Ethnomedicinal study of plants used to cure skin diseases and healing of wounds in Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS), Jammu & Kashmir

Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS) hosts large number of medicinal plants and is a rich repository of indigenous knowledge and practices. In present day scenario such indigenous knowledge is disappearing in new generations day by day with the advent of modernization. Therefore, an effort has been made to document the aboriginal uses and practices of plants utilized by the local inhabitants of Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS), to treat skin relatedproblems and help in wound healing. A total of 33 plant species belonging to 31 genera and 26 families are used indigenously to cure various skin diseases/wound healing. 22 plant species are non-native and 11 species are native to the Himalayan region. Various plant parts of these species are used to cure aforesaid diseases. Further, such studies would assist in developing a comprehensive database of plant used in various traditional medicinal systems or strengthening the healthcare in the rural ecosystem and also help in conserving the traditional knowledge andpractices for posterity

Ethnomedicinal study of plants used to cure skin diseases and healing of wounds in Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS), Jammu & Kashmir

327-334Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS) hosts large number of medicinal plants and is a rich repository of indigenous knowledge and practices. In present day scenario such indigenous knowledge is disappearing in new generations day by day with the advent of modernization. Therefore, an effort has been made to document the aboriginal uses and practices of plants utilized by the local inhabitants of Gulmarg Wildlife Sanctuary (GWLS), to treat skin related problems and help in wound healing. A total of 33 plant species belonging to 31 genera and 26 families are used indigenously to cure various skin diseases/wound healing. 22 plant species are non-native and 11 species are native to the Himalayan region. Various plant parts of these species are used to cure aforesaid diseases. Further, such studies would assist in developing a comprehensive database of plant used in various traditional medicinal systems or strengthening the healthcare in the rural ecosystem and also help in conserving the traditional knowledge and practices for posterity

Elevating Code-mixed Text Handling through Auditory Information of Words

With the growing popularity of code-mixed data, there is an increasing need for better handling of this type of data, which poses a number of challenges, such as dealing with spelling variations, multiple languages, different scripts, and a lack of resources. Current language models face difficulty in effectively handling code-mixed data as they primarily focus on the semantic representation of words and ignore the auditory phonetic features. This leads to difficulties in handling spelling variations in code-mixed text. In this paper, we propose an effective approach for creating language models for handling code-mixed textual data using auditory information of words from SOUNDEX. Our approach includes a pre-training step based on masked-language-modelling, which includes SOUNDEX representations (SAMLM) and a new method of providing input data to the pre-trained model. Through experimentation on various code-mixed datasets (of different languages) for sentiment, offensive and aggression classification tasks, we establish that our novel language modeling approach (SAMLM) results in improved robustness towards adversarial attacks on code-mixed classification tasks. Additionally, our SAMLM based approach also results in better classification results over the popular baselines for code-mixed tasks. We use the explainability technique, SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) to explain how the auditory features incorporated through SAMLM assist the model to handle the code-mixed text effectively and increase robustness against adversarial attacks \footnote{Source code has been made available on \url{https://github.com/20118/DefenseWithPhonetics}, \url{https://www.iitp.ac.in/~ai-nlp-ml/resources.html\#Phonetics}}.Comment: Accepted to EMNLP 202

Classification and evaluation of digital forensic tools

Digital forensic tools (DFTs) are used to detect the authenticity of digital images. Different DFTs have been developed to detect the forgery like (i) forensic focused operating system, (ii) computer forensics, (iii) memory forensics, (iv) mobile device forensics, and (v) software forensics tools (SFTs). These tools are dedicated to detect the forged images depending on the type of the applications. Based on our review, we found that in literature of the DFTs less attention is given to the evaluation and analysis of the forensic tools. Among various DFTs, we choose SFTs because it is concerned with the detection of the forged digital images. Therefore,the purpose of this study is to classify the different DFTs and evaluate the software forensic tools (SFTs) based on the different features which are present in the SFTs. In our work, we evaluate the following five SFTs, i.e.,“FotoForensics”, “JPEGsnoop”, “Ghiro”, “Forensically”, and “Izitru”, based on different features so that new research directions can be identified for the development of the SFTs

MOMORDICA CHARANTIA: FOR TRADITIONAL USES AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTIONS

Momordica charantia is a plant of the Cucurbitaceae family, is known as bitter melon, karela, and pare. It grows in tropical areas of the Amazon, , Asia, South America India, East Africa and  Caribbean, and is used traditionally as both food and medicine. The fruit ripens, the flesh (rind) becomes slightly tougher and more bitter, and many think it too repulsive to eat. On the other hand, the pith becomes sweet and intensely red; it can be eaten uncooked in this state, and is a popular part in some Southeast Asian salads .Momordica charantia have provided many remedies for various diseases from ancient days to now a day. It has been used in various Asian traditional medicines for the treatment of cholera,  anemia, diarrhea blood diseases, bronchitis, gout, dysentery, gonorrhea rheumatism,  ulcer, colic, worms, disease of liver and spleen, cancer and diabetes etc.In preliminary phytochemical analysis we observed glycosides, phytosterols, alkaloids, phenolic, saponins compounds, fats, proteins, and fixed oils, flavonoids, and thin layer chromatography (TLC) was also performed. The medicinal values of Bitter melon lies in the bioactive phytochemical constituents that are non nutritive chemicals that produce clear-cut physiological effects on human body and protect them from various diseases. Juice of Momordica charantia the leaves used to treat piles totally. Momordica charantia is used as a blood purifier due to its bitter tonic properties. Keywords: Momordica charantia, medicinal properties, pharmacolog

INA: An Integrative Approach for Enhancing Negotiation Strategies with Reward-Based Dialogue System

In this paper, we propose a novel negotiation dialogue agent designed for the online marketplace. Our agent is integrative in nature i.e, it possesses the capability to negotiate on price as well as other factors, such as the addition or removal of items from a deal bundle, thereby offering a more flexible and comprehensive negotiation experience. We create a new dataset called Integrative Negotiation Dataset (IND) to enable this functionality. For this dataset creation, we introduce a new semi-automated data creation method, which combines defining negotiation intents, actions, and intent-action simulation between users and the agent to generate potential dialogue flows. Finally, the prompting of GPT-J, a state-of-the-art language model, is done to generate dialogues for a given intent, with a human-in-the-loop process for post-editing and refining minor errors to ensure high data quality. We employ a set of novel rewards, specifically tailored for the negotiation task to train our Negotiation Agent, termed as the Integrative Negotiation Agent (INA). These rewards incentivize the chatbot to learn effective negotiation strategies that can adapt to various contextual requirements and price proposals. By leveraging the IND, we train our model and conduct experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of our reward-based dialogue system for negotiation. Our results demonstrate that the proposed approach and reward system significantly enhance the agent's negotiation capabilities. The INA successfully engages in integrative negotiations, displaying the ability to dynamically adjust prices and negotiate the inclusion or exclusion of items in a bundle dea

Epigenetic stress memory: A new approach to study cold and heat stress responses in plants

Understanding plant stress memory under extreme temperatures such as cold and heat could contribute to plant development. Plants employ different types of stress memories, such as somatic, intergenerational and transgenerational, regulated by epigenetic changes such as DNA and histone modifications and microRNAs (miRNA), playing a key role in gene regulation from early development to maturity. In most cases, cold and heat stresses result in short-term epigenetic modifications that can return to baseline modification levels after stress cessation. Nevertheless, some of the modifications may be stable and passed on as stress memory, potentially allowing them to be inherited across generations, whereas some of the modifications are reactivated during sexual reproduction or embryogenesis. Several stress-related genes are involved in stress memory inheritance by turning on and off transcription profiles and epigenetic changes. Vernalization is the best example of somatic stress memory. Changes in the chromatin structure of the Flowering Locus C (FLC) gene, a MADS-box transcription factor (TF), maintain cold stress memory during mitosis. FLC expression suppresses flowering at high levels during winter; and during vernalization, B3 TFs, cold memory cis-acting element and polycomb repressive complex 1 and 2 (PRC1 and 2) silence FLC activation. In contrast, the repression of SQUAMOSA promoter-binding protein-like (SPL) TF and the activation of Heat Shock TF (HSFA2) are required for heat stress memory. However, it is still unclear how stress memory is inherited by offspring, and the integrated view of the regulatory mechanisms of stress memory and mitotic and meiotic heritable changes in plants is still scarce. Thus, in this review, we focus on the epigenetic regulation of stress memory and discuss the application of new technologies in developing epigenetic modifications to improve stress memory.Peer reviewe

The role of LTR retrotransposons in plant genetic engineering : How to control their transposition in the genome

Key message We briefly discuss that the similarity of LTR retrotransposons to retroviruses is a great opportunity for the development of a genetic engineering tool that exploits intragenic elements in the plant genome for plant genetic improvement. Long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons are very similar to retroviruses but do not have the property of being infectious. While spreading between its host cells, a retrovirus inserts a DNA copy of its genome into the cells. The ability of retroviruses to cause infection with genome integration allows genes to be delivered to cells and tissues. Retrovirus vectors are, however, only specific to animals and insects, and, thus, are not relevant to plant genetic engineering. However, the similarity of LTR retrotransposons to retroviruses is an opportunity to explore the former as a tool for genetic engineering. Although recent long-read sequencing technologies have advanced the knowledge about transposable elements (TEs), the integration of TEs is still unable either to control them or to direct them to specific genomic locations. The use of existing intragenic elements to achieve the desired genome composition is better than using artificial constructs like vectors, but it is not yet clear how to control the process. Moreover, most LTR retrotransposons are inactive and unable to produce complete proteins. They are also highly mutable. In addition, it is impossible to find a full active copy of a LTR retrotransposon out of thousands of its own copies. Theoretically, if these elements were directly controlled and turned on or off using certain epigenetic mechanisms (inducing by stress or infection), LTR retrotransposons could be a great opportunity to develop a genetic engineering tool using intragenic elements in the plant genome. In this review, the recent developments in uncovering the nature of LTR retrotransposons and the possibility of using these intragenic elements as a tool for plant genetic engineering are briefly discussed.Peer reviewe

Numerical Investigation of Solidity Effect Based on Variable Diameter on Power Performance of H-type Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT)

Renewable energy resources especially wind energy, have seen significant growth in the worldwide energy market as clean energy sources. This has brought attention to areas with low and moderate wind speeds. Small-scale Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) with omnidirectional capability captures potential energy in these areas at a cost-effective scale. Numerous studies have been conducted to optimise their design, hence improving the performance of these turbines. Turbine solidity, σ, representing the ratio of the overall area of the blades over the swept area of the turbine, is one of the influential geometrical factors that significantly affect wind turbine performance. Previous studies on solidity focused on the number of blades and blade length variations, while the study on turbine diameter is limited. Hence, this paper intends to numerically investigate the effect of solidity that corresponds to different turbine diameters. Power performance and flow characteristics are investigated closely according to different solidity, σ and tip speed ratios, λ using high-fidelity computational fluid dynamic (CFD) method, which solves the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. Solidity and tip speed ratios vary within a wide range of 0.3 – 0.7 and 0.5 – 4.5, respectively. The results show that decreasing the turbine solidity from 0.7 to 0.3 could significantly increase the maximum power coefficient, Cp, by 30%. However, turbine with high solidity (σ = 0.7) generate much higher instantaneous moment coefficient, Cm than the low solidity turbine (σ = 0.3), but at lower λ and a narrower range of λ. The difference in turbine's performance between high and low solidity turbine is attributed to stall experienced by the blade at low λ and the blockage effect experienced by the turbine at moderate to high λ that significantly influence the energy generation at downstream region