Real Time Vehicle Identification: A Synchronous-Transmission Based Approach

Identification of the vehicles passing over the roads is a very important component of traffic monitoring/surveillance. There have been many attempts to design and develop efficient strategies to carry out the job. However, from the point of view of practical usefulness and real-time operation, most of them do not score well. In the current work, we perceive the problem as efficient real-time communication and data-sharing between the units in charge of recording the identities of the vehicles, i.e., Vehicle Recorders (VR), and the Vehicles (VE). We propose a strategy to address the issue with the help of Synchronous-Transmission (ST), which is a newer paradigm of communication compared to the traditional paradigm based on Asynchronous-Transmission (AT). First, we theoretically show that the presence of the physical layer phenomena called Capture-Effect in ST brings a significant benefit. Next, we also implement the strategy in a well-known IoT-Operating System Contiki, and compare its performance with the existing best-known strategy

The state of female autonomy in India: A stochastic dominance approach

The promotion of female autonomy is both intrinsically and instrumentally desirable. We document differences in the distribution of female autonomy in India (using the National Family Health Survey 2005–2006) addressing two methodological challenges: the multidimensional nature of the concept and its frequent measurement with ordinal variables (which are not amenable to direct comparisons of social averages). We tackle these challenges with three methods based on stochastic dominance techniques suited for ordinal and dichotomous variables. Whenever these dominance conditions hold for a pairwise comparison, we can conclude that the multidimensional autonomy distribution in one state is more desirable than in another one across a broad range of criteria for the individual and social welfare evaluation of autonomy. Consistently across the three methods, we find that most of the states with better autonomy distributions (in pairwise comparisons) come from the north east and the south, whereas most of the states with worse autonomy distributions come from the north

Capra cartilage-derived peptide delivery via carbon nano-dots for cartilage regeneration

Targeted delivery of site-specific therapeutic agents is an effective strategy for osteoarthritis treatment. The lack of blood vessels in cartilage makes it difficult to deliver therapeutic agents like peptides to the defect area. Therefore, nucleus-targeting zwitterionic carbon nano-dots (CDs) have immense potential as a delivery vehicle for effective peptide delivery to the cytoplasm as well as nucleus. In the present study, nucleus-targeting zwitterionic CDs have been synthesized as delivery vehicle for peptides while also working as nano-agents towards optical monitoring of cartilage healing. The functional groups of zwitterion CDs were introduced by a single-step microwave assisted oxidation procedure followed by COL II peptide conjugation derived from Capra auricular cartilage through NHS/EDC coupling. The peptide-conjugated CDs (PCDs) allows cytoplasmic uptake within a short period of time (∼30 m) followed by translocation to nucleus after ∼24 h. Moreover, multicolor fluorescence of PCDs improves (blue, green, and read channel) its sensitivity as an optical code providing a compelling solution towards enhanced non-invasive tracking system with multifunctional properties. The PCDs-based delivery system developed in this study has exhibited superior ability to induce ex-vivo chondrogenic differentiation of ADMSCs as compared to bare CDs. For assessment of cartilage regeneration potential, pluronic F-127 based PCDs hydrogel was injected to rabbit auricular cartilage defects and potential healing was observed after 60 days. Therefore, the results confirm that PCDs could be an ideal alternate for multimodal therapeutic agents

Screening of a Lactobacillus species (LAB M8) as probiotic: In vivo and In vitro study

Background: Probiotics are defined as “living microorganisms, which upon ingestion in certain numbers exert health benefits on the host beyond inherent basic nutrition”. Because of many potential health-promoting benefits, there continues to be considerable interest in the use of probiotics as biotherapeutic agents. Materials & Methods: For bacteria to exert any probiotic effect they have to be able to survive both in stomach acid (pH 1.5) and bile acids (pH 2.5).Growth of LAB M8 in presence of different concentration of bile salt was observed.  Bile Salt Hydrolase (BSH) activity of LAB M8 was checked. Test for cholesterol uptake by LAB M8 and antibiotic resistance was noticed. Results: LAB M8 was both acid tolerant and bile tolerant. In anaerobic condition LAB M8 can grow efficiently like aerobic condition. The bile salt deconjugation ability of LAB M8 was confirmed by observing the presence of zone of inhibition on plate assay. Conclusion: In conclusion, the probiotic strains isolated and characterized in this study have great potential as possible therapy for reducing cholesterol levels. The cholesterol-lowering effects of LAB M8 presented may be partially ascribed to BSH activity in vitro

Deciphering the Structural Intricacy in Virulence Effectors for Proton-motive Force Mediated Unfolding in Type-III Protein Secretion

Given that the protein unfolding requisite for type-III secretion system (T3SS)-mediated secretion is an energetically unfavorable process, the question of how do pathogenic bacteria unfold and secrete hundreds of toxic proteins in seconds remain largely unknown. In this study, a systematic effort combining experimental and computational approaches has been employed to get some mechanistic insights on the unfolding of effectors in T3SS secretion. The in-depth analysis of pH-dependent folding and stability of a T3SS effector ExoY revealed that proton-concentration gradient (~pH 5.8–6.0) generated by proton-motive force (PMF) had significantly affected folding and structural stability of this protein without significant loss of the free energy of unfolding. Importantly, the lower energetic cost associated with the global unfolding of ExoY was mainly due to its inherent stereo-chemical frustrations embedded within its native-like structure as observed from its core structural analysis. These observations suggest that the cooperation between the evolved structural features of ExoY and pH-mediated unfolding is crucial for PMF-mediated T3SS secretion. From a comprehensive computational analysis of 371 T3SS effectors it was concluded that many of these effectors belong to the category of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and have similar conserved structural archetypes to facilitate early-stage unfolding process as observed in ExoY. We had also provided details of folding, stability, and molecular evolution in T3SS effectors and established the role of evolved structural archetypes in early-stage unfolding events of this effector for maintaining balance in secretion and function trade-off

Epitranscriptomics in parasitic protists: Role of RNA chemical modifications in posttranscriptional gene regulation.

"Epitranscriptomics" is the new RNA code that represents an ensemble of posttranscriptional RNA chemical modifications, which can precisely coordinate gene expression and biological processes. There are several RNA base modifications, such as N6-methyladenosine (m6A), 5-methylcytosine (m5C), and pseudouridine (Ψ), etc. that play pivotal roles in fine-tuning gene expression in almost all eukaryotes and emerging evidences suggest that parasitic protists are no exception. In this review, we primarily focus on m6A, which is the most abundant epitranscriptomic mark and regulates numerous cellular processes, ranging from nuclear export, mRNA splicing, polyadenylation, stability, and translation. We highlight the universal features of spatiotemporal m6A RNA modifications in eukaryotic phylogeny, their homologs, and unique processes in 3 unicellular parasites-Plasmodium sp., Toxoplasma sp., and Trypanosoma sp. and some technological advances in this rapidly developing research area that can significantly improve our understandings of gene expression regulation in parasites

A study on C-reactive protein as an early marker of vasococclusive crisis in sickle disorders

Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) patients often seek care in the Emergency Department (ED) due to vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC), the most common complication of SCD. Currently, no diagnostic test can determine if a SCD patient is having an acute VOC. Methodology: Irrespective of the clinical diagnosis and type of sickle cell crises the confirmation of haemoglobin pattern in sickle cell disease patients and healthy subjects were done by sickling test, hemoglobin electrophoresis or high performance liquid chromatography. Results: Irrespective of age and sex, most common variety of vaso-occlusive crisis was bony crisis including hand foot syndrome. About 91.2% patients demonstrated CRP positivity during the early phase of vaso-occlusive crisis. Subsequently the CRP positivity rate declined in the mid phase (28%) and late phase (2.4%) of vaso-occlusive crisis reflecting response to therapy. There is a significant difference of CRP status between non vasoocclusive and vaso–occlusive crisis of sickle cell disease patients. About 96.3% patients of non vaso-occlusive crisis became CRP negative during their whole course of their crisis. Conclusion: Analysis of large number of cases with sickle cell vaso-occlusive crisis with quantitative serial measurement of CRP level is needed for better evaluation of patients during prodromal phase for effective and better management of these patients

Explainable Pathfinding for Inscrutable Planners with Inductive Logic Programming

The complexity of the solutions that artificial intelligence can learn to solve problems currently surpasses its ability to explain these solutions. In many domains, explainable solutions are a necessary condition while optimality is not. Therefore, we seek to constrain solutions to the space of solutions that can be explained to a human. To do this, we build on inductive logic programming (ILP) techniques that allow us to define robust background knowledge and inductive biases. By combining ILP with a given inscrutable planner, we are able to construct an explainable graph representing solutions to all states in the state space. This graph can then be summarized using a variety of methods such as hierarchical representations and simple if/else rules. We test our approach on Towers of Hanoi and discuss future work for applications to the Rubik’s cube