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Soil organic carbon (SOC) pools are important in maintaining soil productivity and influencing the CO 2 loading into the atmosphere. An attempt is made here to investigate into the dynamics of pools of SOC viz., total organic carbon (C tot ), oxidisable organic carbon (C oc ) and its four different fractions such as very labile (C frac 1 ), labile (C frac 2 ), less labile (C frac 3 ) and non-labile (C frac 4 ), microbial biomass carbon (C mic ), mineralizable carbon (C min ), and particulate organic carbon (C p ) in relation to crop productivity using a 34 year old rice (Oryza sativa L)-wheat (Triticum aestivum L)-jute (Corchorus olitorius L) cropping system with different management strategies (no fertilization, only N, NP, NPK and NPK+ FYM) in the hot humid, subtropics of India. A fallow treatment was also included to compare the impact of cultivation vis-à-vis no cultivation. Cultivation over the years caused a net decrease, while balanced fertilization with NPK maintained the SOC pools at par with the fallow. Only 22% of the C applied as FYM was stabilized into SOC, while the rest got lost. Of the analysed pools, C frac 1 , C mic , C p and C min were influenced most by the treatments imposed. Most of the labile pools were significantly correlated with each other and with the yield and sustainable yield index (SYI) of the studied system. Of them, C frac1 , C min , C mic and C p explained higher per cent variability in the SYI and yield of the crops. Results suggest that because of low cost and ease of estimation and also for upkeeping environmental conditions, C frac1 may be used as a good indicator for assessment of soil as to its crop productivity.

Selection of informative genes is an important problem in gene expression studies. The small sample size and the large number of genes in gene expression data make the selection process complex. Further, the selected informative genes may act as a vital input for gene co-expression network analysis. Moreover, the identification of hub genes and module interactions in gene co-expression networks is yet to be fully explored. This paper presents a statistically sound gene selection technique based on support vector machine algorithm for selecting informative genes from high dimensional gene expression data. Also, an attempt has been made to develop a statistical approach for identification of hub genes in the gene co-expression network. Besides, a differential hub gene analysis approach has also been developed to group the identified hub genes into various groups based on their gene connectivity in a case vs. control study. Based on this proposed approach, an R package, i.e., dhga (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dhga) has been developed. The comparative performance of the proposed gene selection technique as well as hub gene identification approach was evaluated on three different crop microarray datasets. The proposed gene selection technique outperformed most of the existing techniques for selecting robust set of informative genes. Based on the proposed hub gene identification approach, a few number of hub genes were identified as compared to the existing approach, which is in accordance with the principle of scale free property of real networks. In this study, some key genes along with their Arabidopsis orthologs has been reported, which can be used for Aluminum toxic stress response engineering in soybean. The functional analysis of various selected key genes revealed the underlying molecular mechanisms of Aluminum toxic stress response in soybean.

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Equine glanders is an infectious and notifiable bacterial disease caused by Burkholderia mallei. The disease has been reported in South American, African and Asian countries including India. Here, we present the outcome of glanders serosurveillance carried out between January 2015 and December 2018 to know the status of equine glanders among different states in India. A total of 102,071 equid sera from 299 districts of twenty-one states and one union territory were tested for glanders. Samples were screened with Hcp1 indirect ELISA followed by confirmatory diagnosis by CFT. During this four-year surveillance, a total of 932 glanders-positive cases were detected from 120 districts of 12 states. The study also revealed increasing trend of glanders from 2016 onwards with maximum occurrence in northern India. Overall seroprevalence ranged between 0.62% (95% CI, 0.52-0.72) and 1.145% (95% CI, 1.03-1.25). Seasonal shifting from winter to summer (March to June) coincided with highest number glanders | 1337 SINGHA et Al.

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Groundwater arsenic (As) has affected millions of people globally distributed over 20 countries. In parts of West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh alone, over 100 million people are at risk, but supply of As-free water is grossly inadequate. Attempts to remove As by using orthodox medicines have mostly been unsuccessful. A potentized homeopathic remedy, Arsenicum Album-30, was administered to a group of As affected people and thereafter the As contents in their urine and blood were periodically determined. The activities of various toxicity marker enzymes and compounds in the blood, namely aspartate amino transferase, alanine amino transferase, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lipid peroxidation and reduced glutathione, were also periodically monitored up to 3 months. The results are highly encouraging and suggest that the drug can alleviate As poisoning in humans.