Regulation of follicular wave pattern in cattle

The wave-like developmental pattern of follicles ≥1 mm in temporal relationship with follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and the existence of 2- and 3-waves of follicular development during an interovulatory interval (IOI) have been clearly defined in cattle. However, information about the developmental pattern of antral follicle

Morphological Phase Separation in Unstable Thin Films: Pattern Formation and Growth

We present results from a comprehensive numerical study of {\it morphological phase separation} (MPS) in unstable thin liquid films on a 2-dimensional substrate. We study the quantitative properties of the evolution morphology via several experimentally relevant markers, e.g., correlation function, structure factor, domain-size and defect-size probability distributions, and growth laws. Our results suggest that the late-stage morphologies exhibit dynamical scaling, and their evolution is self-similar in time. We emphasize the analogies and differences between MPS in films and segregation kinetics in unstable binary mixtures.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; Accepted for publication in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physic

Spinodal Phase Separation in Liquid Films with Quenched Disorder

We study spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films on chemically disordered substrates via simulations of the thin-film equation. The disorder is characterized by immobile patches of varying size and Hamaker constant. The effect of disorder is pronounced in the early stages (amplification of fluctuations), remains during the intermediate stages and vanishes in the late stages (domain growth). These findings are in contrast to the well-known effects of quenched disorder in usual phase-separation processes, viz., the early stages remain undisturbed and domain growth is slowed down in the asymptotic regime. We also address the inverse problem of estimating disorder by thin-film experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Non-intrusive speech quality assessment using context-aware neural networks

To meet the human perceived quality of experience (QoE) while communicating over various Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) applications, for example Google Meet, Microsoft Skype, Apple FaceTime, etc. a precise speech quality assessment metric is needed. The metric should be able to detect and segregate different types of noise degradations present in the surroundings before measuring and monitoring the quality of speech in real-time. Our research is motivated by the lack of clear evidence presenting speech quality metric that can firstly distinguish different types of noise degradations before providing speech quality prediction decision. To that end, this paper presents a novel non-intrusive speech quality assessment metric using context-aware neural networks in which the noise class (context) of the degraded or noisy speech signal is first identified using a classifier then deep neutral networks (DNNs) based speech quality metrics (SQMs) are trained and optimized for each noise class to obtain the noise class-specific (context-specific) optimized speech quality predictions (MOS scores). The noisy speech signals, that is, clean speech signals degraded by different types of background noises are taken from the NOIZEUS speech corpus. Results demonstrate that even in the presence of less number of speech samples available from the NOIZEUS speech corpus, the proposed metric outperforms in different contexts compared to the metric where the contexts are not classified before speech quality prediction.publishedVersio

Kinetics of Spinodal Phase Separation in Unstable Thin Liquid Films

We study universality in the kinetics of spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films, via simulations of the thin film equation. It is shown that in addition to morphology and free energy,the number density of local maxima in the film profile can also be used to identify the early, intermediate and late stages of spinodal phase separation. A universal curve between the number density of local maxima and rescaled time describes the kinetics of early stage in d = 2, 3. The Lifshitz-Slyozov exponent of -1/3 describes the kinetics of the late stage in d = 2 even in the absence of coexisting equilibrium phases.Comment: 5 figure

Niosome: The Magic Bullet

Target oriented drug delivery systems are the areas of the major interest in the modern pharmaceutical research. The selective drug delivery to the target tissues increases the therapeutic efficacy of the drug and reduces its undesirable effect to non target tissues.The concept of drug targeting or site specific drug delivery was introduced first time by Paul Elrich in 1909, when he reported magic bullet to deliver a drug to the desired site of action without affecting the non target organs or tissues (Juliano, 1980) by associating the drug with a pharmacologically “inactive carrier capable of conveying the drug selectively towards its target cells. Niosomes or nonionic surfactant vesicles are microscopic lamellar structures formed on admixture of nonionic surfactant of the alkyl or dialkyl polyglycerol ether class and cholesterol with subsequent hydration in aqueous media. In niosomes, the vesicles forming amphiphile is a nonionic surfactant such as span 60 which is usually stabilized by addition of cholesterol and small amount of anionic surfactant such as dicetyl phosphate. Niosomes can entrap both hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs, either in aqueous layer or in vesicular membrane made of lipid materials. It is reported to attain better stability than liposomes. It can prolong the circulation of the entrapped drugs. Because of the presence of nonionic surfactant with the lipid, there is better targeting of drugs to tumour, liver and brain. It may prove very useful for targeting the drug for treating cancers, parasitic, viral and other microbial disease more effectively. Key-Words: magic bullet, Target oriented drug delivery systems, inactive carrier, Niosome, site specific drug delivery, liposomes, cancers

An Eternal gravitational collapse in f(R)f(R) theory of gravity and their astrophysical implications

In this work, we explore the eternal collapsing phenomenon of a stellar system (e.g., a star) within the framework of $f(R)$ gravity and investigate some new aspects of the continued homogeneous gravitational collapse with perfect fluid distribution. The exact solutions of field equations have been obtained in an independent way by the parameterization of the expansion scalar ($\Theta$) governed by the interior spherically symmetric FLRW metric. We impose the Darmois junction condition required for the smooth matching of the interior region to the Schwarzschild exterior metric across the boundary hypersurface of the star. The junction conditions demand that the pressure is non-vanishing at the boundary and is proportional to the non-linear terms of $f(R)$ gravity, and the mass function $m(t, r)$ is equal to Schwarzschild mass $M$. The eight massive stars, namely $Westerhout 49-2, BAT99-98, R136a1, R136a2, WR 24, Pismis 24-1$, $\lambda- Cephei$, and $\beta -Canis Majoris$ with their known astrophysical data (masses and radii) are used to estimate the numerical values of the model parameters which allows us to study the solutions numerically and graphically. Here we have discussed two $f(R)$ gravity models describing the collapse phenomenon. The singularity analysis of models is discussed via the apparent horizon and we have shown that stars tend to collapse for an infinite co-moving time in order to attain the singularity (an eternal collapsing phenomenon). We have also shown that our models satisfy the energy conditions and stability requirements for stellar systems

Safety of deferasirox as an oral iron chelator in thalassemic children

Background: Thalassemia major patients require frequent blood transfusion leading to iron overload. Iron overload is characterized by excessive iron deposition and consequent injury and dysfunction of the heart, liver, anterior pituitary, pancreas, and joints. Because physiologic mechanisms to excrete iron are very limited, patients with iron overload and its complications need safe, effective therapy that is compatible with their coexisting medical conditions. Current prospective, observational study is done to assess the safety of deferasirox as an oral iron chelator, with specific reference to rise in serum creatinine level, alanine aminotransferase level (SGPT), urine albumin level in 50 multi-transfused thalassemia major children receiving deferasirox (DFX) therapy at registered thalassemia society Raipur, India.Methods: DFX was administered in an initial dose of 20 mg/kg/day and increased to a maximum of 40 mg/kg/day. Serum creatinine, alanine aminotransferase level (SGPT), urine albumin level were estimated in pretransfusion samples at time of registration and at 3 monthly intervals (4 times). The primary end point of the study was completion of 12 months of therapy (January 2013 to December 2013).Results: Prior to DFX therapy the mean serum creatinine, SGPT, urine albumin of all cases were 0.4617 mg/dl, 20.78 U/L and nil respectively. After 12 months of DFX therapy of mean dose 38 mg/kg/day, the mean serum creatinine was. 0.4624 mg/dL. SGPT was 20.81 U/L, and urine albumin was nil.Conclusions: Deferasirox monotherapy has a good safety profile and effectively chelates total body iron. 

Biometric Data Security using Recursive Visual Cryptography

Recursive Visual cryptography takes the idea from the basic scheme of Visual cryptography to hide multiple secrets recursively in the single image. This paper proposes a scheme of recursive creation of shares using the basic scheme and embedding secrets into the shares. This results levels of share creation i.e. n- secrets equals n/2 levels. This paper also provides  secured authentication for the user, using the Biometric authentication Thus the proposed paper is implemented in any of the real time applications. Keywords:Recursive Visual Cryptography, Embedding secrets, Biometric authentication, Levels of share