281 research outputs found
Development Changes in the Physicochemical Composition and Mineral Profile of Red-Fleshed Dragon Fruit Grown under Semi-Arid Conditions
No full textRed-fleshed dragon fruit offers an array of bioactive compounds. Its cultivation is gaining momentum in India, including in arid and semi-arid conditions. Among various factors, the fruit developmental stages and climatic conditions of locations greatly influence the biosynthesis and actual contents of different bioactive compounds and mineral contents of the fruit. The changes in physical attributes, and bioactive and mineral content in red-fleshed dragon fruit grown in semi-arid conditions in India were assessed and quantified at six developmental stages. Significant changes occurred in the physical attributes of the fruit and the bioactive compounds and mineral content during the fruit maturation stages of the red-fleshed dragon fruit. The fruit physical characteristics, such as fruit size, fruit and pulp weight gain, peel thickness, and fruit firmness, along with eating quality parameters, such as soluble solids, sugars, acidity and soluble proteins, were observed at optimum at 35 days after anthesis (DAA). The decrease in total phenolics (29.96%), total flavonoids (41.06%), and vitamin C (75.3%) occurred throughout the fruit development stages, whereas the content of betalains, which was detected initially at 25 DAA, increased (48.6%) with the progression of the fruit development stages. However, the antioxidant capacity and free radical scavenging activity demonstrated variable trends throughout the fruit maturation period. There was an increasing trend in all the minerals up to 35 days, followed by a slight decrease, except for phosphorus content, which increased until the last stage of evaluation. The colour characteristics, in conjunction with the bioactive and antioxidant potential determined in the present study, suggest that red-fleshed dragon fruit can be harvested at 35 DAA for long-distance transportation, and from 35 to 40 DAA for local marketing
Stochastic numerical approximation approaches for estimation of traffic volume under travel demand uncertainties
No full textThe traditional deterministic process of trip assignment does not account for uncertainties in traffic demands. These point-estimate based solutions often results in large differences between forecasted and actual traffic volumes thereby imposing huge financial burdens upon development agencies. In this work, stochastic treatment has been given to the trip assignment problem, specifically the network user equilibrium problem solved using the variational inequality method, under demand uncertainties modeled as random inputs. Smolyak sparse grid interpolation technique was successfully applied to the problem and compared to Monte Carlo sampling. Performance of constructed interpolant was evaluated through output distribution recovery , statistical moment estimation, and computation time comparisons. Ability of sparse grid to efficiently handle demand uncertainties using as many as 5 times fewer points than Monte Carlo sampling in pragmatically sized transportation networks was demonstrated.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01The student, Kumar Neelotpal Shukla, accepted the attached license on 2017-07-18 at 10:41.The student, Kumar Neelotpal Shukla, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-07-18 at 12:01.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-07-19 at 08:54.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11510 on 2018-03-02 at 13:02:29Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-02T19:59:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3
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Steganography for Invisible Communication: A Review
No full textSteganography is the science and art of embedding secret messages in innocuous looking carriers in such a way that it does not draw the attention of anyone other than the sender and the targeted recipient, thus a method for secret and invisible communication which provides security through obscurity. Its main purpose is to hide the occurrence of communication over a public channel. Steganography has been used since ancient times and has grown exponentially in the recent past because of the improvements in computing power. Earlier, steganography was implemented using some physical medium i.e. some tangible objects but now a days, it is implemented electronically by using several other intangible objects i.e. data can be hidden using any type of media, be it image in bmp, jpeg, gif format or some music file, video clip, text file, SMS etc. In this paper, different types of techniques used to hide data have been discussed with major focus on image based modern steg-anographic techniques
Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering:Select Proceedings of FLAME 2022
No full textThis volume is a compilation of papers presented at FLAME 2022, the third biennial international conference on Future Learning Aspects of Mechanical Engineering, held in Amity University in Uttar Pradesh, India, from August 3 to 5, 2022. Seventy chapters cover a wide range of mechanical engineering topics, including: absorp-tion cooling systems; engine performance and emission characteristics; modeling and structural analysis; thermoelectric generators; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; alternative fuel-based vehicles; Industry 4.0-enabled sustainable manufacturing; solar collector-based energy harvesting; hybrid electric vehicles; tri-objective optimization; energy storage systems; and additive manufac-turing. The information contained in this book will be useful to researchers and professionals in the field of mechanical engineering. This book addresses a variety of problems in scientific engineering domain and is written for both academics and professionals in the field with the hopes of fostering greater understanding and cooperation between the two groups
Absorption Cooling System Powered by a Low Concentration Collector:A Case Study
No full textRenewable technologies associated with solar energy and cooling systems are in great development and fast dissemination in the literature. On the one hand, such innovations can reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions (GHG); but on the other hand, they still have higher expenditures especially because of the cost of solar reflective systems. This paper presents a new generation of solar collectors, denominated as reflective eccentric collectors, for driving the single effect absorption chiller and reducing the levelized cost of cooling solar-driven cooling systems. The study shows a case study in Brazil applying a hybrid system that is compared to the conventional solar-driven cooling systems. Both the configurations design and operation setpoints were optimized using multi-objective optimization methods. The research outcomes have shown the viability of this type of system for hot places. The optimal case presented a GHG emission level of 234 kgCO2/MWh, a LCOC of 123 USD/MWh.</p
Synthesis of PLGA nanoparticles of tea polyphenols and their strong in vivo protective effect against chemically induced DNA damage
No full textAmit Kumar Srivastava,1 Priyanka Bhatnagar,2 Madhulika Singh,1 Sanjay Mishra,1 Pradeep Kumar,2 Yogeshwer Shukla,1 Kailash Chand Gupta1,2 1Proteomics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR), Lucknow, India; 2Nucleic Acid Research Laboratory, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR), Delhi University Campus, India Abstract: In spite of proficient results of several phytochemicals in preclinical settings, the conversion rate from bench to bedside is not very encouraging. Many reasons are attributed to this limited success, including inefficient systemic delivery and bioavailability under in vivo conditions. To achieve improved efficacy, polyphenolic constituents of black (theaflavin [TF]) and green (epigallocatechin-3-gallate [EGCG]) tea in poly(lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles (PLGA-NPs) were entrapped with entrapment efficacy of ~18% and 26%, respectively. Further, their preventive potential against 7,12-dimethylbenzanthracene (DMBA)-induced DNA damage in mouse skin using DNA alkaline unwinding assay was evaluated. Pretreatment (topically) of mouse skin with either TF or EGCG (100 µg/mouse) doses exhibits protection of 45.34% and 28.32%, respectively, against DMBA-induced DNA damage. However, pretreatment with TF-loaded PLGA-NPs protects against DNA damage 64.41% by 1/20th dose of bulk, 71.79% by 1/10th dose of bulk, and 72.46% by 1/5th dose of bulk. Similarly, 51.28% (1/20th of bulk), 57.63% (1/10th of bulk), and 63.14% (1/5th of bulk) prevention was noted using EGCG-loaded PLGA-NP doses. These results showed that tea polyphenol-loaded PLGA-NPs have ~30-fold dose-advantage than bulk TF or EGCG doses. Additionally, TF- or EGCG-loaded PLGA-NPs showed significant potential for induction of DNA repair genes (XRCC1, XRCC3, and ERCC3) and suppression of DNA damage responsive genes (p53, p21, MDM2, GADD45α, and COX-2) as compared with respective bulk TF or EGCG doses. Taken together, TF- or EGCG-loaded PLGA-NPs showed a superior ability to prevent DMBA-induced DNA damage at much lower concentrations, thus opening a new dimension in chemoprevention research. Keywords: DNA alkaline unwinding assay, mouse skin, DNA repai
A Hybrid Approach for Handwritten Devanagari Numerals Recognition Using HOG Algorithm and K-NN Classifier
No full textM.Tech.Character Recognition has become fascinating research area over a last few decades.
Reading handwritten characters is easy task for human but it is difficult task for
machines. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) System is used to recognize
handwritten and printed characters. A lot of work has been done on English
characters but these days Indian scripts have become interesting research area.
Devanagari is one of them. In the present study, an effort is given for handwritten
Devanagari numerals recognition. Many approaches have been developed in the field
of character recognition but still it remains challenging work for researchers. In
Recognition Process, Neural network is used as basic technique in most of the
approaches. A lot of training and large computations are required in these approaches.
So, an effort is done by author to make an easy hybrid approach for handwritten
Devanagari numerals recognition (HDNR). This comes under the category of Offline
recognition process. In proposed approach, various techniques such as binarization,
filtering, smoothing, normalization and thinning are used in preprocessing stage.
Bounding box is used for segmentation. Feature extraction is main portion of OCR
system because accuracy is mostly based on extracted features. Here Histogram of
Oriented Gradients (HOG) algorithm is used for feature extraction. There are a lot of
feature extraction methods but we preferred HOG because of its better feature
evaluation capacity. After feature extraction, they are classified into ten classes such
as zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine. K-NN Classifier has
been trained with these features. There are various classifiers but we selected K-NN
Classifier because its accuracy is better as comparison to other classifiers. There are a
lot of applications of handwritten Devanagari numerals recognition such as reading
bank cheques, passport readers, postal code readers, commercial forms reader, bill
processing systems etc. Proposed Hybrid approach has been applied to many
documents and author obtained satisfying results.Computer Science and Engineering, Thapar University, Patial
Scaling-up microfinance for India's rural poor
No full textThis paper reviews the current level and pattern of access to finance for India's rural poor and examines some of the key microfinance approaches in India, taking a close look at the most dominant among these, the Self Help Group (SHG) Bank Linkage initiative. It empirically analyzes the success with which SHG Bank Linkage has been able to reach the poor, examines the reasons behind this, and the lessons learned. The analysis draws heavily on a recent rural access to finance survey of 6,000 households in India undertaken by the authors. The main findings and implications of the paper are as follows: India's rural poor currently have very little access to finance from formal sources. Microfinance approaches have tried to fill the gap. Among these, the growth of SHG Bank Linkage has been particularly remarkable, but outreach remains modest in terms of the proportion of poor households served. The paper recommends that, if SHG Bank Linkage is to be scaled-up to offer mass access to finance for the rural poor, then more attention will need to be paid toward the promotion of high quality SHGs that are sustainable, clear targeting of clients, and ensuring that banks linked to SHGs price loans at cost-covering levels. At the same time, the paper argues that, in an economy as vast and varied as India's, there is scope for diverse microfinance approaches to coexist. Private sector microfinanciers need to acquire greater professionalism, and the government can help by creating a flexible architecture for microfinance innovations, including through a more enabling policy, legal, and regulatory framework. Finally, the paper argues that, while microfinance can, at minimum, serve as a quick way to deliver finance to the poor, the medium-term strategy to scale-up access to finance for the poor should be to"graduate"microfinance clients to formal financial institutions. The paper offers some suggestions on what it would take to reform these institutions with an eye to improving access for the poor.Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Public Sector Economics&Finance
Assessment of Association between Thyroid Disorders and Gout
No full textBackground: Thyroid hormones (THs) play their parts in multiple events, including development, growth, metabolism, and reproduction. Recently, attentions have been paid to THs again due to the increasing prevalence of metabolic diseases, because THs boost the body energy metabolism. Hence; the present study was conducted for assessing association between thyroid disorders and gout. Subjects and Methods: A total of 50 subjects were enrolled. Complete demographic details of all the subjects were obtained. Out of 50 subjects, 25 subjects were of subclinical hypothyroidism while the remaining 25 subjects were healthy control. Complete demographic details of all the subjects were obtained. The thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) test was conducted in all the patients. Triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) hormonal tests were also carried out. The diagnosis of subclinical hypothyroidism was performed by the physician by interpreting the results of tests based on increased TSH levels based on the age and normal range of T3 and T4. Serum uric acid levels were obtained from all the patients and the results were subjected to statistical analysis. All the results were obtained and analysed by SPSS software. Results: Mean TSH levels of the subjects of the study group and control group was 9.2 mIU/L and 4.5 mIU/L. Significant results were obtained while comparing the mean TSH levels among the subjects of the study groups. However; non-significant results were obtained while comparing the mean uric acid levels among the patients of the study group and control group. Conclusion: From the above results, authors conclude that no significant correlation exist between thyroid disorders and gout. 
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