8 research outputs found
A Phantasmagoria of human relationships: Pursuit of Identity
No full textA series of events distorts in the human relationship, marriage life and search the real meaning of life in the modern culture. Anita Nair’s Lessons in Forgetting (2010) reflects the real side of human relationships between man and women after marriage and impact of culture understood by the words of the characters throughout novels. Searching the real meaning for life and happiness of the main two characters in the novel are portrayed in the way of factual image in the society. The author shows the impact of the common customs of the culture on the characters throughout the novel.  
Graph theoretical analysis, pharmacoinformatics and molecular docking investigation of Chalcone-Schiff base hybrids as Cyclin-Dependent kinase inhibitors
No full textOne of the promising classes of compounds in medicinal chemistry and drug design is those with azomethine linkages. The Chalcone-Schiff base hybrids contain this linkage and some heteroatoms, which are versatile molecules, play a vital role in drug discovery and development with enormous therapeutic applications. In this view, the present work deals with the investigation of the in silico biological potential of the Chalcone-Schiff base hybrids based on the network pharmacology approach. From the results obtained from network pharmacology, the Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) isoforms were identified as the potential targets and the CDK inhibitory activity of the compounds was investigated using molecular docking studies. The in silico pharmacokinetic, metabolic and theoretical studies at DFT level were performed. Molecular docking studies revealed that the compounds have better CDK inhibitory potential with better binding affinity and interaction profile. Among the tested compounds, (Z)-2-((4,6-diphenyl-5,6-dihydro-4H-1,3-thiazin-2-yl)imino)-2,3-dihydro-1H-inden-1-one was found to be the most active compound than the standards, palbociclib and dinaciclib against the CDK isoforms (CDK1, CDK2 and CDK4) with the binding energies of -9.9, -10.3 and -10 Kcal/Mol, respectively. Also, this compound exhibited better pharmacokinetic and metabolic properties along with better solubility. The theoretical studies at the DFT level also indicate that the compound has better metabolic stability and the electron transfer from HOMO to LUMO was observed. Thus, the tested Chalcone-Schiff base hybrids can be used effectively for the inhibition of CDK isoforms
Analysis of Shifts & trends of Organizations in Indonesia using Tweets & RSS feeds
No full textabstract: With the advent of social media (like Twitter, Facebook etc.,) people are easily sharing their opinions, sentiments and enforcing their ideologies on others like never before. Even people who are otherwise socially inactive would like to share their thoughts on current affairs by tweeting and sharing news feeds with their friends and acquaintances. In this thesis study, we chose Twitter as our main data platform to analyze shifts and movements of 27 political organizations in Indonesia. So far, we have collected over 30 million tweets and 150,000 news articles from RSS feeds of the corresponding organizations for our analysis. For Twitter data extraction, we developed a multi-threaded application which seamlessly extracts, cleans and stores millions of tweets matching our keywords from Twitter Streaming API. For keyword extraction, we used topics and perspectives which were extracted using n-grams techniques and later approved by our social scientists. After the data is extracted, we aggregate the tweet contents that belong to every user on a weekly basis. Finally, we applied linear and logistic regression using SLEP, an open source sparse learning package to compute weekly score for users and mapping them to one of the 27 organizations on a radical or counter radical scale. Since, we are mapping users to organizations on a weekly basis, we are able to track user's behavior and important new events that triggered shifts among users between organizations. This thesis study can further be extended to identify topics and organization specific influential users and new users from various social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube etc. can easily be mapped to existing organizations on a radical or counter-radical scale.Dissertation/ThesisM.S. Computer Science 201
Author Correction: The impact of socioeconomic and stimulus inequality on human brain physiology
No full textDNA Barcoding Detects Floral Origin of Indian Honey Samples
No full textThe unique medicinal and nutritional properties of honey are determined by its chemical composition. To evaluate the quality of honey, it is essential to study the surrounding vegetation where honeybees forage. In this study we used conventional melissopalynological and DNA barcoding techniques to determine the floral source of honey samples collected from different districts of the state of Mizoram, India. Pollen grains were isolated and genomic DNA was extracted from the honey samples. PCR amplification was carried out using universal barcode candidates ITS2 and rbcL to identify the plant species. Furthermore, TA cloning was carried out to screen the PCR amplicon libraries to identify the presence of multiple plant species. Results from both the melissopalynological and DNA barcoding analyses identified almost exactly the same 22 species, suggesting that both methods are suitable for analysis. However, DNA barcoding is an easier and high-throughput method. Hence, it can be concluded that DNA barcoding is a useful tool in determining the medicinal and commercial value of honey.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author
Biomimetic learning of hand gestures in a humanoid robot
No full textHand gestures are a natural and intuitive form of communication, and integrating this communication method into robotic systems presents significant potential to improve human-robot collaboration. Recent advances in motor neuroscience have focused on replicating human hand movements from synergies also known as movement primitives. Synergies, fundamental building blocks of movement, serve as a potential strategy adapted by the central nervous system to generate and control movements. Identifying how synergies contribute to movement can help in dexterous control of robotics, exoskeletons, prosthetics and extend its applications to rehabilitation. In this paper, 33 static hand gestures were recorded through a single RGB camera and identified in real-time through the MediaPipe framework as participants made various postures with their dominant hand. Assuming an open palm as initial posture, uniform joint angular velocities were obtained from all these gestures. By applying a dimensionality reduction method, kinematic synergies were obtained from these joint angular velocities. Kinematic synergies that explain 98% of variance of movements were utilized to reconstruct new hand gestures using convex optimization. Reconstructed hand gestures and selected kinematic synergies were translated onto a humanoid robot, Mitra, in real-time, as the participants demonstrated various hand gestures. The results showed that by using only few kinematic synergies it is possible to generate various hand gestures, with 95.7% accuracy. Furthermore, utilizing low-dimensional synergies in control of high dimensional end effectors holds promise to enable near-natural human-robot collaboration.The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, grant number HCC-2053498.https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2024.1391531/ful
Development of race-specific molecular marker for Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris race 3, the causal agent of black rot of crucifers
No full textRace-specific molecular markers were established to distinguish Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) race 3, the causal agent of black rot disease of crucifers. The available genome sequences of Xcc races were aligned and identified three DNA fragments specific to Xcc race 3. The identified race-specific DNA fragments namely XccR3-49, XccR3-52 and XccR3-55 were used for designing the race-specific primers to detect and identify the Xcc race 3. The specificity of race-specific primers was tested against the genomic DNA extracted from Xcc (races 1-7), Xcc strains, Xc pathovars and other bacterial species. The XccR3-49, a specific sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) primer set gave a single band with 867 bp length for Xcc race 3 only. The remaining two markers such as XccR3-52 and XccR3-55 showed polymorphic amplification with amplicon size of 1889 bp and 2109 bp for Xcc race 3, respectively. Additionally, the SCAR primer set detected Xcc race 3 rapidly and efficiently in artificially infected cabbage leaves with bio-PCR. This result showed that the newly developed race-specific markers can successfully and efficiently detect and identify Xcc race 3 from Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris races, Xanthomonas species/pathovars, as well as other plant pathogenic bacteria (Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola and Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora). Up to now, this is the first report describing the race-specific marker for the detection of Xcc race 3.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author
Daldinone derivatives from the mangrove-derived endophytic fungus Annulohypoxylon sp.
No full textTwo new benzo[j] fluoranthene metabolites, daldinones H, J (1 and 3), and the likewise undescribed artefact, daldinone I (2), along with six known compounds (4-9) were isolated from the endophytic fungus Annulohypoxylon sp. that was obtained from the Mangrove plant Rhizophora racemosa collected in Cameroon. The structures of the new compounds were elucidated by 1D and 2D NMR as well as by HRESIMS and ECD spectra analysis. Co-cultivation of this fungus with the actinomycetes Streptomyces lividans or with Streptomyces coelicolor resulted in an up to 38-fold increase of 1-hydroxy-8-methoxynaphthalene (9), while no significant induction was detected when the fungus was co-cultivated either with Bacillus subtilis or with Bacillus cereus. Compound 2 exhibited strong to moderate cytotoxicity against Ramos and Jurkat J16 cells with IC50 values of 6.6 and 14.1 mu M, respectively. Mechanistic studies indicated that compound 2 induces apoptotic cell death caused by induction of intrinsic apoptosis. Moreover, 2 potently blocks autophagy, a potential pro-survival pathway for cancer cells. Feeding experiments with 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene (DHN) led to an enhanced accumulation of daldinone B (6), which supported the proposed biogenetic pathway.DFG [GRK 2158]; Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST); Hungarian National Research Foundation [OTKA K105871]SCI(E)ARTICLE95381-5393
