Spatial and temporal variations of air pollution over 41 cities of India during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

In this study, we characterize the impacts of COVID-19 on air pollution using NO and Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) from TROPOMI and MODIS satellite datasets for 41 cities in India. Specifically, our results suggested a 13% NO reduction during the lockdown (March 25-May 3rd, 2020) compared to the pre-lockdown (January 1st-March 24th, 2020) period. Also, a 19% reduction in NO was observed during the 2020-lockdown as compared to the same period during 2019.

Alkaline air: changing perspectives on nitrogen and air pollution in an ammonia-rich world.

Ammonia and ammonium have received less attention than other forms of air pollution, with limited progress in controlling emissions at UK, European and global scales. By contrast, these compounds have been of significant past interest to science and society, the recollection of which can inform future strategies. Sal ammoniac (, ) is found to have been extremely valuable in long-distance trade ( AD 600-1150) from Egypt and China, where 6-8 kg N could purchase a human life, while air pollution associated with collection was attributed to this nitrogen form.

Rising burden of overweight and obesity among Indian adults: empirical insights for public health preparedness.

With simultaneous efforts to address a huge burden of malnutrition, especially among children and younger women, India also encounters a mushrooming prevalence of overweight and obesity among the adult population. This study analysed data from two consecutive rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted in 2005-06 and 2015-16, to present the burden of overweight and obesity among adult men and women in India. The findings highlight a rising burden of overweight and obesity, although the level and the extent of change over the study period varied across states.

Elucidating potential molecular signatures through host-microbe interactions for reactive arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease using combinatorial approach.

Reactive Arthritis (ReA), a rare seronegative inflammatory arthritis, lacks exquisite classification under rheumatic autoimmunity. ReA is solely established using differential clinical diagnosis of the patient cohorts, where pathogenic triggers linked to enteric and urogenital microorganisms e.g.

Host-induced silencing of the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides conidial morphology 1 gene (CgCOM1) confers resistance against Anthracnose disease in chilli and tomato.

Host mediated silencing of COM1 gene of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides disables appressorial differentiation and effectively prevents the development of Anthracnose disease in chilli and tomato. Anthracnose disease is caused by the ascomycetes fungal species Colletotrichum, which is responsible for heavy yield losses in chilli and tomato worldwide. Conventionally, harmful pesticides are used to contain anthracnose disease with limited success.

Assessing the role of osmolytes on the conformational harmony of islet amyloid polypeptide.

Several pathological disorders have known linkages with the misfolding and abnormal oligomerization of peptides and proteins and their accumulation into numerous aggregates. One such peptide is human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) responsible for amyloid aggregation in type 2 diabetes. This aggregation can be altered by osmolytes, which are natural agents that can alter the environment surrounding of hIAPP.

Topological and system-level protein interaction network (PIN) analyses to deduce molecular mechanism of curcumin.

Curcumin is an important bioactive component of turmeric and also one of the important natural products, which has been investigated extensively. The precise mode of action of curcumin and its impact on system level protein networks are still not well studied. To identify the curcumin governed regulatory action on protein interaction network (PIN), an interectome was created based on 788 key proteins, extracted from PubMed literatures, and constructed by using STRING and Cytoscape programs.

Bleomycin modulates amyloid aggregation in β-amyloid and hIAPP.

Aberrant misfolding and amyloid aggregation, which result in amyloid fibrils, are frequent and critical pathological incidents in various neurodegenerative disorders. Multiple drugs or inhibitors have been investigated to avert amyloid aggregation in individual peptides, exhibiting sequence-dependent inhibition mechanisms. Establishing or inventing inhibitors capable of preventing amyloid aggregation in a wide variety of amyloid peptides is quite a daunting task.

Public health interventions to improve maternal nutrition during pregnancy: a nationally representative study of iron and folic acid consumption and food supplements in India.

Objective: Despite a reduction in maternal mortality in recent years, a high rate of anaemia and other nutrient inadequacies during pregnancy pose a serious threat to mothers and their children in the Global South. Using the framework of the WHO-Commission on Social Determinants of Health, this study examines the socioeconomic, programmatic and contextual factors associated with the consumption of iron and folic acid (IFA) tablets/syrup for at least 100 d (IFA100) and receiving supplementary food (SF) by pregnant women in India.

Design: We analysed a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of over 190 898 ever-married women aged 15-49 years who were interviewed as part of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted during 2015-16, who had at least one live birth preceding 5 years of the survey.

Assessment of clean cooking technologies under different fuel use conditions in rural areas of Northern India.

The study was conducted to assess the performance of improved and traditional cookstoves using wood as a fuel and three combinations of other fuel mixes - (i) wood and cow dung, (ii) wood and mustard stalks, and (iii) cow dung and mustard stalks). Energy and emission parameters such as specific energy consumption (SEC), emission factors (EFs) of carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM) and black carbon (BC) were used to compare four different types of cookstoves. These included top-feed forced draft (TF-FD), top-feed natural draft (TF-ND), front-feed natural draft (FF-ND) and front-feed traditional (FF-TR) cookstoves.

Genome-wide analysis of the U-box E3 ubiquitin ligase enzyme gene family in tomato.

E3 ubiquitin ligases are a central modifier of plant signaling pathways that act through targeting proteins to the degradation pathway. U-box E3 ubiquitin ligases are a distinct class of E3 ligases that utilize intramolecular interactions for its scaffold stabilization. U-box E3 ubiquitin ligases are prevalent in plants in comparison to animals.

Identifying novel inhibitor of quorum sensing transcriptional regulator (SdiA) of through modelling, docking and molecular dynamics simulation.

In this study, attempts have been made to identify novel inhibitor(s) of SdiA (a homolog of LuxR transcription regulator) of using various computational techniques. 4LFU was used as a template to model the structure of SdiA. ProCheck, Verify3D, Ramachandran plot scores and ProSA-Web confirmed the good quality of the model as the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between SdiA model, and 4LFU template was estimated to be 0.

Prediction of the COVID-19 Pandemic for the Top 15 Affected Countries: Advanced Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Model.

Background: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has affected more than 200 countries and has infected more than 2,800,000 people as of April 24, 2020. It was first identified in Wuhan City in China in December 2019.

Objective: The aim of this study is to identify the top 15 countries with spatial mapping of the confirmed cases.

Spatial variations of heavy metal contamination and associated risks around an unplanned landfill site in India.

The study highlights the impact of unplanned landfill site on quality of groundwater, soil, and plants. The site selected is the Bhalaswa landfill site located in the urbanized region of Delhi, India. The associated potential ecological and human health risks to the population residing within the catchment area of the landfill site were evaluated.

Fluoresceinated Aminohexanol Tethered Inositol Hexakisphosphate: Studies on and and Docking with 2P1M Receptor.

Inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP; phytic acid) is considered as the second messenger and plays a very important role in plants, animals, and human beings. It is the principal storage form of phosphorus in many plant tissues, especially in dry fruits, bran, and seeds. The resulting anion is a colorless species that plays a critical role in nutrition and is believed to cure many diseases.

Structure-Based Screening of Non-β-Lactam Inhibitors against Class D β-Lactamases: An Approach of Docking and Molecular Dynamics.

The manifestation of class D β-lactamases in the community raises significant concern as they can hydrolyze carbapenem antibiotics. Hence, it is exceptionally alluring to design novel inhibitors. Structure-based virtual screening using docking programs and molecular dynamics simulations was employed to identify two novel non-β-lactam compounds that possess the ability to block different OXA variants.

Ameliorating amyloid aggregation through osmolytes as a probable therapeutic molecule against Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes.

Large numbers of neurological and metabolic disorders occurring in humans are induced by the aberrant growth of aggregated or misfolded proteins. Alzheimer's disease (AD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are two of the most prevalent disorders that lead to toxic protofibrils of amyloid beta (Aβ) and human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) in the form of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). IDPs are important functional proteins or peptides that have no common structures and are found in various organisms; they play an imperative role in multiple biological mechanisms, changing their folding and unfolding patterns depending on the environment.

Modelling Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) in response to climate change scenarios for the SAARC nations.

Agriculture and forestry are the two major land use classes providing sustenance to the human population. With the pace of development, these two land use classes continue to change over time. Land use change is a dynamic process under the influence of multiple drivers including climate change.

Incidence of Prehypertension and Hypertension in Rural India, 2012-2018: A Sex-Stratified Population-Based Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: India is home to the largest number of hypertensive individuals, and factors responsible for the incidence of hypertension are poorly understood. This study examines predictors of transition to different stages of hypertension-incidence of hypertension, incidence of prehypertension, and incidence of prehypertension to hypertension.

Methods: Population-based survey data from the Birbhum Population Project, located in West Bengal, India were used.

Homeologs of Brassica SOC1, a central regulator of flowering time, are differentially regulated due to partitioning of evolutionarily conserved transcription factor binding sites in promoters.

Evolution of Brassica genome post-polyploidization reveals asymmetrical genome fractionation and copy number variation. Herein, we describe the impact of promoter divergence among SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS1 (SOC1) homeologs on expression and function in Brassica spp. SOC1, a regulated floral pathway integrator, is conserved as 3 redundant homeologs in diploid Brassicas.

Potency of inhibitors depends upon the accessibility of their aromatic rings within the hydrophobic specificity pocket: a novel avenue for future aldose reductase inhibitor design.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Reduction in black carbon concentration and its exposure in rural settings of Northern India: An intervention analysis.

The present study estimated the concentration of black carbon (BC and BC) during cooking hours in three types of kitchen in ten households and two improved cookstoves (ICS) tested against traditional mud cookstoves (TCS) in the real field conditions. The study also used a community-engaged approach to involve the local public regarding the benefits of intervention. The results clearly revealed that personal BC concentration was highest in an enclosed kitchen (83 μg/m) while using TCS compared to a semi-enclosed (25 μg/m) and open kitchens (16 μg/m), respectively.

Carcinogenic risk from exposure to PM bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in rural settings.

In the study, first-time personal exposure level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) was measured during cooking hours in participants of three different types of kitchen both in the particulate and gaseous phase using traditional and improved cookstoves. Along with that, indoor particulate matter (PM) concentration was also estimated during the cooking hours to examine the impact of intervention in different kitchens. The results of the study clearly revealed that the kitchen characteristics and type of cookstove technology have a significant impact on PM, PM and PAHs concentration.

Unravelling the interaction of glipizide with human serum albumin using various spectroscopic techniques and molecular dynamics studies.

Glipizide is known to stimulate insulin secretion by β-cells of the pancreas. It is a second-generation sulfonylurea drug used in the management of type 2 diabetes. The shorter biological half-life makes it a suitable candidate to be designed as a controlled release formulation.