Digital Agriculture: The Future of Indian Agriculture

Agriculture continues to be the dominant economic sector in India in terms of providing a living. Of the population, 58.2% are employed by it. The success of the agriculture sector determines the nation's social change and economic expansion. Although the amount produced by agriculture per person has been steadily increasing recently, the sector's GDP contribution has been declining. The main issue facing the so-called agrarian Indian economy is the slowdown in agricultural growth. Numerous factors contribute to the slowdown, including inadequate public funding for R&D and irrigation, ineffective input delivery, fragmented land, antiquated tenancy laws, a lack of contemporary market and rural infrastructure, unsuitable input pricing policies, and so on. Agriculture has embraced technology as a solution to all of these issues. Information and communication technology (ICT) and agriculture are coming together to create a new growth engine that makes all production, distribution, and consuming processes more efficient. The evolution of Indian agriculture and the concept of digital technology are the main topics of this paper.

Comparative study of evaluation techniques in physiology clinical practicals by objective structured practical examination verses traditional practical examination

Background: Objective structural practical examination assesses students by evaluating their knowledge, attitude, communication skills, interpersonal skills, ethical issues and professional judgement. Objectives were to compare the traditional practical clinical examination with objective structured practical examination. To establish the relation between the TCE and OSPE. To take the feedback from students about the study. Methods: This interventional longitudinal study was conducted on 100 first-year medical students. They were divided into 4 practical batches each consisting of about 25 students. In TCE each student performed a clinical skill, followed by viva voce on the RS. Assessment of each student were done on the bases of overall performance. In OSPE, students were provided an OSPE map and a written instruction list before the start of the examinations, and they move from one station to another following the audible ring by the timekeeper. Three observation station, six unobserved stations with questions relates to the procedural stations arrange in physiology practical laboratory. An examiner was provided with prevalidated checklist to mark according to the observed procedure. Results: Marks obtained during OSPE mean was 11.07 was more effective than marks obtained during TCE mean was 8.34. Most of students strongly agreed that OSPE was well structured, performance based, more objective as compared to TCE. Conclusions: OSPE is a good tool for practical assessment as compared to TCE to improve students’ learning process.

Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination Among Health Care Workers in India

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 has been spread almost all over the world in the last two years, including in India. Vaccines are a critical tool in the battle against COVID-19, and India has flagged the largest vaccination drive on 16 January 2021. Although public acceptance was varying, which can lead to non-acceptance. Aim & Objective: To estimate an acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine and its associated factors. Settings and Design: An analytical cross-sectional study among health care workers in India Methods & Material: It was conducted using a validated, self-administrated online survey questionnaire, and data were analyzed using SPSS 23 version. The outcome variable was healthcare workers’ acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine. Results: A total of 450 HCWs participated, including 205(45.6%) women and 245(54.4%) men. A total of 270 (60%) subjects will accept vaccines, while 33.3% were unwilling to accept and wait for vaccines. Male gender (OR=3.14), being married and experienced (OR=11.49), vaccine effectiveness (OR=6.4), vaccine safety (OR=3.4), and past history (OR=2.28) were significantly associated. On applying logistic regression for associated factors, gender (B= -1.145, S.E.= 0.200, Wald 32.748), being married (B= -1.482, S.E.= 0.216, Wald 46.937), for experienced (B= -0.865, S.E.= 0.200, effectiveness (B= -1.856, S.E.= 0.245, wald 57.431), Safety (B= -1.224, S.E.= 0.202, Wald 36.633) and past history (B= -0.357, S.E.= 0.248, Wald 2.071) found significant. Recommendation: Proper information is crucial and healthcare workers’ attitudes about vaccines are an important factor for acceptance and recommendation of the vaccine to the public for population-wide coverage.

A prospective study of association of cancer stem cell marker aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 with clinicopathological profile in lung carcinoma patients

Context: In India, lung carcinoma is the fifth-most common tumor and second-most common tumor in the males as per the Indian Council of Medical Research registry of 2002. It has been seen that ALDH1 expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the presence of marker was linked to a more tumorigenic potential in the in vivo assessment and shorter disease-free survival in NSCLC patients with platinum treatment. Aims: Hence, our objective was to detect association of cancer stem cell (CSC) marker aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1) with clinicopathological profile in lung carcinoma patients. Settings and Design: This is a Pilot study. Subjects and Methods: It was a Pilot study where biopsies from 55 fresh previously untreated lung cancer patients visiting the Pulmonary Medicine Department of Era's Lucknow Medical College and Hospital Lucknow and King George's Medical University were taken for 18 months November 2014–April 2016, after taking proper informed consent from them. Paraffin blocks were taken and stained by hematoxylin and eosin (Sigma) to make the histopathological diagnosis and immunohistochemistry was done for detection of CSC marker ALDH1 (Daco). Statistical Analysis Used: The statistical analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 15.0 Statistical Analysis Software. The values were represented in number (%) and mean ± standard deviation. Results: Expression of stem cell marker ALDH1 with the staging of the tumor was observed in 62.5% of Stage I, 80% of Stage II, 94.1% of Stage III, and 100% of Stage IV cases. Statistically, there was a significant association between ALDH1expression and stage of disease (P < 0.001). Diagnostic efficacy of ALDH1 expression in the detection of any positive clinical stage, it was found to be 88.6% sensitive and 90.9% specific. Conclusions: Strong ALDH1 expression correlates with higher stage of lung carcinoma making it a prognostic marker needing in-depth study.

LC, MSn and LC-MS/MS studies for the characterization of degradation products of amlodipine / 药物分析学报

In the present study, comprehensive stress testing of amlodipine (AM) was carried out according to International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) Q1A(R2) guideline. AM was subjected to acidic, neutral and alkaline hydrolysis, oxidation, photolysis and thermal stress conditions. The drug showed instability in acidic and alkaline conditions, while it remained stable to neutral, oxidative, light and thermal stress. A total of nine degradation products (DPs) were formed from AM, which could be separated by the developed gradient LC method on a C18 column. The products formed under various stress conditions were investigated by LC–MS/MS analysis. The previously developed LC method was suitably modified for LC–MS/MS studies by replacing phosphate buffer with ammonium acetate buffer of the same concentration (pH 5.0). A complete fragmentation pathway of the drug was first established to characterize all the degradation products using LC–MS/MS and multi-stage mass (MSn) fragmentation studies. The obtained mass values were used to study elemental compositions, and the total information helped with the identification of DPs, along with its degradation pathway.

Aggressive angiomyxoma of the jejunum: a rare cause of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding.

Obscure gastrointestinal bleeding accounts for nearly 5% of all gastrointestinal haemorrhage and is frequently due to a lesion in the small bowel. We report the case of a male patient with obscure overt gastrointestinal bleed in whom repeated upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, colonoscopy, computed tomography scanning and exploratory laparotomy showed no specific pathology. However, on capsule endoscopy done subsequently, a small polyp in the jejunum was located and resected. Histology revealed an aggressive angiomyxoma. This type of small bowel lesion has not been reported in the literature before.

Purification and preliminary characterization of L-asparaginase from Erwinia aroideae NRRL B-138.

L-Asparaginase (L-asparagine amidohydrolase EC 3.5.1.1) from Erwinia aroideae NRRL B-138 has been purified to apparent homogeneity by ammonium sulphate precipitation, chromatography on sulfopropyl-sephadex C-50 and sephadex G-200 with 22% recovery and 567-fold purification. The enzyme obtained from sulfopropyl-sephadex C-50 was unstable and lost activity within a few hours. Addition of glycerol helped in restoring the activity of the enzyme. The enzyme has an apparent molecular mass of approximately 155 kDa and has four subunits of identical molecular mass of approximately 38 kDa. The K(m) for L-asparagine is 2.8 x 10(-3) M. Enzyme shows optimal activity at 45 degrees C and pH 8.2. Energy of activation as determined from Arrhenius plot was 9.1 kcal/mol. Substrate L-asparagine and analogue L-glutamine, D-asparagine and 6 diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine provide full protection to the enzyme against thermal denaturation.