Under the supervision of an international steering committee, basic data for establishing ionospheric profiles were gathered, critically reviewed, and used for establishing vertical profiles of the most important parameters of the ionosphere, namely, electron density, electron and ion temperature, and (positive) ion composition. The data sources used are described in detail, their reliability and coverage is discussed, and remaining problems are reviewed. The International Reference Ionosphere (1978) is to be published soon by URSI in the form of computer programs.

The present research was undertaken to study the probiotic characteristics of Pichia kudriavzevii isolated from frozen idli batter. Polymerase chain reaction amplification with 18S rRNA primers confirmed Pichia kudriavzevii, a xylose-utilizing probiotic strain. It was resistant to physiological concentrations of bile salts, pepsin and pancreatic enzyme. It also showed efficient auto-aggregation as well as co-aggregation ability with four commercial probiotic yeasts and exhibited good hydrophobicity in xylene and toluene. The strain inhibited the growth of 13 enteropathogens and showed a commensal relationship with four commercial probiotic yeast and bacteria. Moreover, it was resistant to 30 antibiotics with different modes of action. The yeast exhibited thermotolerance up to 95°C for 2 h. The cell-free supernatants were also found to be heat stable, indicating the presence of thermostable secondary metabolites. Hence it could be exploited as starter culture, co-culture or probiotic in the preparation of fermented products or incorporated in heatable foods as well.

This study aimed to investigate in vitro and in vivo the probiotic characteristics of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from Korean traditional fermented foods. Caenorhabditis elegans  (C. elegans) was used for analytical assays of fertility, chemotaxis, life-span, worm-killing and bacterial colonization in the intestinal lumen of the worm. All 35 strains of LAB reduced fertility and slowed development in the worms. The worm-killing assay showed that LAB significantly increased the lifespan (P < 0.05) and reduced the susceptibility to virulent PA14; however, the heat-killed LAB did not. The bacterial colonization assay revealed that LAB proliferated and protected the gut of the worm against infection by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14. In addition, specific LAB Pediococcus acidilactici(P. acidilactici DM-9), Pediococcus brevis (L. brevis SDL1411), and Pediococcus pentosaceus (P. pentosaceus SDL1409) strains showed acid resistance (66–91%), resistance to pepsin (64–67%) and viability in simulated intestinal fluid (67–73%) based on in vitro probiotic analyses. Taken together, these results suggest that C. elegans may be a tractable model for screening efficient probiotics.

This study aimed at investigating the antimicrobial activity of different solvent extracts of Chinese cabbage Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis (BRARP) and their antioxidant and cytotoxicity properties. Of the different solvents extracts, the chloroform extracts (CE) were significantly inhibited the bacterial pathogens at minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 16.5 mg.mL-1. Biochemical analysis revealed that total phenol (62.6 ± 0.05 mg GAE.g-1) and flavonoids (27.6 ± 0.04 mg QE.g-1) were higher in the extracts of BRARP, which resulted in enhanced antioxidant activity in CE. A total of eight dominant compounds were detected in the potent antimicrobial extract from BRARP based on GC-MS analysis. The molecular interactions study revealed that, among the screened compounds the 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid and 2,3-dicyanopropionamide interacted with the active site of pathogenicity and survival related protein with lipopolysaccharide (LpxC) with higer binding energy. This work concluded that the 1, 2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid and 2, 3-Dicyanopropionamide from BRARP was reported to be good non-cytotoxic and antioxidant antimicrobials against bacterial pathogens.

Abstract. Desertification is a prolonged type of land degradation which converts the productive ecosystem to a fragile one by two crucial factors, namely, climate and negative human intrusion. The present study concentrates on identifying the causative factors of desertification, namely temperature, wind, rainfall scarcity and human pressure. It also concentrates on distinguishing the desertified land from degraded land and assessing the way in which the soil degradation process becomes accelerated by these factors, by employing data sets such as meteorological data and Landsat ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) and OLI (Operational Land Imager) satellite images of the crop-growing period (JuneOctober) in geostatistical methods and newly proposed remote sensing models, which yielded good accuracy with in situ observations (R 2 = 0.8). The study was centered on two time periods, 2001-2011 (11 years) and 2012-2015 (4 years). In rainfall-temperature/drought-induced desertified region, the rate of salt-affected soils increased significantly from 12 to 58 % (2001-2015) due to the presence of native fluoride concentration and extreme temperature events. The region has also been experiencing high soil moisture stress (5 to 33 %) because of the insufficient occurrence of rainfall over a period of time. A longer term exacerbation of soil moisture stress (19 to 90 %) has been noted in the areas that were susceptible to wind-induced desertification, due to a high evaporation rate caused by extreme wind events for a substantial period. High human-induced soil salinity (36 %), human occupancy (16 %), followed by moisture stress (7 %) are observed in the human-affected region because of growing population and improper land management of the land that is already fragile.