Characterization and Whole Genome Sequencing of Chromobacterium violaceum OUAT_2017: A Zoonotic Pathogen Found Fatal to a Wild Asiatic Elephant.

This study reports a rare fatal case of Chromobacterium violeceum OUAT_2017 strain infection in an Asiatic elephant calf in India. Necropsy revealed pus-filled nodules in liver, spleen, and lungs. Nutrient broth cultures of nodule content showed sediment of violet pigment whereas smooth, non-diffusible, violet-pigmented, homogeneous colonies appeared on nutrient agar. The organism was found to be non-haemolytic and resistant to 8 of the 24 antibiotics tested in vitro. Partial 16S rRNA gene sequence measuring 1410 bp revealed 97% homology with C. violeceum. The bacterial genome composed of 64.87% of G + C content with total size of 4,681,202 bp. The genome annotation has 42 genes responsible for multidrug antibiotic resistance with the presence of Aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes (AAC (6')) that targets streptomycin and spectinomycin. Our findings corroborated the lethal effect of C. violeceum in a new host (elephant) that enriched scientific information on epidemiological picture and whole genome sequencing as well. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12088-022-01047-4.

Studying the effect of lockdown using epidemiological modelling of COVID-19 and a quantum computational approach using the Ising spin interaction.

COVID-19 is a respiratory tract infection that can range from being mild to fatal. In India, the countrywide lockdown has been imposed since 24th march 2020, and has got multiple extensions with different guidelines for each phase. Among various models of epidemiology, we use the SIR(D) model to analyze the extent to which this multi-phased lockdown has been active in 'flattening the curve' and lower the threat. Analyzing the effect of lockdown on the infection may provide a better insight into the evolution of epidemic while implementing the quarantine procedures as well as improving the healthcare facilities. For accurate modelling, incorporating various parameters along with sophisticated computational facilities are required. Parallel to SIRD modelling, we tend to compare it with the Ising model and derive a quantum circuit that incorporates the rate of infection and rate of recovery, etc as its parameters. The probabilistic plots obtained from the circuit qualitatively resemble the shape of the curve for the spread of Coronavirus. We also demonstrate how the curve flattens when the lockdown is imposed. This kind of quantum computational approach can be useful in reducing space and time complexities of a huge amount of information related to the epidemic.

Experimental realization of controlled quantum teleportation of arbitrary qubit states via cluster states.

Controlled quantum teleportation involves a third party as a controller for the teleportation of state. Here, we present the novel protocols for controlling teleportation of the arbitrary two-qubit and three-qubit states through five-qubit and seven-qubit cluster states respectively. In these schemes, Alice sends the arbitrary qubit states to the remote receiver Bob through the cluster states as quantum channels under the control of Charlie. Bob can recover the mentioned states by making appropriate unitary operations, and we point out that the efficiency in our schemes is 100%. In the process of our analysis, we find the classical communication cost in our protocols is remarkably reduced when compared to the previous protocols. We perform the experimental realization of the above protocols on "IBM 16 Melbourne" quantum computer and "IBM quantum simulator" and we calculate the fidelity. We also examine the security analysis against Charlie, and these schemes which we considered here are secure against Charlie's attacks.