Online regulations of low order systems under bounded control

Time-optimal solutions provide us with the fastest means to regulate a system in presence of input constraints. This advantage of time-optimal control solutions is offset by the fact that their real-time implementation involves computationally intensive iterative techniques. Moreover, time-optimal controls depend on the initial state and have to be recalculated for even the slightest perturbation. Clearly time-optimal controls are not good candidates for online regulation. Consequently, the search for alternatives to time-optimal solutions is a very active area of research. The work described here is inspired by the simplicity of optimal-aim concept. The "optimal-aim strategies" provide online regulation in presence of bounded inputs with minimal computational effort. These are based purely on state-space geometry of the plant and are inherently adaptive in nature. Optimal-aim techniques involve aiming of trajectory derivative (or the state velocity vector) so as to approach the equilibrium state in the best possible manner. This thesis documents the efforts to develop an online regulation algorithm for systems with input constraints. Through a number of hypotheses focussed on trying to reproduce the exact time-optimal solution, the diffculty associated with this task is demonstrated. A modification of optimal-aim concept is employed to develop a novel regulation algorithm. In this algorithm, aim directions are chosen in a special manner to generate the time-optimal control approximately. The control scheme thus developed is shown to be globally stabilizing for systems having eigenvalues in the CLHP (closed left half-plane). It is expected that this method or its modifications can be extended to higher dimensional systems as a part of future research. An alternative control algorithm involving a simple state-space aiming concept is also developed and discussed

Perception of primary school teachers about the quality of pre-school education provided by anganwadis

A couple of months ago, I was reading about Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)in India and came across the new drafts for the policy framework, quality standards and curriculum for pre-school education by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD). One of the aims of ECCE is to make a child school ready by providing emergent literacy and math skills and I started wondering about how do we know if a child is actually school ready or not? So, I decided to meet with a few primary school teachers to understand if they thought that the children who came to their schools after attending anganwadis were actually school ready, and if not what did they expect of children who attended anganwadis and what suggestions did they have for improving the quality of pre-school education provided by anganwadis

Physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling of transdermal selegiline and its metabolites for the evaluation of disposition differences between healthy and special populations

A physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model of selegiline (SEL), and its metabolites, was developed in silico to evaluate the disposition differences between healthy and special populations. SEL is metabolized to methamphetamine (MAP) and desmethyl selegiline (DMS) by several CYP enzymes. CYP2D6 metabolizes the conversion of MAP to amphetamine (AMP), while CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 predominantly mediate the conversion of DMS to AMP. The overall prediction error in simulated PK, using the developed PBPK model, was within 0.5–1.5-fold after intravenous and transdermal dosing in healthy and elderly populations. Simulation results generated in the special populations demonstrated that a decrease in cardiac output is a potential covariate that affects the SEL exposure in renally impaired (RI) and hepatic impaired (HI) subjects. A decrease in CYP2D6 levels increased the systemic exposure of MAP. DMS exposure increased due to a reduction in the abundance of CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 in RI and HI subjects. In addition, an increase in the exposure of the primary metabolites decreased the exposure of AMP. No significant difference between the adult and adolescent populations, in terms of PK, were observed. The current PBPK model predictions indicate that subjects with HI or RI may require closer clinical monitoring to identify any untoward effects associated with the administration of transdermal SEL patch

Extracting Entities of Interest from Comparative Product Reviews

This paper presents a deep learning based approach to extract product comparison information out of user reviews on various e-commerce websites. Any comparative product review has three major entities of information: the names of the products being compared, the user opinion (predicate) and the feature or aspect under comparison. All these informing entities are dependent on each other and bound by the rules of the language, in the review. We observe that their inter-dependencies can be captured well using LSTMs. We evaluate our system on existing manually labeled datasets and observe out-performance over the existing Semantic Role Labeling (SRL) framework popular for this task.Comment: Source Code: https://github.com/jatinarora2702/Review-Information-Extractio

Polyphenol rich extract from Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers. bark reduces rheumatism by mediating the expression of NF kappa B in rats

Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers. (Fabaceae) commonly called Agati or Vegetable Hummingbird, is autochthonal from Malaysia to North Australia; plant is cultivated in several parts of India. Root and bark paste is applied externally to relive pain and inflammation associated with arthritis. It has long been used as a traditional medicine for rheumatism. Keeping this in cognizance, the study was designed to explore the antirheumatic potential of S. grandiflora. The bark extracts were prepared and studied for their phytochemical study, in vitro antioxidant potential using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and nitric oxide (NO) radicals and antiarthritic activity against Complete Freund Adjuvant (CFA) induced arthritis. To probe into the causal mechanism of action, NFκB suppressing activity in paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of hypothalamus using potent extract was also studied. Polyphenol rich extract supplementation significantly normalizes the altered blood parameters and reverses the increase in paw thickness, a sign of arthritis in rats. Further, immunohistochemical analysis revealed significant reduction in the NFκB immunoreactive cells in 50% methanolic extract treated (14 days) arthritic rats (57%; p<0.001) as compared to control. These results consolidate the observation, that inhibition of NFκB may be a beneficial approach in the treatment of arthritis. This study corroborates the traditional use of S. grandiflora plant in rheumatism

Polyphenol rich extract from Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers. bark reduces rheumatism by mediating the expression of NF kappa B in rats

44-53Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers. (Fabaceae) commonly called Agati or Vegetable Hummingbird, is autochthonal from Malaysia to North Australia; plant is cultivated in several parts of India. Root and bark paste is applied externally to relive pain and inflammation associated with arthritis. It has long been used as a traditional medicine for rheumatism. Keeping this in cognizance, the study was designed to explore the antirheumatic potential of S. grandiflora. The bark extracts were prepared and studied for their phytochemical study, in vitro antioxidant potential using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and nitric oxide (NO) radicals and antiarthritic activity against Complete Freund Adjuvant (CFA) induced arthritis. To probe into the causal mechanism of action, NFκB suppressing activity in paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of hypothalamus using potent extract was also studied. Polyphenol rich extract supplementation significantly normalizes the altered blood parameters and reverses the increase in paw thickness, a sign of arthritis in rats. Further, immunohistochemical analysis revealed significant reduction in the NFκB immunoreactive cells in 50% methanolic extract treated (14 days) arthritic rats (57%; p<0.001) as compared to control. These results consolidate the observation, that inhibition of NFκB may be a beneficial approach in the treatment of arthritis. This study corroborates the traditional use of S. grandiflora plant in rheumatism

"Caught by the eye of sound" : epigastric swelling due to xiphisternal tuberculosis

BACKGROUND: Common causes of an epigastric mass include hepatomegaly, pancreatic pseudocyst and epigastric hernia, less common causes being carcinoma of the stomach or pancreas, whereas diseases of the sternum presenting as an epigastric swelling is extremely uncommon. We report a case of tubercular infection of the sternum located in the xiphoid process resulting in its presentation as an epigastric swelling. CASE REPORT: A 30-year-old immunocompetent woman with complaints of an epigastric swelling and undocumented pyrexia for four months was referred for sonographic evaluation with a clinical suspicion of an incompletely treated liver abscess. The patient was examined with ultrasound, sternal radiographs, CT and MRI. Ultrasound revealed a heterogeneous epigastric collection with linear echogenic components suggestive of bone fragments. These appearances suggested chronic infective osteomyelitis of the xiphoid process of the sternum. Lateral chest radiograph demonstrated lytic destruction of the xiphisternum. Tubercular etiology was considered and further evaluation with Multidetector Computed tomography (MDCT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) demonstrated erosive osteomyelitis of the xiphoid process with enhancing inflammation and collection in the adjoining soft tissue. Ultrasound-guided aspiration, PCR and Amplified Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA test confirmed tubercular infection. CONCLUSIONS: We report a new case of osteo-articular tuberculosis localized to the xiphisternum, a rare clinical entity with an extremely unusual clinical presentation as an epigastric mass. The role of ultrasound in primary diagnosis and as an interventional diagnostic modality for guided aspiration is highlighted

Investigation of Neolamarckia cadamba phytoconstituents against SARS-CoV-2 3CL Pro: An In-Silico Approach

In present study, the inhibitory potential of Neolamarckia cadamba phytoconstituents was investigated against SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease (3CL pro) (PDB ID: 6M2N). Molecular docking was analyzed using AutoDock Vina software by setting the grid parameter as X= -33.163, Y= -65.074 and Z= 41.434 with dimensions of the grid box 25 × 25 × 25 Å. Remdesivir was taken as the standard for comparative analysis along with inhibitor 5, 6, 7-trihydroxy-2-phenyl-4H-chromen-4-one. Furthermore, the exploration of 2 D Hydrogen-bond interactions was performed by Biovia Discovery Studio 4.5 program to identify the interactions between an amino acid of target and ligand followed by assessment of physicochemical properties using Lipinski’s rule and Swiss ADME database. The decent bonding scores of secondary metabolites owing to hydrogen bonding with catalytic residues suggest the effectiveness of these phytochemicals towards 3CLpro. The results are further consolidated positively by Lipinski’s rule and Swiss ADME prediction. Thus reasonably, observations with docking studies suggest possibility of phytochemicals from Neolamarckia cadamba to inhibit the 3CLpro and consequently would be explored further as agents for preventing COVID-19

Development of an alternative low-cost cereal-based weaning food fortified with iron and vitamin A (retinol acetate)

The main objective of the study was to develop an alternative low-cost pearl millet-based weaning food followed by the fortification with iron and vitamin A (retinol acetate). The product was formulated as per the guidelines of Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2010 and prepared by using extruded pearl millet flour, extruded wheat flour, skim milk powder, whey protein concentrate-70 and sucrose in the ratio of 35, 25, 15, 5 and 20%, respectively. Electrolytic iron and vitamin A acetate were fortified at the level of 12mg/100g and 360 µg/100g of the product to meet 100 and 98.25% of the RDA for iron and vitamin A, respectively. The developed weaning food was analyzed for proximate composition and physicochemical properties. The average moisture content was 3.73±0.02% and average protein, fat, carbohydrate, ash and crude fiber content (on dry weight basis) was 15.32±0.06, 1.96±0.07, 79.58±0.06, 2.02±0.02 and 1.12±0.10%, respectively. The iron, vitamin A and ß-Carotene content were found to be 15mg, 393µg and 30.62µg per 100g of the product, respectively. Physical properties namely flow-ability, water absorption index, water solubility index were analyzed and values were observed to be 33.80±0.27, 9.28±0.17, 9.12±0.35%, respectively. The lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*) values of color for the developed product were 77.87±0.26, 2.15±0.12 and 17.43±0.08, respectively. Overall, it can be concluded that the well- developed product could serve as a potential delivery system of iron and vitamin A and could be an effective tool to deal with the micronutrients deficiency in infants

Glucocorticoid Receptor Confers Resistance to Antiandrogens by Bypassing Androgen Receptor Blockade

SummaryThe treatment of advanced prostate cancer has been transformed by novel antiandrogen therapies such as enzalutamide. Here, we identify induction of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression as a common feature of drug-resistant tumors in a credentialed preclinical model, a finding also confirmed in patient samples. GR substituted for the androgen receptor (AR) to activate a similar but distinguishable set of target genes and was necessary for maintenance of the resistant phenotype. The GR agonist dexamethasone was sufficient to confer enzalutamide resistance, whereas a GR antagonist restored sensitivity. Acute AR inhibition resulted in GR upregulation in a subset of prostate cancer cells due to relief of AR-mediated feedback repression of GR expression. These findings establish a mechanism of escape from AR blockade through expansion of cells primed to drive AR target genes via an alternative nuclear receptor upon drug exposure