Evaluation of in vitro antibacterial property of seaweeds of southeast coast of India

The in vitro antibacterial activities of seaweeds belong to Chlorophyceae (Caulerpa racemosa and Ulva lactuca), Rhodophyceae (Gracillaria folifera and Hypneme muciformis) and Phaeophyceae (Sargassum myricocystum, Sargassum tenneerimum and Padina tetrastomatica) were studied against both Gramnegative and Gram-positive pathogenic bacteria. Methanolic extracts of all seaweed extracts tested in the present study exhibited broad spectrum of antibacterial activity. Chlorophyceae members showedhigh antibacterial activity than other members of the algae tested in the present investigation. Escherchia coli alone resistant to all the seaweed extracts except S. teneerimum. Results of the present study confirmed the potential use of seaweed extracts as a source of antibacterial compounds

Kuru Nila Mannargal (Feudal Lords) showing the Natrinai

The names of Cirraracan refer to the Kuru Nila Mannargal (Feudal Lords)of the Sangam age who were not Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas, especially the Velir army. According to the sangam age war traditions, the war begins at sunrise in the morning. References are indicated that when the sun sets, they will break down and stop the war. Malayan's martial prowess is shown in the historical accounts in which the Aryan army ran away, fearing the army of Mullur Malayan. Many of these kings excelled in giving the goods they possessed to the debtors. This article explores with such cirraracan, generals, and their specialties

The life struggles of transgenders in the Nerupatril Neenthi Vandhen

Society looks down upon the birth of transgenders due to genetic mutations. In her autobiography, Padmini says that transgenders should be aware of the mental barriers, dilemmas and physical problems within themselves, create clear good thinking and live with self-confidence. It should be clear that there is transgender just as the human race is male and female. Padmini Prakash's autobiography Nerupatril Neenthi Vandhen (I Swam in the Fire) tells us that we need to respect the spirit of transgenders who are born as one of us and want to live with us. The struggles of transgenders in the society and their names, their inhibitions in society now, the changes made by the social reform thinkers are recorded. Padmini proudly records the achievements of transgenders, social service, work session, making a mark for themselves and gaining their identity in life

NEUROPROTECTIVE EFFECT OF SARGASSUM ILICIFOLIUM TURNER C. AGARDH ON ACETYLCHOLINESTERASE ACTIVITY AND ATTENUATION OF SCOPOLAMINE-INDUCED AMNESIA IN RODENTS

ABSTRACTObjective: In day to day life, occupational stress is responsible for oxidative stress by altering sleep cycle. Scopolamine induction of amnesia correlatesto stress-induced amnesia in youngsters. Hence, the present study was aimed to investigate the anti-amnesic effect of ethanolic extract and ethylacetate fraction of Sargassum ilicifolium Turner (C. Agardh) against scopolamine.Methods: In this study, seven groups of animals were used and scopolamine (0.4 mg/kg b.wt/intraperitoneally) was administered to all groups exceptpositive control to induce memory loss. Elevated plus maze, Morris water maze served as an exteroceptive behavioral model in testing memory inyoung rats. Brain acetylcholinesterase, a biomarker enzyme was estimated. Finally histopathology of cerebral cortex was performed.Results: The extract and fraction treated group showed an interesting result in memory scores, and the significant enzyme inhibition might beresponsible to attenuate acetylcholine in cholinergic neurons to enhance memory. Finally, histopathology of cerebral cortex proved the neuroprotectiveeffect of S. ilicifolium. All the results were statistically significant.Conclusion: Neuroprotective role of S. ilicifolium Turner C.Agardh was highlighted well in this study and it will be interesting infuture to dissect outthe kinetics of individual components in the fraction and to strengthen the phytomolecule role by insilico studies.Keywords: Learning, Memory, Acetylcholinesterase, Sargassum ilicifolium Turner (C. Agardh)

Effect of Sintering Temperature on Metal-Insulator Phase Transition in La1-xCaxMnO3 Perovskites

Lanthanum calcium based perovskites are found to be advantageous for the possible applications in magnetic sensors/reading heads, cathodes in solid oxide fuel cells, and frequency switching devices. In the present investigation La0.3Ca0.7MnO3 perovskites were synthesised through solid state reaction and sintered at four different temperatures such as 900, 1000, 1100 and 1200˚ C. X-ray powder diffraction pattern confirms that the prepared La0.3Ca0.7MnO3 perovskites have orthorhombic structure with Pnma space group. Ultrasonic in-situ measurements have been carried out on the La0.3Ca0.7MnO3 perovskites over wide range of temperature and elastic constants such as bulk modulus of the prepared La0.3Ca0.7MnO3 perovskites was obtained as function of temperature. The temperature-dependent bulk modulus has shown an interesting anomaly at the metal-insulator phase transition. The metal insulator transition temperature derived from temperature-dependent bulk modulus increases from temperature 352˚ C to 367˚ C with the increase of sintering temperature from 900 to 1200˚ C

On the robustness of bucket brigade quantum RAM

We study the robustness of the bucket brigade quantum random access memory model introduced by Giovannetti, Lloyd, and Maccone [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 160501 (2008)]. Due to a result of Regev and Schiff [ICALP '08 pp. 773], we show that for a class of error models the error rate per gate in the bucket brigade quantum memory has to be of order $o(2^{-n/2})$ (where $N=2^n$ is the size of the memory) whenever the memory is used as an oracle for the quantum searching problem. We conjecture that this is the case for any realistic error model that will be encountered in practice, and that for algorithms with super-polynomially many oracle queries the error rate must be super-polynomially small, which further motivates the need for quantum error correction. By contrast, for algorithms such as matrix inversion [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 150502 (2009)] or quantum machine learning [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 130503 (2014)] that only require a polynomial number of queries, the error rate only needs to be polynomially small and quantum error correction may not be required. We introduce a circuit model for the quantum bucket brigade architecture and argue that quantum error correction for the circuit causes the quantum bucket brigade architecture to lose its primary advantage of a small number of "active" gates, since all components have to be actively error corrected.Comment: Replaced with the published version. 13 pages, 9 figure

Using cultural probes to inform the design of assistive technologies

This paper discusses the practical implications of applying cultural probes to drive the design of assistive technologies. Specifically we describe a study in which a probe was deployed with home-based carers of people with dementia in order to capture critical data and gain insights of integrating the technologies into this sensitive and socially complex design space. To represent and utilise the insights gained from the cultural probes, we created narratives based on the probe data to enhance the design of assistive technologies.This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/K00266X/1) and RCUK through the Horizon Digital Economy Research grant (EP/G065802/1)

Diversity pattern elucidating choice of parents for hybridization in varieties of groundnut, Arachis hypogaea L.

Genetic divergence within and between the four varietal groups, Spanish bunch, Valencia, Virginia bunch and Virginia runner, of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) was assessed by Mahalanobis's D2 statistic using a representative sample of 40 germplasm lines in each group. Estimates of divergence were based on 17 characters spanning the seedling, flowering, post-flowering and harvest stages. The diversity within bunch groups was high enough to form six different clusters out of the total sixteen. The method used was thus efficient in diagnosing within-group divergence. The clustering pattern of the varieties remained essentially the same when the experiment was repeated on a sub-sample of 48 germplasm lines in the next season. The results revealed that identified bunch x bunch crosses involving divergent parents could combine earliness with productivity, and should be used to complement the currently advocated bunch x runner crosses. Flowering time, weight of mature pods, shelling percentage and seedling attributes, like number of leaves and shoot-root dry weight ratio, were found to be important in assessing genetic variance

Integrating lean and six sigma for optimum manufacturing performance

Recent manufacturing industry reports and research indicate that the majority of companies seeking to achieve world class performance, or improve their business performance in an increasingly competitive market, have not been able to change at a reasonably fast rate towards achieving their performance targets such as lead time, delivery, quality and cost. This paper attempts to study the effectiveness of lean and six sigma, two of the most popular performance improvement methodologies used by manufacturers today, and highlights their strengths and weaknesses, investigates the rationale behind combining them. The study also explores the most effective way of integrating the two philosophies to achieve improvement at a fast rate. Most published research on integrating lean and six sigma have been only descriptive. Descriptive research is an important step towards explaining the rationale of integrating lean and six sigma, however, empirical research on lean six sigma is characterised by lack of attention to implementation know how, resulting in the need to focus on the operational side