Folk Festivals in Sangam Literature

Festivals are celebrated together even though human society lives in different sects. Festivals are the culture of a society. It also helps to understand habits. Festivals start with a sense of worship and grow and live with confidence in terms of rituals. Through festivals, education, knowledge and goodwill are developed among the people. Festivals have been celebrated among the Tamils from generation to generation. Such special festivals are found in sangam literature and in later lagamas. By celebrating the festivals it is not only the happiness of the individuals but also the family. The society and people from all walks of life are happy. Though human society has lived in different sects for a variety of reasons, festivals are the root causes for the society to come together and celebrate. This is the basic purpose of celebrating the festival

Learning to detect an oddball target with observations from an exponential family

The problem of detecting an odd arm from a set of K arms of a multi-armed bandit, with fixed confidence, is studied in a sequential decision-making scenario. Each arm's signal follows a distribution from a vector exponential family. All arms have the same parameters except the odd arm. The actual parameters of the odd and non-odd arms are unknown to the decision maker. Further, the decision maker incurs a cost for switching from one arm to another. This is a sequential decision making problem where the decision maker gets only a limited view of the true state of nature at each stage, but can control his view by choosing the arm to observe at each stage. Of interest are policies that satisfy a given constraint on the probability of false detection. An information-theoretic lower bound on the total cost (expected time for a reliable decision plus total switching cost) is first identified, and a variation on a sequential policy based on the generalised likelihood ratio statistic is then studied. Thanks to the vector exponential family assumption, the signal processing in this policy at each stage turns out to be very simple, in that the associated conjugate prior enables easy updates of the posterior distribution of the model parameters. The policy, with a suitable threshold, is shown to satisfy the given constraint on the probability of false detection. Further, the proposed policy is asymptotically optimal in terms of the total cost among all policies that satisfy the constraint on the probability of false detection

Simulation Studies of Cellular Electroporation Due to Ultra-Fast Electric Pulses

Biological systems, from cells to ecosystems, are intrinsically complex information-processing networks. It often becomes difficult to predict their behavior during an experimental investigation, as their behavior is fundamentally chaotic, Hence, building models that mimic the dynamics of such systems and performing computer simulations would help in understanding, predicting, controlling and optimizing these systems. This thesis is aimed at the development of a mathematical model for the process of electroporation in biological cells when they are subjected to ultra-fast electric pulses and at conducting simulations to understand its dynamic behavior with special emphasis on the physics of ultra-short time scales. With the recent progress in nanosecond pulsed-power technology and its application to biological systems, the sub-microsecond temporal regime has begun to assume great importance. It has been observed that when biological cells are subjected to high field electric pulses generated by pulsed-power sources, a number of changes like cellular response characteristics, structural shape and stability can be engineered. The electric pulses can produce irreversible changes, such as the eventual disintegration of cellular membranes, if they are of sufficiently high intensity and/or have long time duration. This can lead to the destruction of the organism as a whole, an effect that could find potential applications in the area of biological decontamination for improving hygiene, for sterilization or in neutralizing germ-attacks during warfare. Alternatively, the reversible electric field effects, wherein the cellular membrane expands and reseals upon the termination of electric field, could be used for the delivery of transdermal drugs and in gene therapy. This thesis develops a mathematical model of pores on cellular membranes that are created upon the application of ultra-fast electric fields, and their dynamic evolution in response to such external electric fields. Numerical simulations were conducted to study the growth and resealing dynamics of the transient pores. The goals of the simulation study were (i) to gauge the voltage dependence of the cell membrane stability and (ii) to probe the role of the pulse width on pore dynamics. These simulations have shown that if the widths of the applied electric pulses were too short, cells would survive in spite of the application of large voltages. Irreversible breakdown conditions would then be avoided. Next, consideration of the pulse width dependence for irreversible breakdown showed that in the absence of dissipation, the input energy reduced to a limiting value with decreasing pulse widths. However, with the circuit effects taken into account, a local minimum in the pulse-dependent energy function was predicted. This was found to be in agreement with previously published experimental reports. Finally, this study puts forth an improved energy model, based on a time-dependent surface tension parameter, that explains the stability of the pores long after the termination of the electric pulses unlike the previous model

Magnetoresistance of metallic perovskite oxide LaNiO3−δ_{3-\delta}

We report a study of the magnetoresistance (MR) of the metallic perovskite oxide LaNiO$_{3-\delta}$ as a function of the oxygen stoichiometry $\delta$ ($\delta \leq$ 0.14), magnetic field (H $\leq 6T$) and temperature (1.5K $\leq$ T $\leq$ 25K). We find a strong dependence of the nature of MR on the oxygen stoichiometry. The MR at low temperatures change from positive to negative as the sample becomes more oxygen deficient (i.e, $\delta$ increases). Some of the samples which are more resistive, show a resistivity minima at $T_{min}$ $\approx$ 20K. We find that in these samples the MR is positive at T > $T_{min}$ and negative for T < $T_{min}$. We conclude that in the absence of strong magnetic interaction, the negative MR in these oxides can arise from weak localisation effects.Comment: 10 pages in REVTeX format, 4 eps fig

Spectra of generalized corona of graphs constrained by vertex subsets

In this paper, we introduce a generalization of corona of graphs. This construction generalizes the generalized corona of graphs (consequently, the corona of graphs), the cluster of graphs, the corona-vertex subdivision graph of graphs and the corona-edge subdivision graph of graphs. Further, it enables to get some more variants of corona of graphs as its particular cases. To determine the spectra of the adjacency, Laplacian and the signless Laplacian matrices of the above mentioned graphs, we define a notion namely, the coronal of a matrix constrained by an index set, which generalizes the coronal of a graph matrix. Then we prove several results pertain to the determination of this value. Then we determine the characteristic polynomials of the adjacency and the Laplacian matrices of this graph in terms of the characteristic polynomials of the adjacency and the Laplacian matrices of the constituent graphs and the coronal of some matrices related to the constituent graphs. Using these, we derive the characteristic polynomials of the adjacency and the Laplacian matrices of the above mentioned existing variants of corona of graphs, and some more variants of corona of graphs with some special constraints.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figur

Impact of Bt cotton technology in an Indian cotton production system: A comparative econometric analysis between Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu

Cotton is one of India's most important commercial crops, known as the "White Gold." India has the largest area under cotton production with comparatively low productivity, owing to the enormous area under rainfed agriculture with insufficient input supply, implying inefficient resource usage. The present study measures the resource use efficiency and technical efficiency of Bt cotton production in Tamil Nadu in comparison with one of the major cotton-producing states, Maharashtra. The resource use efficiency was calculated using the Cobb–Douglas production function, and the stochastic frontier approach is deployed to estimate technical efficiency. Resource use efficiency analysis indicated that the majority of resources are being used at suboptimal levels, and there is the potential to increase cotton production by reaching the most profitable level of input use. However, frontier analysis confirmed that production was inefficient, with a greater gap in which both Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, particularly small and marginal farms, need to be addressed to increase production and farm income. The results indicated that the mean technical efficiency among Bt and non-Bt farmers was 94 % and 76 % in Tamil Nadu and 97 % and 74 %, implying the potential to increase cotton production with the current level of resources and technology. This study suggested a development policy aimed at stimulating extension activity through motivation to provide rural farm households with the necessary farm management skills to boost productivity]

A Novel QWT Fed Penta- Band Microstrip Patch Antenna for Various Wireless Applications

A conventional patch antenna is initially designed with edge fed feeding. The four edges of patch are chamfered to make it octagon shaped. Further four slots two in horizontal and two oriented vertically are etched on the patch. A H shaped Slot is created on Ground. The result is a multi- resonant antenna for SATCOM and RADAR applications. The use of flexible substrate is to suit the chosen wireless applications. The optimized antenna model with its vital parameters are  presented in this paper

LIFE, DEATH, AND PHARMA IN INDIA: A CASE STUDY

The health of the people is really the foundation on which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.†- Benjamin Disraeli.A healthy society is obviously a healthy nation. Being healthy is a result of various factors such as lifestyle, income, choices, society, access to medical facilities, culture, and family. The life expectancy (LE) (i.e., average years a person is anticipated to live has almost doubled) in the past century and medical breakthroughs had a profoundly positive impact on human LE. The average LE of the people in India was 49.7 years during 1970-1975 gradually increased to the level of 68.45 years in 2016 according to the world LE reports. The objective here is to understand the factors determining LE and whether there are any possibilities for considerable improvements in LE in India due to various economic policies by the government. Statistical reports from various organizations are analyzed, and the conclusion is that the government spending on health care and awareness is to be enhanced.Keywords: Life expectancy, Health care, Mortality, Birth rate, Death rate, etc.Â

Characterization of pseudobasophilia on Sysmex-XT 1800i automated hematology analyser

Background: Pseudobasophilia is a common automation related phenomenon which requires manual peripheral smear study in an era of complete automation. This study has attempted to evaluate the reasons for pseudobasophilia and in-turn suggest measures to eliminate the errors.Methods: A sample size of 207 cases showing pseudobasophilia on automation were studied by manual peripheral examination to categorize the possible cause for its occurrence. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was carried out. Results on continuous measurements are presented on Mean SD and results on categorical measurements are presented in Number (%). Significance is assessed at 5% level of significance. Student t test has been used to find the significance of study parameters on continuous scale within each group.Results: Atypical/ reactive lymphocytes were present in 86.5% cases contributing to pseudobasophilia phenomenon on automation, which also showed falsely increased absolute basophil count with more percentage of lymphocytes showing reactive changes. Temperature and storage effects did not contribute to their occurrence in this study. Another finding was an associated pseudomonocytosis with pseudobasophilia on automation which was statistically significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: Pseudobasophilia, and pseudomonocytosis are automation related phenomenon. Atypical/ reactive lymphocytes, which are cytoplasmic strip resistant, contribute to their occurrence. Hence, newer modalities like multicolour flow cytometry coupled with antibody tagging, multiangle polarised scatter separation and volume conductivity scatter may reduce the chances of pseudobasophilia, thereby reducing the overall turnaround time