Fishery potential of the Thana-Bassein creek system

Quantitative variation in fish catch at Thana Creek was found 2-93.5 kg/h (av. 24.8 kg/h). The catch rate at Bassein Creek fluctuated between 1 and 34 kg/h (av. 8.2 kg/h). Seasonal effect on the fishery showed maximum catch for premonsoon and monsoon periods respectively for Thana and Bassein Creeks. The catch composition showed dominance of catfish and sciaenids at Thana Creek while engraulids predominated the collections from Bassein Creek. The overall fishery potential showed that yield from Thana Creek was three times more than the Bassein Creek. The importance of this baseline data for future monitoring and ecological assessment of the creek system is discussed

Some Classes of Multivariate Life Distributions in Discrete Time

AbstractNew classes of multivariate survival distribution functions based on monotonic behaviour of a multivariate failure rate are developed in the discrete set up. Relationship among the classes along with multivariate geometric distributions that act as boundaries of the various classes are identified

Synthesis of Reduced Graphene Oxide Using Novel Exfoliation Technique and its Characterizations

For processing of graphene based composite materials Graphene oxide is considered to be the main precursor. Though epitaxial growth and chemical vapor deposition techniques have been utilized to get monolayers of graphene, wet chemical process have been used for its large scale synthesis. For the extraction of graphene monolayer the chemical route relies on the weakening of the Van der Waals cohesive force upon the insertion of reactants in the inter layer space as a consequence sp2 lattice is partially degraded into a sp2-sp3 sheet that possesses a less π-π stacking stability. The method described here uses a novel chemical exfoliation technique. The graphite from the pencil lead is used as the precursor and it is treated with alcohol-ketone-surfactant mixture and mechanically and thermally agitated so as to get the golden brown colored suspension. The material was characterized by Fourier Transform Infra Red spectroscopy. The absence of 1570 cm – 1 peak clearly indicates the oxidation of C = C bonds. The SEM images confirmed the presence of the nanoplatelets of graphene oxide. The AFM analysis confirmed the sheet thickness of the graphene oxide sheets to be < 5 nm. The sheet resistance of the sheets of thermally treated graphene oxide or reduced graphene oxide on Si wafer (p-type, 4-6 Ω/cm) was measured as 200-300 Ω/□. The Ellipsometric characterisations also matches with that of the thermally reduced graphene oxide films formed. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/3102

A novel bioinformatics approach to characterize and integrate messenger RNAs, circular RNAs and micro RNAs

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.April 2018. Major: Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology. Advisors: Krishna Kalari, Subbaya Subramanian. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 116 pages.High-throughput Next Generation RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) technology is affluent with information about the transcriptome, which includes both protein-coding and multiple non-coding regions. In a diseased state, complex interactions between these regions can go awry. Identification of such interactions is critical to translate the underlying biology of the transcriptome, especially for lethal diseases such as cancer. The field of bioinformatics is currently deficient in workflows that can analyze both coding and non-coding regions together efficiently, to identify disease-specific interactions. In this dissertation, I developed three coherent bioinformatics solutions that aim to address these shortcomings in RNA-Seq. First, a comprehensive workflow called MAPR-Seq was developed to analyze and report various features of protein-coding messenger RNAs. Second, a workflow for non-coding circular RNAs, called Circ-Seq, was developed to identify, quantify and annotate expressed circular RNAs. Third, an integration workflow called ReMIx was developed to identify microRNA response elements (MREs) and integrate them with the different types of RNAs (messenger RNAs, circular RNAs, and microRNAs). Collectively, the three workflows were applied to the largest cohort of breast cancer samples (n=885) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Based on the results obtained from these workflows, I present several key findings that are pertinent to breast cancer. I show that circular RNAs may be a marker for tumor proliferation in estrogen response positive (ER+) breast cancer subtype. I also show how triple negative (TN) breast cancer subtype-specific MRE signatures of messenger RNA – microRNA interactions can be obtained using RNA-Seq data, which has not been explored to date and thus, is a novel undertaking. In the end, my results highlight candidate messenger RNAs, circular RNAs and microRNAs that are found to be associated with MAPK and PI3K/AKT signaling cascades in TN breast cancer subtype. In general, the developed bioinformatics solutions can also be applied to RNA-Seq data of other cancer subtypes and diseases to identify unique messenger RNA – microRNA – circular RNA candidates that could be promising diagnostic targets towards improving treatment options for complex diseases

Biological evaluation of 5-fluorouracil nanoparticles for cancer chemotherapy and its dependence on the carrier, PLGA

Nanoscaled devices have great potential for drug delivery applications due to their small size. In the present study, we report for the first time the preparation and evaluation of antitumor efficacy of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-entrapped poly (D, L-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles with dependence on the lactide/glycolide combination of PLGA. 5-FU-loaded PLGA nanoparticles with two different monomer combinations, 50-50 and 90-10 were synthesized using a modified double emulsion method, and their biological evaluation was done in glioma (U87MG) and breast adenocarcinoma (MCF7) cell lines. 5-FU-entrapped PLGA 50-50 nanoparticles showed smaller size with a high encapsulation efficiency of 66%, which was equivalent to that of PLGA 90-10 nanoparticles. Physicochemical characterization of nanoparticles using differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction suggested the presence of 5-FU in molecular dispersion form. In vitro release studies showed the prolonged and sustained release of 5-FU from nanoparticles with both the PLGA combinations, where PLGA 50-50 nanoparticles showed faster release. Nanoparticles with PLGA 50-50 combination exhibited better cytotoxicity than free drug in a dose- and time-dependent manner against both the tumor cell lines. The enhanced efficiency of PLGA 50-50 nanoparticles to induce apoptosis was indicated by acridine orange/ethidium bromide staining. Cell cycle perturbations studied using flow cytometer showed better S-phase arrest by nanoparticles in comparison with free 5-FU. All the results indicate that PLGA 50-50 nanoparticles possess better antitumor efficacy than PLGA 90-10 nanoparticles and free 5-FU. Since, studies have shown that long-term exposure of ailing tissues to moderate drug concentrations is more favorable than regular administration of higher concentration of the drug; our results clearly indicate the potential of 5-FU-loaded PLGA nanoparticles with dependence on carrier combination as controlled release formulation to multiplex the therapeutic effect of cancer chemotherapy

Environmental and hormonal control of vernal migration in redheaded bunting (Emberiza bruniceps)

This paper reviews the factors and mechanisms which result in the development of the metabolic state characteristic of migration with special reference to a palaeotropic migrant the redheaded bunting, Emberiza bruniceps. Changes in climatic conditions and food supply act as proximate triggers of migratory behaviour in partial migrants. Typical migrants like buntings use daylength as a cue but the exact mechanism of how photoperiodic information is translated in terms of migratory events is still not known. Almost entirely the photoperiodic effects have been explained on the basis of the involvement of hypothalamo/hypophyseal system. We feel mechanism(s) other than those acting through neuroendocrine system may be equally important. Furthermore the role of temperature has not been adequately explored so far. Our observations indicate the possibility that redheaded buntings might integrate the information received from photoperiod with environmental temperature (and other factors?) resulting in the development of migratory state. The physiological control of avian migration is much less understood. Majority of papers have centered around the 'gonadal hypothesis' of Rowan supporting or contradicting it without providing conclusive evidence. Pituitary prolactin has also been shown to be implicated although the mechanism of action is only speculative. Conclusive evidence for the involvement of thyroid hormones (thyroxine, T4; triiodothyronine, T3) in the physiological timing of migration has been produced attributing independent roles to T4 and T3. It is suggested that seasonal variation in peripheral conversion of T4 to T3 could serve as an effective strategy to render available the required thyroid hormones T4 and/or T3 during different phases of the year thus accounting for the metabolic switch over from T4-dependent moult to T3-dependent migratory fat deposition and zugunruhe and also ensuring preclusion of simultaneous occurrence of these mutually incompatible events. Considering that the number of environmental and physiological factors influence this mechanism and considering that thyroid hormone molecule has been put to a wide range of usage during the course of evolution the mechanism(s) of peripheral conversion of T4-T3 may assume great flexibility and have selective value-especially in migration which is known to have evolved several times in diverse avian families. The attractiveness of this hypothesis lies in the fact that it has potential to explain the both physiological development of the metabolic state of migration and at the same time the physiological timing of migration not only with respect to the cycle of environment but also with respect to other conflicting seasonal events (moult and reproduction)

Network Traffic Behavioral Analytics for Detection of DDoS Attacks

As more organizations and businesses in different sectors are moving to a digital transformation, there is a steady increase in malware, facing data theft or service interruptions caused by cyberattacks on network or application that impact their customer experience. Bot and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks consistently challenge every industry relying on the internet. In this paper, we focus on Machine Learning techniques to detect DDoS attack in network communication flows using continuous learning algorithm that learns the normal pattern of network traffic, behavior of the network protocols and identify a compromised network flow. Detection of DDoS attack will help the network administrators to take immediate action and mitigate the impact of such attacks. DDoS attacks are costing enterprises anywhere between $50,000 to$2.3 million per year. We performed experiments with Intrusion Detection Evaluation Dataset (CICIDS2017) available from Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity to detect anomalies in network traffic. We use flow based traffic characteristics to analyze the difference in pattern between normal vs anomaly packet.We evaluate several supervised classification algorithms using metrics like maximum detection accuracy, lowest false negatives prediction, time taken to train and run. We prove that decision tree based Random Forest is the most promising algorithm whereas Dense Neural network performs equally well on certain DDoS types but require more samples to improve the accuracy of low sampled attacks

PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF CHITOSAN SODIUM ALGINATE CARBAMAZEPINE MICROSPHERES

ABSTRACTObjective: The objective behind our study is that a mucoadhesive rectal hydrogel chitosan sodium alginate carbamazepine (CBZ) microspheres forthe purpose of controlled release for the treatment of epilepsy to avoid the possible side effects.Methods: The study was conducted to formulate controlled release chitosan sodium alginate CBZ microspheres with the dispersion of CBZ into thenatural polymers chitosan and sodium alginate forming microspheres conducting along with their evaluation studies.Results: The formulated microspheres were subjected to various evaluation parameters, and all the physical parameters examined are within theacceptable limits. Further, the optimized microsphere formulation (CM5) was characterized. Hence, the developed optimized microsphere formulation(CM5) seems to be a viable substitute to conventional drug delivery system for the effective management of epilepsy.Conclusion: The prepared formulation also provides a desired CBZ loaded sodium alginate microspheres with the controlled release drug delivery.Keywords: Carbamazepine, Sodium alginate microspheres, Particle size

In vitro regeneration of Brahmi (Bacopa monnieri (Linn.) Pennell) - an important medicinal herb through nodal segment culture

An efficient and cost effective in vitro plant regeneration protocol through nodalsegment culture was achieved in the medicinally important herb Bacopa monnieri (L.)Pennell, the Memory Plus plant through axillary shoot proliferation in Murashige and Skooge medium augmented with varying concentrations of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP)1 - 5 mg/l. BAP at 2 mg/l was the most effective in multiple shoot induction and mean number of leaves, which gave an average of 17 shoots and 31.11 leaves, compared toother concentrations of the hormone tried in 35 days of culture. Regarding mean shoot length and number of nodes, basal MS giving 2.66 cm long shoots with 7.44 nodes is thebest. MS basal medium, even though not promoting shoot multiplication, gave highershoot length with elongated internodes. Healthy rooting of the in vitro developed shootswas achieved in half and full strength MS basal solid medium without the addition ofany hormones. The healthy and vigorous in vitro regenerated micro shoots wereseparated out and were hardened on transfer to plastic cups with sterile soil and sandand were successfully acclimatized ex vitro in pots with potting mixture under greenhouse conditions for 3 weeks. The survival rate was 100% and the plants establishedwell in green house resembled the mother plants in habitat without any morphological variations. The very simple and cost effective protocol developed can be used to produceelite stable clones for en masse propagation for the large-scale cultivation of this very important medicinal herb