Diaspora Literature: Comparative Analysis of Bharti Mukharjee and Jhumpa Lahiri

There are prominent expatriate Indian writers known for their Diasporic literature.  Writers like Rohinton Mistory, Ashish Gupta, Kiran Desai, Chitra Banarjee -Divakaruni, Uma Parmeswaran etc. have contributed their literary genius to express Diasporic experiences. The eminent writers, especially South Asian Women novelists Jhumpa Lahiri and Bharti Mukharjee contributed a lot in the area of diasproic literature. Their contribution is recognized at the international level with applaud. The similarities and distinctions between them are briefly taken into consideration in this paper

SCREENING FOR HEPATITIS C Response from Hepatitis C Trust, BASL, BIA, BVHG, BSG, and BHIVA to article asking whether widespread screening for hepatitis C is justified

This is the peer reviewed published version of the following article: Response from Hepatitis C Trust, BASL, BIA, BVHG, BSG, and BHIVA to article asking whether widespread screening for hepatitis C is justified, which has been published in final form at 10.1136/bmj.h998. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with BMJ's Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0

Clonal analysis of a human antibody response. Quantitation of precursors of antibody-producing cells and generation and characterization of monoclonal IgM, IgG, and IgA to rabies virus.

We quantitated and characterized the changes in the human B cell repertoire, at the clonal level, before and after immunization with rabies virus. Moreover, we generated 10 monoclonal cell lines producing IgM, IgG, and IgA antibodies to the virus. We found that in healthy subjects, not previously exposed to the virus, nearly 2% of the circulating B lymphocytes were committed to the production of antibodies that bound the virus. These B cells expressed the surface CD5 molecule. The antibodies they produced were polyreactive IgM that displayed a relatively low affinity for the virus components (Kd, 1.0-2.4 x 10(-6) g/microliters). After immunization, different anti-virus (IgG and IgA) antibody-producing cells consistently appeared in the circulation and increased from less than 0.005% to greater than 10% of the total B cells committed to the production of IgG and IgA, respectively. Most of such B cells do not express CD5 and produce monoreactive antibodies of high affinity for rabies virus (Kd, 6.5 x 10(-9) to 1.2 x 10(-10) g/microliters). One of these IgG mAbs efficiently neutralized rabies virus in vitro and in vivo, as detailed elsewhere (Dietzschold, B., P. Casali, Y. Ueki, M. Gore, C. E. Rupprecht, A. L. Notkins, and H. Koprowski, manuscript submitted for publication). Hybridization experiments using probes specific for the different human V gene segment families revealed that cell precursors producing low affinity IgM binding to rabies virus utilized a restricted number of VH gene segments (i.e., only members of the VHIIIb subfamily), whereas cell precursors producing high affinity IgG and IgA to rabies virus utilized an assortment of different VH gene segments (i.e., members of the VHI, VHIII, VHIV, and VHVI families and VHIIIb subfamily). In conclusion, our studies show that EBV transformation in conjunction with limiting dilution technology and somatic cell hybridization techniques are useful methods for quantitating, at the B cell clonal level, the human antibody response to foreign Ags and for generating human mAbs of predetermined specificity and high affinity

Reconstructing 3D x-ray CT images of polymer gel dosimeters using the zero-scan method

In this study x-ray CT has been used to produce a 3D image of an irradiated PAGAT gel sample, with noise-reduction achieved using the ‘zero-scan’ method. The gel was repeatedly CT scanned and a linear fit to the varying Hounsfield unit of each pixel in the 3D volume was evaluated across the repeated scans, allowing a zero-scan extrapolation of the image to be obtained. To minimise heating of the CT scanner’s x-ray tube, this study used a large slice thickness (1 cm), to provide image slices across the irradiated region of the gel, and a relatively small number of CT scans (63), to extrapolate the zero-scan image. The resulting set of transverse images shows reduced noise compared to images from the initial CT scan of the gel, without being degraded by the additional radiation dose delivered to the gel during the repeated scanning. The full, 3D image of the gel has a low spatial resolution in the longitudinal direction, due to the selected scan parameters. Nonetheless, important features of the dose distribution are apparent in the 3D x-ray CT scan of the gel. The results of this study demonstrate that the zero-scan extrapolation method can be applied to the reconstruction of multiple x-ray CT slices, to provide useful 2D and 3D images of irradiated dosimetry gels

Spectral and total radiation properties of turbulent carbon monoxide/air diffusion flames

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76724/1/AIAA-1986-294-399.pd

Making inexpensive drugs for the treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect the world’s poorest population; mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. According to the WHO, more than one billion people are affected by NTDs. The connection between these areas is the lack of proper sanitation, and the persistence of the diseases, trap the affected countries in the poverty and disease cycle. African sleeping sickness, a prevalent NTD, is a parasitic infection caused by two parasites from the Trypanosoma brucei species and is transmitted by the tsetse fly or congenitally. The disease is manifested by fever, severe headaches, irritability, extreme fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, and aching muscles and joints. When it reaches the central nervous system it can cause progressive confusion, personality changes, and other neurologic problems. The high-cost and limited number of the drugs contribute to the increase of the cases resulting in a great impact on global health. The goal of our research is to develop inexpensive and effective drugs using low-cost organic starting materials that target the T. brucei parasite. Our target compounds are Mannich bases containing an aromatic moiety. Previous, but limited, studies have shown that this class of compounds demonstrates promising results against T. brucei. Our one step synthesis involves the use of nitro-substituted acetophenones, formaldehyde, and a variety of amines to make Mannich bases under conventional heating and microwave conditions. By changing the nitro-acetophenones and the amines used in the reaction, we hope to develop a robust drug library we can use to screen against T. brucei