Quo vadimus? The 21st Century and multimedia

The concept is related of computer driven multimedia to the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP). Multimedia is defined here as computer integration and output of text, animation, audio, video, and graphics. Multimedia is the stage of computer based information that allows access to experience. The concepts are also drawn in of hypermedia, intermedia, interactive multimedia, hypertext, imaging, cyberspace, and virtual reality. Examples of these technology developments are given for NASA, private industry, and academia. Examples of concurrent technology developments and implementations are given to show how these technologies, along with multimedia, have put us at the threshold of the 21st century. The STI Program sees multimedia as an opportunity for revolutionizing the way STI is managed

Focal Spot, Winter 1983

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1033/thumbnail.jp

Health Biotechnology Innovation for Social Sustainability -A Perspective from China

China is not only becoming a significant player in the production of high-tech products, but also an increasingly important contributor of ideas and influence in the global knowledge economy. This paper identifies the promises and the pathologies of the biotech innovation system from the perspective of social sustainability in China, looking at the governance of the system and beyond. Based on The STEPS Centre’s ‘Innovation, Sustainability, Development: A New Manifesto’, a ‘3D’ approach has been adopted, bringing together social, technological and policy dynamics, and focusing on the directions of biotechnological innovation, the distribution of its benefits, costs and risks and the diversity of innovations evolving within it and alongside it

An exhaustive Data Mining of Medicinal Plants using MySQL for Biotechnology Research

Vital pieces of information related to medicinal plants are exhaustive but scattered. A plant database centering on the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) responsible for therapeutic value of plants is not available in the literature. So it is prudent to make a curated database comprising of information on APIs viz. name of plants with taxonomical hierarchy, Useful parts of the plants, name of generic drugs and recent findings of their therapeutic use. The current project aims to assemble a vast array of information on medicinal plants from different sources and to perform a systematic data mining for simple and effective retrieval for end user. Briefly, the methods used for implementing the database was 1)Extracting information from standard books, journals, existing databases, from databases of abstracts and from Gray literature, 2)Storing the information in Related Database Management System (RDBMS) like MySQL server and 3) Retrieving the information through an interactive webpage using web scripting language PHP. The Database resulted in providing plant related information through two ways. One is drop down menu of APIs and another is through a search box introduced in the webpage. After successful implementation of the methodologies it was concluded that the database could fulfill its purpose of providing unique and organized information of essentiality to the scientific fraternity with proper references. In future this database can be scaled up with more plant related information and more APIs

Focal Spot, Summer 1988

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1049/thumbnail.jp

Cellular Radiosensitivity: How much better do we understand it?

Purpose: Ionizing radiation exposure gives rise to a variety of lesions in DNA that result in genetic instability and potentially tumorigenesis or cell death. Radiation extends its effects on DNA by direct interaction or by radiolysis of H2O that generates free radicals or aqueous electrons capable of interacting with and causing indirect damage to DNA. While the various lesions arising in DNA after radiation exposure can contribute to the mutagenising effects of this agent, the potentially most damaging lesion is the DNA double strand break (DSB) that contributes to genome instability and/or cell death. Thus in many cases failure to recognise and/or repair this lesion determines the radiosensitivity status of the cell. DNA repair mechanisms including homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) have evolved to protect cells against DNA DSB. Mutations in proteins that constitute these repair pathways are characterised by radiosensitivity and genome instability. Defects in a number of these proteins also give rise to genetic disorders that feature not only genetic instability but also immunodeficiency, cancer predisposition, neurodegeneration and other pathologies. Conclusions: In the past fifty years our understanding of the cellular response to radiation damage has advanced enormously with insight being gained from a wide range of approaches extending from more basic early studies to the sophisticated approaches used today. In this review we discuss our current understanding of the impact of radiation on the cell and the organism gained from the array of past and present studies and attempt to provide an explanation for what it is that determines the response to radiation