Bryophytes are the second largest group of land plants after angiosperms. There is very less knowledge available about medicinal properties of these plants. Bryophytes are popular remedy among the tribal people of different parts of the world. Tribal people use these plants to cure various ailments in their daily lives. Bryophytes are used to cure hepatic disorders, skin diseases, cardiovascular diseases, used as antipyretic, antimicrobial, wound healing and many more other ailments by different tribal communities of Africa, America, Europe, Poland, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan, China, Nepal and different parts of South, North and Eastern India. Apart from ethno-medicinal uses some bryophytes possesses antitumor activities against different cancer cell lines and this property of bryophytes needs to be more focused in the future. Compile information about medicinal properties and anticancer properties of bryophytes is lacking till date. In the present review, the authors tried to compile all the ethno-medicinal and other related information of bryophytes and fill the knowledge lacuna in this particular field. Some published reviews are available but the information is segregated. This manuscript will help people doing research in the bryophytes.

Pesticides belonging to pyrethroid group are widely used in agricultural fields to check pest infestation in different crops for enhanced food production. In spite of beneficial effects, non-judicious use of pesticides imposes harmful effect on human health as their residues reach different food materials and ground water via leaching, percolation and bioaccumulation. Looking into the potential of microbial degradation of toxic compounds under natural environment, a cypermethrin-degrading Bacillus sp. was isolated from pesticide-contaminated soil of a rice field of Distt. Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, India. The bacteria degraded the compound up to 81.6 % within 15 days under standard growth conditions (temperature 32 °C pH 7 and shaking at 116 rpm) in minimal medium. Analysis of intermediate compounds of biodegraded cypermethrin revealed that the bacteria opted a new pathway for cypermethrin degradation. GC–MS analysis of biodegraded cypermethrin showed the presence of 4-propylbenzoate, 4-propylbenzaldehyde, phenol M-tert-butyl and 1-dodecanol, etc. which was not reported earlier in cypermethrin metabolism; hence a novel biodegradation pathway of cypermethrin with Bacillus sp. strain SG2 is proposed in this study.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13205-016-0372-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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There is no systematic study of Information Systems (IS) agility in academic and practitioner IS literature and the concept is not well defined. For rigorous academic studies of IS agility, a proper definition/conceptualization of IS agility is needed. To fulfill this objective, existing published work on agility is analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that the existing definitions may need improvement to aid in arriving at a definition of IS agility. A new definition of agility that captures its core properties is proposed. The advantages of this definition over existing definitions is demonstrated and it is used to define IS Agility. Salient features of an agile IS are discussed and the utility of the proposed definition in arriving at attributes of an agile IS is demonstrated. Efficacy and validity of the proposed definition is demonstrated through interviews with IS executives from a diverse organization set. Lastly, avenues for future research are proposed.

A cypermethrin-degrading bacterium (SG4) was isolated from the pesticide-contaminated soil in the agricultural field of the crop research centre of the University, and characterized as Bacillus thuringiensis strain, SG4. The bacterium degraded 78.9 % of cypermethrin (50 ppm) in 15 days when grown in a minimal medium. To understand the functional proteins of cypermethrin degradation in Bacillus thuringiensis strain SG4, a comparative proteomic analysis was performed in the presence/absence of cypermethrin after 5 days of incubation in minimal medium. More than 450 spots corresponding to different proteins were recorded by 2D electrophoresis. We report expression of 223 and 250 unique proteins under normal and induced conditions (cypermethrin stress), respectively. Identified proteins were categorized into different functional groups on the basis of their biological functions, viz., catabolic enzymes, translational and stress proteins, etc. Characterization of cypermethrin-specific proteins in a bacterial strain will help in biodegradation practices in situ.

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