The Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study (APCAPS) was originally established to study the long-term effects of early-life undernutrition on risk of cardiovascular disease. Its aims were subsequently expanded to include trans-generational influences of other environmental and genetic factors on chronic diseases in rural India. It builds on the Hyderabad Nutrition Trial (HNT) conducted in 1987–90 to compare the effects on birthweight of a protein-calorie supplement for pregnant women and children. The index children of HNT and their mothers were retraced and examined in 2003–05, and the children re-examined as young adults aged 18–21 years in 2009–10. The cohort was expanded to include both parents and siblings of the index children in a recently completed follow-up conducted in 2010–12 (N = ∼6225 out of 10 213 participants). Recruitment of the remaining residents of these 29 villages (N = ∼55 000) in Ranga Reddy district of Andhra Pradesh is now under way. Extensive data on socio-demographic, lifestyle, medical, anthropometric, physiological, vascular and body composition measures, DNA, stored plasma, and assays of lipids and inflammatory markers on APCAPS participants are available. Details of how to access these data are available from the corresponding author.

Increased oxidative stress and lymphocyte apoptosis are a hallmark of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). However, the association between oxidative stress and T lymphocytes apoptosis has still to be elucidated in SLE. In order to appraise the interaction between oxidative stress and T lymphocyte apoptosis with the severity of disease, oxidative stress profile and T lymphocytes apoptosis were studied. Increased levels of ROS, MDA and CD4(+) lymphocyte apoptosis were positively associated with disease activity while decreased levels of GSH and percentage expression of CD4(+) lymphocyte were negatively associated with disease activity. The decrease in intracellular levels of GSH was negatively associated with T lymphocyte, CD4(+) lymphocyte, CD8(+) lymphocyte apoptosis and intracellular caspase-3 expression. The present study suggests that increased T lymphocyte sub-sets apoptosis may be mediated by decreased intracellular glutathione concentration and severity of disease might be enhanced together by over-production of ROS in SLE.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been instrumental in identifying novel genetic variants associated with altered plasma lipid levels. However, these quantitative trait loci have not been tested in the Indian population, where there is a poorly understood and growing burden of cardiometabolic disorders. We present the association of six single nucleotide polymorphisms in 1671 sib pairs (3342 subjects) with four lipid traits: total cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). We also investigated the interaction effects of gender, location, fat intake and physical activity. Each copy of the risk allele of rs964184 at APOA1 was associated with 1.06 mmol/l increase in triglycerides (SE = 0.049; p = 0.006), rs3764261 at CETP with 1.02 mmol/l increase in both total cholesterol (SE = 0.042; p = 0.017) and HDL-C (SE = 0.041; p = 0.008), rs646776 at CELSR2-PSRC1-SORT1 with 0.96 mmol/l decrease in cholesterol (SE = 0.043; p = 0.0003) and 0.15 mmol/l decrease in LDL-C levels (SE = 0.043; p = 0.0003) and rs2954029 at TRIB1 with 1.02 mmol/l increase in HDL-C (SE = 0.039; p = 0.047). A combined risk score of APOA1 and CETP loci predicted an increase of 1.25 mmol/l in HDL-C level (SE = 0.312; p = 0.0007). Urban location and sex had strong interaction effects on the genetic association of most of the studied loci with lipid traits. To conclude, we validated four genetic variants (identified by GWAS in western populations) associated with lipid traits in the Indian population. The interaction effects found here may explain the sex-specific differences in lipid levels and their heritability. Urbanization appears to influence the nature of the association with GWAS lipid loci in this population. However, these findings will require replication in other Indian populations.

In this study, new infinite impulse response (IIR) digital differentiators of second, third and fourth orders based on optimising the L 1-error fitness function using the bat algorithm (BA) are proposed. The coefficients of numerator and denominator of the differentiators are computed by minimising the L 1-norm of the error fitness function along with imposing the constraint for the location of poles and zeros within the unit circle to ensure minimum phase. The transfer function of the differentiators are inverted and transformed into the digital integrators of the same orders. The results obtained for the solutions by the proposed L 1-based BA (L 1-BA) are superior to the designs using other techniques such as particle swarm optimisation and real-coded genetic algorithm. The designed optimal differentiator and integrator are compared with the existing models and are found to be of high accuracy and flatness in a wide frequency range along with minimum absolute magnitude error. The mean relative error (dB) is obtained as low as −67 dB and −73 dB for the proposed differentiators and integrators, respectively.

Images excessively contribute to communication in this era of multimedia. When a user transfers images over an unsecured communication network, then the absolute protection is a challenging issue to conserve the confidentiality of images. Encryption is a method of retaining the secrecy of images. This paper provides the succinct introduction to the cryptography, moreover, includes a concise description of various elemental securities' criteria of the image encryption algorithms. This work presents the survey of diverse image encryption techniques and comparison of discrete image encoding approaches, at last discloses a conclusion and suggests future works.

HighlightsWe reviewed single nucleotide polymorphisms for oral pre-cancer susceptibility.All of them were pathway based candidate gene association studies.The current level of evidence is very limited.Integrated characterization of germline/somatic alterations in oral cancer & pre-cancer is needed.

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