855 research outputs found
Decentralized Sustainable Energy Planning For Tumkur District, India
No full textThe energy-planning involves finding a set of sources and conversion devices so as to meet the energy requirements/demands of all the activities in an optimal manner. This could occur at centralized or decentralized level. The current pattern of commercial energy oriented development, particularly focused on fossil fuels and centralized electricity, has resulted in inequities, external debt and environmental degradation. The current status is largely a result of adoption of centralized energy planning (CEP), which ignores the energy needs of rural areas and the poor and has further contributed to environmental degradation due to fossil fuel consumption and forest degradation. CEP does not pay attention to the variations in socio-economic and ecological factors of a region, which influence success of any intervention. Decentralized energy planning (DEP) provides an opportunity to address the energy needs of poor as well as promote efficient utilization of resources. The DEP mechanism takes into account various available resources and demands in a region.
DEP, in the Indian context, could be at several scales namely district, block, panchayats (cluster of villages) and village level. Energy planning at the village level is the lowest level of the application of decentralized planning principle. A village constitutes a cluster of households with distinct geographic boundary consisting of settlement, agricultural land, water bodies and any other land category, in most parts of India. Further, the village level plans must be prepared within the limits set by a panchayat, a block or a district level plans, for the sum total of various village plans must correspond to a panchayat (local council), block (or taluka), or district level plan. A panchayat is the lowest administrative unit consisting of a cluster of villages and an elected body to administer developmental activities. A block (or taluka) consists of a cluster of panchayats and a district consists of a cluster of blocks.
The main hypothesis for this study is that centralized energy planning has lead to excessive dependence on fossil fuels and import of petroleum, leading to concerns on environment and energy security and finally neglect of the energy needs of the rural communities and poor in particular. DEP could meet the local energy needs particularly in rural areas, protect environment and promote a self reliant and sustainable energy path.
In this study, methodology for adopting energy planning from grassroot or village to district level is explored. The study adopts and compares the DEP approach of moving from village (Ungra), to panchayat (Yedavani), to block (Kunigal) and finally to district (Tumkur) level.
Aims and objectives of research
. • To review energy planning approaches adopted in India
. • To evaluate models and methods for DEP at different scales; Village, Panchayat, District and State levels
. • To develop a sustainable and decentralized energy planning approach
. • To analyze the sustainable decentralized planning approach using multiple objective goal programming model and develop sustainable energy mix for meeting energy needs at village, panchayat, block and district level
. • To assess the implications of sustainable and decentralized energy planning from the context of socio-economic and environmental concerns.
The central theme of the research work is to prepare an optimized area-based decentralized energy plan to meet the energy needs, incorporating all potential alternate energy sources and end-use devices at least-cost to the economy and environment. One of the environmental goals addressed is to minimize or avoid CO2 emissions to address climate change. Study area selected for DEP is Tumkur district of Karnataka state, India and the DEP is carried out for the year 2005 and 2020. Advanced operation research technique, goal programming, is used to solve the large and complicated energy system problem having multiple conflicting goals
Development of Versatile Strategies for Aryne Annulation: Applications in Methodology and Natural Product Total Synthesis
No full textSince the elucidation of its structure in 1953, benzyne has been the focus of intense interest within the chemical community. Due to an unusually high degree of ring strain, benzyne displays reactivity uncharacteristic of common alkynes, including a tendency to react under mild metal-free conditions. This reactivity is exploited in the development of three novel methods for the synthesis of heterocyclic structures.
The first synthetic methodology includes two orthogonal annulation reactions taking place between functionalized enamines and arynes. The substitution at the nitrogen atom of the enamine determines the path of reactivity. Carbamates undergo a formal [3 + 2] cycloaddition with arynes to give rise to indolines, while amides undergo a formal [4 + 2] cycloaddition and dehydration to form isoquinolines. The latter reaction is applied to a three-step synthesis of the antispasmotic pavine alkaloid, papaverine.
This isoquinoline-forming aryne annulation reaction is further employed in a concise asymmetric total synthesis of the tetrahydroisoquinoline antitumor antibiotic, (–)-quinocarcin. In addition to this key transformation, the synthetic route features an auxiliary-mediated diastereoselective dipolar cycloaddition to set the absolute stereochemistry and a novel two-step reduction to form the tetrahydroisoquinoline. In total, this strategy has enabled the shortest total synthesis of this important alkaloid reported to date.
The second methodology involves the synthesis of 3-hydroxyisoquinolines and 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinones from β-ketoesters using an aryne acyl-alkylation reaction in combination with an in-situ condensation. This technology enables the preparation of highly functionalized polyaromatic ring systems in two steps from readily available carboxylic acid starting materials. As a demonstration of its utility, this method is employed in a rapid synthesis of the P,N-ligand, QUINAP.
Finally, the development of a pair of three-component coupling reactions between arynes, isocyanides, and a third relay species is described. Phenyl esters and quinones lead to iminoisobenzofurans, while alkynes furnish iminoindenones. Procedures for the subsequent hydrolysis of these products are provided, thereby giving access to synthetically useful ortho-ketobenzamide and indenone compounds.</p
For your voice only: Exploiting side channels in voice messaging for environment detection
No full textVoice messages are an increasingly well-known method of communication, accounting for more than 200 million messages a day. Sending audio messages requires a user to invest lesser effort compared to texting while enhancing the meaning of the message by adding an emotional context (e.g., irony). Unfortunately, we suspect that voice messages might provide much more information than intended. In fact, speech audio waves are both directly recorded by the microphone, as well as propagated into the environment and possibly reflected back to the microphone. Reflected waves along with ambient noise are also recorded by the microphone and sent as part of the voice message. In this thesis, we propose a novel attack for inferring detailed information about user location (e.g., a specific room) leveraging a simple WhatsApp voice message. We demonstrated our attack considering 7,200 voice messages from 15 different users and four environments (i.e., three bedrooms and a terrace). We considered three realistic attack scenarios depending on previous knowledge of the attacker about the victim and the environment. Our thorough experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of our proposed attack. We can infer the location of the user among a pool of four known environments with 85% accuracy. Moreover, our approach reaches an average accuracy of 93% in discerning between two rooms of similar size and furniture (i.e., two bedrooms), and an accuracy of up to 99% in classifying indoor and outdoor environments.Computer Science | Cyber Securit
Exploiting the Reactivity of Arynes in the Total Synthesis of Natural Products
No full textWithin 14 years of the seminal experiments of J. D. Roberts leading to the first proposal of the structure of benzyne, synthetic organic chemists recognized the potential to exploit this highly reactive intermediate (and its substituted variants) in the synthesis of natural products. More specifically, it was recognized that arynes offered the strategic advantage of rapidly functionalizing an aromatic ring by forming multiple carbon–carbon or carbon–heteroatom bonds in a single operation, often in a regioselective manner. Herein are reported three separate efforts aimed at constructing natural products by aryne-based methodologies. In each of the studies described in the following chapters, the implementation of new aryne technologies developed in our group to natural product synthesis has resulted in concise, convergent, and general strategies to our targets.
The first project discussed in this work is the enantioselective total synthesis of (–)-curvularin by an acyl-alkylation reaction of a protected resorcinylic silyl aryl triflate aryne precursor with a β-ketolactone. Application of this strategic disconnection resulted in a six-step convergent synthesis of the polyketide natural product, the shortest to date. These efforts also resulted in the syntheses of curvulin and diplodialide C.
In our efforts toward the total synthesis of two naturally occurring HIV integrase inhibitors, integrastatins A and B, we attempted to utilize a sequence involving an acyl-alkylation followed by an ortho-Fries-type rearrangement to access the tetracyclic core of the natural products. However, this proved to be a significant challenge and led to the development of an alternative route to the tetracyclic integrastatin core by a Wacker cyclization of a diol onto a pendant olefin.
Finally, ongoing progress toward the synthesis of the bis-tetrahydroisoquinoline natural product jorumycin is detailed. In a departure from the efforts toward curvularin and the integrastatins, jorumycin has been targeted through the application of a combination of aryne annulation and acyl-alkylation/condensation methodologies aimed at the synthesis of a functionalized bis-isoquinoline intermediate. Reduction of this key bis-isoquinoline to a bis-tetrahydroisoquinoline and subsequent lactamization provided the pentacyclic core of jorumycin and related natural products in only two steps from simple isoquinoline building blocks.</p
For Your Voice Only: Exploiting Side Channels in Voice Messaging for Environment Detection
No full textVoice messages are an increasingly popular method of communication, accounting for more than 200 million messages a day. Sending audio messages requires a user to invest lesser effort than texting while enhancing the message’s meaning by adding an emotional context (e.g., irony). Unfortunately, we suspect that voice messages might provide much more information than intended to prying ears of a listener. In fact, speech audio waves are both directly recorded by the microphone and propagated into the environment, and possibly reflected back to the microphone. Reflected waves along with ambient noise are also recorded by the microphone and sent as part of the voice message. In this paper, we propose a novel attack for inferring detailed information about user location (e.g., a specific room) leveraging a simple WhatsApp voice message. We demonstrated our attack considering 7,200 voice messages from 15 different users and four environments (i.e., three bedrooms and a terrace). We considered three realistic attack scenarios depending on previous knowledge of the attacker about the victim and the environment. Our thorough experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of our proposed attack. We can infer the location of the user among a pool of four known environments with 85% accuracy. Moreover, our approach reaches an average accuracy of 93% in discerning between two rooms of similar size and furniture (i.e., two bedrooms) and an accuracy of up to 99% in classifying indoor and outdoor environments.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Cyber SecurityElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Computational prediction of crucial genes involved in gonorrhea infection and neoplastic cell transformation: A multiomics approach
No full textNeisseria gonorrheae, the causative agent of genitourinary infections, has been associated with asymptomatic or recurrent infections and has the potential to form biofilms and induce inflammation and cell transformation. Herein, we aimed to use computational analysis to predict novel associations between chronic inflammation caused by gonorrhea infection and neoplastic transformation. Prioritization and gene enrichment strategies based on virulence and resistance genes utilizing essential genes from the DEG and PANTHER databases, respectively, were performed. Using the STRING database, protein‒protein interaction networks were constructed with 55 nodes of bacterial proteins and 72 nodes of proteins involved in the host immune response. MCODE and cytoHubba were used to identify 12 bacterial hub proteins (murA, murB, murC, murD, murE, purN, purL, thyA, uvrB, kdsB, lpxC, and ftsH) and 19 human hub proteins, of which TNF, STAT3 and AKT1 had high significance. The PPI networks are based on the connectivity degree (K), betweenness centrality (BC), and closeness centrality (CC) values. Hub genes are vital for cell survival and growth, and their significance as potential drug targets is discussed. This computational study provides a comprehensive understanding of inflammation and carcinogenesis pathways that are activated during gonorrhea infection.Fil: Ravindranath, B. S.. Manipal Academy of Higher Education; IndiaFil: Ananya, G.. Manipal Academy of Higher Education; IndiaFil: Hema Kumar, C.. Dayanada Sagar Collegue Of Engineering; IndiaFil: Ramirez, Dario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones Biológicas de San Luis. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones Biológicas de San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Gomez-Mejiba, Sandra Esther. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones Biológicas de San Luis. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Ciencias Físico Matemáticas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones Biológicas de San Luis; Argentin
Does the efficacy of epsilon aminocaproic acid vary with the duration of cardiopulmonary bypass?
No full textDepletion of glutathione and enhanced lipid peroxidation in the CSF of acute psychotics following haloperidol administration. Society of Biological Psychiatry
No full textAbstract Haloperidol administration for 2 weeks results in significant reduction in the concentration of GSH in the CSF. Concomitantly, the levels of lipid peroxidation products increased as evidenced by increased malondialdehyde levels. The malondialdehyde levels in the CSF prior to haloparidol administration were not significantly higher than that seen in CSF from normal controls (data not shown) suggesting that increased oxidative stress did not exist in these patients prior to haloperidol administration. All the patients included in the present study were drug naive and hence the changes observed in the glutathione and malon6ialdehyde levels in the CSF were indeed mediated by haloperidol administration. The only other medication that was administered namely, anticholinergic drug, trihexyphenidyl is not known to cause any oxidative stress. The present study thus demonsuates that haloperidol administration results in significant oxidative stress. The generation of the oxidative stress is probably due to the increased turnover of dopemine caused by typical neuroleptics. Increased dopamine turnover is also observed in Parkinson's disease and the combination therapy consisting of antioxidant vitamin E and monoamine oxidase inhibitor, deprenyl has been shown to offer limited protection against the progression of the disease (Parkinson Disease Study Group 1989). In the present study, all the 15 patients exhibited extrapyramidal symptoms although the time of onset, the duration and the severity of the side effects differed between patients. On the presumption that the oxidative stress generated by haloperidel may cause extrapyramidal symptoms, the present study in humans taken together with the evidence provided in our earlier studies on rats Ravindranath 1992,1993) may justify experimental coadministration of antioxidanls (e.g., vitamin E) with typical neuroleptics like haloperidol to prevent the acute side effects
Raman Chemical Imaging of Chromate Reduction Sites in a Single Bacterium Using Intracellularly Grown Gold Nanoislands
No full textImaging live molecular events within micro-organisms at single-cell resolution would deliver valuable mechanistic information much needed in understanding key biological processes. We present a surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) chemical imaging strategy as a first step toward exploring the intracellular bioreduction pockets of toxic chromate in Shewanella. In order to achieve this, we take advantage of an innate reductive mechanism in bacteria of reducing gold ions Into intracellular gold nanoislands, which provide the necessary enhancement for SERS imaging. We show that SERS has the sensitivity and selectivity not only to identify but also to differentiate between the two stable valence forms of chromate in cells. The imaging platform was used to understand intracellular metal reduction activities In a ubiquitous metal-reducing organism, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, by mapping chromate reduction
Prenatal origin of childhood AML occurs less frequently than in childhood ALL
No full textBackground While there is enough convincing evidence in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the data on the pre-natal origin in childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are less comprehensive. Our study aimed to screen Guthrie cards (neonatal blood spots) of non-infant childhood AML and ALL patients for the presence of their respective leukemic markers. Methods We analysed Guthrie cards of 12 ALL patients aged 2–6 years using immunoglobulin (Ig) and T-cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangements (n = 15) and/or intronic breakpoints of TEL/AML1 fusion gene (n = 3). In AML patients (n = 13, age 1–14 years) PML/RARalpha (n = 4), CBFbeta/MYH11 (n = 3), AML1/ETO (n = 2), MLL/AF6 (n = 1), MLL/AF9 (n = 1) and MLL/AF10 (n = 1) fusion genes and/or internal tandem duplication of FLT3 gene (FLT3/ITD) (n = 2) were used as clonotypic markers. Assay sensitivity determined using serial dilutions of patient DNA into the DNA of a healthy donor allowed us to detect the pre-leukemic clone in Guthrie card providing 1–3 positive cells were present in the neonatal blood spot. Results In 3 patients with ALL (25%) we reproducibly detected their leukemic markers (Ig/TCR n = 2; TEL/AML1 n = 1) in the Guthrie card. We did not find patient-specific molecular markers in any patient with AML. Conclusion In the largest cohort examined so far we used identical approach for the backtracking of non-infant childhood ALL and AML. Our data suggest that either the prenatal origin of AML is less frequent or the load of pre-leukemic cells is significantly lower at birth in AML compared to ALL cases
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