Diversity of angiospermic plants in Dhanaulti Region, Uttarakhand: an emerging tourist destination in Western Himalaya

Situated adjacent to Mussoorie, the popular hill station in Uttarakhand state of India, Dhanaulti region is known for its scenic environs amidst the temperate forests. The floristic survey revealed a total of 112 species belonging to 96 genera and 47 families. Poaceae was the largest family with 16 genera and 17 species followed by Rosaceae represented by nine genera and 13 species and Asteraceae with eight genera and eight species. Lamiaceae and Caprifoliaceae had four species each while Brassicaceae, Celastraceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Orchidaceae, Plantaginaceae and Smilacaceae had three species each. Most dominant genus was Rubus with four species followed by Euonymus and Smilax with three species each. Two vulnerable species, Bergenia ciliata (Haw.) Sternb. and Valeriana jatamansi Jones, were also recorded. This study in addition gives an account on ethnobotanical uses of 51 species. Since Dhanaulti is an emerging tourist destination in Western Himalaya, the study will generate baseline information for management authorities to give due importance to its ecological wealth while planning any development in future.

The Hadoop Distributed File System

The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is designed to store very large data sets reliably, and to stream those data sets at high bandwidth to user applications. In a large cluster, thousands of servers both host directly attached storage and execute user application tasks. By distributing storage and computation across many servers, the resource can grow with demand while remaining economical at every size. We describe the architecture of HDFS and report on experience using HDFS to manage 25 petabytes of enterprise data at Yahoo.

Photometric, polarimetric, and spectroscopic studies of the luminous, slow-decaying Type Ib SN 2012au

Optical, near-infrared (NIR) photometric and spectroscopic studies, along with the optical imaging polarimetric results for SN 2012au, are presented in this article to constrain the nature of the progenitor and other properties. Well-calibrated multiband optical photometric data (from -0.2 to +413 d since B-band maximum) were used to compute the bolometric light curve and to perform semi-analytical light-curve modelling using the MINIM code. A spin-down millisecond magnetar-powered model explains the observed photometric evolution of SN 2012au reasonably. Early-time imaging polarimetric follow-up observations (-2 to +31 d) and comparison with other similar cases indicate signatures of asphericity in the ejecta. Good spectral coverage of SN 2012au (from -5 to +391 d) allows us to trace the evolution of layers of SN ejecta in detail. SN 2012au exhibits higher line velocities in comparison with other SNe Ib. Late nebular phase spectra of SN 2012au indicate a Wolf-Rayet star as the possible progenitor for SN 2012au, with oxygen, He-core, and main-sequence masses of similar to 1.62 +/- 0.15 M-circle dot, similar to 4-8 M-circle dot, and similar to 17-25 M-circle dot, respectively. There is a clear absence of a first overtone of carbon monoxide (CO) features up to +319 d in the K-band region of the NIR spectra. Overall analysis suggests that SN 2012au is one of the most luminous slow-decaying Type Ib SNe, having comparatively higher ejecta mass (similar to 4.7-8.3 M-circle dot) and kinetic energy (similar to[4.8-5.4] x 10(51) erg). Detailed modelling using MESA and the results obtained through STELLA and SNEC explosions also strongly support spin-down of a magnetar with mass of around 20 M-circle dot and metallicity Z = 0.04 as a possible powering source of SN 2012au

Occupant productivity and office indoor environment quality : a review of the literature

The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature to draw an understanding of the relationship between indoor environmental quality and occupant productivity in an office environment. The study reviews over 300 papers from 67 journals, conference articles and books focusing on indoor environment, occupant comfort, productivity and green buildings. It limits its focus to the physical aspects of an office environment. The literature outlines eight Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) factors that influence occupant productivity in an office environment. It also discusses different physical parameters under each of the IEQ factors. It proposes a conceptual model of different factors affecting occupant productivity. The study also presents a review of the data collection methods utilised by the research studies that aim to investigate the relationship between IEQ and occupant productivity. The study presents a comprehensive discussion and analysis of different IEQ factors that affect occupant productivity. The paper provides a concise starting point for future researchers interested in the area of indoor environmental quality

Zein Protein Bioinformatics structural and conformational studies

Input and parameter files of Zein Protein Bioinformatics structural and conformational MD Simulation studie

Diversity of angiospermic plants in Dhanaulti Region, Uttarakhand: an emerging tourist destination in Western Himalaya

Situated adjacent to Mussoorie, the popular hill station in Uttarakhand state of India, Dhanaulti region is known for its scenic environs amidst the temperate forests. The floristic survey revealed a total of 112 species belonging to 96 genera and 47 families. Poaceae was the largest family with 16 genera and 17 species followed by Rosaceae represented by nine genera and 13 species and Asteraceae with eight genera and eight species. Lamiaceae and Caprifoliaceae had four species each while Brassicaceae, Celastraceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Orchidaceae, Plantaginaceae and Smilacaceae had three species each. Most dominant genus was Rubus with four species followed by Euonymus and Smilax with three species each. Two vulnerable species, Bergenia ciliata (Haw.) Sternb. and Valeriana jatamansi Jones, were also recorded. This study in addition gives an account on ethnobotanical uses of 51 species. Since Dhanaulti is an emerging tourist destination in Western Himalaya, the study will generate baseline information for management authorities to give due importance to its ecological wealth while planning any development in future

Tapping the Unexplored Potential of Marine Fungi and Edible Mushrooms for in Silico Screening of Anti-Viral Bioactive Compounds Against SARS-CoV-2 for Rapid Development of Nutraceuticals

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) affects human respiratory function that causes COVID-19 disease. COVID-19 has spread rapidly all over the world and became a pandemic within no time. Therefore, it is the need of hour to screen potential lead candidates from natural resources like edible mushrooms and marine fungi. These natural resources are very less explored till now and known to be the source for many medicinal compounds with several health benefits. These medicinal compounds can be easily exploited for the faster development of nutraceuticals for controlling SARS-CoV-2 infections. Our in-silico research suggests that bioactive compounds originating from mushroom and marine fungi shows strong potential to interact with ACE2 receptor or main protease of SARS-CoV-2, showing the inhibition activity towards the enzymatic protease. We performed a series of in silico studies for the validation of our results, which includes Molecular docking, drug likeness property investigation by Swiss ADME tools, MD simulation, and thermodynamically stable free binding energy calculation. Overall, these results suggest that Ganodermadiol and Heliantriol F bioactive compounds originating from edible mushroom has strong potential to be developed as low-cost nutraceutical against SARS-CoV-2 viral infection. The drug candidate isolated from marine fungi and edible mushroom are highly unexplored for the development of potential alternative drug against SARS-CoV-2 virus with minimum side effects. That is why we decided to screen some active metabolites from the marine fungi and mushrooms, which offer some encouraging results. Though our in-silico studies of these compounds are showing a promising result against SARS-CoV-2 main protease and ACE2 receptor binding domain, the effectiveness of these bioactive compounds should be further validated by proper clinical trials.</p

Computational Studies Towards Identification of Lead Herbal Compounds of Medicinal Importance for Development of Nutraceutical Against COVID-19

In the present study, we have performed the in-silico study of SARS-CoV-2 structure with different herbal compounds of medicinal importance. We selected four viral key proteins of SARS-CoV-2 structure i.e ACE-2 Receptor, Main Protease (Mpro), APO Form, Cryo- electron microscopy structure for the Molecular docking followed by the molecular dynamic simulation. Using this simple in silico approach based on the molecular docking and MD simulation of protein and phytochemicals, we have identified potential lead candidates for the development of low cost nutraceuticals, which can be used against SARS-CoV-2 virus. Our analysis suggested that phytochemicals obtained from Phyllanthus emblica and Azadirachta indica have the highest potential to bind with ACE2 receptor or main protease of SARS-CoV-2, inhibiting the protease enzymatic activity. The lead compounds of herbal origin were docked and simulated on viral key proteins of SARS-CoV-2 structure to evaluate the binding affinity of these phytochemicals along with the type of interaction and its stability in terms of RMSD and Ramachandran plot. Further, these results were also verified by drug likeness properties by using SwissADME software. Overall, our results suggest that out of 14 herbal compounds, Nimbolide and Withaferin-A has great potential to be developed as low-cost nutraceuticals against SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the need of hour