Mining Frequent Itemsets Using Genetic Algorithm

In general frequent itemsets are generated from large data sets by applying association rule mining algorithms like Apriori, Partition, Pincer-Search, Incremental, Border algorithm etc., which take too much computer time to compute all the frequent itemsets. By using Genetic Algorithm (GA) we can improve the scenario. The major advantage of using GA in the discovery of frequent itemsets is that they perform global search and its time complexity is less compared to other algorithms as the genetic algorithm is based on the greedy approach. The main aim of this paper is to find all the frequent itemsets from given data sets using genetic algorithm

Vesicular (liposomal and nanoparticulated) delivery of curcumin: a comparative study on carbon tetrachloride–mediated oxidative hepatocellular damage in rat model

The liver plays a vital role in biotransforming and extricating xenobiotics and is thus prone to their toxicities. Short-term administration of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) causes hepatic inflammation by enhancing cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, promoting mitochondrial dysfunction, and inducing cellular apoptosis. Curcumin is well accepted for its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties and can be considered as an effective therapeutic agent against hepatotoxicity. However, its therapeutic efficacy is compromised due to its insolubility in water. Vesicular delivery of curcumin can address this limitation and thereby enhance its effectiveness. In this study, it was observed that both liposomal and nanoparticulated formulations of curcumin could increase its efficacy significantly against hepatotoxicity by preventing cellular oxidative stress. However, the best protection could be obtained through the polymeric nanoparticle-mediated delivery of curcumin. Mitochondria have a pivotal role in ROS homeostasis and cell survivability. Along with the maintenance of cellular ROS levels, nanoparticulated curcumin also significantly (P,0.0001) increased cellular antioxidant enzymes, averted excessive mitochondrial destruction, and prevented total liver damage in CCl4-treated rats. The therapy not only prevented cells from oxidative damage but also arrested the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. In addition, it also decreased the fatty changes in hepatocytes, centrizonal necrosis, and portal inflammation evident from the histopathological analysis. To conclude, curcumin-loaded polymeric nanoparticles are more effective in comparison to liposomal curcumin in preventing CCl4-induced oxidative stress–mediated hepatocellular damage and thereby can be considered as an effective therapeutic strategy

Antibiotic sensitivity pattern of bacterial isolates from sputum samples of admitted patients with acute lower respiratory tract infections in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Tripura: a hospital record-based study

Background: Antibiotics are frequently used for various infectious diseases e.g., acute lower respiratory tract infection (ALRTI). But, injudicious use of antibiotics often leads to antibiotic resistance which is an emerging problem. The objective of this study was taken up to analyse the antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of pathogens isolated from the sputum samples of admitted patients suffering from ALRTI in a tertiary care teaching hospital.Methods: It is a hospital record-based study with a sample size of 393.Results: Klebsiella (52.16%) was the most common organism followed by Acinetobacter (13.49%) and Pseudomonas (13.23%) isolated from the sputum sample. Imipenem, piperacillin/tazobactam combination and gentamicin was sensitive against Klebsiella and Pseudomonas and the association were statistically significant. Acinetobacter was resistant to ceftriaxone.Conclusions: The commonest pathogens isolated from the sputum samples were Klebsiella followed by Acinetobacter and Pseudomonas. Imipenem, piperacillin/tazobactam combination and gentamicin was sensitive against Klebsiella and Pseudomonas

Unusual redox activity of composite alkaline earth metal oxides and reduced graphene oxide system

Reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) impregnated on alkaline earth oxides (Group 2) (CaO, SrO, BaO) matrix following mechanical mixing, thermal annealing and subsequent cold shock has synthesized a new electrochemical material. The characterization has been carried out by Fourier Transformation Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD) measurements in µm dimension. Thermal stability has been checked by Thermal Gravimetric Analysis and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (TGA-DSC). Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) of the composites show anodic peak potential (Epa) order rGO-CaO (-0.6 V) < rGO-SrO (-0.4 V) < rGO-BaO (-0.3 V) which also follows ordering of ionic size, Ca2+ (100 pm) < Sr2+ (118 pm) < Ba2+ (135 pm). This character becomes more prominent as we move down the Group 2. Thermal stability of these coupled systems also increases down the group

Role of polyvinyl pyrrolidone as a capping agent in the synthesis of magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles

Uncapped magnetite (Fe3O4) and magnetite capped with polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) (Fe3O4-PVP) have been synthesized by a rapid, cost effective aqueous precipitation method. The nanoparticles are characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and UV spectroscopy. The role of PVP as a capping agent in the synthesis of magnetite nanoparticles has been investigated. Thermal stability and surface charge of the nanoparticles have been characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and zeta potential measurements. Results suggest that PVP as a capping agent reduces the grain size, regularizes the shape, and increases the crystallinity of Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Thermal stability and surface charge of Fe3O4-PVP nanoparticles are also significantly higher as compared to the uncapped Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Magnetic characterization by vibrating sample magnetometry of both Fe3O4 and Fe3O4-PVP nanoparticles indicates the superparamagnetic behavior of the nanoparticles.

Silent Conversations in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and Ruskin Bond’s Rusty novels

The essay undertakes an analysis of the connections and conversations between Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1901) and Ruskin Bond’s largely autobiographical Rusty (1955-) novels. Kipling’s Kim has evoked many literary responses and reactions across India. While writers such as Sarath Kumar Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore, T.N. Murari, and even Sashi Tharoor have boldly written back to Kim, Ruskin Bond silently acknowledges it in his Rusty series of children’s fiction. At times, Bond’s pointed and conscious avoidance of Kipling becomes his means of accepting Kipling’s influence on him. The essay traces the implicit dialogue between these two Anglo-Indian authors and their protagonists. It undertakes a close reading of their novels to analyse the evolution of English literature and Anglo-Indianism in India, while also examining the divided identities of the authors and their fictional protagonists

A Literature of One's Own: British Literary Influence on the Development of Indian Children's Genres

Abstract “We become writers before we learn to write. The rest is simply learning how to put it all together.” Ruskin Bond “The 1835 English Education Act of William Bentinck,” states Gauri Viswanathan in Masks of Conquest (1989) “which swiftly followed Macaulay’s minute of that same year, officially required the natives of India to submit to the study of English literature” (45), thereby establishing its presence as an ineluctable result of colonial rule. English literature played a pivotal role in the colonial project and according to colonialists like the former governor-general Lord Hardinge and James Mill, would both “control” (Viswanathan, 91) and endow educated natives with “a chance of having their understandings better enlightened” (Viswanathan, 91), thereby ‘rescuing’ them from the realms of ignorance. This thesis argues that Indian children’s literature draws on the influence of English literature and takes shape in accordance with English genre conventions, while adapting these conventions to produce a distinct and unique canon of juvenile writing (for children privileged enough to read), which is far removed from colonial, ‘civilising’ intentions. My research demonstrates how the consumption of and engagement with British literary genres by Indian writers of juvenile literature helped define a local literary identity of the colonised child.Significantly, Indian children’s literature from the 19th century onwards is not merely a derivative discourse, which would have only furthered the colonial agenda. Instead, its complex interactions with English literature result in a range of localised adaptations, radical appropriations, and subtle subversions of British genres, all of which developed in accordance with the evolving notion of Indian childhood. This thesis focuses on, but is not restricted to, the literature emerging from Bengal, since Calcutta was the Imperial capital until 1911 and the seat of colonial education. The chapters on science fiction, the adventure story, detective fiction and the ghost story set out to survey the field in Bengal before focusing on close readings of Bengali texts by writers like Satyajit Ray, Leela Majumdar, Premendra Mitra, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Hemendra Kumar Roy among others, all of whom acknowledge their debt to English literature. The next two chapters titled “In the Jungle” and “The Anglo-Indian Conversation” study the lasting influence of Kipling’s legacy on the English writing of the Bengali-American expatriate Dhan Gopal Mukerji and the Anglo-Indian writer Ruskin Bond. The final chapter offers a close reading of “Bhondar Bahadur” (1926), a short story in the vernacular by Gaganendranath Tagore which is inspired by a classic text of English literature, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The conclusion presents a short reading of Ruskin Bond’s novella, The Blue Umbrella (1980) to reinforce the arguments of the thesis, meditates on whether Indian adaptations of English genres have successfully rescued juvenile readers from the peripheries of readership and offers some insight into the current energies of children’s writing emerging from contemporary India.</p

Cadmium induced histopathology in the olfactory epithelium of a snakehead fish, Channa punctatus (Bloch)

Histopathology on the olfactory organ of a snakehead fish, Channa punctatus (Bloch, 1793) were assessed after exposing the fish to 2.5 mg/L and 5mg/L of CdCl2 for 15 days, 30 days and 45 days. Cellular organization of the epithelium was affected severely with degeneration of sensory and supporting cells and hyperplasia of basal cells and mucous cells. Mucous cell proliferation indicates the upregulation of mucous secretion to protect the epithelium from toxic effect of cadmium. The olfactory epithelium was endowed with the multipotent basal cells which differentiate into sensory cells, supporting cells and other cell types of the epithelium during normal cells turn over and in the event of cell death.  However, due to cadmium exposure proliferating basal cells failed to differentiate into normal cells and the undifferentiated proliferated cell formed lump and intraepithelial lesion altering the composition of the entire epithelium. Present study indicates that in prolonged exposure to cadmium chloride olfactory functions of the fish might be impaired due to loss of all sensory cells

A novel Neuro-fuzzy classification technique for data mining

AbstractIn our study, we proposed a novel Neuro-fuzzy classification technique for data mining. The inputs to the Neuro-fuzzy classification system were fuzzified by applying generalized bell-shaped membership function. The proposed method utilized a fuzzification matrix in which the input patterns were associated with a degree of membership to different classes. Based on the value of degree of membership a pattern would be attributed to a specific category or class. We applied our method to ten benchmark data sets from the UCI machine learning repository for classification. Our objective was to analyze the proposed method and, therefore compare its performance with two powerful supervised classification algorithms Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) and Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). We assessed the performance of these classification methods in terms of different performance measures such as accuracy, root-mean-square error, kappa statistic, true positive rate, false positive rate, precision, recall, and f-measure. In every aspect the proposed method proved to be superior to RBFNN and ANFIS algorithms

An Outcome Based Exploration of Pharmacotherapeutics in Chronic Mechanical Non-Specific Low Back Pain (CNLSBP) Patients in Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Low back pain is a symptomatic condition with multifactorial causation. It is characterized by pain &amp; muscle stiffness or tension. The aim of management of low back pain is to relieve the pain quickly, to improve functional ability &amp; prevention of disability. A range of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are used for management which provides variable symptomatic relief.Aims and objectives: To evaluate the pattern and prescribing trends of therapy with different NSAIDS &amp; to evaluate the efficacy of different pharmacotherapeutics in the management of chronic mechanical nonspecific low back pain by using visual analogue scale (VAS) score and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) score.Materials and methods: This prospective, observational, and questionnaire-based study was conducted in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation center (PMR) of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata. 130 newly diagnosed CNSLBP patients were selected after satisfying inclusion and exclusion criteria. NSAIDs involved in the study are Aceclofenac, Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, Etodolac, Etoricoxib, Naproxen, Piroxicam. Mean VAS score and ODI score were evaluated in all patients at 0, 4, 8 and 12 weeks to assess the efficacy of NSAIDs in reducing pain and functional disability. Results: Among 130 patients involved in the study, 84(65%) were female and 46(35%) were male patients and the mean age of female was 40.46 and that of male was 39.96 years. All the different NSAIDS involved in this study were effective in reducing pain and functional disability in CNSLBP patients as evaluated by VAS score and ODI score