unplanned development and urbanization, the ponds of this city are struggling for their existence. The surface sediments of these urban ponds are studied under Laser Diffraction Particle Size Analyser (LPSA), Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), to examine relative mineral abundance, elemental composition and surface morphology. The spatio-temporal observations of Landuse/Landcover (LULC) revealed that the steep urbanization over a period of past 40 years (1985–2025) has engulfed about 84% of urban ponds. The grain size analysis revealed that surface sediments have composition of silt and sand. In addition, the sediment samples are poorly sorted (0.799–1.066), fine skewed (0.011–0.162), and platykurtic in nature. Observed geogenic minerals were primarily consists of quartz, mica, feldspar, clays, whereas, biogenic proportion was consist of silica, calcium carbonates and organic matter. Water inflow in ponds through surface run-off may be held responsible for natural minerals, whereas, decay and decomposition of biomass was found to be the prime source of biogenic components. The composition of surface sediment was found to be influenced by both internal processes and peripheral vegetation. Therefore, geo-environmental management approach integrating controlled catchment run-off, stabilization of marginal vegetation, and periodic sedimentological-mineralogical monitoring is recommended to mitigate anthropogenic alteration and preserve the natural depositional dynamics of urban ponds.

The drainage basin of the Kalyani river, a tributary of Gomati river has been mapped and delineated using Survey of India toposheets (1:50,000 scale) and remote sensing satellite data. The digitization, slope map preparation and statistical calculations have been carried out with the help of geographical information system (Arc GIS 10). Kalyani a fifth order river exhibits meandering behavior having 2.45 sinuosity index (SI). The Kalyani river basin has about 1235 km 2 area with NW-SE sloping trend. The total number of first, second, third, and fourth order streams are 373, 71, 12 and 2 respectively, showing dominance of first order streams in the basin. The mean bifurcation ratio (Rb) of the entire basin is 4.8, which indicates that the drainage is not much influenced by geological structures and exhibits dendritic drainage pattern. Relief ratio (Rr) indicates low to medium surface run-off, and low stream power for erosion. The analysis of river bank height ‘r’ (escarpment) and longitudinal profile of the river closely reveals neotectonic activity at some locations in the basin. To prepare a comprehensive watershed development and management plan, it is important to understand the topography and drainage characteristics of the region.

The drainage basin of the Kalyani river, a tributary of Gomati river has been mapped and delineated using Survey of India toposheets (1:50,000 scale) and remote sensing satellite data. The digitization, slope map preparation and statistical calculations have been carried out with the help of geographical information system (Arc GIS 10). Kalyani a fifth order river exhibits meandering behavior having 2.45 sinuosity index (SI). The Kalyani river basin has about 1235 km2area with NW-SE sloping trend. The total number of first, second, third, and fourth order streams are 373, 71, 12 and 2 respectively, showing dominance of first order streams in the basin. The mean bifurcation ratio (Rb) of the entire basin is 4.8, which indicates that the drainage is not much influenced by geological structures and exhibits dendritic drainage pattern. Relief ratio (Rr) indicates low to medium surface run-off, and low stream power for erosion. The analysis of river bank height 'r' (escarpment) and longitudinal profile of the river closely reveals neotectonic activity at some locations in the basin. To prepare a comprehensive watershed development and management plan, it is important to understand the topography and drainage characteristics of the region.

THPdb (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/thpdb/) is a manually curated repository of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved therapeutic peptides and proteins. The information in THPdb has been compiled from 985 research publications, 70 patents and other resources like DrugBank. The current version of the database holds a total of 852 entries, providing comprehensive information on 239 US-FDA approved therapeutic peptides and proteins and their 380 drug variants. The information on each peptide and protein includes their sequences, chemical properties, composition, disease area, mode of activity, physical appearance, category or pharmacological class, pharmacodynamics, route of administration, toxicity, target of activity, etc. In addition, we have annotated the structure of most of the protein and peptides. A number of user-friendly tools have been integrated to facilitate easy browsing and data analysis. To assist scientific community, a web interface and mobile App have also been developed.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an evidence-based intervention that saves lives. In low- and middle-income countries like Nepal, the occurrence of the problem and its outcome are seldom studied. The study aims to highlight the prevalence, performance, and outcome of CPR in government hospitals of Nepal. A mixed method study was done for two months in central and provincial government hospitals of Nepal. A total of 80 resuscitations were evaluated using a questionnaire based on the American Heart Association 2020 guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. An in-depth interview was conducted with 15 active participants of the resuscitation in different sites. Thematic analysis was done using the framework of the chain of survival of arrest victims. The overall prevalence of CPR was found to be 1.92% [95% CI: 0.01,0.02] with 5.4% in central hospitals and 0.65% in provincial hospitals with 60% cardiac arrests occurring in the intensive care unit. Estimated time from recognition of the arrest to initiating CPR was 1.9 ±1.4 minutes. Asystole 66.25% was the commonest arrest rhythm and 21.25% had difficulty interpreting rhythm. Only 11.25% of the victims had return of spontaneous circulation and were subsequently transferred for post-arrest care. The qualitative analysis highlighted the lack of trained staff, a dedicated system, feedback mechanism, and provision of post-arrest care. Across various level of Nepal's healthcare system, cardiopulmonary resuscitation is prevalent with poor performance and outcome. To improve outcomes, it is essential to implement standardized procedures and ensure high quality resuscitation delivery before and after the event supported by well-trained healthcare personnel and adequate infrastructure.

We investigated Bordetella holmesii and Bordetella pertussis in 935 suspected pertussis cases in northern India (2019-2023) using PCR and serology. B. holmesii showed increased prevalence in pertussis cases, particularly in older children, highlighting its emerging role and the need for ongoing surveillance and adjusted prevention strategies.

Water pollutants of non-biodegradable toxic aromatic dye including Methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine (RhB) are extremely carcinogenic thiazines used in various industries such as leather industry, paper industry, and the dyeing industry. The presence of dyes in wastewater causes severe threats to human health that are responsible for various harmful chronic or acute diseases and also shows an adverse impact on the environment as it reduces transparency and is harmful to water microorganisms. To overcome severe issues, many traditional techniques have been used to remove toxic pollutants, but these methods are insufficient to remove chemically stable dyes that remain in the treated wastewater. However, the photocatalytic degradation process is an efficient approach to degrade the dye up to the maximum extent with improved efficiency. Therefore, in this work, a new class of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal carbide of Titanium Carbide (Ti 3 C 2 Tx) MXene material was used for the organic dyes degradation such as MB and RhB using a photocatalytic process. A layered structure of hexagonal lattice symmetry of Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXene was successfully synthesized from the Titanium Aluminum Carbide of Ti 3 AlC 2 bulk phase using an exfoliation process. Further, the XRD spectrum confirms the transformation of bulk MAX phase having (002) plane at 9.2° to Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXene of (002) plane at 8.88° confirms the successful removal of Al layer from MAX phase. A smooth, transparent, thin sheet-like morphology of Ti 3 C 2 Tx nanosheet size were found to be in the range of 70 to 150 nm evaluated from TEM images. Also, no holes or damages in the thin sheets were found after the treatment with strong hydrofluoric acid confirms the formation Ti 3 C 2 Tx layered sheets. The synthesized Ti 3 C 2 Tx MXene possesses excellent photocatalytic activity for the degradation of dyes MB, RhB, and mixtures of MB and RhB dyes. MB dye degraded with a degradation percentage efficiency of 99.32% in 30 min, while RhB dye was degraded upto 98.9% in 30 min. Also, experiments were conducted for degradation of mixture of MB and RhB dyes by UV light, and the degradation percentage efficiency were found to be 98.9% and 99.75% for mixture of MB and RhB dye in 45 min, respectively. Moreover, reaction rate constant ( k ) was determined for each dye of MB, RhB, and mixtures of MB and RhB and was found to be 0.0215 min −1 and 0.0058 min −1 , and for mixtures, it was 0.0020 min −1 and 0.009 min −1 , respectively.

Advent of CRISPR-Cas9 library approach has revolutionized the field of high throughput targeted mutagenesis in plants. By identifying an sgRNA spacer that can target multiple paralogous genes in a genome, higher-order knockout plants can be developed. Using this concept, we developed ten CRISPR-Cas9 pool libraries and generated higher-order knockout plants in rice. Towards this, firstly we identified genome-wide sets of genes which are co-expressed and have high sequence similarity and can be targeted by a single sgRNA. Based on the expression pattern, these genes were divided into ten groups, and subsequently ten CRISPR-Cas9 plasmid libraries were developed. One such library designed against seed-expressed genes was transformed into rice and higher-order knockout plants were developed. Genotyping revealed that around 90% T0 plants had editing, and among the edited plants majority of them were higher-order knockouts. Phenotypic analysis in the next generation discovered functions of several seed specific genes in grain length, width, number and 100-grain weight. By analyzing single and double mutants for two Agenet domain-containing proteins, we have discovered an epistatic interaction between them for grain development. Further application of our approach will help to uncover hidden functions of the targeted genes and accelerate functional genomics research in rice. The CRISPR-Cas9 library is a useful approach to generate higher-order knockout mutants and identify functions of the targeted genes in rice.

Reduced crop productivity results from altered plant physiological processes caused by dysfunctional proteins due to environmental stressors. In this study, a novel DnaJ Type-I encoding gene, VaDJI having a zinc finger motif in its C-terminal domain was found to be induced early upon treatment with heat stress (within 5 min) in a heat tolerant genotype of Vigna aconitifolia RMO-40. VaDJI is induced by multiple stresses. In tobacco, ectopic expression of VaDJI reduced ABA sensitivity during seed germination and the early stages of seedling growth of transgenic tobacco plants. Concomitantly, it also improved the ability of transgenic tobacco plants to withstand drought stress by modulating the photosynthetic efficiency, with the transgenic plants having higher F v /F m ratios and reduced growth inhibition. Additionally, transgenic plants showed a reduced build-up of H 2 O 2 and lower MDA levels and higher chlorophyll content during drought stress, which attenuated cell damage and reduced oxidative damage. An analysis using the qRT-PCR study demonstrated that VaDJI overexpression is associated with the expression of some ROS-detoxification-related genes and stress-marker genes that are often induced during drought stress responses. These findings suggest a hypothesis whereby VaDJI positively influences drought stress tolerance and ABA signalling in transgenic tobacco, and suggests that it is a potential gene for genetic improvement of drought and heat stress tolerance in crop plants.