Homeopathic Flora of Bilaspur District of Himachal Pradesh, India: A Preliminary Survey

The present study was made in nine villages of Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh, a north Indian state known for its vast herbal flora. About 23 plant species belonging to 18 families used in the homeopathic system of medicine are highlighted in the present study along with their taxonomic description including botanical name, medicine name, plant part used and ailment against which the medicines are used. The collected plant specimens were identified, taxonomically defined and submitted to the herbarium for future records

Some Important Supplementary Food Plants and Wild Edible Fungi of Upper Hilly Region of District Shimla (Himachal Pradesh), India

An ethnobotanical survey of upper hilly region of Shimla was carried out in 2008 to enumerate some of the important plants used as supplementary food among the people of this area. Presence of twenty four plant species belonging to 20 genera and 14 families was documented under the present study along with 11 macrofungi belonging to 6 genera and 6 families. Generally fruits (51 %) and leaves (33%) of these plants were found to be used as supplementary food. Use of seeds, buds, stem and petiole of few plants was also observed. All the important plants and macrofungi used as supplementary food by the people of the locality are grouped on the basis of their mode of use

Assessement of nuvan toxicity to lipids in snake headed fresh water fish Channa punctatus

The healthy functioning of the biosphere in our planet, the life depends entirely on the water flow and steady state phenomenon. Lethal concentration of Nuvan calculated for the fresh water snake headed fish Channa punctatus 0.27ml/L after 24, 48, 72 and 96 hours. For the chronic study 1/10th Nuvan concentration (0.027ml/L) provided to observe fish. Blood serum cholesterol (Chol.) and triglycerides (TG) estimated after chronic toxic stress of Nuvan to fish Channa punctatus. Fish serum TG revealed significant decrease level while  Cholesterol showed significant elevated level after 7, 14, 21, and 28days at different level  p > 0.05,  p <0.01 and p <0.001 in fresh water fish Channa punctatus

netflix an in depth study of their proactive adaptive strategies to drive growth and deal with issues of net neutrality digital equity

Netflix has been on the rise since its beginning in 1997, when one sees it from a distant perspective. However, a close analysis of its unique strategies shows that the company faced several small and big challenges in its growth journey, some of which, had the potential to throw the company away permanently from the market itself. Nevertheless, it responded tactically to all such issues, many of them being dealt in preventive and pro-active manner; while other cases being dealt with quick reactions, essentially faster than any other competitors. This report is a study of many such issues that the company faced, since its beginning till recently, when it almost conquered the whole world, after establishing its feet in China as well, in collaboration with the service provider Baidu. The report also entails some unique strategies that the company followed while continuously and marginally changing its business model, which would seldom be possible in a brick-mortar economy. As such, the company made use of its deeper understanding of how markets react in an internet economy. Effort has been made to throw some light on the way the company has dealt the issues of digital discrimination allegations against it, and also its stance on net neutrality. Finally, some of the challenges and opportunities that the company has encountered recently, including the lawsuits has been touched upon, presenting the company's as well as outsider media's view on those, and has been concluded with potential problems and future aspect

Design and Development of Application to Transport Layer Protocol for Smart Collaboration of Intelligent Devices

There are varieties of smart devices – devices with hardware and significant amount of software to mine data from the hardware in and around us, like in Home we have smart phones, smart TV, Laptops, smart refrigerators, etc. There is a need for each device of different size and capability to collaborate. That brings us to first and most important step of “inter- device communication”, which can be deployed on any device without much further fuss. Simple yet secure channel of communication, which does not require much of computing power or memory is real time in nature and is extensible towards future. The challenge is to develop a simple Application Layer protocol, which uses existing TCP/IP technology to interconnect these devices and enable bi-directional communication, which is minimalistic in terms of size of payloads – data available at each of these smart devices- and will use the WWW (world wide web’s) most versatile tool – XML for making encoding data/information in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15063

Mapping of southern security and justice civil society organisations and networks

The purpose of this mapping study is to provide the UK Department for International Development (DFID) with a quantitative and qualitative snapshot of security and justice civil society organisations (CSOs) and networks working in and across the countries investigated. CSO engagement on issues of security and justice is inherently difficult in many countries due to the nature of their governing regimes (such as where the state has authoritarian tendencies or where military regimes preside). In some cases the political space for CSOs to engage in issues of security and justice is being increasingly suppressed. Consequently, the success of donor support for security and justice CSOs often depends to a great extent on the political will of respective governments to enable CSOs to work freely. Furthermore, donors who wish to support security and justice CSOs need to take account of the extent to which donor interactions with government security and justice structures may influence the extent and quality of donor interaction with CSOs. In many countries, an understanding of security and justice as conceptualised and defined by donors is lacking amongst civil society – and an understanding of these issues as conceptualised by civil society is often lacking among donors and governments. This scenario even holds true in those countries where civil society as a whole is otherwise vibrant. Consequently, there is a need to increase the basic level of understanding on security and justice matters (both within CSOs and governments), to broaden the strategic community (those working in think tanks or engaged in policy analysis), and to support the development of research capacity and expertise in security and justice areas. Joined up approaches to security and justice work are rare in almost all contexts and common/collaborative/networking fora do not exist. Recommendations were made in almost all sub-regions stating that donor approaches should encourage collaboration at the outset between security and justice CSOs and devise schemes that reward or encourage joined up working

Phantoms to accelerate technology development and standardization in Biophotonics

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Optical force-induced nonlinearity and self-guiding of light in human red blood cell suspensions

Osmotic conditions play an important role in the cell properties of human red blood cells (RBCs), which are crucial for the pathological analysis of some blood diseases such as malaria. Over the past decades, numerous efforts have mainly focused on the study of the RBC biomechanical properties that arise from the unique deformability of erythrocytes. Here, we demonstrate nonlinear optical effects from human RBCs suspended in different osmotic solutions. Specifically, we observe self-trapping and scattering-resistant nonlinear propagation of a laser beam through RBC suspensions under all three osmotic conditions, where the strength of the optical nonlinearity increases with osmotic pressure on the cells. This tunable nonlinearity is attributed to optical forces, particularly the forward scattering and gradient forces. Interestingly, in aged blood samples (with lysed cells), a notably different nonlinear behavior is observed due to the presence of free hemoglobin. We use a theoretical model with an optical force-mediated nonlocal nonlinearity to explain the experimental observations. Our work on light self-guiding through scattering bio-soft-matter may introduce new photonic tools for noninvasive biomedical imaging and medical diagnosis.Comment: 20 Pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Light, Science & Applicatio

Nonlinear self-action of light through biological suspensions

It is commonly thought that biological media cannot exhibit an appreciable nonlinear optical response. We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, a tunable optical nonlinearity in suspensions of cyanobacteria that leads to robust propagation and strong self-action of a light beam. By deliberately altering the host environment of the marine bacteria, we show experimentally that nonlinear interaction can result in either deep penetration or enhanced scattering of light through the bacterial suspension, while the viability of the cells remains intact. A theoretical model is developed to show that a nonlocal nonlinearity mediated by optical forces (including both gradient and forward-scattering forces) acting on the bacteria explains our experimental observation

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy