A Low-Cost Stove Use Monitor to Enable Conditional Cash Transfers

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs)—cash payments provided to households or specific household members who meet defined conditions or fulfill certain behaviors—have been extensively used in India to encourage antenatal care, institutional delivery, and vaccination. This paper describes the social design and technical development of a low-cost, meal-counting stove use monitor (the Pink Key) that enables a CCT based on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage and presents pilot data from its testing and the initial deployment. The system consists of a sensing harness attached to a two-burner LPG stove and an easily removable datalogger. For each cooking event with LPG, households receive 2 rupees—less than the cost of fuel, but enough to partially defray LPG refill costs. The system could enable innovative “self-monitoring” at a large scale—participants initiate the CCT by bringing their Pink Key to antenatal clinic visits, where care providers download data and initiate payments, and participants return the sensor to their stove at home. The system aligns with existing Indian programs to improve health among poor, pregnant women, and contributes a new method to encourage the use of clean cooking technologies.     

Antibiofilm,antiproliferative, antioxidant and antimutagenic activities of an endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus from Moringa oleifera

Molecular Biology Reports - An endophytic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from Moringa oleifera has been evaluated for its various bioactivities. The chloroformic fungal extract exhibited a...     

Upper thermal tolerance of closely related Danio species

The main finding of this study was that measuring maximum heart rate during incremental warming was an effective tool to estimate upper thermal limits in three small cyprinid Danio species, which differed significantly. Arrhenius breakpoint temperature for maximum heart rate, purportedly an index of optimum temperature, was 21·2 ± 0·4, 20·1 ± 0·4 and 18·9 ± 0·8° C (mean ± s.e .) for zebrafish Danio rerio, pearl danio Danio albolineatus and glowlight danio Danio choprae, respectively. The temperature where cardiac arrhythmias were first induced during warming (T_arr) was 36·6 ± 0·7, 36·9 ± 0·8 and 33·2 ± 0·8° C (mean ± s.e .) and critical thermal maximum (T_Cm) was 39·9 ± 0·1, 38·9 ± 0·1 and 37·2 ± 0·1° C (mean ± s.e .) for D. rerio, D. albolineatus and D. choprae, respectively. The finding that T_arr was consistently 3–4° C lower than T_Cm suggests that collapse of the cardiac life support system may be a critical trigger for upper temperature tolerance. The upper thermal limits established here, which correlate well with a broad natural environmental temperature range for D. rerio and a narrow one for D. choprae, suggest that upper thermal tolerance may be a genetic trait even among closely related species acclimated to common temperatures.     

Comparison of Concentration Methods for Quantitative Detection of Sewage-Associated Viral Markers in Environmental Waters

Pathogenic human viruses cause over half of gastroenteritis cases associated with recreational water use worldwide. They are relatively difficult to concentrate from environmental waters due to typically low concentrations and their small size. Although rapid enumeration of viruses by quantitative PCR (qPCR) has the potential to greatly improve water quality analysis and risk assessment, the upstream steps of capturing and recovering viruses from environmental water sources along with removing PCR inhibitors from extracted nucleic acids remain formidable barriers to routine use. Here, we compared the efficiency of virus recovery for three rapid methods of concentrating two microbial source tracking (MST) viral markers human adenoviruses (HAdVs) and polyomaviruses (HPyVs) from one liter tap water and river water samples on HA membranes (90 mm in diameter). Samples were spiked with raw sewage, and viral adsorption to membranes was promoted by acidification (method A) or addition of MgCl₂ (methods B and C). Viral nucleic acid was extracted directly from membranes (method A), or viruses were eluted with NaOH and concentrated by centrifugal ultrafiltration (methods B and C). No inhibition of qPCR was observed for samples processed by method A, but inhibition occurred in river samples processed by B and C. Recovery efficiencies of HAdVs and HPyVs were ∼10-fold greater for method A (31 to 78%) than for methods B and C (2.4 to 12%). Further analysis of membranes from method B revealed that the majority of viruses were not eluted from the membrane, resulting in poor recovery. The modification of the originally published method A to include a larger diameter membrane and a nucleic acid extraction kit that could accommodate the membrane resulted in a rapid virus concentration method with good recovery and lack of inhibitory compounds. The frequently used strategy of viral absorption with added cations (Mg²⁺) and elution with acid were inefficient and more prone to inhibition, and will result in underestimation of the prevalence and concentrations of HAdVs and HPyVs markers in environmental waters.     

Purification and characterization of cellulolytic enzymes fromTrichoderma harzianum

Two forms of filter paper activity (filter paper activity; cellulose 1,4-β-cellobiosidase, EC 3.2.1.91) and single forms of CM-cellulase (carboxymethyl cellulase; endo-l,4-β-glucanase, EC 3.2.1.4) and β-glucosidase (β-D-glucoside glucohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.21) from the culture filtrate ofTrichoderma harzianum were separated and partially purified by (NH₄)₂SO₄ precipitation, ion-exchange chromatography and gel filtration. The final preparation was purified about 12-, 20- and 27-fold for FP-activity, CM-oellulase and β-glueosidase, respectively. The pH and temperature optima, stability, kinetic parameters, effeet of metal ions and molar mass of each was determined. A distinct type of synergistic action between cellulase components was observed for efficientin vitro saccharification of dewaxed cotton.     

Selection of secretory protein-encoding genes by fusion with PHO5 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Secretory protein-encoding genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been cloned by a novel procedure that is based on the functional selection of their fusions with acid phosphatase (APase) at the DNA level. DNA fragments that functionally replace the promoter and signal sequence-encoding regions of the PHO5 gene (encoding APase) have been obtained by positive selection from a pool of cloned random DNA fragments. Five unique DNA sequences containing the promoter, and encoding signal sequences have been isolated. We have also isolated the complete gene, SSP120, encoding one of these S. cerevisiae secretory proteins, SSP120. Gene disruption studies have shown that the SSP120 gene is not essential for viability and growth. The SSP120 amino acid (aa) sequence has 13.5% identity with the middle 88-250 aa residues of the chicken glycosylation site-binding protein. However, SSP120 disruption did not affect protein glycosylation in yeast. The present study provides an alternative approach for the isolation of genes encoding secretory proteins, in contrast to classical genetic approaches that require isolation of functionally defective mutations followed by gene isolation by functional complementation. The present procedure should contribute to our understanding of protein sorting by permitting the cloning of genes encoding proteins targeted to different organelles in the secretory pathway.