Emotional Display Rules of Visually and Hearing Impaired Students

The objective of the study is to understand the pattern of emotional display rules of visually and hearing impaired students towards different members of the society under two different situations i.e., private and public. This is to be studied for three emotions namely, happiness, sadness and anger. The Display Rule Assessment Inventory of Matsumoto Yoo, Hirayama, and Petrova (2005) was administered on all the participants. The overall expression of emotions varied from target person to target person and also from situation to situation. “Happiness” was observed to be expressed more by visually impaired than hearing impaired students towards parents, friends and teachers in private context. However, overall expression of anger was found to be more for hearing – impaired students. ANOVA results indicate significant main effect of context or situation on overall expression of both positive and negative emotions. The study indicates that impaired individuals like the normal individuals regulate both positive and negative emotions depending upon the target person and social situation

School Environment and Locus of Control in Relation to Job Satisfaction among School Teachers – A Study from Indian Perspective

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to explore different patterns of relationship of job satisfaction with school environment and locus of control in different groups of school teachers selected from different school of Kolkata, India. Another objective is to see whether there any demographic variable which play any role on the job satisfaction of the teachers. 160 data were collected from the school teachers of Kolkata, using Revised School-Level Environment Questionnaire, Rotter Locus of control scale and Teacher job satisfaction questionnaire. Results showed that job satisfaction is significantly correlated with different domains of school environment and locus of control. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that job satisfaction can be significantly predicted by locus of control and maximum domains of school environment. This study highlighted a vital impact of school environment and locus of control on job satisfaction

The host factor polyhedrin promoter binding protein (PPBP) is involved in transcription from the baculovirus polyhedrin gene promoter

Hypertranscription and temporal expression from the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis (AcNPV) baculovirus polyhedrin promoter involves an α-amanitin-resistant RNA polymerase and requires a trans-acting viral factor(s). We previously reported that a 30-kDa host factor, polyhedrin promoter binding protein (PPBP), binds with unusual affinity, specificity, and stability to the transcriptionally important motif AATAAATAAGTATT within the polyhedrin (polh) initiator promoter and also displays coding strand-specific single-stranded DNA (ssDNA)-binding activity (S. Burma, B. Mukherjee, A. Jain, S. Habib, and S. E. Hasnain, J. Biol. Chem. 269:2750-2757, 1994; B. Mukherjee, S. Burma, and S. E. Hasnain, J. Biol. Chem. 270:4405-4411, 1995). We now present evidence which indicates that an additional factor(s) is involved in stabilizing PPBP-duplex promoter and PPBP-ssDNA interactions. TBP (TATA box binding protein) present in Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) cells is characteristically distinct from PPBP and does not interact directly with the polh promoter. Replacement of PPBP cognate sequences within the polh promoter with random nucleotides abolished PPBP binding in vitro and also failed to express the luciferase reporter gene in vivo. Phosphocellulose fractions of total nuclear extract from virus-infected cells which support in vitro transcription from the polh promoter contain PPBP activity. When PPBP was sequestered by the presence of oligonucleotides containing PPBP cognate sequence motifs, in vitro transcription of a C-free reporter cassette was affected but was restored by the exogenous addition of nuclear extract containing PPBP. When PPBP was mopped out in vivo by a plasmid carrying PPBP cognate sequence present in trans, polh promoter-driven expression of the luciferase reporter was abolished, demonstrating that binding of PPBP to the polh promoter is essential for transcription

Mosquito larvicidal and antimicrobial activities of synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNP) using mature fruit extract of Cestrum diurnum L.

592-599Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) were prepared using mature fruit extract of Cestrum diurnum L. (family: Solanaceae) as a reducing agent. The stabilized AgNPs were characterized by time-dependent UV–Vis Spectrophotometric analysis. The spherical/oval shape of the nanoparticle was confirmed by Transmission Electron Microscopy analysis with an average particle size of about 50 nm. The crystalline nature of the AgNPs was confirmed in the XRD spectrum by the characteristic Bragg peaks. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic analysis of AgNPs confirms the presence of several functional groups. AgNPs showed effective larvicidal activities against larval instars of Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes in the laboratory bioassay. Synthesized AgNPs also showed good antibacterial activity against some fish pathogenic and human pathogenic bacteria which is evident from the inhibition zone diameter in the antibacterial bioassay experiment

Novel Sp family-like transcription factors are present in adult insect cells and are involved in transcription from the polyhedrin gene initiator promoter

We earlier documented the involvement of a cellular factor, polyhedrin (polh) promoter-binding protein, in transcription from the Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus polh gene promoter. Sequences upstream of the polh promoter were found to influence polh promoter-driven transcription. Analysis of one such region, which could partially compensate for the mutated polh promoter and also activate transcription from the wild-type promoter, revealed a sequence (AcSp) containing a CACCC motif and a loose GC box resembling the binding motifs of the transcription factor Sp1. AcSp and the consensus Sp1 sequence (cSp) specifically bound factor(s) in HeLa and Spodoptera frugiperda(Sƒ9) insect cell nuclear extracts to generate identical binding patterns, indicating the similar nature of the factor(s) interacting with these sequences. The AcSp and cSp oligonucleotides enhanced in vivo expression of a polh promoter-driven luciferase gene. In vivo mopping of these factor(s) significantly reduced transcription from the polh promoter. Recombinant viruses carrying deletions in the upstream AcSp sequence confirmed the requirement of these factor(s) in polh promoter-driven transcription in the viral context. We demonstrate for the first time DNA-protein interactions involving novel members of the Sp family of proteins in adult insect cells and their involvement in transcription from the polh promoter

Speaking rate attention-based duration prediction for speed control TTS

With the advent of high-quality speech synthesis, there is a lot of interest in controlling various prosodic attributes of speech. Speaking rate is an essential attribute towards modelling the expressivity of speech. In this work, we propose a novel approach to control the speaking rate for non-autoregressive TTS. We achieve this by conditioning the speaking rate inside the duration predictor, allowing implicit speaking rate control. We show the benefits of this approach by synthesising audio at various speaking rate factors and measuring the quality of speaking rate-controlled synthesised speech. Further, we study the effect of the speaking rate distribution of the training data towards effective rate control. Finally, we fine-tune a baseline pretrained TTS model to obtain speaking rate control TTS. We provide various analyses to showcase the benefits of using this proposed approach, along with objective as well as subjective metrics. We find that the proposed methods have higher subjective scores and lower speaker rate errors across many speaking rate factors over the baseline.Comment: \c{opyright} 20XX IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other work

Drought Stress in Millets and Its Response Mechanism

Drought is a major abiotic stress that diminishes crop yield and weakens global food security, especially in the current emerging situation of climate change as well as increases in the prevalence and severity of stress elements. Millets are nutrient-dense and capable to resist variety of harsh environmental conditions, including lack of moisture. Millet’s crop has evolved dynamically in terms of morphology, physiology, and biochemically that allow them to flee and/or adapt to adverse environmental situations. Drought stress has a significant impact on the vegetative and reproductive phases of plants. Millets generate a very low yield compared to main cereals like wheat and rice, despite their agronomic, nutritional, and health-related benefits. It is necessary to understand how these complex features are regulated and ameliorated the impact of droughts on millet productivity. Keeping this in view, the present work aims to understand the processes used for reducing the negative impacts of droughts in the production of millets varieties using advanced agronomic management strategies (use of information technology) and the biotechnology (improvements in crop genetics)

Iron chaperones PCBP1 and PCBP2 mediate the metallation of the dinuclear iron enzyme deoxyhypusine hydroxylase

Although cells express hundreds of metalloenzymes, the mechanisms by which apoenzymes receive their metal cofactors are largely unknown. Poly(rC)-binding proteins PCBP1 and PCBP2 are multifunctional adaptor proteins that bind iron and deliver it to ferritin for storage or to prolyl and asparagyl hydroxylases to metallate the mononuclear iron center. Here, we show that PCBP1 and PCBP2 also deliver iron to deoxyhypusine hydroxylase (DOHH), the dinuclear iron enzyme required for hypusine modification of the translation factor eukaryotic initiation factor 5A. Cells depleted of PCBP1 or PCBP2 exhibited loss of DOHH activity and loss of the holo form of the enzyme in cells, particularly when cells were made mildly iron-deficient. Lysates containing PCBP1 and PCBP2 converted apo-DOHH to holo-DOHH in vitro with greater efficiency than lysates lacking PCBP1 or PCBP2. PCBP1 bound to DOHH in iron-treated cells but not in control or iron-deficient cells. Depletion of PCBP1 or PCBP2 had no effect on the cytosolic Fe-S cluster enzyme xanthine oxidase but led to loss of cytosolic aconitase activity. Loss of aconitase activity was not accompanied by gain of RNAbinding activity, a pattern suggesting the incomplete disassembly of the [4Fe-4S] cluster. PCBP depletions had minimal effects on total cellular iron, mitochondrial iron levels, and heme synthesis. Thus, PCBP1 and PCBP2 may serve as iron chaperones to multiple classes of cytosolic nonheme iron enzymes and may have a particular role in restoring metal cofactors that are spontaneously lost in iron deficient cells

A Potent Antibiotic-Loaded Bone-Cement Implant Against Staphylococcal Bone Infections

New antibiotics should ideally exhibit activity against drug-resistant bacteria, delay the development of bacterial resistance to them and be suitable for local delivery at desired sites of infection. Here, we report the rational design, via molecular-docking simulations, of a library of 17 candidate antibiotics against bone infection by wild-type and mutated bacterial targets. We screened this library for activity against multidrug-resistant clinical isolates and identified an antibiotic that exhibits potent activity against resistant strains and the formation of biofilms, decreases the chances of bacterial resistance and is compatible with local delivery via a bone-cement matrix. The antibiotic-loaded bone cement exhibited greater efficacy than currently used antibiotic-loaded bone cements against staphylococcal bone infections in rats. Potent and locally delivered antibiotic-eluting polymers may help address antimicrobial resistance