143 research outputs found
Indian Literature and the World. Multilingualism, Translation and the Public Sphere
Indian Literature and the World is a collection of critical essays featuring up-to-date scholarship on the most vibrant yet under-studied aspects of Indian writing today. Multilingualism, current debates on postcolonial versus world literature, the impact of translation on an “Indian” literary canon, and Indian authors’ engagement with the public sphere all shape the orientation of our volume. The essays cover political activism and the North-East Tribal novel; the role of work in the contemporary Indian fictional imaginary; history as felt and reconceived by the acclaimed Hindi author Krishna Sobti; Bombay fictions; the Dalit autobiography in translation and its problematic international success; development, ecocriticism and activist literature; casteism and access to literacy in the South; gender and diaspora as dominant themes in writing from and about the subcontinent. Troubling Eurocentric genre distinctions and the split between citizen and subject, we wish to approach Indian literature from the perspective of its constant interactions between private and public narratives, thereby proposing a method of reading Indian texts that goes beyond their habitual postcolonial identifications as “national allegories”
Neelam Saxena Chandra: A Literary Luminary Bridging Languages and Genres
Neelam Saxena Chandra, a prolific bilingual author, discusses her journey in poetry, literary influences, and creative process. She reflects on poetry as a medium for emotional expression and social change, sharing insights into her works, inspirations, and thoughts on gender sensitization and evolving poetic forms in contemporary literature
Neelam Sidhar Wright’s Bollywood and Postmodernism: Popular Indian Cinema in the 21st Century
Indian cinema has never been able to fit completely in the West, mainly due to its particular style, with songs, and dances and the unusual length of its feature films, often making them unbearable for the average Western cinemagoer. These conditions have not done anything but reinforce Indian culture’s marginalisation and disregard, which in turn nurtures India’s otherness and subalternity. The situation is even more noticeable in the academic field, in the opinion of the author, independent academic researcher and filmmaker Neelam Sidhar Wright
Studies of water damage in polyester glass laminates
Results are presented of an investigation into the combined effects of hot water and static uniaxial tensile stress on chopped strand mat reinforced polyester resins. Transport of water has been studied by measuring permeation rates, and the damage has been categorised by optical microscopy. Changes in flexural properties are reported. The resistance to crack propagation of polyester resins in the presence of water has also been studied.
Isophthalic-acid based polyester resin/chopped strand mat laminates were prepared by the “contact moulding process”. Rates of permeation of water at a series of temperatures (35-80C) were measured by a gravimetric method for up to 2000 hours. The flow was Fickian in most cases, but there were circumstances where the transport became non-Fickian. The non-Fickian behaviour was observed at higher temperatures on prolonged exposures. A specially designed apparatus was used to stress laminates uniaxially in tension and to measure water permeation rates through the stressed samples. The effect of introducing external stress ([not greater than] 25% of the ultimate tensile strength) was to increase the rate of permeation.
The progressive changes in the structures, as observed by microscopy took the form of (i) flat plate like circular disc cracks in the resins and resin rich areas of laminates, (ii) surface cracks in the resin casts and gel coats of laminates and (iv) partial failure of glass monofilaments by buckling. In most cases the damage was confined to regions very near the exposed surface. However, straining to 0.4% elongation led to the onset of debonding in transverse fibre bundles throughout the cross-section. Water damage was accelerated and modified by the presence of external stress.
The laminates retained their flexural strength and modulus well. Laminates stressed to 0.3% strain at 80C in water for nearly three months retained 80% of their original strength. No catastrophic failure was observed. Single edge notched polyester resin specimens were exposed to water at three different temperatures for up to three months. The resistance to crack propagation as measured by the critical stress intensity factor was lowered at all exposure temperatures. An examination of the fractured surfaces revealed that no stable crack growth had occurred
Emergence of tetracycline resistance in <i>Vibrio cholerae</i> O1 biotype El Tor serotype Ogawa from north India
A prospective randomized controlled comparison of immediate versus late removal of urinary catheter after abdominal hysterectomy
Bioluminescence Detection of Cells Having Stabilized p53 in Response to a Genotoxic Event
Inactivation of p53 is one of the most frequent molecular events in neoplastic transformation. Approximately 60% of all human tumors have mutations in both p53 alleles. Wild-type p53 activity is regulated in large part by the proteosome-dependent degradation of p53, resulting in a short p53 half-life in unstressed and untransformed cells. Activation of p53 by a variety of stimuli, including DNA damage induced by genotoxic drugs or radiation, is accomplished by stabilization of wild-type p53. The stabilized and active p53 can result in either cell-cycle arrest or apoptosis. Surprisingly, the majority of tumor-associated, inactivating p53 mutations also result in p53 accumulation. Thus, constitutive elevation of p53 levels in cells is a reliable measure of p53 inactivation, whereas transiently increased p53 levels reflect a recent genotoxic stress. In order to facilitate noninvasive imaging of p53 accumulation, we here describe the construction of a p53-luciferase fusion protein. Induction of DNA damage in cells expressing the fusion protein resulted in a time-dependent accumulation of the fusion that was noninvasively detected using bioluminescence imaging and validated by Western blot analysis. The p53-Luc protein retains p53 function because its expression in HCT116 cells lacking functional p53 resulted in activation of p21 expression as well as induction of apoptosis in response to a DNA damaging event. Employed in a transgenic animal model, the proposed p53-reporter fusion protein will be useful for studying p53 activation in response to exposure to DNA-damaging carcinogenic agents. It could also be used to study p53 stabilization as a result of inactivating p53 mutations. Such studies will further our understanding of p53's role as the “guardian of the genome” and its function in tumorigenesis
Biofilm Formation Capability of Enterococcal Strains Causing Urinary Tract Infection vis-a-vis Colonisation and Correlation with Enterococcal Surface Protein Gene
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