An Overview of Gene Variants of Endothelin-1: A Critical Regulator of Endothelial Dysfunction

Endothelial dysfunction (ED) is an early marker of development of cardiovascular diseases and is closely related to clinical events in patients with atherosclerosis and hypertension. Endothelin-1 (ET-1), a potent vasoconstrictor, and nitic oxide (NO), a potent vasodilator, produced in endothelial cells are leading molecules which regulate vascular function. Failure of the physiological balance between these two molecules, often aggravated by increased production and biological activity of ET-1, commonly reflects endothelial dysfunction. The role of endothelium-derived small molecules like ET-1 (among many) with diverse biological functions continues to fascinate researchers all over the world both for its evolutionary significance and its translational potential in disease biology. Studies on systems genetics in human endothelial cells have provided evidence supporting the possibility that predisposition to complex disease is manifested through noncoding common genetic variants that modify levels of target gene expression in endothelial cells. These studies highlight the importance genetic variants of regulatory molecules secreted by endothelial cells in health and disease. It is unlikely that a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) would directly cause disease, but it would increase the genetic predisposition of individuals and can affect their responses to drugs and medications. The knowledge gained would help in the risk stratification and clinical management of patients with personalized medicine

Assessment of Shopping Mall Customers’ Experience through Criteria of Attractiveness in Tier-II and Tier-III Cities of India: An Exploratory Study

The present research attempts to develop a theoretical framework for the assessment of shopping mall customer experience dimensions. It further classifies the variables associated with retail experiences that may attract customers in Tier-II and Tier- III cities towards the malls. Exhaustive literature review and expert opinion approaches have been used to explore the evaluation criteria for the assessment of the mall experience. ISM is used to develop a structural model that represents relationships among variables at different levels along with driving and dependence relationships in the structural model. The result highlights that factors like customer value orientation, tenant mix, employees, facilities management are the most significant benchmarking criteria for customers’ assessment of their mall experience in the present study. To achieve profitable operations in these cities, retailer’s need to acquaint themselves with the expectations of customers in order to attract their attention. This indicates that it is imperative for mall managers to identify how consumers benchmark different parameters while evaluating a mall experience. Understanding the importance of such parameters will allow malls to be built according to some standard specifications that can meet a consumer’s threshold for appeal and attractiveness. The study adds to the existing literature of assessing shopping experience in Tier-II and Tier-III cities’ malls through a structural model. The most and the least dominant factors found in this study will help mall managers to develop strategies to enhance the customer shopping experience in malls

Check Mate: Prioritizing User Generated Multi-Media Content for Fact-Checking

Volume of content and misinformation on social media is rapidly increasing. There is a need for systems that can support fact checkers by prioritizing content that needs to be fact checked. Prior research on prioritizing content for fact-checking has focused on news media articles, predominantly in English language. Increasingly, misinformation is found in user-generated content. In this paper we present a novel dataset that can be used to prioritize check-worthy posts from multi-media content in Hindi. It is unique in its 1) focus on user generated content, 2) language and 3) accommodation of multi-modality in social media posts. In addition, we also provide metadata for each post such as number of shares and likes of the post on ShareChat, a popular Indian social media platform, that allows for correlative analysis around virality and misinformation. The data is accessible on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/4032629) under Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).Comment: 8 pages, 13 figures, 2 table

A Dirichlet character analogue of Ramanujan's formula for odd zeta values

In 2001, Kanemitsu, Tanigawa, and Yoshimoto studied the following generalized Lambert series, $$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{n^{N-2h} }{\exp(n^N x)-1},$$ for $N \in \mathbb{N}$ and $h\in \mathbb{Z}$ with some restriction on $h$. Recently, Dixit and the last author pointed out that this series has already been present in the Lost Notebook of Ramanujan with a more general form. Although, Ramanujan did not provide any transformation identity for it. In the same paper, Dixit and the last author found an elegant generalization of Ramanujan's celebrated identity for $\zeta(2m+1)$ while extending the results of Kanemitsu et al. In a subsequent work, Kanemitsu et al. explored another extended version of the aforementioned series, namely, $$\sum_{r=1}^{q}\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{\chi(r)n^{N-2h}{\exp\left(-\frac{r}{q}n^N x\right)}}{1-\exp({-n^N x})},$$ where $\chi$ denotes a Dirichlet character modulo $q$, $N\in 2\mathbb{N}$ and with some restriction on the variable $h$. In the current paper, we investigate the above series for {\it any} $N \in \mathbb{N}$ and $h \in \mathbb{Z}$. We obtain a Dirichlet character analogue of Dixit and the last author's identity and there by derive a two variable generalization of Ramanujan's identity for $\zeta(2m+1)$. Moreover, we establish a new identity for $L(1/3, \chi)$ analogous to Ramanujan's famous identity for $\zeta(1/2)$.Comment: 24 pages, comments are welcome

Role of amnioinfusion in meconium stained liquor in relation to fetal outcome

Background: Meconium aspiration syndrome complicates 1.7 to 35.8% of deliveries. The meconium aspiration syndrome is believed to result from aspiration of meconium during intrauterine gasping or at the time of first breath. Transcervical infusion of saline into amniotic cavity or amnioinfusion has been proposed as a method to reduce the risk of the meconium aspiration syndrome.Methods: The study was conducted in Department of Obstetrics and gynecology in collaboration with the department of paediatrics, Era’s Lucknow Medical College, Lucknow, India in the study period of 18 months. It was a prospective case control study. A total number of 80 patients were enrolled for the purpose of study. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. Control group (n=40) those who received standard treatment (i.e. labor analgesia, maternal nutrition and record of progress of labor) and Study group (n=40) patients who were managed by giving amnioinfusion in addition to the standard treatment. Both groups were compared in terms of fetal outcome. Data so obtained was subjected to statistical analysis using statistical package for Social Science Version 15.0.Results: Majority of babies of control group (n=22, 55%) have Apgar score at 1 minute was <7 whereas majority of babies born to mothers of study group (n=27, 67.5%) have apgar scores at 1 minute was ≥7.    Resuscitative measures were required in majority of control group babies (n=22, 55%) as compared to only 13 (32.5%) babies of study group. Meconium aspiraton syndrome was present in 12 babies (30%) of control group as compared to only 4 babies (10%) of study group. Rate of neonatal death was higher in control group (5%) as compared to study group (2.5%). A total of 25 (62.5%) babies required NICU admission in control group and 15 (37.5) babies in study group.Conclusions: The findings in present study indicates that aminoinfusion in a well-equipped tertiary care unit reduces the rate of caesarean section significantly while at the same time influences the neonatal outcome in terms of better Apgar score, reduced need of resuscitative measures and reduced neonatal morbidity

Assessment of Shopping Mall Customers’ Experience through Criteria of Attractiveness in Tier-II and Tier-III Cities of India: An Exploratory Study

The present research attempts to develop a theoretical framework for the assessment of shopping mall customer experience dimensions. It further classifies the variables associated with retail experiences that may attract customers in Tier-II and Tier- III cities towards the malls. Exhaustive literature review and expert opinion approaches have been used to explore the evaluation criteria for the assessment of the mall experience. ISM is used to develop a structural model that represents relationships among variables at different levels along with driving and dependence relationships in the structural model. The result highlights that factors like customer value orientation, tenant mix, employees, facilities management are the most significant benchmarking criteria for customers’ assessment of their mall experience in the present study. To achieve profitable operations in these cities, retailer’s need to acquaint themselves with the expectations of customers in order to attract their attention. This indicates that it is imperative for mall managers to identify how consumers benchmark different parameters while evaluating a mall experience. Understanding the importance of such parameters will allow malls to be built according to some standard specifications that can meet a consumer’s threshold for appeal and attractiveness. The study adds to the existing literature of assessing shopping experience in Tier-II and Tier-III cities’ malls through a structural model. The most and the least dominant factors found in this study will help mall managers to develop strategies to enhance the customer shopping experience in malls

City Profile: Hyderabad

The report documents the urban transformation of Hyderabad, from its founding in the sixteenth century to its present day positioning as a global centre, especially for Information Technology (IT)- and Life Sciences-based industries. Locating the city’s contemporary experience of climate in this history is important. While the city has been a key cultural and economic centre since its founding, its transformation into a global centre has dramatically altered the city’s spatial and demographic characteristics, and the texture of its built environment. Such transformations have profound implications for how heat is experienced and responded to in the city

Physics Potential of the ICAL detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

The upcoming 50 kt magnetized iron calorimeter (ICAL) detector at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is designed to study the atmospheric neutrinos and antineutrinos separately over a wide range of energies and path lengths. The primary focus of this experiment is to explore the Earth matter effects by observing the energy and zenith angle dependence of the atmospheric neutrinos in the multi-GeV range. This study will be crucial to address some of the outstanding issues in neutrino oscillation physics, including the fundamental issue of neutrino mass hierarchy. In this document, we present the physics potential of the detector as obtained from realistic detector simulations. We describe the simulation framework, the neutrino interactions in the detector, and the expected response of the detector to particles traversing it. The ICAL detector can determine the energy and direction of the muons to a high precision, and in addition, its sensitivity to multi-GeV hadrons increases its physics reach substantially. Its charge identification capability, and hence its ability to distinguish neutrinos from antineutrinos, makes it an efficient detector for determining the neutrino mass hierarchy. In this report, we outline the analyses carried out for the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy and precision measurements of atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters at ICAL, and give the expected physics reach of the detector with 10 years of runtime. We also explore the potential of ICAL for probing new physics scenarios like CPT violation and the presence of magnetic monopoles.Comment: 139 pages, Physics White Paper of the ICAL (INO) Collaboration, Contents identical with the version published in Pramana - J. Physic