Publications by authors named "PP Sharma"

Within the arachnids, chromosome-level genome assemblies have greatly accelerated the understanding of gene family evolution and developmental genomics in key groups, such as spiders (Araneae), mites and ticks (Acariformes and Parasitiformes). Among other poorly studied arachnid orders that lack genome assemblies altogether are the clade Pedipalpi, which is comprised of three orders that form the sister group of spiders, which diverged over 400 Mya. We close this gap by generating the first chromosome-level assembly from a single specimen of the vinegaroon Mastigoproctus giganteus (Uropygi).

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic overburdened the healthcare system and affected the mental health of healthcare workers. Yoga has proven to improve mental health correlates, within diverse population groups, including healthcare workers. Considering the pandemic-imposed restrictions, this trial was designed to study the feasibility and effect of tele-yoga intervention on burnout, sleep quality, depression, anxiety, stress, mindfulness, and immune markers of healthcare workers on COVID-19 duty.

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Scorpion toxins are relatively short cyclic peptides (<150 amino acids) that can disrupt the opening/closing mechanisms in cell ion channels. These peptides are widely studied for several reasons including their use in drug discovery. Although improvements in RNAseq have greatly expedited the discovery of new scorpion toxins, their annotation remains challenging, mainly due to their small size.

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Various formulae had been derived to calculate the LDL-C from other lipid profile parameters to supplant the need for direct estimation. Martin's, Sampson's, and Cordova's formulae are recently derived formulae for calculating LDL-C. However, no study has been undertaken till now to verify the newer formulae viz.

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Chelicerata constitutes an ancient, biodiverse, and ecologically significant group of Arthropoda. The study of chelicerate evolution has undergone a renaissance in the past decade, resulting in major changes to our understanding of the higher-level phylogeny and internal relationships of living orders. Included among these conceptual advances are the discoveries of multiple whole-genome duplication events in a subset of chelicerate orders, such as horseshoe crabs, spiders, and scorpions.

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Neofunctionalization of duplicated gene copies is thought to be an important process underlying the origin of evolutionary novelty and provides an elegant mechanism for the origin of new phenotypic traits. One putative case where a new gene copy has been linked to a novel morphological trait is the origin of the arachnid patella, a taxonomically restricted leg segment. In spiders, the origin of this segment has been linked to the origin of the paralog dachshund-2, suggesting that a new gene facilitated the expression of a new trait.

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Tobacco, being an established risk factor for significant mortality and morbidity, causes over 7 million annual deaths globally. India is a country with over 270 million active tobacco users. On the one hand, although the willingness to quit amongst tobacco users is as high as 55.

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The chelicerate body plan is distinguished from other arthropod groups by its division of segments into 2 tagmata: the anterior prosoma ("cephalothorax") and the posterior opisthosoma ("abdomen"). Little is understood about the genetic mechanisms that establish the prosomal-opisthosomal (PO) boundary. To discover these mechanisms, we created high-quality genomic resources for the large-bodied spider Aphonopelma hentzi.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Digital health interventions can improve care in rural areas, but their use among traditional birth attendants (TBAs) hasn't been fully explored.
  • - A mobile app called "maternal and infant care" (MAI) was developed to enhance TBAs' skills, and its quality was assessed through user satisfaction metrics.
  • - The MAI app received high ratings for functionality and user-friendliness, but it showed less appeal in terms of visual aspects and user interest, indicating room for improvement.
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Background: There are significant barriers to healthcare access in tribal areas, even though for every 834 people, there is one public physician (registered allopathic and AYUSH doctors). More than 86% of hospital visits occur in rural areas. Furthermore, the bulk of them travel long distances to reach hospitals.

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Atrial fibrillation (AF) carries a stroke risk, often necessitating anticoagulation, especially in patients with risk factors. With the advent of implantable and wearable heart monitors, episodes of short bouts of atrial arrhythmias called atrial high-rate episodes (AHREs) or subclinical AF (SCAF) are commonly identified. The necessity of anticoagulation in patients with SCAF is unclear.

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Introduction: Indian cigarillos (bidi) are low-cost alternatives to cigarettes with only 22% imposed taxes, and turnover of up to INR 4 million per annum exempted from taxation.

Aims And Methods: This paper estimates revenue implications and potential loss of life years (YLLs) averted if the bidi industry is subjected to increased regulations and taxation. Revenue estimates at 10% increased regulation and 100% regulation were calculated, followed by estimates at taxes equivalent to cigarettes and World Health Organization-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) recommendation.

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Neofunctionalization of duplicated gene copies is thought to be an important process underlying the origin of evolutionary novelty and provides an elegant mechanism for the origin of new phenotypic traits. One putative case where a new gene copy has been linked to a novel morphological trait is the origin of the arachnid patella, a taxonomically restricted leg segment. In spiders, the origin of this segment has been linked to the origin of the paralog , suggesting that a new gene facilitated the expression of a new trait.

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Background: Mobile health applications are an established tool for healthcare management, patient education, and even capacity building for healthcare providers. However, its use among traditional birth attendants (TBAs) is limited. The aim of this study is to explore the needs and bottlenecks of developing an interactive mobile application for maternal and infant care (MAI) of TBAs.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists study the tree of life, where some smaller groups of creatures, called clades, don't have many relatives left and look very old, like living fossils.
  • A special group called Amblypygi, or whip spiders, has been around for a long time, but only one of its relatives is still alive today, and it hasn't been seen since 1899.
  • A recent discovery of a new whip spider species in Colombia helped scientists create a family tree for these spiders and showed that finding more ancient species is important for understanding how living things are related.
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The HIV capsid (CA) protein is a promising target for anti-AIDS treatment due to its critical involvement in viral replication. Herein, we utilized the well-documented CA inhibitor PF74 as our lead compound and designed a series of low-molecular-weight phenylalanine derivatives. Among them, compound 7t exhibited remarkable antiviral activity with a high selection index (EC = 0.

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Vestigial organs provide a link between ancient and modern traits and therefore have great potential to resolve the phylogeny of contentious fossils that bear features not seen in extant species. Here we show that extant daddy-longlegs (Arachnida, Opiliones), a group once thought to possess only one pair of eyes, in fact additionally retain a pair of vestigial median eyes and a pair of vestigial lateral eyes. Neuroanatomical gene expression surveys of eye-patterning transcription factors, opsins, and other structural proteins in the daddy-longlegs Phalangium opilio show that the vestigial median and lateral eyes innervate regions of the brain positionally homologous to the median and lateral eye neuropils, respectively, of chelicerate groups like spiders and horseshoe crabs.

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Background: Sirohi is one of the aspirational districts of Rajasthan which is also tribal-dominated. The maternal and early infant health indicators are worrisome compared to regional or national statistics. First-trimester registration of pregnant women is 54% in district Sirohi, which is much less as compared to registration in the state of Rajasthan (63%) and India (59%).

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Aim: We estimated the relationship between routine biochemical laboratory parameters with static bone histomorphometric parameters and their high and low bone turnover capacity predictability in hemodialysis patients.

Method: It was a single-center cross-sectional study, included 28 hemodialysis patients. The routine biochemical parameters measured including calcium, phosphorous, alkaline phosphatase, intact PTH, and 25-hydroxycholecalciferol.

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The non-toxic nature of natural polysaccharides and their biodegradability makes them the first choice of researchers. Various natural polysaccharides are available nowadays, like cellulose, starch, chitosan, gum acacia, guar gum etc. Among these, gum acacia is a common natural polysaccharide presently used in research and technology.

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The armored harvestman family Assamiidae (Arachnida: Opiliones: Laniatores) is widely distributed throughout the Old World tropics, specifically throughout tropical Asia and Central Africa. However, the systematics and intrafamilial relationships of the group remain poorly understood. This can be largely attributed to the complicated taxonomic history of the group, which is exemplified by poorly supported subfamily classifications and the prevalence of monotypic genera.

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Collagen XII, a member of a protein family called fibril associated collagen with interrupted triple helices (FACIT), is an important component of extracellular matrix and is essential for bridging the neighbouring fibrils. Mutations in collagen XII have been recently described to cause a rare extracellular matrix-related myopathy in those whose phenotype resembles collagen VI-related dystrophies and were negative for pathogenic variants in COL6A genes. The authors report a 4-year old girl presented with a phenotype mimicking Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy and genetically confirmed to have pathogenic variants in COL12A1 gene thus, expanding the phenotypic spectrum of COL12A1-related myopathy.

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Recent advances in higher-level invertebrate phylogeny have leveraged shared features of genomic architecture to resolve contentious nodes across the tree of life. Yet, the interordinal relationships within Chelicerata have remained recalcitrant given competing topologies in recent molecular analyses. As such, relationships between topologically unstable orders remain supported primarily by morphological cladistic analyses.

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Article Synopsis
  • The systematics of Solifugae, a group of arachnids, are complex due to difficulties in morphology interpretation, a lack of comprehensive molecular studies, and limited taxonomic analysis.
  • Recent findings indicate that most solifuge families have continuous geographical distributions shaped by vicariance, except for three families that show disjoint distributions and questionable classifications.
  • Using ultraconserved elements (UCEs) for phylogenetic analysis, researchers found that certain genera do not fit neatly into existing families, leading to the establishment of three new families for a clearer and more accurate classification of Solifugae.
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