Automated Classification of 2000 Bright IRAS Sources

An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been employed using a supervised back-propagation scheme to classify 2000 bright sources from the Calgary database of IRAS (Infrared Astronomy Satellite) spectra in the wavelength region of 8-23 microns. The data base has been classified into 17 pre-determined classes based on spectral morphology. We have been able to classify more than 80 percent of the 2000 sources correctly at the first instance. The speed and robustness of the scheme will allow us to classify the whole of LRS database, containing more than 50,000 sources in the future.Comment: 26 pages, To appear in ApJS after July 200

Vertical coordination in high-value commodities

"Rising per capita income, urbanization and globalization are changing the consumption basket in the developing countries towards high-value commodities (like fruits & vegetables, milk, meat, poultry, fish, etc.). This paper explores how smallholders can benefit from the emerging opportunities from a silent demand-driven changes in high-value agriculture in India. The study examines the institutional mechanisms adopted by different firms to integrate small producers of milk, broilers and vegetables in supply chain and their effects on producers' transaction costs and farm profitability. The study finds that the innovative institutional arrangements in the form of contract farming have considerably reduced transaction costs and improved market efficiency to benefit the smallholders. The study does not find any bias against smallholders in contract farming. Also, the study does not find that the relevant firms have exploited their monopsonistic position by paying lower prices to farmers. On the contrary, contract producers were found enjoying benefits of assured procurement of their produce and higher prices. The study lists policy hurdles in scaling up the innovative models of vertical coordination in high-value food commodities" Authors' AbstractHigh value commodities ,Urbanization ,High value agriculture ,Scaling up ,

The nutraceutical Pycnogenol: its role in cardiovascular health and blood glucose control

Pycnogenol® (a registered trademark of Horphag Research Ltd.) is French maritime pine bark extract of the outer bark of Pinus pinaster Ait. Subsp. atlantica. Its specificationsaredescr ibedinthe USP 28-Dietary supplements. Pycnogenol has strong antioxidant profile proven by in vitro and in vivo studies and further confirmed in clinica ltrials. Its strong antioxidant profile, vasodilator activity, antithrombotic effect and collagen stabilizing property make it a unique health product. In humans, Pycnogenol has been shown to lower blood pressure in mild to moderate hypertensive individuals and blood glucose levels in diabetics. In this review the diverse biological effects of Pycnogenol are presented and discussed using a target-oriented approach, in health and disease conditions like edema, inflammation, chronic venous insufficiency, deep vein thrombosis, diabetes, diabetic retinopathy, and hypertension. The future trends are the continuous efforts proving its efficacy inconditions which involves oxidative stress and inflammation. Recent preliminary study utilizing "high throughput" methodology and nutrigenomics approach are able to provide a new insight into the molecular mechanism of the biological activity of this botanical sourced nutraceutical.Biomedical Reviews 2005; 16: 49-57

Pycnogenol: a nutraceutical for venous health

Recent studies utilizing highly sophisticated methodology and techniques were able to provide a new insight into the molecular mechanism of the biological activity of various botanical extracts. The present review provides an update of the multifaceted biological profile of the nutraceutical Pycnogenol® in venous health, using a target oriented approach in light of pathophysiology of chronic venous insufficiency. Pycnogenol is French maritime pine bark extract produced by extraction of the outer bark of Pinus pinaster Ait. Subsp. atlantica. Pycnogenol has strong antioxidant profile proven by in vitro and in vivo studies in animals and further confirmed in clinical trials. Its strong antioxidant profile, vasodilator activity, antithrombotic effect and its collagen stabilizing property make it a unique health product. It reduces edema of legs and lowers chances of developing deep venous thrombosis and skin ulceration. These properties further qualify Pycnogenol to be a useful food supplement for venous health particularly in chronic venous insufficiency. Developing new combination products using synergistic approaches are the future trends of research and development to prove efficacy in conditions which involves oxidative stress, inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, thrombogenesis, and ulceration.Biomedical Reviews 2008; 19: 33-43

Study on the morphometric and meristic characteristics of splendid silver belly Leiognathus splendens (Cuvier) from Bombay coast

Ten morphometric and six meristic characters of Leiognathus splendens (Cuvier) of Bombay Coast have been studied sexwise. Regression and sexwise difference if any between the compared morphometric characteristics have been worked out. Range, mode, standard deviation, co-efficient of variation of 6 meristic characters have been analysed. There was no significant difference between the sexes in morphometric and any deviation in the meristic characters

Gossip Codes for Fingerprinting: Construction, Erasure Analysis and Pirate Tracing

This work presents two new construction techniques for q-ary Gossip codes from tdesigns and Traceability schemes. These Gossip codes achieve the shortest code length specified in terms of code parameters and can withstand erasures in digital fingerprinting applications. This work presents the construction of embedded Gossip codes for extending an existing Gossip code into a bigger code. It discusses the construction of concatenated codes and realisation of erasure model through concatenated codes.Comment: 28 page

Population dynamics and stock assessment, of koth (Otolithoides biauritus, Cantor, 1850) along the North-West coast of India

MSY, growth, selection and mortality I,arameters of OtolithoUies biauritus have been worked out from data collected by MFV SarasJlluti of CIFE, and length frequency data from Ferry Wharf, Snsson dock, and Versol'a fish laIllJing centres of Bombay. Values of Loc, K, and to obtained from lenght frequency study are 1572mm, 0.2633/yr and 0.0289 yr respectively, and of weight growth I,arameters are Woe = 10067g, K= 0.03904/yr and to = 0.0137yr. Selection parameters are Lr + 150mm, tr + 0.4167 yr Ie + 240mm and tc = 0.6367yr. Selection factor (K) for codend worl.ed out to be 12. Based on Z=0.6486, the MSY of Otolithoides Mauri/us off northwest coast of India is assessed as 1 ,802 ton~ which is slightly higher than the current catch level of 1,634 tons

The Law and Economics of Critical Race Theory

Legal academics often perceive law and economics (L&E) and critical race theory (CRT) as oppositional discourses. Using a recently published collection of essays on CRT as a starting point, we argue that the understanding of workplace discrimination can be furthered through a collaboration between L&E and CRT. L&E\u27s strength is in its attention to incentives and norms, specifically its concern with explicating how norms incentivize behavior. Its limitation is that it treats race as exogenous and static. Thus, the literature fails to consider how institutional norms affect, and are affected by, race. To put the point another way, L&E does not discuss how norms incentivize racial behavior, obscuring that how people present their race (or themselves as racial subjects) is a function of norms. The strength of CRT is its conception of race as a social construction. Under this view, race is neither biologically determined nor fixed. Instead, race is ever evolving as a function of social, political, legal, and economic pressures. A limitation of CRT is that much of its analysis of race as a social construction is macro-oriented. Thus, CRT has paid insufficient attention to the social construction of race within specific institutional settings, like the workplace. Further, CRT has virtually ignored the agency people of color exercise to shape how their racial identity is interpreted - that is say, constructed. Explicitly incorporating L&E\u27s focus on incentives and norms into CRT provides CRT with a means by which to articulate the notion of race as a social construction at the level of individual choice. The basic idea is that people of color construct (present racial impressions of) themselves in response to norms. Norms, in this sense, are racially productive, and individuals are part of the production apparatus. Having set out the basic elements of the collaborative enterprise, we deploy this collaboration to respond to a specific and important question about the workplace: How are modern employers and employees likely to manage workplace racial diversity? We raise this question because we assume that, for institutional legitimacy reasons, most workplaces will strive to achieve at least a modicum of racial diversity. The question, again, is: How will this diversity be managed? Part of the answer has to do with assimilation, an ideological technology for constructing race and a central theme in CRT; and part of the answer has to do with efficiency, an ideological technology for creating incentives and a central theme in L&E. Both ideas - assimilation and efficiency - combine to tell a story about workplace discrimination that derives from what we call the homogeneity incentive. In sum, in order to increase efficiency, employers have incentives to screen prospective employees for homogeneity, and, in order to counter racial stereotypes, nonwhite employees have incentives to demonstrate a willingness and capacity to assimilate. In this sense, the modern workplace discrimination problem may be more about employers requiring people of color to demonstrate racial palatability than about employers totally excluding people of color for the workplace. We discuss whether and to what extent anti-discrimination law can ameliorate this problem

A 3D Automated Classification Scheme for the TAUVEX data pipeline

In order to develop a pipeline for automated classification of stars to be observed by the TAUVEX ultraviolet space Telescope, we employ an artificial neural network (ANN) technique for classifying stars by using synthetic spectra in the UV region from 1250\AA to 3220\AA as the training set and International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) low resolution spectra as the test set. Both the data sets have been pre-processed to mimic the observations of the TAUVEX ultraviolet imager. We have successfully classified 229 stars from the IUE low resolution catalog to within 3-4 spectral sub-class using two different simulated training spectra, the TAUVEX spectra of 286 spectral types and UVBLUE spectra of 277 spectral types. Further, we have also been able to obtain the colour excess (i.e. E(B-V) in magnitude units) or the interstellar reddening for those IUE spectra which have known reddening to an accuracy of better than 0.1 magnitudes. It has been shown that even with the limitation of data from just photometric bands, ANNs have not only classified the stars, but also provided satisfactory estimates for interstellar extinction. The ANN based classification scheme has been successfully tested on the simulated TAUVEX data pipeline. It is expected that the same technique can be employed for data validation in the ultraviolet from the virtual observatories. Finally, the interstellar extinction estimated by applying the ANNs on the TAUVEX data base would provide an extensive extinction map for our galaxy and which could in turn be modeled for the dust distribution in the galaxy.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS; High resolution figures available from the authors on reques

Obstetrics and Gynecological History

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in women, with event rates rising particularly in young women. Women are disproportionately affected by traditional cardiovascular (CV) risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension compared with men. In addition to standard risk factors, many risk factors are either female predominant, such as autoimmune conditions and psychological stressors, or female specific, such as hormonal changes, throughout the course of a lifetime and pregnancy-related issues. Among the most important risk factors specific to women are conditions occurring during pregnancy and history related to fertility and gynecological conditions. The value of such history has become more apparent in recent literature; however, the translation of this knowledge to clinical practice has been poor. The importance of recognizing specific obstetric and gynecological (OB-GYN) conditions and the specific conditions to screen for are the focus of this editorial