Spectroscopic Investigation of Protein Corona

Nanotechnology has revolutionalized the landscape of modern science and technology, including materials, electronics, therapeutics, bioimaging, sensing, and the environment. Research in the past decade has examined the fate of nanomaterials in vitro and in vivo, as well as the interactions between nanoparticles and biological and ecosystems using primarily toxicological and ecotoxicological approaches. However, due to the versatility in the physical and physicochemical properties of nanoparticles, and due to the vast complexity of their hosting systems, the solubility, transformation, and biocompatibility of nanomaterials are still poorly understood. Nanotechnology has been undergoing tremendous development in recent decades, driven by realized perceived applications of nanomaterials in electronics, therapeutics, imaging, sensing, environmental remediation, and consumer products. Nanoparticles on entering the blood stream undergo an identity change, they become coated with proteins. There are different kind of proteins present in blood. Proteins compete for getting coated over the surface of nanoparticle and this whole entity of proteins coated over nanoparticle surface is called Protein Corona. Proteins tightly bound to the surface of nanoparticle form hard corona and the ones loosely bound on the outer surface form soft corona. This dissertation is aimed at spectroscopic investigation of Protein Corona Chapter I of this dissertation offers a comprehensive review of the literature based on nanomaterials with the focus on carbon based nanomaterilas and introduction to Protein Corona. Chapter II is based different methods used for Graphene Synthesis,different types of defects and doping. In Chapter III influence of defects on Graphene Protein Corona was investigated. Chapter IV is based on the study of Apoptosis induced cell death by Gold and silver nanoparticles. In vitro study of effect of Protein Corona on toxicity of cells was done

Indian Handicrafts: A Sustainable future of Utilitarian Consumer Goods

Utilitarian products are those which are designed to be useful rather than attractive. Handmade products are, thus, one among the wonders of Indian artisans, which are both useful and attractive at the same time. World-renowned Indian handicrafts are imported by several countries, which is highly supporting Indian art and culture. This is a source of livelihood for more than half of the unskilled labours and artisans of the Handicraft Industry. But with high-quality décor, luxurious items being exported to foreign lands, middleman income and trade fairs are sucking up most of the profits. Indian artisans and handicraft workers are therefore left with little income in hand except for the very famous art workers of big businessmen. This is one of the major problems which can be solved by encouraging the supply of handicrafts and domestic consumer demand. Since Indian consumers have been evolving through manufactured products, globalization, industrialization, etc. they are producing harmful effects on the environment and socio-economic conditions. Hence, it is very alarming for the handicraft sector to be able to protect its art and small business during an economic crisis. To address the small businesses and art of poor craftworkers this study intends to focus on the utilitarian aspect of handicrafts as being the sustainable alternative. The research broadly focusses on the socio-economic conditions of rural artisans and the environmental benefits of handicrafts by assessing the demand of domestic consumers and their perspectives. Based on primary data collected through the survey method, the study finds that domestic consumers are aware of the sustainable alternative handicrafts have to offer, while the utilitarian aspect has a vague response when it comes to purchasing handicrafts. However, demand for handicrafts is high because of their utilitarian aspect only. The study applied multiple regression analysis to analyse the results and conclude with suggestions based on qualitative research analysis to support rural handicraft artisans and small businesses. The study initiates a broad scope of research in consumer behaviour towards handicrafts in India as a sustainable alternative to mass production. This is one of the ways of supporting the cultural art forms as well as replenishing sustainability in the three major directions, which are economic, environmental & societal. Based on the empirical findings of this study, it concludes with the suggestions of co-existence with culture and sustainable development in India

Importance of Grassland Management for Carbon Sequestration and to Mitigate Climate Change: A Review

Grasslands, including rangelands, shrub lands, pastureland, and cropland sown with pasture and fodder crops, covered approximately 3.5 billion ha in 2000, representing 26 percent of the world land area and 70 percent of the world agricultural area, and containing about 20 percent of the world’s soil carbon stocks (Ramankutty et al., 2008). All ecosystems- forested ecosystems, agro-ecosystems, grassland, ecosystems etc. take up atmospheric CO2 and mineral nutrients and transform them into organic products In undisturbed ecosystems, the carbon balance tends to be positive: carbon uptake through photosynthesis exceeds losses from respiration, even in mature, old-growth forest ecosystems. Improving cropland and grassland management is key to increasing crop productivity without further degrading soil and water resources. At the same time, sustainable agriculture has the potential to deliver co-benefits in the form of reduced GHG emissions and increased carbon sequestration, therefore contributing to climate change mitigation

Evaluation of Nutritive Value of \u3cem\u3eAzolla pinnata\u3c/em\u3e

The water fern Azolla, which grows in association with the blue-green algae Anabaena azollae, a nitrogen fixing organism, is the most promising from the point of view of ease of cultivation, productivity and nutritive value. It grows naturally in stagnant water of drains, canals, ponds, rivers, marshy lands. Azolla can be used in animal feed and it is a potential feed ingredient for livestock; it is an income generating crop. Azolla is easily propagated but requires abundant standing water, relative humidity of 85-90%, pH of 4.5-6.5, salinity between 90-150 mg/L and adequate phosphorus for its nutritional needs. It is labour intensive, grows fast. Azolla doubles its weight in 3-5 days. From a start of 1t/ha, it can reach a fresh weight of 15-20 t/ha in about 20 days. Azolla is rich in protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals

Mineral Status of Livestock, Soil, Feeds and Fodders in Ajmer District of Rajasthan

A large number of Indian livestock suffer from deficiencies or imbalances in minerals because they are mainly maintained on crop residue based rations and grazing without access to mineral supplement (Mc Dowell et al., 1993). Deficiency or imbalance of single or multiple minerals results in enzymatic dysfunction and hormonal imbalance associated with fertility of animals (Maurice, 2003). In India where dietary concentration of fodder fed to the animals are unknown or highly variable due to availability, season, location, forage, species and animal potential (Sharma et al., 2003), it is important to determine plasma mineral concentrations in animal region wise, to estimate needs of livestock so as to obtain optimum productivity and to access the effect of mineral deficiencies on serum vitamins, hormone and enzyme profile. Limited information is available on the feeding practices and mineral status of livestock, soil and feed in Kekri block of Ajmer district. Keeping this in view the present study was conducted in Kekri block of Ajmer district to establish relationship for different minerals among livestock, soil and feed in order to suggest dietary supplementation of area specific mineral mixture

3D EMT distributions as an Abel image of 2D EMT distributions on the light-front

The energy-momentum tensor (EMT) and corresponding gravitational form factors (GFFs) provide us information about the internal structure like spin, mass and spatial densities of the proton. The Druck gravitational (D-term) form factor is related to the mechanical stability of the proton and gives information about the spatial distributions of the forces inside the hadron. In this work, we study the GFFs in the framework of the light-front quark diquark model. The model has been successful to derive various properties of protons. We investigate the three-dimensional spatial distributions of proton as an Abel image of two-dimensional distributions in this model[1]. We explicitly show the global and local stability conditions which are satisfied by both 2D and 3D distributions in our model. We compare our results with the chiral quark soliton model, JLab and lattice data.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Analytical Evaluation of Elastic Lepton-Proton Two-Photon Exchange in Chiral Perturbation Theory

We present an exact evaluation of the two-photon exchange contribution to the elastic lepton-proton scattering process at low-energies using heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. The evaluation is performed including next-to-leading order accuracy. This exact analytical evaluation contains all soft and hard two-photon exchanges and we identify the contributions missing in a soft-photon approximation approach. We evaluate the infrared divergent four-point box diagrams analytically using dimensional regularization. We also emphasize the differences between muon-proton and electron-proton scatterings relevant to the MUSE kinematics due to lepton mass differences.Comment: 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J. A , A short version was presented at the workshop in Trento July 202

The retina in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: a study of the prevalence and association with severity of disease in a tertiary referral centre in India

Background: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy remains to be a major cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The retina offers the unique opportunity to directly observe changes in the vasculature due to preeclampsia. Fundoscopy can be used to prognosticate and assess the severity of disease and offer an optimum time of delivery to improve fetomaternal outcome. There are limited number of studies from northern India assessing the relationship between hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and retinopathy. This study was undertaken to bridge this gap.Methods: This was an observational cohort study undertaken in a tertiary hospital, 225 patients of preeclampsia coming to the department were identified and a structured proforma used to gather relevant information. All patients underwent fundoscopy and were classified into groups on the basis of fundal grade observed. The groups were compared in terms of clinicodemographic variables. Appropriate statistical tests were applied.Results: A total 68% patients had retinal changes of which the most common grade was grade 1 There was a significant rise in the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure with increasing grade of fundal change. The (p-value 0.001). 65.5% of patients of preeclampsia without severe features (i.e. mild cases) had no retinopathy. None of these patients had grade 3 or 4 changes. In the patients of preeclampsia with severe features, 88.9% cases had varying degrees of retinopathy.Conclusions: As severity of preeclampsia increases, incidence of retinopathy also increases. Fundoscopy is a useful diagnostic aid and should be done to optimize fetomaternal outcome

The Taper This Time

On November 3, 2021, the Federal Open Market Committee announced that it would reduce the scale of its asset purchases by $15 billion a month starting immediately. Do emerging markets, such as India, need to prepare for a replay of the taper tantrum of 2013? We show that emerging markets, including India, have strengthened their external economic and financial positions since 2013. At the same time, fiscal deficits are much wider, and public debts are much heavier. As U.S. interest rates now begin moving up, servicing existing debts and preventing the debt-to-GDP ratio from rising still further will become more challenging. Either taxes have to be raised or public spending must be cut to generate additional revenues for debt servicing