A Technology Proposal for a Management Information System for the Director’s Office, NAL.

This technology proposal attempts in giving a viable solution for a Management Information System (MIS) for the Director's Office. In today's IT scenario, an Organization's success greatly depends on its ability to get accurate and timely data on its operations of varied nature and to manage this data effectively to guide its activities and meet its goals. To cater to the information needs of an Organization or an Office like the Director's Office, information systems are developed and deployed to gather and process data in ways that produce a variety of information to the end-user. MIS can therefore can be defined as an integrated user-machine system for providing information to support operations, management and decision-making functions in an Organization. The system in a nutshell, utilizes computer hardware and software, manual procedures, models for analysis planning, control and decision-making and a database. Using state-of-the-art front-end and back-end web based tools, this technology proposal attempts to provide a single-point Information Management, Information Storage, Information Querying and Information Retrieval interface to the Director and his office for handling all information traffic flow in and out of the Director's Office

Energy efficient chaotic whale optimization technique for data gathering in wireless sensor network

A Wireless Sensor Network includes the distributed sensor nodes using limited energy, to monitor the physical environments and forward to the sink node. Energy is the major resource in WSN for increasing the network lifetime. Several works have been done in this field but the energy efficient data gathering is still not improved. In order to amend the data gathering with minimal energy consumption, an efficient technique called chaotic whale metaheuristic energy optimized data gathering (CWMEODG) is introduced. The mathematical model called Chaotic tent map is applied to the parameters used in the CWMEODG technique for finding the global optimum solution and fast convergence rate. Simulation of the proposed CWMEODG technique is performed with different parameters such as energy consumption, data packet delivery ratio, data packet loss ratio and delay with deference to dedicated quantity of sensor nodes and number of packets. The consequences discussion shows that the CWMEODG technique progresses the data gathering and network lifetime with minimum delay as well as packet loss than the state-of-the-art methods

Molecular Docking Studies of 2-Mercapto-5-(3-Methoxyphenyl) 1, 3, 4 Oxadiazole Thiones with Focal Adhesion Kinase

The main objective of the present work is to perform molecular docking studies of the ligand 2- Mercapto-5-(3-Methoxy phenyl) 1,3,4 oxadiazole with protein focal adhesion kinase. A good correlation was observed in binding affinity of this complex. Using different inhibitors for this enzyme, it can be used as an anticancer therapy target

Borderline Ovarian Malignancies : A Single Institute Retrospective Study.

Background: Borderline ovarian tumors are histologically characterized as epithelial tumors with a stratified growth pattern but without destructive stromal invasion. Little is known about the histological subtypes and outcome, role of fertility sparing surgery and role of postoperative therapy in advanced stage in Indian scenario. While there is ample data in the world literature about this disease, prognosis in Indian patients is largely unknown due to dearth of studies in our setting. Objective: To study the demographic profile, clinical features, imaging, treatment and outcome of borderline ovarian tumors. Methods: This is a retrospective study of eighty seven patients with pathologically proven diagnosis of borderline ovarian tumor, diagnosed and treated from January 2006 to October 2011 at our institution. Most patients underwent surgical staging which incuded total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salphingo-oophorectomy, infracolic omentectomy, bilateral pelvic and para aortic lymphadenectomy. Young patients who had not completed their family underwent fertility sparing surgery. Patients with invasive metastatic implants received adjuvant chemotherapy. The outcome of these patients was correlated with stage, type of peritoneal implant, type of surgical procedure and with histological subtype. Results: At a median follow-up of 48 months, 100 percent survival was noted. One patient with stage III disease had recurrence. Conclusions: Borderline ovarian tumors occur at a younger age compared to invasive tumors. In patients with early stage disease who wish to preserve fertility, hysterectomy and contralateral oophorectomy are not necessary. Serous tumors occur at a younger age. They can be associated with invasive peritoneal implants and raised CA125 values. Majority of the serous tumors are bilateral and smaller in size compared to mucinous and endometroid tumors. Raised CA125 values did not correlate with the stage of disease. These patients have an excellent prognosis even in Indian scenario where majority of patients present with big ovarian masses

Impact and Significance of Electronic Information Resources among Aerospace Scientists, Engineers and Technologists of Bangalore: A Research Survey

Aviation is one of the most significant technological marvels of our time and empowers the nation with strength. It’s a major tool for economic development and has a significant role in national security and international relations. Aerospace Engineering is the application of advanced science and technology for the design and development of flight vehicles. Originally called Aeronautical Engineering dealing solely with aircraft, the broader term “Aerospace Engineering” has replaced the former in most usage, as flight technology advanced to include aircraft operating the earth’s atmosphere. In this Information Explosion age, it is practically impossible for an aerospace scientist or engineer to carry out his research work without embracing the network and Internet technologies. They greatly depend upon these electronic innovation tools for accessing electronic information resources in the form of e-journals related to aerospace engineering right at the desktops. Now, it is absolutely clear that use of electronic media to support scientific communication has undoubtedly been one of the paradigm shifts in the practice of science in this era. With the coming of e-resources, there has been a significant transformation by which scholarly information is disseminated throughout the world. In fact, the arrival of e-journals has greatly influenced the way a scientist or an engineer seeks this information, acquires it and then uses it effectively. Today Governments, R&D institutions and Universities invest substantial sums of money for proving scholars with the digital literature they need for their research work with the intention that improved access to electronic information resources will lead to increasing scholarly productivity. The extent of publications available online combined with easier access has tremendously improved scholars’ ability to keep abreast in their field, and perhaps inspire new ideas and ultimately enhance the quality of their work. The use pattern of electronic information resources is same for scientists and engineers irrespective of their disciplines. But, aerospace scientists and engineers have an advantage as they are well exposed to the electronic environment and IT due to the nature of their work itself. The use of electronic information resources is highly expected from them particularly as an integrated information system to their learning and working environment. The author has in this research study has attempted to study the impact of electronic information resources, amongst the Indian Aerospace Scientists, Engineers and Technologists. The geographical boundary of this study is restricted to the 16 prominent aerospace organizations of Bangalore. The city of Bangalore is rightly called the ‘Aerospace Hub of the Country’

Incidence and risk factors of gestational diabetes mellitus in antenatal mothers in Goa, India

Background: Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) accounts for almost 90% of all pregnancies complicated by diabetes. Its prevalence in the Indian population ranges from 5.5% to 11.5 %.Methods: The present study was undertaken to assess the incidence of GDM among antenatal mothers admitted in Goa Medical College for a period of 18 months and also to study the risk factors associated with GDM amongst such cases.Results: Present study revealed that among 7717 antenatal mothers who were admitted and delivered in our Hospital, 424 women were diagnosed with GDM. Of these women diagnosed with GDM, almost one third were in the age group of 31- 35 years (35.8%); 56.2 % of these women were multigravidas. Advancing maternal age, rising parity, obesity, family history of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and past history of GDM were among the risk factors found to be significantly associated with GDM.Conclusions: The incidence of GDM in present study population was 5.49%. Advancing maternal age, maternal obesity, family history of DM and past history of GDM were found to be important determinants of GDM

Identification and Analysis of Novel Amino-Acid Sequence Repeats in Bacillus anthracis str. Ames Proteome Using Computational Tools

We have identified four repeats and ten domains that are novel in proteins encoded by the Bacillus anthracis str. Ames proteome using automated in silico methods. A “repeat” corresponds to a region comprising less than 55-amino-acid residues that occur more than once in the protein sequence and sometimes present in tandem. A “domain” corresponds to a conserved region with greater than 55-amino-acid residues and may be present as single or multiple copies in the protein sequence. These correspond to (1) 57-amino-acid-residue PxV domain, (2) 122-amino-acid-residue FxF domain, (3) 111-amino-acid-residue YEFF domain, (4) 109-amino-acid-residue IMxxH domain, (5) 103-amino-acid-residue VxxT domain, (6) 84-amino-acid-residue ExW domain, (7) 104-amino-acid-residue NTGFIG domain, (8) 36-amino-acid-residue NxGK repeat, (9) 95-amino-acid-residue VYV domain, (10) 75-amino-acid-residue KEWE domain, (11) 59-amino-acid-residue AFL domain, (12) 53-amino-acid-residue RIDVK repeat, (13) (a) 41-amino-acid-residue AGQF repeat and (b) 42-amino-acid-residue GSAL repeat. A repeat or domain type is characterized by specific conserved sequence motifs. We discuss the presence of these repeats and domains in proteins from other genomes and their probable secondary structure

A Nutrient Network Regulating Cellular Cholesterol and Glucose Metabolism

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes (T2D), is associated with accompanying derangements such as hyperinsulinemia that promote the progression of insulin resistance, yet a mechanism(s) is imperfectly understood. Data have demonstrated that hyperinsulinemia promotes insulin resistance as evidenced by diminished ability of insulin to mobilize glucose transporter GLUT4 to the plasma membrane (PM). We found that loss of PM phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2)-regulated filamentous actin (F-actin) structure contributes to hyperinsulinemia-induced insulin resistance. We tested if increased glucose flux through hexosamine biosynthesis pathway (HBP) causes dysregulation of PM components necessary for GLUT4 translocation. Increased HBP activity was detected in 3T3-L1 adipocytes cultured in hyperinsulinemia (5 nM Ins; 12 h) and also 2 mM glucosamine (GlcN), a distal HBP activator, inducing losses of PM PIP2 and F-actin. In accordance with HBP flux directly weakening PIP2/F-actin structure, inhibition of the rate-limiting HBP enzyme (glutamine:fructose-6-phosphate amidotransferase) restored F-actin and insulin responsiveness. Furthermore, less invasive challenges with glucose led to PIP2/F-actin dysregulation. New findings support a negative correlation between PM cholesterol accrual, PIP2/F-actin structure and GLUT4 regulation. These data stemmed from parallel study aimed at understanding the antidiabetic mechanism of the nutrient chromium (Cr3+). We found that chromium picolinate (CrPic) enhanced insulin-stimulated GLUT4 trafficking via reduction in PM cholesterol. In line with glucose/cholesterol toxicity findings, we demonstrated that therapeutic effects of CrPic occurred solely in adipocytes with increased HBP activity and a concomitant elevation in PM cholesterol. Mechanistically, data are consistent with a role of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in CrPic action. These data show that CrPic increases AMPK activity and perhaps suppresses cholesterol synthesis via distal phosphorylation and inactivation of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA reductase (HMGR), a rate-limiting enzyme in cholesterol synthesis. Continued study of the consequence of increased HBP activity revealed alterations in cholesterogenic transcription factors – Sp1, SREBP-1, and NFY – with Sp1 showing a significant increase in O-linked glycosylation. Consistent with Sp1 modification eliciting maximal transcriptional activation of SREBP-1, Hmgr mRNA was significantly enhanced. In conclusion, these data are consistent with a central role of PM cholesterol in glucose transport and suggest perturbations in this lipid have a contributory role in developing insulin resistance