Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Short Stories: A Multicoloured World

Aju Mukhopadhyay is one of the brightest stars in the firmament of contemporary Indian English Literature. He is a magnificent literary artist, in fact a versatile genius. As a visionary poet he has enraptured the hearts and minds of millions of poetry lovers, both in India and abroad. He is a profound critic, and his insightful critical studies are highly valued in the literary world. His essays on various subjects have made a mark in every field. He is a great storyteller too, both in English and Bangla, and the range of his short stories has baffled the fiction lovers. Like his previous volumes of short stories, the present collection too offers a large variety of subjects and feeds the craving of every set of readers. Aju’s world is so vast that you cross the national boundaries many times to peep into a new world. You open the window to a new story and step into a different world altogether. “In the Company of William, Samuel and Dorothy”, Aju takes us to the Lake District of England to enjoy the company of the great Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth. His description is so vivid that you really feel you are watching everything happening before your ‘fleshy eyes’. In the next story “They Came Down from the Roof of the World”, the writer takes you indeed to the roof of the world, Tibet and the Tibetan Cause. Tibet and New York come alive before you and you partake in the stormy scenes, the rebellion, the persecution, the great Dalai Lama escape and the aftermath

Bounded-Angle Spanning Tree: Modeling Networks with Angular Constraints

We introduce a new structure for a set of points in the plane and an angle $\alpha$, which is similar in flavor to a bounded-degree MST. We name this structure $\alpha$-MST. Let $P$ be a set of points in the plane and let $0 < \alpha \le 2\pi$ be an angle. An $\alpha$-ST of $P$ is a spanning tree of the complete Euclidean graph induced by $P$, with the additional property that for each point $p \in P$, the smallest angle around $p$ containing all the edges adjacent to $p$ is at most $\alpha$. An $\alpha$-MST of $P$ is then an $\alpha$-ST of $P$ of minimum weight. For $\alpha < \pi/3$, an $\alpha$-ST does not always exist, and, for $\alpha \ge \pi/3$, it always exists. In this paper, we study the problem of computing an $\alpha$-MST for several common values of $\alpha$. Motivated by wireless networks, we formulate the problem in terms of directional antennas. With each point $p \in P$, we associate a wedge $W_p$ of angle $\alpha$ and apex $p$. The goal is to assign an orientation and a radius $r_p$ to each wedge $W_p$, such that the resulting graph is connected and its MST is an $\alpha$-MST. (We draw an edge between $p$ and $q$ if $p \in W_q$, $q \in W_p$, and $|pq| \le r_p, r_q$.) Unsurprisingly, the problem of computing an $\alpha$-MST is NP-hard, at least for $\alpha=\pi$ and $\alpha=2\pi/3$. We present constant-factor approximation algorithms for $\alpha = \pi/2, 2\pi/3, \pi$. One of our major results is a surprising theorem for $\alpha = 2\pi/3$, which, besides being interesting from a geometric point of view, has important applications. For example, the theorem guarantees that given any set $P$ of $3n$ points in the plane and any partitioning of the points into $n$ triplets, one can orient the wedges of each triplet {\em independently}, such that the graph induced by $P$ is connected. We apply the theorem to the {\em antenna conversion} problem

Adsorption Isotherms of Carbon Dioxide at 273°K on Adsorbent Carbons & Evaluation of Microporosity using Dubinin Equation

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Single-cell temporal analysis of natural dengue infection reveals skin-homing lymphocyte expansion one day before defervescence.

Effective clinical management of acute dengue virus (DENV) infection relies on the timing of suitable treatments during the disease progression. We analyzed single-cell transcriptomic profiles of the peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from two DENV patients, collected daily during acute phase and also at convalescence. Key immune cell types demonstrated different dynamic responses over the course of the infection. On the day before defervescence (Day -1), we observed the peak expression of several prominent genes in the adaptive immunological pathways. We also characterized unique effector T cell clusters that expressed skin-homing signature genes at Day -1, whereas upregulation of skin and gut homing genes was also observed in plasma cells and plasmablasts during the febrile period. This work provides an overview of unique molecular dynamics that signify the entry of the critical phase, and the findings could improve the patient management of DENV infection

Transport on Directed Percolation Clusters

We study random lattice networks consisting of resistor like and diode like bonds. For investigating the transport properties of these random resistor diode networks we introduce a field theoretic Hamiltonian amenable to renormalization group analysis. We focus on the average two-port resistance at the transition from the nonpercolating to the directed percolating phase and calculate the corresponding resistance exponent $\phi$ to two-loop order. Moreover, we determine the backbone dimension $D_B$ of directed percolation clusters to two-loop order. We obtain a scaling relation for $D_B$ that is in agreement with well known scaling arguments.Comment: 4 page

Method of analysis of geomagnetic data based on wavelet transform and threshold functions

The method is aimed at studying the dynamics of the magnetospheric current systems during magnetic storms. The method is based on algorithmic solutions for processing of geomagnetic field variations, for detection of local increases in geomagnetic disturbance intensity. Parameters of the algorithms allow us to evaluate the characteristics of small-scale local features emerging during geomagnetic activity slight increases and large-scale variations observed during magnetic storms. To evaluate the method, geomagnetic data from the stations located in the north-east of Russia and equatorial India were used. The method testing showed the possibility to apply it for the detection of pre-storm anomalous effects in geomagnetic data.This work was supported by the Grants of RSF No. 14-11-00194 and RFBR No.16-55-45007

Role of Natural Cross Linkers in Resin–Dentin Bond Durability: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: The role of endogenous Matrix Metallo Proteinases in resin dentin bond deterioration over time has been well documented. The present study aimed to systematically review the literature; in vitro and ex vivo studies that assessed the outcomes of natural cross-linkers for immediate and long-term tensile bond strength were included. Methods: The manuscript search was carried out in six electronic databases—PubMed/MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, Cochrane, Web of Science and DOAJ, without publication year limits. Only manuscripts in English (including the translated articles) were selected, and the last search was performed in December 2020. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was followed. Results: From the 128 potentially eligible studies, 48 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. After eligibility assessment and exclusions, 14 studies were considered for systematic review and seven studies for meta-analysis. Amongst the selected studies for meta-analysis, three had a medium and four had a low risk of bias. Conclusions: It was evidenced by the available data that Proanthocyanidin is the most efficient natural cross-linker to date, in preserving the bond strength even after ageing

An Improved BKW Algorithm for LWE with Applications to Cryptography and Lattices

In this paper, we study the Learning With Errors problem and its binary variant, where secrets and errors are binary or taken in a small interval. We introduce a new variant of the Blum, Kalai and Wasserman algorithm, relying on a quantization step that generalizes and fine-tunes modulus switching. In general this new technique yields a significant gain in the constant in front of the exponent in the overall complexity. We illustrate this by solving p within half a day a LWE instance with dimension n = 128, modulus $q = n^2$, Gaussian noise $\alpha = 1/(\sqrt{n/\pi} \log^2 n)$ and binary secret, using $2^{28}$ samples, while the previous best result based on BKW claims a time complexity of $2^{74}$ with $2^{60}$ samples for the same parameters. We then introduce variants of BDD, GapSVP and UniqueSVP, where the target point is required to lie in the fundamental parallelepiped, and show how the previous algorithm is able to solve these variants in subexponential time. Moreover, we also show how the previous algorithm can be used to solve the BinaryLWE problem with n samples in subexponential time $2^{(\ln 2/2+o(1))n/\log \log n}$. This analysis does not require any heuristic assumption, contrary to other algebraic approaches; instead, it uses a variant of an idea by Lyubashevsky to generate many samples from a small number of samples. This makes it possible to asymptotically and heuristically break the NTRU cryptosystem in subexponential time (without contradicting its security assumption). We are also able to solve subset sum problems in subexponential time for density $o(1)$, which is of independent interest: for such density, the previous best algorithm requires exponential time. As a direct application, we can solve in subexponential time the parameters of a cryptosystem based on this problem proposed at TCC 2010.Comment: CRYPTO 201

Formulacija i evaluacija monolitnih matriksnih polimernih filmova za transdermalnu isporuku nitrendipina

The objective of the present work was to develop a suitable transdermal drug delivery system for nitrendipine. Polymeric films of nitrendipine were prepared by the film casting technique (glass ring) on mercury substrate. They were evaluated for physicochemical parameters, in vitro release and ex vivo permeation (heat separated human epidermis). Release of the drug from the films followed anomalous transport (0.5 < n < 1). Polymeric combination containing Eudragit RL 100:PVP K 30 in 4:6 ratio showed the best results. Maximum drug release and skin permeability coefficient in 48 h were 85.8 % and 0.0142 cm h-1, respectively, in formulation C3 (Eudragit RL 100: Plasdone S 630; 4:6) and 88.0 % and 0.0155 cm h-1, respectively, in formulation D3 (Eudragit RL 100: PVP K 30; 4:6). FTIR and TLC studies indicated no drug and polymer interaction.Cilj rada bio je razvoj transdermalnog sustava nitrendipina. Polimerni filmovi nitrendipina pripravljeni su metodom lijevanja (stakleni prsten) na podlozi od žive. Ispitivani su fizičkokemijski parametri, in vitro oslobađanje i ex vivo permeacija (toplinom odvojena humana epiderma). Oslobađanje lijeka iz filmova slijedilo je anomalni transport (0,5 < n < 1). Najbolji rezultati postignuti su kombinacijom polimera Eudragit RL 100 i PVP K 30 u omjeru 4:6. Maksimalno oslobađanje ljekovite tvari i najbolji koeficijent permeacije kroz kožu tijekom 48 h bio je 85,8 %, odnosno 0,0142 cm h1 za formulaciju C3 (Eudragit RL 100 : Plasdone S 630; 4:6) i 88,0 %, odnosno 0,0155 cm h1 za formulaciju D3 (Eudragit RL 100 : PVP K 30; 4:6). FTIR i TLC ukazuju na to da nema interakcije između ljekovite tvari i polimera

Survival and residence times in disordered chains with bias

We present a unified framework for first-passage time and residence time of random walks in finite one-dimensional disordered biased systems. The derivation is based on exact expansion of the backward master equation in cumulants. The dependence on initial condition, system size, and bias strength is explicitly studied for models with weak and strong disorder. Application to thermally activated processes is also developed.Comment: 13 pages with 2 figures, RevTeX4; v2:minor grammatical changes, typos correcte