Freedom of Religion and Belief in India and Australia: An Introductory Comparative Assessment of Two Federal Constitutional Democracies

This article considers the freedom of religion and belief (“free exercise”) in two secular federal constitutional democracies: India and Australia. Both constitutional systems emerged from the former British Empire and both continue in membership of the Commonwealth of Nations, which succeeded it. However, the similarities end there, for while both separate church and state, and protect free exercise, they do so in very different ways. On the one hand, the Indian Constitution contains express provisions which comprehensively deal with free exercise. On the other hand, while one finds what might appear a protection for free exercise in the Australian Constitution, that protection is far from comprehensive. Instead, unlike its Indian counterpart, the Australian federal democracy depends upon a piecemeal collection of Constitutional, legislative, and common law provisions which, when taken together, seem to achieve plenary protection for free exercise. Still, while India protects free exercise within a comprehensive constitutional framework, and while Australia does so in a disjointed and fragmentary way, both arrive at the same place: a constitutionalism characterized by secularism/separation of church and state combined with a corresponding comprehensive protection for free exercise

Porosome: the universal secretory portal in cells

In the past 50 years it was believed that during cell secretion, membrane-bound secretory vesicles completely merge at the cell plasma membrane resulting in the diffusion of intra-vesicular contents to the cell exterior and the compensatory retrieval of the excess membrane by endocytosis. This explanation made no sense or logic, since following cell secretion partially empty vesicles accumulate as demonstrated in electron micrographs. Furthermore, with the 'all or none' mechanism of cell secretion by complete merger of secretory vesicle membrane at the cell plasma membrane, the cell is left with little regulation and control of the amount of content release. Moreover, it makes no sense for mammalian cells to possess such 'all or none' mechanism of cell secretion, when even single-cell organisms have developed specialized and sophisticated secretory machinery, such as the secretion apparatus of Toxoplasma gondii, the contractile vacuoles in paramecium, or the various types of secretory structures in bacteria. Therefore, in the 1960's, experimental data concerning neurotransmitter release mechanisms by B. Katz and B. Folkow brilliantly hypothesized that limitation of the quantal packet may be set by the nerve membrane, in which case the size of the packet may actually correspond to just a fraction of the vesicle content. This conundrum in the molecular mechanism of cell secretion was finally resolved in 1997 following discovery of the porosome, the universal secretory machinery in the cell. Porosomes are supramolecular lipoprotein structures at the cell plasma membrane, where membrane-bound secretory vesicles transiently dock and fuse to release inravesicular contents to the outside during cell secretion. In the past decade, the composition of the porosome, its structure and dynamics at nanometer (nm) resolution and in real time, and its functional reconstitution into artificial lipid membrane, have all been elucidated. Since porosomes in exocrine and neuroendocrine cells measure 100-180 nm, and only 20-45% increase in porosome diameter is demonstrated following the docking and fusion of secretory vesicles (0.2-1.2 μm in diameter), it is concluded that secretory vesicles "transiently" dock and fuse, rather than completely merge at the base of the porosome complex to release their contents to the outside. In agreement, it has been demonstrated that "secretory granules are recaptured largely intact after stimulated exocytosis in cultured endocrine cells"; that "single synaptic vesicles fuse transiently and successively without loss of identity"; and that "zymogen granule (the secretory vesicle in exocrine pancreas) exocytosis is characterized by long fusion pore openings and preservation of vesicle lipid identity". In this review, the discovery of the porosome, resulting in a paradigm shift in our understanding of cell secretion, is briefly presented.Biomedical Reviews 2010; 21: 1-15

Complementary and Self-Complementary Hydrogen Bond Double Helical Complexes

The design of artificial or synthetic strands that self-assemble to form double-helical complexes have been of great interest to chemists and researchers since the discovery of the double helical DNA structure in 1953 by Watson and Crick. Most of the complexes were self-complementary double-helical homodimers and while few heterodimer complexes are also known. The present thesis describes the design, synthesis and characterization of complementary and self-complementary hydrogen bond arrays built from heterocycles such as pyridine, thiazine dioxide and indole connected in different sequences. The sequence-based stabilities, insolubility issues, substitution and preorganization effects in these arrays have been studied in detail. The design and syntheses of four self-complementary oligomers that contain an underlying AADD hydrogen bond Donor/Acceptor sequence are presented and their self-association examined in the solution and solid states. Substitution with electron donating and withdrawing groups and the influence of preorganization had a large effect on the overall stabilities of the complexes studied. A wide range (\u3e105 M-1) of stabilities were demonstrated and in the most extreme case, the dimerization constant measured (Kdimer ≥ 4.5 x 107 M-1) is comparable to the most stable homodimers of neutral coplanar AADD arrays reported to date. Two sets of DDD hydrogen bond arrays were synthesized that form triply hydrogen bonded double helical complexes with an AAA array when combined in CDCl3 solution. In contrast to the detrimental effect of appended alkyl chain arrays containing tethers between donor heterocycles displayed an increased stability in their association constants (Ka). The effect of introduction of a hexyl chain on the solubility of an originally insoluble (in CDCl3) DDD array based on three thiazine dioxides was studied. The association constants measured based on NMR titrations and ITC titrations demonstrate formation of a highly stable double-helical pair with a Ka valueof 1.4 x 105 M-1. A self-complementary double helical complex based on six hydrogen bond AAADDD array was also synthesized and displays very strong dimerization (Kdimer \u3e 4.5 x 107 M-1 in CDCl3) examined by NMR dilution and mixed solvent studies. These findings establish the high potential of the DDD array and the AAADDD array as monomer components to build supramolecular architectures or polymers

Application of PoF Based Virtual Qualification Methods for Reliability Assessment of Mission Critical PCBs

Reliability is the ability of a product to perform the function for which it was intended for a specified period of time (or cycles) for a given set of life cycle conditions. In today's compressed mission development cycles where designing, building and testing the physical models has to occur in a matter of months not years, Projects don't have the luxury of iteratively building and testing those models. Physics of failure (PoF) is an engineering-based approach to reliability that begins with an understanding of materials, processes, physical interactions, degradation and failure mechanisms, as well as identifying failure models. The PoF approach uses modeling and simulation to qualify a design and manufacturing process, with the ultimate intent of eliminating failures early in the design process by addressing the root cause. The physics-of-failure analysis proactively incorporates reliability into the design process by establishing a scientific basis for evaluating new materials, structures and technologies. Virtual physics-of-failure modeling allows engineers to determine if new technological node can be added to an existing system. This presentation will illustrate an application of a PoF based tool during the initial phases of a printed circuit board assembly development and how the NASA GSFC team was able to dynamically study the effects of electronics parts and printed circuit board material configuration changes under simulated thermal and vibrational stresse

Interparietal and pre-interparietal bones in the population of south coastal Andhra Pradesh, India

The squamous occipital bone consists of two parts: a cartilaginous supraoccipital part below and a membranous interparietal (IP) part above the highest nuchal line. The IP part develops from two pairs of ossification centres which form the two lateral plates and a median central piece. Any anomalous ossification of these centres gives rise to IP bones. Occasional separate ossified part of the IP region give rise pre-interparietal (PIP) bones which, when present, should be within the territory of the lambdoid suture. The present study was undertaken to observe the incidence of IP and PIP bones in skulls belonging to the south coastal population of Andhra Pradesh, India, hitherto unreported. In a total of 84 skulls, IP bones were found in 8 (9.5%) skulls and PIP bones in 6 (7.1%) skulls. The occurrence of IP and PIP bones can be correlated with the development of the squamous part of the occipital bones, and any alterations in the fusion of its ossification centres and its nuclei result in these anomalous bones. Knowledge of these bones may be important in dealing with situations resulting from fractures of occipital bones, and to rule out their incidence between races or populations in different parts of the world. (Folia Morphol 2011; 70, 3: 185–190

Indacaterol and salmeterol in COPD patients: a comparative study of efficacy and safety

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an airway disorder characterized by airflow limitation that is not fully reversible. Indacaterol is a novel, inhaled, once-daily, ultra-long-acting β2-agonist bronchodilator recently approved in India for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of indacaterol compared to twice-daily β2-agonist, salmeterol, as an active control. Methods: The present study was open, randomized parallel group comparison of two active treatment groups over a 12 week period. A total of 60 patients with moderate-to-severe COPD were randomised to treatment either with indacaterol (150 μg once daily) or with salmeterol (50 μg twice daily) and 51 (85%) patients completed the study. The efficacy parameters were change in FEV1, health related quality of life by measuring St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) total score and severity of dyspnoea as measured by Transition Dyspnoea Index (TDI) score which were assessed at baseline first and at weeks 4, 8 and 12. Results: Indacaterol increased FEV1 at week 4 by 50 ml, at week 8 and at week 12 by 60 ml over salmeterol and the increase was highly significant (p<0.001) at all stages of the study. Both treatments improved health status (SGRQ total score) and dyspnoea (TDI score), with differences between them favouring indacaterol. Safety profiles were similar across the treatment groups, and both indacaterol and salmeterol were well tolerated without any severe adverse events. Conclusions: Once-daily treatment with 150 μg indacaterol had a significant and clinically relevant bronchodilator effect and improved health status and dyspnoea to a greater extent than twice-daily 50 μg salmeterol. Indacaterol should prove a useful addition in the treatment of patients with COPD

Assessment of Security Trepidation in Cloud Applications with Enhanced Encryption Algorithms

To alleviate crank in routine process in IT related work environment we are maintaining information’s in cloud storage even though we affected by pandemic and other natural disaster still can able to access data by avoiding degrade in target process. Members who posses account in cloud no need to have separate high end configuration devices because even less configured devices could connect to cloud and make use of all services using virtual machine. Applications belong to cloud storage intimidated in the aspect of safety. This paper reviews the various security related issues and its causes along with latest cloud security attacks. We discussed about different technology to protect information resides in cloud and analyzed different enhanced algorithm for encryption for securing the data in cloud due to surge use of devices interacting cloud services

Prevalence, severity, causes and drugs used for depression, stress and anxiety among junior doctors in a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India

Background: Due to various reasons, junior doctors experience high level of stress in their workplace. However, very few studies have been done to analyze the stress levels and pertinent causative factors among junior doctors in India. So the present study was done to investigate the prevalence, severity and causes of depression, stress and anxiety among junior doctors along with the drugs used to mitigate them.Methods: A cross sectional, questionnaire based study was conducted on a total of 114 junior doctors who include 80 interns and 34 post graduates belonging to  2013-14 batch, utilizing the 21-item depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS 21). A personal interview was also conducted to enquire into the causes responsible for the stress and the medications employed by them to overcome it.Results: Among the interns, the mean depression score was 5.64±3.85, mean anxiety score was 6.69±3.86 and mean stress score was 7.33±3.22. Among the post graduates, the mean depression score was 4.73±2.15, mean anxiety score was 5.18±3.19 and mean stress score was 7.82±2.68. The percentage of junior doctors who had severe or extremely severe scores of depression was 11.40%, anxiety was 40.35% and stress was 9.65%. Alcohol was the most commonly used psychotropic drug (60.87%). Frequent calls during night duties and late working hours were the leading causes for stress among junior doctors.Conclusions: Overall higher stress was observed among post graduates compared to interns and females compared to males. Anxiety was more severe compared to depression and stress among junior doctors. Reducing working hours and increasing workplace flexibility are some measures to reduce stress among the junior doctors