Microfluidic droplet encapsulation of highly motile single zoospores for phenotypic screening of an antioomycete chemical

Highly motile Phytophthora sojae (P. sojae) zoospores of an oomycete plant pathogen and antioomycete candidate chemicals were encapsulated into microdroplets. Random fast self-motion of P. sojae zoospores was overcome by choosing an appropriate flow rate for a zoospore suspension. To influence stochastic loading of zoospores into a microfluidic channel, a zoospore suspension was directly preloaded into a microtubing with a largely reduced inner diameter. A relatively high single zoospore encapsulation rate of 60.5% was achieved on a most trivial T-junction droplet generator platform, without involving any specially designed channel geometry. We speculated that spatial reduction in the diameter direction of microtubing added a degree of zoospore ordering in the longitudinal direction of microtubing and thus influenced positively to change the inherent limitation of stochastic encapsulation of zoospores. Comparative phenotypic study of a plant oomycete pathogen at a single zoospore level had not been achieved earlier. Phenotypic changes of zoospores responding to various chemical concentration conditions were measured in multiple droplets in parallel, providing a reliable data set and thus an improved statistic at a low chemical consumption. Since each droplet compartment contained a single zoospore, we were able to track the germinating history of individual zoospores without being interfered by other germinating zoospores, achieving a high spatial resolution. By adapting some existing droplet immobilization and concentration gradient generation techniques, the droplet approach could potentially lead to a medium-to-high throughput, reliable screening assay for chemicals against many other highly motile zoospores of pathogens.     

An extension of the technology acceptance model in the big data analytics system implementation environment

Research on the adoption of systems for big data analytics has drawn enormous attention in Information Systems research. This study extends big data analytics adoption research by examining the effects of system characteristics on the attitude of managers towards the usage of big data analytics systems. A research model has been proposed in this study based on an extensive review of literature pertaining to the Technology Acceptance Model, with further validation by a survey of 150 big data analytics users. Results of this survey confirm that characteristics of the big data analytics system have significant direct and indirect effects on belief in the benefits of big data analytics systems and perceived usefulness, attitude and adoption. Moreover, there are mediation effects that exist among the system characteristics, benefits of big data analytics systems, perceived usefulness and the attitude towards using big data analytics system. This study expands the existing body of knowledge on the adoption of big data analytics systems, and benefits big data analytics providers and vendors while helping in the formulation of their business models.     

Analysis of SEVA TB ES-31 antigen specific immunoglobulins IgM, IgA and IgG in sera of sputum and culture positive pulmonary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains major health problem in India and developing countries Immunodiagnosis has important role in screening, diagnosis and management of tuberculosis. SEVA TB ES-31 antigen has shown potential in detecting tuberculous IgG antibody in earlier studies from our laboratory. In the present study we have analysedSEVA TB ES-31 antigen specific immunoglobulinsIgM, IgA and IgG in clinically and bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis cases to determine the usefulness of specific immunoglobulin class in the diagnosis of patients attending the hospital. Of the 30 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis 25 (83.3%) were positive for IgG, 19 (63.3%) for IgM and 16 (53.3%) for IgA. On combining IgG and IgM positivity, sensitivity was increased to 93.3%. While combining IgG and IgA positivity, sensitivity increased to 90%. However specificity was decreased to 66.6% and 70% for both of these combinations respectively. It could be envisaged from this study that IgG antibody detection against ES-31 antigen showed acceptable sensitivity (83.3%) and specificity (86.6%) compared to IgM or IgA alone or in combination. When immune responses were analysed according to degree of sputum positivity, IgG response was observed to be predominant in all grades, compared to IgM or IgA antibody. The addition of IgM or IgA as an adjunct test increases the sensitivity but at the cost of specificity. Hence the detection of IgG alone is more useful compared to IgM or IgA assay, in detecting tuberculosis disease cases coming to the hospital.     

A theory for decoupling lossless coupled tapered lines with applications to directional couplers

A simple theory is presented for decoupling a pair of lossless coupled nonuniform transmission lines (CNUTL), with a common return and supporting TEM waves, into two lossless nonuniform transmission lines (NUTL). This theory is independent of the port terminations, symmetry conditions, etc. The method directly relates the line parameters of the lossless CNUTL's to those of the decoupled lines and vice versa; further, the matrix parameters of the CNUTL's as a four-port are explicitly expressed in terms of those of the decoupled lines as two-ports. This theory is then utilized to study the applications of CNUTL's as directional couplers.It is shown that for CNUTL's to behave as a codirectional coupler, each of the decoupled lines should be a proportional line, while for contradirectional coupler action, the two decoupled lines have to be duals of each other. The coupling response of the codirectional coupler is found to be periodic, while the phase shift between coupled and transmitted signals varies linearly with frequency. The coupling response of various contradirectional couplers with smooth transition at one of the ends, for which the decoupled lines are “basic NUTL's with hyperbolic solutions”, are studied in detail. It is shown that all these couplers have a high-pass response and that the CNUTL's with “hyperbolic cosine squared lines” as decoupled lines have the best response of all the CNUTL's considered.     

Astronomical spectroscopy

This article surveys important developments in the growth of spectroscopy and its application to the study of stellar spectra. Among others, the contributions of Wollaston, Fraunhofer, Kirchhoff, Bunsen and Doppler are highlighted.