Task-Irrelevant Perceptual Learning Specific to the Contrast Polarity of Motion Stimuli

Studies of perceptual learning have focused on aspects of learning that are related to early stages of sensory processing. However, conclusions that perceptual learning results in low-level sensory plasticity are of great controversy, largely because such learning can often be attributed to plasticity in later stages of sensory processing or in the decision processes. To address this controversy, we developed a novel random dot motion (RDM) stimulus to target motion cells selective to contrast polarity, by ensuring the motion direction information arises only from signal dot onsets and not their offsets, and used these stimuli in conjunction with the paradigm of task-irrelevant perceptual learning (TIPL). In TIPL, learning is achieved in response to a stimulus by subliminally pairing that stimulus with the targets of an unrelated training task. In this manner, we are able to probe learning for an aspect of motion processing thought to be a function of directional V1 simple cells with a learning procedure that dissociates the learned stimulus from the decision processes relevant to the training task. Our results show learning for the exposed contrast polarity and that this learning does not transfer to the unexposed contrast polarity. These results suggest that TIPL for motion stimuli may occur at the stage of directional V1 simple cells.CELEST, an NSF Science of Learning Center (SBE-0354378); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency SyNAPSE program (HR0011-09-3-0001, HR001-09-C-0011); National Science Foundation (BCS-0549036); National Institutes of Health (R21 EY017737

Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Mn doped Benzimidazole Thin Films

In the present work, the Mn doped benzimidazole (BMZ) thin films were prepared by simple chemical bath deposition technique. The material was directly deposited as thin film on glass substrates and the metal concentration in the solution was varied in weight percentage in order to investigate the dopant effect on the properties of thin films. Similarly, the Mn doped BMZ films were deposited in different solution temperature to study the effect of deposition temperature on the properties of thin films. The PXRD and FT-IR spectroscopy are used to study the structural and the presence of functional groups in the BMZ medium. Depending upon the solution temperature, thickness of the films varying from 0.6 to 1.2 {\mu}m and the optical transparency of the samples increases with the increasing temperature up to 50 {\deg}C. Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) efficiency of the films is measured for all the films. Third order nonlinear optical properties of the films were analyzed using Z-scan technique. The experimental results show that Mn doped BMZ films exhibits saturation absorption and negative nonlinearity.Comment: This has been presented in DAE 58th Solid State Symposium held at Thapar University, Patiala, Punjab, India. Will be published in AIP conference proceedings soo

Effectiveness of domestic wastewater treatment using floating rafts a promising phyto-remedial approach: A review

Treatment of wastewater will lead to the problems again, if we will not use new more efficient alternative technologies/methods to avoid drawback of old technologies. Loss of water can be reduced through application of easy, inexpensive and eco-friendly technologies for wastewater treatment. Using Floating rafts to purify polluted wastewater is a process/method of ecological restoration at in-situ, as well as a complicated physical (attachment of pollutants to the root surface), chemical (degradation of metals into less toxic form) and biological process (microbial processes). Its core is utilizing aquatic plants such as Canna and Water lily and root attached microbes such as bac-teria, fungi and algae to absorb pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, degrade organic matter and accumulates heavy metals in their biomass. Phytoremediation of polluted wastewater using the Floating rafts technique is an Eco-friendly method of wastewater treatment, which is economically effective to construct, requires little maintenance and increase the biodiversity as different types of plants are used. Floating rafts technique has been applied to some water pollution control projects at domestic and abroad. However, there are some factors such as plants, temperature, seasons, hydraulic retention time, coverage and initial concentration of pollutants etc. influenced to the pollutants removal efficiency of Floating rafts. In the future, the development orientation has been subjected to plant and its combinations, the transformation of Floating rafts structure and the utilization of aquatic plants, and probed the technology of Floating rafts building and management, to implement the win-win of landscape benefit and ecological function

Effectiveness of domestic wastewater treatment using floating rafts a promising phyto-remedial approach: A review

Treatment of wastewater will lead to the problems again, if we will not use new more efficient alternative technologies/methods to avoid drawback of old technologies. Loss of water can be reduced through application of easy, inexpensive and eco-friendly technologies for wastewater treatment. Using Floating rafts to purify polluted wastewater is a process/method of ecological restoration at in-situ, as well as a complicated physical (attachment of pollutants to the root surface), chemical (degradation of metals into less toxic form) and biological process (microbial processes). Its core is utilizing aquatic plants such as Canna and Water lily and root attached microbes such as bac-teria, fungi and algae to absorb pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, degrade organic matter and accumulates heavy metals in their biomass. Phytoremediation of polluted wastewater using the Floating rafts technique is an Eco-friendly method of wastewater treatment, which is economically effective to construct, requires little maintenance and increase the biodiversity as different types of plants are used. Floating rafts technique has been applied to some water pollution control projects at domestic and abroad. However, there are some factors such as plants, temperature, seasons, hydraulic retention time, coverage and initial concentration of pollutants etc. influenced to the pollutants removal efficiency of Floating rafts. In the future, the development orientation has been subjected to plant and its combinations, the transformation of Floating rafts structure and the utilization of aquatic plants, and probed the technology of Floating rafts building and management, to implement the win-win of landscape benefit and ecological function

Nursery rearing of Asian Seabass

Lates calcarifer species is widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical areas of the western Pacific and Indian ocean including Australia, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and countries bordering the Arabian sea. Seabass spend most of their life in a lagoon which connects to the sea. They spend two to three more years in estuarine areas until they mature, then migrate to the sea water around the mouth of a river or lagoon for spawning. Larvae and juveniles live in the sea grass bed in coastal areas for about six months, attaining a size of about 2 to 5 inches. The fish migrate to freshwater when they grow bigger

A Study of Focused Web Crawling Techniques

In the recent years, the growth of data on the web is increasing exponentially. Due to this exponential growth, it is very crucial to find the accurate and significant information on the Web. Web crawlers are the tools or programs which find the web pages from the World Wide Web by following hyperlinks. Search engines indexes web pages which can be further retrieved by entering a query given by a user. The immense size and an assortment of the Web make it troublesome for any crawler to recover every pertinent information from the Web. In this way, different variations of Web crawling techniques are emerging as an active research area. In this paper, we survey the learnable focused crawlers

NOTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF PLAYING ABILITY ON MEN HANDBALL TEAMS

The purpose of the study was to assess the playing ability by notational analysis system for men handball players. To achieve the purpose of the study the four teams those who participated in the Madurai Kamaraj University Inter-Collegiate Handball Tournament 2017-18 for men were selected. The teams were SVN College, American College, Arul Anandar College and Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai. The age of the men handball players ranged from 18 to 24 years. The following match analysing factors which are expected to give the complete performance of the team & individual five factors were finalized. A panel of experts consisting of coaches, players and experts as well as fellow researchers aided in the development and ranking of performance scores for the effects of each skill as it is performed during the game. Each attempt was noted according to whether the attempt was off-target, on-target, or resulted in a goal. The pass was evaluated according to the result, such as if the other team intercepted the pass or it resulted in a scoring opportunity. Cards received by the players, penalty shoot were carefully noted. The data was collected during the real time match. The collected data were analysed statistically using mean and standard deviation. The outcome of the study might act as a tool to analyse the team & individual performance in the game of Handball

Acute postpartum pleural effusion causing distress for patient and obstetrician

A 31-year-old Gravida 5 Para 2 Live 2 Abortion 2, without comorbidities, underwent spontaneous vaginal delivery at term. She was asymptomatic in postpartum and had puerperal sterilization under low risk on postnatal day 4. After fourteen hours of surgery, she experienced an acute onset of breathlessness, tachypnea, and orthopnoea. Workup revealed right-sided pleural effusion filling three-fourths of the cavity with consolidation on chest X- ray. Therapeutic thoracocentesis was performed draining 600 ml of straw-coloured fluid. She was started on the Piperacillin tazobactam combination. Due to the repeated collection and persistent symptoms, a continuous intercostal drain was placed after 4 days. Due to persistent fever spikes, antibiotics were stepped up to Linezolid and Meropenem. A negative result on the Mantoux test, CBNAAT, and IGRA test was obtained. ANA profiling revealed the presence of non-specific KU antibodies. Symptomatic improvement was noted, and the ICD was subsequently removed after 6 days of insertion. Pregnancy is an immunosuppressive state. Rapid reversal of this state in postpartum results in a flare-up of quiescent infection. Even auto-immune diseases flare up in postpartum. Understanding this phenomenon of immune reconstitution syndrome and its impact will help in the management planning of postpartum women without dilemmas

Fabrication of Hollow Microspheres Using Single Step Electrospraying Process

In this study, a single step method for large scale fabrication of hollow microspheres with a narrow size distribution is presented. PolyBenzoThiadiazole (PolyBT), a conducting polymer, was electrosprayed at high voltage to obtain microspheres. Hollow spheres of size ranging from 4.1 to 7.3 µm were observed through scanning electron microscope images, without any chemical degradation as shown by FTIR studies. In addition, these microspheres demonstrated a change in optical and hydrophobic properties as exhibited by the UV-visible and contact angle measurements. Thus providing interesting opportunities for use in biomedical applications, sensors as well as optoelectronic devices