A Conflict between Self and World in Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint

This study discerns Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth concerning the struggle between self and world. Roth’s protagonists want a haven of protection and stability, or a home, from which they may interpret the world meaningfully. In addition to this, they require stability and repose in the achievement of selfhood. Their home may be their static, centred self, from which they could get meaning from their surroundings. In the novel Portnoy’s Complaint , the protagonist faces external and internal and selfversus- world conflicts. It is discovered that Portnoy conflicts with his Jewish family, a microcosm of the ethnic group to which he belongs. He incorrectly feels that his ethnicity is the core reason for his alienated feelings. In addition, he is troubled by the contradiction between his moral convictions and his sexual indulgence. His difficulties remain unanswered until the novel’s conclusion, even though he begins comprehending the actual nature of his moral issue. In his exploration of the never-ending and, maybe, the insoluble issue between man and his fundamental desires, Roth delves into the simple mind of his species to bring to light the unfathomable, grotesque, and frightening realities of human drives and experiences. This skill lends his compositions a worldwide appeal that transcends ethnic and racial distinctions. All the characters in the narrative are banished from themselves and arrive in the brave new world of choice, America, representing a domestic transgression

Crystal structure of ethyl (2S,2′ R)-1′-benzyl-3-oxo-3H-dispiro[1-benzothio-phene-2,3′-pyrrolidine-2′,11″-indeno-[1,2-b]quinoxaline]-4′-carboxylate

The authors thank the TBI X-ray facility, CAS in Crystallography and BioPhysics, University of Madras, Chennai, India, for the data collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Crystal structure of 2-methylamino-3-nitro-4-p-tolylpyrano[3,2-c]chromen-5(4H)-one

The authors thank Dr Babu Varghese, SAIF, IIT, Chennai, India, for the data collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

On the ε\varepsilon-regular mild solution for fractional abstract integro-differential equations

In this present paper, we first obtained some estimates involving parts of $\varepsilon$-regular mild solutions of the fractional integro-differential equation. In this sense, through these preliminary results, we investigate the main results of this paper, i.e., the existence, regularity and continuous dependence of $\varepsilon$-regular mild solutions for fractional abstract integro-differential equations in Banach space.Comment: 20 page

NO2 and Humidity Sensing Characteristics of Few-layer Graphene

Sensing characteristics of few-layer graphenes for NO2 and humidity have been investigated with graphene samples prepared by the thermal exfoliation of graphitic oxide (EG), conversion of nanodiamond (DG) and arc-discharge of graphite in hydrogen (HG). The sensitivity for NO2 is found to be highest with DG. Nitrogen-doped HG (n-type) shows increased sensitivity for NO2 compared to pure HG. The highest sensitivity for humidity is observed with HG. The sensing characteristics of graphene have been examined for different aliphatic alcohols and the sensitivity is found to vary with the chain length and branching.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

A special schedule of foliar application of nutrients for the tea fields under extensive mechanized harvesting

To overcome the problem of acute shortage of work force faced by the south Indian tea industry, UPASI Tea Research Institute recommends mechanized harvesting to cover large areas with high worker productivity. While adopting extensive mechanized harvesting, total leaf area of the maintenance foliage on the plucking surface is reduced. As a result growth of the crop shoots has been adversely affected leading to reduction in productivity. Excessive banji shoot formation and nutrient deficiency symptoms were also noticed. To overcome all these adverse impacts of extensive mechanization, foliar application of primary, secondary and micro-nutrients has been attempted. The practical utility of foliar feeding of all these nutrients when applied as a mixture after every harvest, except during continuous heavy rainy months, showed an increase in yield up to 21% compared to the current recommended practice, in spite of extensive harvesting using shears and machines. The problem of dwarfing of crop shoots due to extensive shear/machine harvesting could be minimized due to increase in internodal length by 0.87 cm and the dry weight of the crop shoots increased by 0.09 g/shoot. Excessive production of banji shoots also came down from 65 to 52%

LUVMI: an innovative payload for the sampling of volatiles at the Lunar poles

The ISECG identifies one of the first exploration steps as in situ investigations of the moon or asteroids. Europe is developing payload concepts for drilling and sample analysis, a contribution to a 250kg rover as well as for sample return. To achieve these missions, ESA depends on international partnerships. Such missions will be seldom, expensive and the drill/sample site selected will be based on observations from orbit not calibrated with ground truth data. Many of the international science community’s objectives can be met at lower cost, or the chances of mission success improved and the quality of the science increased by making use of an innovative, low mass, mobile robotic payload following the LEAG recommendations. LUVMI provides a smart, low mass, innovative, modular mobile payload comprising surface and subsurface sensing with an in-situ sampling technology capable of depth-resolved extraction of volatiles, combined with a volatile analyser (mass spectrometer) capable of identifying the chemical composition of the most important volatiles. This will allow LUVMI to: traverse the lunar surface prospecting for volatiles; sample subsurface up to a depth of 10 cm (with a goal of 20 cm); extract water and other loosely bound volatiles; identify the chemical species extracted; access and sample permanently shadowed regions (PSR). The main innovation of LUVMI is to develop an in situ sampling technology capable of depth-resolved extraction of volatiles, and then to package within this tool, the analyser itself, so as to maximise transfer efficiency and minimise sample handling and its attendant mass requirements and risk of sample alteration. By building on national, EC and ESA funded research and developments, this project will develop to TRL6 instruments that together form a smart modular mobile payload that could be flight ready in 2020. The LUVMI sampling instrument will be tested in a highly representative environment including thermal, vacuum and regolith simulant and the integrated payload demonstrated in a representative environment

Design, synthesis, molecular modelling and in vitro screening of monoamine oxidase inhibitory activities of novel quinazolyl hydrazine derivatives

Funding: Deanship of Scientific Research at Taibah University, Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah, Saudi Arabia (project # 7101).A new series of N'-substituted benzylidene-2-(4-oxo-2-phenyl-1,4-dihydroquinazolin-3(2H)-yl)acetohydrazide (5a-5h) has been synthesized, characterized by FT-IR, NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry and tested against human monoamine oxidase (MAO) A and B. Only (3-methoxy-4-hydroxy)benzoyl substituted compounds gave submicromolar inhibition of MAO-A and MAO-B. Changing the phenyl substituent to methyl on the unsaturated quinazoline ring (12a-12d) decreased inhibition but a less flexible linker (14a-14d) resulted in selective micromolar inhibition of hMAO B providing insight for ongoing design.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe