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Background Brucellosis is an important zoonotic disease caused by different Brucella species and human brucellosis is commonly prevalent in different states of India. Among various Brucella species, B. melitensis is most pathogenic to human and included as category B biothreat which can cause infection through aerosol, cut, wounds in skin and contact with infected animals. The diagnosis of human brucellosis is very important for proper treatment and management of disease as there is no vaccine available for human use. The present study was designed to clone, express and purify immunodominant recombinant omp2a (rOmp2a) porin protein of B. melitensis and to evaluate this new antigen candidate for specific serodiagnosis of human brucellosis by highly sensitive iELISA (indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay). Method Omp2a gene of B. melitensis 16 M strain was cloned and expressed in pET-SUMO expression system. The recombinant protein was purified under denaturing conditions using 8 M urea. The purified recombinant protein was confirmed by western blotting by reacting with anti-HIS antibody. The sero-reactivity of the recombinant protein was also checked by reacting with antisera of experimentally infected mice with B. melitensis 16 M at different time points. Serodiagnostic potential of recombinant porin antigen was tested against 185 clinical serum samples collected from regions endemic to brucellosis in southern part of India by iELISA. The samples were grouped into five groups. Group 1 contained cultured confirmed positive serum samples of brucellosis ( n  = 15), group 2 contained sera samples from positive cases of brucellosis previously tested by conventional methods of RBPT ( n  = 28) and STAT ( n  = 26), group 3 contained sera samples negative by RBPT( n  = 36) and STAT ( n  = 32), group 4 contained sera samples of other febrile illness and PUO case ( n  = 35) and group 5 contained confirmed negative sera samples from healthy donors ( n  = 23). Result The rOmp2a was found to be immunoreactive by iELISA and western blotting. The test showed a sensitivity of 93.75% and specificity of 95.83% when tested against 185 serum samples. For determination of statistical significance between experimental groups and control groups, Student’s t test was performed on the data. Conclusion Omp2a emerges as a potential antigen candidate for serodiagnosis of human brucellosis.

With the marvelous increase in video and image database there is an incredible need of automatic understanding and examination of information by the intelligent systems as manually it is getting to be plainly distant. Face plays a major role in social intercourse for conveying identity and feelings of a person. Human beings have not tremendous ability to identify different faces than machines. So, automatic face detection system plays an important role in face recognition, facial expression recognition, head-pose estimation, human–computer interaction etc. Face detection is a computer technology that determines the location and size of a human face in a digital image. Face detection has been a standout amongst topics in the computer vision literature. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of various techniques explored for face detection in digital images. Different challenges and applications of face detection are also presented in this paper. At the end, different standard databases for face detection are also given with their features. Furthermore, we organize special discussions on the practical aspects towards the development of a robust face detection system and conclude this paper with several promising directions for future research.

Aluminum alloys are the most attractive solutions for many industries including aerospace, marine, and other transportation sectors where lightweight construction is required. Friction Crush Welding (FCW) is a new material joining process that simultaneously creates a mechanical lock and a metallurgical seal at the interface between similar and dissimilar materials. In this research work presents the development of numerical modelling to predict the temperature distribution and mechanical performance of aluminum and copper similar joints in the FCW of sheet metal section. An explicit nonlinear transient finite element thermomechanical model is develop using ABAQUS based on the coupled Euler-Lagrange method to simulate FCW of AW5754 and Cu-DHP alloys. The Johnson-Cook materials law is adopted in the FEM. Numerical investigations of the FCW process was performed to reduce experimental testing times, which can be long and expensive. Temperature distribution and von misses stress flow patterns are observed at the top surface of the weld. Numerical simulation data correlate with experimental data in the literature.

Face detection is important part of face recognition system. In face recognition, face detection is taken not so seriously. Face detection is taken for granted; primarily focus is on face recognition. Also, many challenges associated with face detection, increases the value of TN (True Negative). A lot of work has been done in field of face recognition. But in field of face detection, especially with problems of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination, not so much work has been done. It directly affects the efficiency of applications linked with face detection, example face recognition, surveillance, etc. So, these reasons motivate us to do research in field of face detection, especially with problems of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination. The main objective of this article is to detect face in still image. Experimental work has been conducted on images having problem of face occlusion and non-uniform illumination. Experimental images have been taken from public dataset AR face dataset and Color FERET dataset. One manual dataset has also been created for experimental purpose. The images in this manual dataset have been taken from the internet. This involves making the machine intelligent enough to acquire the human perception and knowledge to detect, localize and recognize the face in an arbitrary image with the same ease as humans do it. This article proposes an efficient technique for face detection from still images under occlusion and non-uniform illumination. The authors have presented a face detection technique using a combination of YCbCr, HSV and L × a × b color model. The proposed technique improved results in terms of Accuracy, Detection Rate, False Detection Rate and Precision. This technique can be useful in the surveillance and security related applications.

ILKAP is a protein phosphatase 2C that selectively associates with integrin linked kinase, ILK, to modulate cell adhesion and growth factor signaling. We investigated the role of endogenous cellular ILKAP in antagonizing ILK signaling of two key targets, PKB and GSK3 β . Silencing of endogenous ILKAP by short interfering RNA (siRNA) stimulated GSK3 β phosphorylation at S9, with no effect on PKB S473 phosphorylation. In LNCaP prostate carcinoma cells, transient or stable expression of ILKAP suppressed ILK immune complex kinase activity, demonstrating an interaction between ILKAP and ILK. Consistent with the silencing data, ILKAP inhibition of ILK selectively inhibited S9 phosphorylation of GSK3 β without affecting S473 phosphorylation of PKB. The ILKAP-mediated inhibition of S9 phosphorylation was rescued by overexpression of ILK, but not by a dominant-negative ILK mutant. The expression level of cyclin D1, a target of ILK-GSK3 β signaling, was inversely correlated with ILKAP protein levels, suggesting that antagonism of ILK modulates cell cycle progression. ILKAP expression increased the proportion of LNCaP cells in G1, relative to vector control cells, and siRNA suppression of ILKAP increased entry of cells into the S phase, consistent with ILK antagonism. Anchorage-independent growth of LNCaP cells was inhibited by ILKAP, suggesting a critical role in the suppression of cellular transformation. Taken together, our results indicate that endogenous ILKAP activity inhibits the ILK-GSK3 β signaling axis, and suggest that ILKAP activity plays an important role in inhibiting oncogenic transformation.

Background & objectives: Brucellosis is endemic in the southern part of India. A combination of biochemical, serological and molecular methods is required for identification and biotyping of Brucella. The present study describes the isolation and biochemical, molecular characterization of Brucella melitensis from patients suspected for human brucellosis. Methods: The blood samples were collected from febrile patients suspected to have brucellosis. A total of 18 isolates were obtained from 102 blood samples subjected to culture. The characterization of these 18 isolates was done by growth on Brucella specific medium, biochemical reactions, CO2 requirement, H2S production, agglutination with A and M mono-specific antiserum, dye sensitivity to basic fuchsin and thionin. Further, molecular characterization of the isolates was done by amplification of B. melitensis species specific IS 711 repetitive DNA fragment and 16S (rRNA) sequence analysis. PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of omp2 locus and IS711 gene was also done for molecular characterization. Results: All 102 suspected samples were subjected to bacteria isolation and of these, 18 isolates could be recovered on blood culture. The biochemical, PCR and PCR-RFLP and 16s rRNA sequencing revealed that all isolates were of B. melitensis and matched exactly with reference strain B. melitensis 16M. Interpretation & conclusions: The present study showed an overall isolation rate of 17.64 per cent for B. melitensis. There is a need to establish facilities for isolation and characterization of Brucella species for effective clinical management of the disease among patients as well as surveillance and control of infection in domestic animals. Further studies are needed from different geographical areas of the country with different level of endemicity to plan and execute control strategies against human brucellosis.

Melioidosis is an emerging infectious disease caused by a free living soil dwelling Gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei . The disease is endemic to most parts of Southeast Asia and northern Australia and the organism has been isolated from moist soil and water. In India clinical cases are recently reported from the states of Tamilnadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Assam, West Bengal, Pondicherry and Tripura. This study is aimed to confirm the prevalence of this important bacterial species in soil samples collected from coastal areas of Tamilnadu . Forty five soil samples from five different sites were collected from Parangipettai, Tamilnadu and screened for the presence of B. pseudomallei . The study confirmed 4 isolates as B. pseudomallei with the help of conventional bacteriological methods and molecular methods that include; 16S rDNA sequencing, B. pseudomallei specific PCR, fli C gene RFLP and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry based bacterial identification. This study reveals the prevalence and distribution of B. pseudomallei in the soil environment in coastal areas of southern India and further necessitates studies from other parts of the country. It will also be helpful to understand the distribution of B. pseudomallei and to access its epidemiological importance.

Placement of central venous catheter (CVC) can lead to complications such as, malposition of catheter and perforation and/or injury of nearby blood vessels and structures. We present a case about malposition of central venous catheter (CVC) from right internal jugular vein (IJV) into right intrapleural space. It is advisable to check free venous outflow in all the ports of CVC and following placement of CVC, chest radiograph should be taken to confirm the position.