Risk factors and Blood borne- biochemical markers in type 2 diabetes mellitus

The burden of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is increasing worldwide and it is estimated to reach indefinite proportions of about 450 million by year 2030. Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have a significantly increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Moreover, CVD is the major cause of mortality and morbidity (75%) in T2DM patients. DM itself has been long recognised as an independent risk factor for several forms of CVD including coronary heart disease (CHD), peripheral arterial disease, cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure in both men and women. It is well-known that T2DM is associated with several factors including hyperglycaemia, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity all of which contribute to CVD. In order to prevent CVD, early intervention on cardiovascular risk factors is vital during clinical assessment of T2DM patients. A major role of inflammation has been well described in the development of CVD in T2DM patients. Inflammatory process and factors which contribute to CVD in T2DM patients have recently become a focus in diabetic research. Elucidation of common patho-physiological mechanisms among T2DM patients might emphasize the role of inflammation in CVD. The main purpose of this study was to investigate any patho-physiological changes in red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (neutrophils and lymphocytes) and plasma, measuring RBC membrane fragility and proteins, intracellular free calcium concentrations [Ca2+]i and several cations including Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, Fe2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+, biochemical parameters and inflammatory mediators which normally serve as independent predisposing risk factors for CVD among T2DM patients compared to age-match healthy controls. The results have shown that fura-2 loaded neutrophils and lymphocytes in blood from T2DM patients contain significantly (p<0.05) less [Ca2+]i than neutrophils and lymphocytes from healthy subjects upon stimulation with physiological doses of either fMLP or thapsigargin indicating a derangement in cellular calcium homeostasis during T2DM. Similarly, RBC membranes from T2DM patients contained significantly (p<0.05) more spectrin, ankyrin, band 3, band 4.1, glycophorin etc compared to RBC membranes from age-matched healthy control subjects. The results also show that the RBCs from T2DM patients were more fragile compared to RBC from healthy controls. Measurement of protein glycation in plasma have revealed significantly (p<0.05) more fluorescence in proteins form T2DM patients compared to control. In relation to plasma cations and intracellular markers and mediators, the results show that plasma from T2DM patients contain significantly (p<0.05) more Na+, Mg2+ , Ca2+, Fe2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+ compared to plasma levels from age-match healthy controls. Similarly, the concentrations of kidney and liver function markers such as urea, creatinine, alkaline phosphatase, ALT, AST, GGT, total protein and albumin increased significantly (p<0.05) compared to healthy controls. The same is also true for glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, CRP, HBA1C, WBC where the blood from T2DM patients contained elevated concentrations compared to blood from healthy age-matched control patients. Together, the results of this study have clearly demonstrated marked and significant changes in cellular calcium homeostasis in white blood cells, RBC membrane proteins and fragility, plasma protein glycation and in plasma levels of cations, intracellular markers and mediators of T2DM patients compared to healthy controls. Therefore, it is proposed that an early integrated and multi-factorial intervention of risk factors and inflammatory markers must be done in order to reduce the risk of CVD and possible mortality of T2DM patients

Estimation and Analysis of Free Space Optics Link Margin for Quality Based Network Routing

Free space optics (FSO) is a revolution in communication technology which uses light in free space for transmission. FSO systems are used for high data rate communication between two remote sites over distances up to several kilometers. It solves the problem between the client/user and ber-optic back-haul solving the last-mile problem. They are appealing for abroad application areas such as, ber back-up, local area network (LAN)-to- LAN connectivity, disaster recovery, backhaul for wireless cellular networks, high definition TV and wireless video surveillance/monitoring etc. The link reliability particularly in long range communication is limited mainly due to atmospheric turbulence-induced fading and sensitivity to weather conditions. The main consideration in the FSO design is the availability of link for different atmospheric conditions and providing a reliable quality of transmission (QoT) to the end user. An FSO network with distance based routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) technique does not provide any information about the current state of network, leading to a non-reliable communication. Based on the above the following analysis is been proposed: ●This work deals with the estimation of FSO link in different parts of India using Link Margin (LM). Here the meteorological data of various cities has been collected which evaluates the availability of the link for different attenuations in channel. ● FSO network with an adaptive routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) technique based on LM is proposed which selects the connection with higher availability rather than shortest distance. The overall network performance is being evaluated in terms of blocking probability (BP) based on network load and available link wavelengths. The estimated results can provide more knowledge about the reliability and deploy- ment of FSO network. In short, this thesis work estimates the Free space optics LM for Quality based network routing

AN EFFICIENT LOW-POWER CONTENT- ADDRESSABLE MEMORY USING COMPRESSOR MEMORY BLOCK

In this paper, we proposed a low-power content-addressable memory (CAM) employing a new algorithm for associativity between the input tag and the corresponding address of the output data. The proposed architecture is based on memory block. Given an input data the proposed architecture compares the stored data with input data and send the single matched data address as the output. Therefore, the dynamic energy consumption of the proposed design is significantly lower compared with that of a sparse Clustered network based CAM design. In this project we have shown as the effective error detection and correction in the data set. For detecting and correcting the data this project allows synergetic reuse COMPRESSOR MEMORY BLOCK.   For very high speed searching applications, Bloom filters has been proposed. Associative memory, associative storage and associative array are the synonyms of CAM. For programming in data structures the name associative array is used most. XILINX ISE was used for the simulation process. The search delay of the proposed design is less. So the speed is more as compared to that of SCN CAM design

Seedling establishment on Oryza sativa L

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Design and Development of Hybrid FSO/RF Communication System with Auto-Tracking Mechanism

Optical wireless communication (OWC) has an enormous potential to support massive data transmission requirements. In an outdoor environment, OWC with long-range communication is referred to as free space optics (FSO) in the literature. FSO is one of the technologies which supports high bandwidth, unlicensed spectrum, high security, immune to interference and ease of installation. These attractive features of FSO provide a viable solution to the last mile problem in broadband wireless transmission. FSO communication remains sensitive to environmental conditions, scintillation and pointing errors despite many advantages. The design of FSO communication must consider all the above channel impairments. This research work focuses on designing reliable and available FSO communication under different channel conditions. The design of a hybrid FSO/RF communication with an auto-tracking system defines the scope of this work. Approaches adopted for the design of a hybrid FSO/RF system are enumerated below: • Initially, the performance of FSO communication in various atmospheric conditions and pointing losses are measured. In this regard, different weather conditions (i.e., rain, fog, and snow), atmospheric turbulence, and geometrical losses are taken into account to evaluate the FSO system performance. Also, an experimental testbed for FSO communication is designed and implemented with an indoor atmospheric chamber to replicate the weather conditions. An image under different foggy and atmospheric turbulence conditions is transmitted to evaluate the performance. • In FSO communication, fog, atmospheric turbulence, and pointing errors are the major bottlenecks that degrade the performance significantly. On the other hand, RF communication is less prone to the above issues. A hybrid FSO/RF is designed and implemented with an auto-tracking system. An efficient machine learning (ML) aided switching mechanism is proposed for selecting the appropriate communication link based on the current weather conditions. The ML model is trained with different weather conditions to estimate the link margin (LM) of FSO communication. A switching decision is taken based on the LM estimation. • Even under clear weather conditions, the performance of FSO communication is primarily dependent on atmospheric fading and a strict line-of-sight (LoS) condition,i.e., pointing errors. Therefore, a statistical model for intensity fluctuation due to the atmospheric turbulence and pointing error is derived. A closed-form probability density function (PDF) for pointing errors comprised of boresight and jitter error is derived. Two auto-tracking mechanisms are designed and developed at the transmitter to combat the issues of boresight and jitter error. First, a coarse tracking system is designed with a magnetometer sensor on-board to minimize the boresight error. Any leftover boresight error, known as jitter, is compensated by a fine-tuning and closed-loop feedback system. The proposed auto-tracking mechanism has been experimented with a wide range of non-zero boresight angles, from ±10◦ to ±180◦ with a fine-tuning of jitter up to 8 cm. The performance of the proposed system has been analyzed in terms of outage probability. The analytical results are compared with simulation, measurement, and existing methods. • FSO is considered primarily for establishing point-to-point (PtP) communication. A novel point-to-multipoint (PtM) tracking mechanism for FSO communication is designed and implemented to meet the increasing demand for mobile platforms and mechanisms to establish PtM connections. The alignment mechanism consists of two tracking systems, i.e., coarse tracking and fine-tuning. The coarse tracking is responsible for locating FSO transceivers placed at different positions using magnetometer sensors connected to the cloud. On the other hand, the fine-tuning mechanism overcomes high-frequency amplitude oscillation or jitter with a displacement range of 8 cm. The link is continuously monitored, and if the link is in inoperable condition or not established due to extreme weather conditions, the reference line-of-sight (LoS) angle is updated in the cloud to establish an alternate connection. The stability of the proposed system is analyzed in terms of root locus and step response. The proposed PtM system is validated experimentally with FSO terminals located at different distances over indoor and outdoor environments. The proposed method achieved an alignment time of less than 5 seconds for 10 degrees of misalignment

Three-dimensional ex vivo co-culture models of the leukaemic bone marrow niche for functional drug testing

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a hierarchically structured malignancy in which aberrant leukemic stem cells drive the production of leukaemic blast cell clones. AML cells strictly depend on the bone marrow microenvironment (BMM) in which they reside. Classical AML cell cultures fail to mimic the BMM and, therefore, drug discovery studies are dominated by in vivo models. However, animal models are time consuming, labour intensive, provide limited mechanistic insight, and are unsuited for high throughput studies, necessitating the development of novel AML models. The evolving ex vivo BMM mimicking culture systems aim to fill this gap, with increasing success. Here, we discuss how AML microenvironment co-culture models advance our understanding of this disease, and highlight their future potential for translational AML research

Application of the AMLprofiler Diagnostic Microarray in the South African Setting

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is characterized by proliferation of the myeloid lineage and accumulation of immature hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow and is typified by marked heterogeneity both in response to treatment and survival. AMLprofiler is a qualitative in vitro diagnostic microarray incorporating seven molecular biomarkers used to diagnose and predict posttherapy survival rates. In this study, we compared AMLprofiler to routine AML diagnostic methodologies employed in South Africa, focusing on consistency of the results, cost, and time to result. RNA was isolated from bone marrow and peripheral blood samples from patients with de novo AML and was processed using Affymetrix Gene Profiling Reagent kits. The results from AMLprofiler and standard methodologies were highly comparable. In addition, many samples were determined to be positive for biomarkers not routinely investigated in South Africa, namely, CEBPA double mutants, NPM1 variants, and altered expression levels of BAALC and EVI1. 38% of samples presented with no positive biomarker; AMLprofiler nonetheless enabled 26% of AML patients to be classified into either favorable or poor prognostic categories. This study highlights the comprehensive nature of the microarray. Decreased time to result and refinement of risk stratification are notable benefits