The paraneuronal gill neuroendocrine system in ocellated puffer fish Leiodon cutcutia

Pseudobranchial neurosecretory system (PSNS) is the third Neuroendocrine (NE) system found in the gill region of fishes in close association with pseudobranch/carotid labyrinth/carotid gland and can suitably be placed under the category of “Diffused NE system (DNES).” The cells belonging to this system fall under the category of “Paraneurons,” a concept proposed by Fujita and coworkers. It is found uniformly in all the catfish species and some other noncatfish group of teleosts as Atheriniformes, Channiformes, Perciformes, and Clupeiformes. The fishes, in which the PSNS is present, belong to different breathing habits. Most of these have the capacity to tolerate low O₂ conditions. Leiodon cutcutia although not an air‐breathing fish, is known to retain air in its stomach for varied periods when threatened. In an attempt to verify the veracity of this system in a fish of another peculiar breathing habit, ocellated puffer fish L. cutcutia (order Tetradontiformes) was investigated. The histological observations undertaken on L. cutcutia revealed the presence of a well‐developed extrabranchial NE system. The findings are discussed in the light of the association of PSNS with chemosensory system and its evolution in fishes, especially in the view of the transition from aquatic to terrestrial life.     

A new clustering method for the diagnosis of CoVID19 using medical images

Applied Intelligence - With the spread of COVID-19, there is an urgent need for a fast and reliable diagnostic aid. For the same, literature has witnessed that medical imaging plays a vital role,...     

FRLLE: a failure rate and load-based leader election algorithm for a bidirectional ring in distributed systems

The Journal of Supercomputing - In a distributed system, multiple nodes work together to build a highly available, reliable, resource shareable, and fault-tolerant system to achieve a common goal....     

Combined heat and mass transfer in natural convection on horizontal and inclined plates with variable surface temperature/concentration or heat/mass flux

Summary An analysis is presented to study the heat and mass transfer characteristics of natural convection flow along horizontal and inclined plates with variable surface temperature/concentration or heat/mass flux under the combined buoyancy effects of thermal and mass diffusion. Numerical results are obtained for two values of Schmidt number covering the range of diffusion species of common interest like water vapour, carbon dioxide and naphthalene in air.     

Immunosuppressant activity in human beta-casein fragment analogs

X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) results from mutations in at least two different loci, designated RP2 and RP3, located at Xp11.3 and Xp21.1, respectively. The RP3 gene was recently isolated by positional cloning, whereas the RP2 locus was mapped genetically to a 5-cM interval. We have screened this region for genomic rearrangements by the YAC representation hybridization (YRH) technique and detected a LINE1 (L1) insertion in one XLRP patient. The L1 retrotransposition occurred in an intron of a novel gene that consisted of five exons and encoded a polypeptide of 350 amino acids. Subsequently, nonsense, missense and frameshift mutations, as well as two small deletions, were identified in six additional patients. The predicted gene product shows homology with human cofactor C, a protein involved in the ultimate step of beta-tubulin folding. Our data provide evidence that mutations in this gene, designated RP2, are responsible for progressive retinal degeneration.