Current Experiments Research Articles

Assessment of Carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk indices of heavy metal exposure in different age groups using Monte Carlo Simulation Approach

Dermal contact, ingestion and inhalation of heavy metal poses significant health risk in human subjects. The exposure could be via potable water, soil or air. The current experiment design focuses on soil media and exposure. Advanced probabilistic and geospatial methods are used in this study which evaluates contamination levels and health risks associated with iron (Fe), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), and cadmium (Cd) in soil samples. The samples were collected and analysed using ICP-OES after tri-acid digestion, and indices such as Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo), Contamination Factor (CF), Pollution Load Index (PLI), Hazard Quotient (HQ), Hazard Index (HI), and Carcinogenic Risk (CR) were used to assess environmental impacts and health risks across the age groups via oral ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact. The current study indicates heavy metal concentrations follow the order Ni > Zn > Pb > Cu > Cr > As > Cd, with more than 60% of samples demonstrating significant pollution levels. The computational method used in the study revealed substantial non carcinogenic risk (HQ > 1) and carcinogenic risk (33%) in the population related to As exposure. Geospatial analysis and Monte Carlo simulations helped in identifying the hotspots in the tropical coastal area emphasizing need for targeted remediation focusing on As and Pb.

Microbial degradation of polyethylene polymer: current paradigms, challenges, and future innovations.

Polyethylene (PE) is the second most commonly used plastic worldwide, mainly used to produce single-use items such as bags and bottles. Its significant resistance to natural biodegradation results in the accumulation of PE in landfills, leading to various ecological and toxicological consequences. Despite extensive research on the microbial degradation of PE, achieving complete biodegradation remains a challenge. Comparing experimental outcomes is complicated by the diverse array of microbes involved in PE biodegradation, variations in culture conditions, and differences in assessment tools. This review discusses the critical hurdles in PE biodegradation experiments, including the chemical complexity of PE substrates and the challenges of isolating effective microbes and forming stable consortia. The review also delves into the difficulties in accurately assessing microbial metabolic activity and understanding the biochemical pathways involved in PE degradation. Furthermore, it addresses the pressing issues of metabolic byproducts, slow degradation rates, scalability concerns, and the challenges in measuring biodegradation levels effectively. In addition to outlining the technical challenges associated with PE experiments, this review offers recommendations for future research directions to enhance PE biodegradation outcomes. Overcoming these challenges and implementing the proposed future strategies will improve the reliability, comparability, and practicality of current PE biodegradation experiments, ultimately contributing to better comprehension and management of PE waste in the environment.

Therapeutic Correlation of TLR-4 Mediated NF-κB Inflammatory Pathways in Ischemic Injuries.

Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury refers to the tissue damage that happens when blood flow returns to tissue after a period of ischemia. I/R injuries are implicated in a large array of pathological conditions, such as cerebral, myocardial, renal, intestinal, retinal and hepatic ischemia. The hallmark of these pathologies is excessive inflammation. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are recognized as significant contributors to inflammation caused by pathogens and, more recently, inflammation caused by injury. TLR-4 activation initiates a series of events that results in activation of nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB), which stimulates the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, exacerbating tissue injury. Therefore, through a comprehensive review of current research and experimentation, this investigation elucidates the TLRs signalling pathway and the role of TLR-4/NF-κB in the pathophysiology of I/R injuries. Furthermore, this review highlights the various pharmacological agents (TLR-4/NF-κB inhibitors) with special emphasis on the various ischemic injuries (cerebral, myocardial, renal, intestinal, retinal and hepatic). Future research should prioritise investigating the specific molecular pathways that cause TLR-4/NF-κBmediated inflammation in ischemic injuries. Additionally, efforts should be made to enhance treatment approaches in order to enhance patient outcomes.

Evaluation anthelmintic activities of an ethnopharmacological leaves nerium oleander against the earthworms (Allolobophora caliginosa)

The emergence of drug-resistant strains reason for the search for natural alternatives. The study aimed to evaluate the anthelmintic activity of Nerium oleanderleaf extract against Allolobophora caliginosain vitro. The concentrations (25 mg/mL, 50 mg/mL, and 100 mg/mL), were tested, andthe results were expressed in paralysis time and the death of worms. Albendazole (40 mg/mL), and distilled water were used as standard drug and control. The FT-IR and GC-MS analysis of the extract showed the presence of 12 and 13 compounds responsible foranthelmintic activity. There was a dose-dependent increase in effectiveness over time during 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 minutes. The death reached 97% and 100%, respectively when (100 mg/mL) after 10 minutes. Histological examination and scanning electron microscopy showed noticeable abnormalities and a cuticular layer of the body surface had shrunk in all treated worms. The current experiment results show that oleander has powerful anti-Acaliginosa action.

A Dose-Response Studyof Four Fixed Weight-Based Phenylephrine Dosages in Obese Cesarean Delivery Patients to Prevent Spinal Anesthesia-Induced Hypotension.

Reports have suggested the use of intravenous infusion of vasopressors as an approach to prevent spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension (SAIH) in women undergoing cesarean deliveries. However, data on the suitability of this technique for obese people are limited. As such, the current experiment was designed to clarify the dose-response relationship associated with the preventive administration of phenylephrine to avoid SAIH during cesarean delivery in obese parturients under combined spinal-epidural anesthesia. The current study included 100 parturients with a body mass index ≥30 kg/m2 who were undergoing cesarean section delivery. They were randomly treated with phenylephrine at different doses: 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, or 0.75 μg/kg/min. An infusion of phenylephrine was deemed beneficial if hypotension was absent, with hypotension defined as a systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg or <80% of the baseline value between spinal injection and the delivery of the newborn. The 50% and 90% effective doses (ED50 and ED90, respectively) for prophylactic phenylephrine were determined via a probit regression. Respective rates of hypotension in the 0.375, 0.5, 0.625, and 0.75 groups were 52% (13/25), 40% (10/25), 20% (5/25), and 0% (0/25). ED50 and ED90 values of 0.42 (95% confidence interval 0.30-0.48) and 0.68 (95% confidence interval 0.60-0.87) μg/kg/min were calculated for phenylephrine treatment. The study results indicated that prophylactic phenylephrine, which prevents SAIH in obese parturients following cesarean delivery, has calculated values of 0.42 and 0.68 μg/kg/min. These findings may contribute to developing appropriate clinical practice guidelines for improved patient management. https://www.chictr.org.cn/bin/project/edit?pid=153050 . Identifier ChiCTR2200058125.

Genetic Association Studies for Indirect Selection for Important Yield and Yield Attributing Traits in Grain Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp subsp unguiculata)

Aims: The present study encompasses genetic association studies among F4 and F5 families generated from various crosses in grain cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp subsp unguiculata). Study Design: Augmented design-II for F4 families and checks during kharif 2023 and Randomized block design with two replications for selected F5 families and checks during rabi-summer 2023-24. Place and Duration of Study: The current experiment was conducted at the Botany garden, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka for the evaluation of 36 F4 families and six checks during kharif 2023 and 27 selected F5 families and five checks during rabi-summer 2023-24. Methodology: The material under experiment included 36 F4 families and six checks evaluated in augmented design-II during kharif 2023. Then during rabi-summer 2023-24, 27 selected F5 families and five checks evaluated in randomized block design. Observations were recorded for nine yield and yield attributing traits viz., total yield (kg/ha), single plant yield (g), number of pods per plant, test weight (g), number of seeds per pod, pod length (cm), number of clusters per plant, days to fifty per cent flowering and days to maturity. Correlation and path coefficients were estimated using standard procedures. Results: Correlation studies indicated that yield estimates were highly positively correlated to all yield attributing traits except to days to fifty per cent flowering and days to maturity. Characters like number of pods per plant (0.59, 0.64), pod length (0.65, 0.58) and test weight (0.39, 0.58) had highest correlations with yield in F4 and F5 generation respectively. Path coefficients further highlighted the character; number of pods per plant (0.363, 0.594) to have the highest direct effect on yield at both phenotypic and genotypic level respectively.

Experimental comparison and optimal machine learning technique for predicting the thermo-hydraulic performance of Low-GWP refrigerants (R1234yf, R290, and R13I1/R290) during evaporation in plate heat exchanger

In recent times, employing machine learning techniques (MLTs) to forecast the evaporation/condensation performance of refrigerants, namely the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) and frictional pressure drop (FPD), has become increasingly significant. In the current investigation, an experimental comparison of the evaporation HTC and FPD of R1234yf, R290, and R13I1/R290 was explored in an offset strip fin-plate heat exchanger. Following this, six MLTs—support vector regressor (SVR), multilayer perceptron regressor (MLPR), gradient boosting regressor (GBR), AdaBoost regressor (ABR), ridge regressor (RR), and K-nearest neighbors regressor (KNNR)—were proposed to forecast the HTC and FPD of these refrigerants. The comparative experimental analysis revealed that the evaporation-HTC of R290 was 27.8–76.2 % and 46.2–73.8 % higher than that of R1234yf and R13I1/R290, respectively, while FPD declined by up to 74.8 % and 57.2 %, respectively. Under the same working conditions, the first transition from nucleation to convective boiling occurred in the order of R1234yf, R13I1/290, and R290. In addition, nucleate boiling dominated at lower vapor quality, while convective boiling prevailed at higher vapor quality. A total of 336 experimental data points corresponding to various test conditions from existing studies and current experiments were considered for the MLT prediction analysis. According to the results, GBR (without any enhancement approaches) was the best approach for forecasting the FPD and HTC, with mean absolute errors (MAE) of 0.125 % and 0.131 %, respectively. Additionally, to enhance the forecasting efficiency of the MLTs, feature selection, analysis of principal components, and hyperparameter tuning were employed. According to feature importance, mass flux, reduced pressure, saturation temperature, heat flux, and entry vapor quality were identified as the most influential parameters on the FPD and HTC. Ultimately, the most accurate predictions of HTC and FPD, with the lowest MAE of 0.111 %, were achieved using MLPR and SVR, respectively, with feature selection.

Temporal Pound–Rebka experiment as gravitational Aharonov–Bohm effect

One of the classical tests of general relativity is the precision measurements by Pound and Rebka of red-shift/blue-shift of photons in a gravitational field. In this essay, we lay out a temporal version of the Pound–Rebka experiment. The emission and absorption of photons occurs at different times, rather than at different spatial locations as in the original Pound–Rebka experiment. This temporal Pound–Rebka experiment is equivalent to a gravitational Aharonov–Bohm Effect and is testable via current or near future satellite experiments.

Detecting multiple simultaneous and sequential feature changes

The failure to notice changes to objects is called change blindness, and it is often studied with the flicker task. Observers performing this task see two rapidly alternating but slightly different stimulus displays that are usually photos of real-world scenes. In order to detect the change, they must compare objects in the pre-change scene with objects at the same locations in the post-change scene to determine whether they are the same or different. It has been proposed that change blindness can occur when the memory representation of a pre-change object is incomplete and thereby impairs the same/different comparison with the post-change object at the same location. It has also been proposed that even with intact pre-change object memory representations, failure of same/different comparisons for other reasons can cause change blindness. The goal of the current study was to conduct flicker task experiments to examine both proposals. We conducted the current experiments with non-photographic stimuli, varied the degree of feature-based change of colored lines and found that the greater degree of change, the faster the same/different comparisons, and the faster that changes were detected. We also examined the representation integrity account of change blindness by comparing detection times of target objects that underwent a single feature change with those that underwent multiple sequential feature changes. The latter were detected faster, which suggests that multiple identities of these sequentially changing objects were stored in memory and facilitated change detection. In another experiment we found that objects that underwent multiple sequential feature changes were not detected as fast as those that underwent multiple simultaneous feature changes. This is consistent with the representation account of change blindness and suggests that memories of multiple sequentially changing object identities are transient and may become less complete over time. And more generally that multiple simultaneous and multiple sequential feature-based changes to these stimuli can show the extent to which memory is involved when searching for flicker task targets. The results of the current study indicate that both the comparison failure and the representation integrity proposals can account for change blindness.

Preferential motor reinnervation is modulated by both repair site and distal nerve environments

To restore function after nerve injury, axons must regenerate from the injury site to the periphery, then reinnervate appropriate end organs when they arrive. Only 10 % of adults who suffer nerve injury will regain normal function, often because axons regenerate to functionally inappropriate targets (Brushart, 2011). The peripheral destination of these axons is largely determined by the pathways they enter at the site of nerve repair. To improve clinical outcomes, it is thus critical to improve the accuracy of axon pathfinding. In rodents, motor axons regenerating in mixed nerve preferentially reinnervate pathways leading to muscle, a process termed preferential motor reinnervation (PMR). Previous experiments have shown that PMR can be enhanced by predegenerating nerve grafts to enhance growth factor production and remove inhibitory factors (Abdullah et al., 2013). The current experiments explore the relative contributions of motor pathways, sensory pathways, and the repair environment to this enhancement. Sensory and/or motor pathways within rat femoral nerve grafts were predegenerated for 3 weeks to optimize growth factor production (Brushart et al., 2013) or for 12 weeks to deplete it. Optimizing the environment within previously motor Schwann cell tubes promoted PMR, regardless of whether adjacent sensory pathways were optimized or chronically denervated. However, this positive effect was abolished when sensory pathways were undergoing acute Wallerian degeneration immediately after nerve repair. The repair environment thus precluded motor axon pathfinding in spite of an optimized distal motor pathway. When sensory pathways were optimized and motor pathways were chronically denervated, not only was PMR abolished, but motoneurons failed to respond to the greater volume of growth factors in the sensory nerve. Small sensory neurons, however, selectively reinnervated cutaneous nerve under these conditions. These experiments thus strengthen the concept that, in adult rats, sensory and motor pathways have unique identities capable of influencing both sensory and motor axon regeneration. Furthermore, they demonstrate that, in the rat, delaying nerve repair for 3 weeks to enhance growth factor production and clear the products of acute Wallerian degeneration can enhance regeneration specificity without the need for exogenous treatments.

Three-dimensional reconstruction of asphalt road surface texture based on binocular stereo vision

The texture of asphalt pavement plays a pivotal role in ensuring the safe operation of roads. This paper presents a binocular stereo vision hardware system that is designed to acquire asphalt pavement texture features in an economical and efficient manner. The system comprises an image acquisition device, a micro meter, and a camera bracket. The binocular camera baseline length is first determined according to the adjusted camera parameters, with the objective of enhancing the quality of the acquired images. Secondly, the camera calibration was carried out using Matlab and Python software, and the camera parameters were obtained to perform aberration and stereo corrections on the binocular image pairs. Finally, based on Python software, the sum of absolute differences, symmetric diagonal dominance, zero-mean normalised cross-correlation and semi-global block matching algorithms were applied to stereo-match the texture information image set and reconstructed the 3D asphalt pavement point cloud based on parallax mapping. However, it should be noted that the experiment does not consider the effect of light intensity in indoor and outdoor environments. This paper provides a preliminary summary of the current structural design and experiments, and further discusses ideas for subsequent research and improvement. Research and experiments show that the binocular stereo vision imaging system proposed in this paper can effectively match binocular images and present 3D information of asphalt pavement texture. When the binocular camera baseline distance is 40 mm, the maximum calibration error and the average calibration error are both the smallest, which enhances the stability of binocular matching. Furthermore, the camera parameters calculated by the Matlab toolbox calibration are more stable than those obtained by OpenCV calibration. In the indoor experimental environment, the running speeds of the four stereo matching algorithms were compared. In the indoor test environment, the SGBM algorithm was the fastest, with a running speed of 3 seconds, in the order of SGBM>SAD>SSD>ZNCC. The SGBM algorithm demonstrated the most effective parallax mapping reconstruction of asphalt pavement point clouds. The reconstruction of pavement texture may be employed in the future for the real-time monitoring of asphalt pavement skid resistance.

Elucidating high-pressure chemistry in acetylene oxidation: Jet-stirred reactor experiments, pressure effects, and kinetic interpretation

Acetylene plays a crucial role as an intermediate in the combustion of complex hydrocarbons, such as, e.g., jet fuels. In this study, high-pressure acetylene oxidation has been investigated by a combination of kinetic and experimental methods using a jet-stirred reactor (JSR) in the range of 497–910 K at p = 24 atm. The study covered three fuel-equivalence ratios: φ = 0.5 (fuel-lean), φ = 1.0 (stoichiometric), and φ = 3.0 (fuel-rich). Mole fraction profiles of 10 species, including CO, CO2, CH4, C2H4, C2H6, C3H6, C3H8, CH3OH, CH3CHO, and C3H4O, were identified and quantified using gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). A kinetic model for describing the high-pressure chemistry of acetylene oxidation is proposed, which well characterizes important experimental findings, such as the fuel oxidation reactivity and the speciation of crucial products. At high pressures (p = 24 atm), acetylene exhibits a higher fuel consumption than at lower pressures (p = 1 and 12 atm) because of the increased sensitivity of dehydrogenation reactions by OH radicals accelerating the oxidation of the fuel at low temperatures. Furthermore, fuel-specific intermediates are observed, including acetaldehyde, propanal, small alkanes, and alkenes. These species mainly result from H-abstraction reactions by OH following O2-addition reactions from triple carbon bond moieties in acetylene. The formation of further products, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, is closely related to the consumption of these fuel-specific species. In particular, the formation of aromatics, such as e.g., benzene and toluene, are detected at trace levels in the current experiments due to the rapid formation and decomposition process occurring at high pressures. By analyzing the distinct kinetic behavior, it was found that acetylene was almost completely depleted at higher system pressure (p = 24 atm). Some intermediates are rather active and can react with O2 and peroxides. Consequently, the high-pressure oxidation of acetylene mainly proceeds along the pathway of CC → CHCHOH → HOCHO/OCHCHO → CO → CO2 at the high-pressure chemistry (p = 24 atm). Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the pressure-dependent combustion behavior of acetylene and its implications for optimizing jet fuel combustion processes.

Eye-Gaze Training Does Not Impact Performance on a Nonverbal Test of Reading Abilities for Children with Special Educational Needs

AbstractMany individuals in special education have difficulty with language, and little is known about their reading abilities due to challenges presented for assessment. A nonverbal word recognition test based was developed by Measuring the word recognition abilities of children who are (2019), which proved more sensitive than traditional reading tests. The current Experiment 1 replicated that result for children in special education, and noted that the modified reading test was especially sensitive for those who do not score well in traditional versions of reading and language assessments. However, removing the motor response required by the digitised response, in favour of using eye-tracking responses, did not aid assessment of reading performance. Experiment 2 tested the notion that it could be that participants unfamiliar with use of eye gaze tracking facilities may not respond well to such a test. Reading scores for two groups of pupils in special education were compared: a group who took part in ‘primer activities’ designed to encourage familiarity with eye gaze tracking, and a group who received no such intervention. There was no impact of eye gaze training on the results of the eye-gaze modulated modified nonverbal reading test, suggesting that manual responses are the most effective way of assessing word recognition.

Environmental Detoxification of Benzimidazole Fungicide Fuberidazole via Microbial Action in Liquid Cultures

Mitigation of the environment from hazardous pesticides is clamant for all living things. The behavior of the fungicide Fuberidazole was investigated toward biodegradation. Biotransformation experiments were conducted by bacterial strains isolated from soils including, Xanthomonas citri (XC), and Pseudomonas syringae (PS), and fungal strains including, Aspergillus flavus (AF), Aspergillus niger (AN) and Penicillium chrysogenum (PC). Analysis and quantification of Fuberidazole degradation and its metabolites were performed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry and UV-visible spectrophotometry. Pseudomonas syringae and Penicillium chrysogenum displayed great bioremedial potential and degraded 91 and 86% of Fuberidazole after 35 days. Significant metabolites such as Benzimidazole 2-carboxylic acid, Benzimidazole, and 1-(1H-benzimidazole-2-yl)ethanone were produced in the current experiment. The increasing order of half-life for all strains was obtained as, PS (10.3) < PC (10.6) < AN (11) < AF (11.9) = XC (11.9) days. Experimental results demonstrated the capability of bacterial cells to efficiently utilize Fuberidazole as a nutrition source and the significance of favorable environmental conditions for its dissipation.

Electroweak axion portal to dark matter

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are good candidates for mediators to the dark sector. We explore scenarios in which an ALP mediates interactions between dark matter and electroweak gauge bosons. These models yield testable electromagnetic signals in astrophysical, cosmological, and terrestrial probes. We find promising prospects for both indirect detection and accelerator tests, with interesting parameter space already constrained by current experiments. Our work provides concrete benchmarks for future tests of the electroweak ALP portal. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Elucidating the protective role of manganese seed priming in mitigating lead-induced oxidative stress: enhancements in growth, grain yield, and antioxidant activities of wheat.

Lead (Pb) is known to be extremely toxic to plants and awfully affects growth and productivity by interacting with morphological, biochemical, and physiological processes. Micronutrients are considered to reduce ion toxicity and modify various physiological processes involved in oxidative stress tolerance in plants. Hence, the limited literature about the application of micronutrients, particularly manganese (Mn), under lead stress thus demands more investigations. To sort out the role of priming treatments of Mn (1.0 and 0.1mg/L) in lead stress (200mg/kg) induced oxidative stress tolerance in wheat cultivars (Anaj-17 and Akbar-19), current experiment was designed. The experiment was arranged with completely randomized design (CRD) with three replicates. The results explored the positive role of Mn priming in strengthening the antioxidant system with increased activities of antioxidants under Pb stress. Mn priming level (0.1mg/L) significantly increased the germination percentage, germination percentage, growth traits, grain yield per plant, shoot P, shoot Ca2+, and shoot K+ while decreasing the MDA and H2O2 levels, of Anaj-17 and Akbar-19 under Pb stress (200mg/kg). Seed priming levels of Mn further upgraded the antioxidant enzymatic activities and organic osmolytes such as proline, total phenolics, flavonoids, total soluble sugars, and glycine betaine, under Pb stress. Conclusively, the 0.1mg/L level of Mn priming and Akbar-19 cultivar has proven superior in lead detoxification under Pb-induced oxidative stress. Furthermore, the outcomes revealed more accumulation of Pb in the roots of wheat than in the shoots of both wheat cultivars and emphasized the use of lower Mn levels of 0.1mg/L as the best strategy in alleviating the toxic impacts of lead in wheat. However, the conduct of large field trials is a necessity of current scenario to study the molecular aspects and associated genes contributing Pb stress tolerance with priming application of Mn and other micronutrients.

Latent characterization of the complete BATSE gamma-ray bursts catalogue using Gaussian mixture of factor analysers and model-estimated overlap-based syncytial clustering

ABSTRACT Characterizing and distinguishing gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has interested astronomers for many decades. While some authors have found two or three groups of GRBs by analysing only a few parameters, recent work identified five ellipsoidally shaped groups upon considering nine parameters $T_{50}, T_{90}, F_1, F_2, F_3, F_4, P_{64}, P_{256}, P_{1024}$. Yet others suggest subclasses within the two or three groups found earlier. Using a mixture model of Gaussian factor analysers, we analysed 1150 GRBs, that had nine parameters observed, from the current Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) catalogue, and again established five ellipsoidal-shaped groups to describe the GRBs. These five groups are characterized in terms of their average duration, fluence, and spectrum as shorter-faint-hard, long-intermediate-soft, long-intermediate-intermediate, long-bright-intermediate, and short-faint-hard. The use of factor analysers in describing individual group densities allows for a more thorough group-wise characterization of the parameters in terms of a few latent features. However, given the discrepancy with many other existing studies that advocated for two or three groups, we also performed model-estimated overlap-based syncytial clustering that successively merges poorer separated groups. The five ellipsoidal groups merge into three and then into two groups, one with GRBs of low durations and the other having longer duration GRBs. These groups are also characterized in terms of a few latent factors made up of the nine parameters. Our analysis provides context for all three sets of results, and in doing so, details a multilayered characterization of the BATSE GRBs, while also explaining the structure in their variability.

Milky Way could invalidate the hypothesis of exotic matter and favor a gravitomagnetic solution to explain dark matter

We demonstrate a very general mathematical and physical expression of the rotation speed at the end of the galaxy (far from the vast majority of the galaxy’s baryonic mass) obtained from General Relativity without non-baryonic matter. We show the excellent agreement with measurements obtained for the Milky Way published in a recent article which confirms a significantly faster decline in the circular velocity curve at outer galactic radii up to 30 kpc compared to the inner parts. This relation comes from Linearized General Relativity (GRL). Some papers argue that the GRL solution cannot explain dark matter (DM). We demonstrate that this conclusion is too premature because they only consider mass currents of the galaxies which is not the most general theoretical solution. And because this GRL explanation suffers from the same defects as exotic matter, only direct measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect can objectively reject this solution. Current experiments are not yet precise enough to test this solution. But meanwhile, if the relevance of this expression were confirmed for most galaxies, this would strongly challenge exotic matter to explain DM and could drastically change the point of view on the DM component. Two known physical fields (contrary to an exotic matter) which are until now neglected or rather underestimated would then explain DM. The DM mystery would then consist for theory in understanding how the values of these fields can be larger than expected and for observation in being able to measure these two fields with sufficient precision. In addition, these fields allow obtaining the TULLY-FISHER relation and the MOND theory.

Performance Studies of Ridge Gourd (Luffa acutangula (L.) Roxb.) Genotypes for Growth and Yield Parameters

Ridge gourd [Luffa acutangula (L.)] commonly known as kalitori, angled gourd, angled loofah, silky gourd and ribbed gourd, belongs to Cucurbitaceae family with chromosome number 2n = 26. The current experiment was conducted at the College of Horticulture, Bagalkot, Karnataka during the Rabi- Summer season of 2023–2024 to evaluate thirty-eight different genotypes of ridge gourd. The experiment had two replications and was set up using a randomized complete block design. Analysis of variance showed that existence of high degree of variability among the genotypes. On the basis of mean performance, Hireharukuni local performed better for parameters like vine length (501.25 cm), number of primary branches per vine (4.08), node at first female flower (7.17), days to first harvest (55.18) and yield parameters with highest yield of 3.86kg/vine.

TMIC-57. EFFECT OF HYPOXIA ON SPHINGOSINE-1-PHOSPHATE (S1P) METABOLIZING ENZYMES IN DIFFUSE INTRINSIC PONTINE GLIOMA CELL LINES

Abstract Diffuse Midline Glioma H3K27 altered (DMG) is a devastating and incurable paediatric brain tumour. Previously a bioinformatic approach was taken to evaluate genes involved in the sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) biosynthesis pathway in diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG). S1P is known to interact with epigenetic partners (HDAC1) as well as play a role in proliferation, immune cell trafficking, angiogenesis and apoptosis. As a part of a broad bioinformatic approach evaluating the expression of genes associated with the sphingomyelin (SM) biosynthesis pathway, S1P metabolism, S1P receptors and downstream targets, 14 of 25 genes were found to be dysregulated in DIPG relative to normal brain (p&amp;lt;0.0002). Herein we focus on the imbalance of the S1P metabolic enzymes sphingosine kinase 2 (SPHK2) and sphingosine-1-phosphate lyase (SGPL1). Bioinformatic data revealed higher levels of SGPL1 and lower levels of SPHK2 compared with normal brain. DIPG cell lines (SU-DIPG-IV, VUMC-DIPG-08, VUMC-DIPG-A) were used to validate gene and protein expression and to evaluate changes following exposure to hypoxic conditions. Confocal images reveal an increase in nuclear SPHK2 staining in cells cultured for 24- and 48-hours under hypoxic conditions. HDAC1 immunostaining was localised in the nucleus. SGPL1 immunostaining, while mostly cytoplasmic, nuclear staining was observed. qRT-PCR assays were used to evaluate changes in mRNA expression in SPHK2, SGPL1 and HDAC1 in DIPG cell lines incubated under hypoxic conditions. The Pfaffl method was used to analyse gene expression relative to the housekeeping gene TBP. Under hypoxic conditions, the levels of SPHK2 and HDAC1 were higher in DIPG cells cultured in hypoxic conditions for 48 hours compared to DIPG cells cultured in normoxic conditions, whereas SGPL1 expression was lower in hypoxic treated cells. Current experiments targeting the modulation of these S1P-metabolizing enzymes are underway to determine the role of the S1P signalling pathway and determine the potential advantage of targeting this pathway in DIPG.