EFFECT OF SPROUTING ON IN-VITRO ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL OF SOME VARIETIES OF CHICKPEA SEEDS (CICER ARIETINUM LINN.)

 Objective: The aim of the present study is to access the effect of sprouting on in-vitro antioxidant potential of some varieties of Cicer aurantium Linn. (Chickpea seeds).Materials and Methods: The un-sprouted and sprouted seeds of its newly developed varieties viz. PBG-1, GPF-2, PBG-5 were powdered and then was extracted with methanol by direct maceration method and their antioxidant activity was evaluated using four different methods (Reducing power, Free radical scavenging activity (DPPH), total antioxidant activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power activity). Results: Sprouting clearly increased the flavonoid content of seeds to 104%, 117%, 341% respectively. There was visible increase in total antioxidant activity of methanol extracts of sprouted seeds which was evident by increased activity from 0.298 to 0.397 at concentration 60 µg/ml in var. PBG-5 and increased ferric reducing antioxidant power from 0.332 to 0.387 at concentration 40 µg/ml in var. PBG-1. Conclusion: Thus it may be concluded from the study that sprouting visibly increased the in-vitro antioxidant activity of selected chickpea seeds varieties

Investigating Barriers in Green Supply Chain Management

ABSTRACT Investigating Barriers to Green Supply Chain Management Jasneet Kaur Green supply chain management has emerged as a trending topic of discussion for organizations thriving for enhanced competitive advantages, increased customer satisfaction, improved brand image, and of course minimum adverse impacts on the environment. It differs from traditional supply chain management in terms of consideration of environmental impacts of all the processes involved in a typical supply chain and intends to minimize their negative consequences. It involves going green from start to the end of the supply chain i.e. green design, green purchasing, green manufacturing, green packaging, green logistics, and green marketing. On one side, pressure from regulatory authorities, customer expectations, financial benefits, community groups, and media involvement act as potential drivers for adoption of green supply chain practices, there is still a long way to go considering the larger number of barriers currently being faced by organizations involved in corporate sustainability initiatives. In this thesis, we present a DEMATEL based approach for investigating barriers in green supply chain management. The preliminary list of barriers is extracted from the literature review and classified into six categories namely Multiple M’s, Supply Chain Processes, Stakeholders of Supply Chain, Sustainability Area, Organizational Hierarchy, and Others. Expert opinions are solicited to collect data on the identified barriers and DEMATEL is applied to identify the relationship between the barriers and their sub-categories. The results of our study show that complexity of design to reuse/recycle products, lack of technical expertise, difficulty in identifying environmental opportunities, lack of training, lack of awareness on the environmental impacts of business, lack of corporate social responsibility, complexity in identifying third parties to recollect used products and lack of R&D capability on GSCM practices are the prominent barriers. Actions are therefore required by business organizations interested in corporate sustainability initiatives to eliminate or minimize the effect of these barriers. Keywords: Green supply chain management, Barrier classification, DEMATEL, Pareto analysi

Nonexecutive direct influence on informational asymmetries in offshore financial centres

Question/issue: this is a study of the relationship between nonexecutive director personal ownership and firm's bid ask spreads in listed firms from across the Caribbean offshore securities exchanges. Research findings/insights: we report that bid ask spreads increase with nonexecutive ownership. However, this result is reduced (negatively moderated) in the context of higher formal institutional quality and also if the territory has a fixed exchange rate regime but exacerbated (positively moderated) if the firm is located within an offshore jurisdiction. Theoretical/academic implications: the results regarding the influence of nonexecutive director ownership on firm liquidity-based transaction costs, namely, market estimates of bid ask spreads, are interpreted in terms of the contingency of this relationship on the wider institutional context. The effectiveness of nonexecutive directors is highly contingent upon the specific institutional context. Higher formal institutional quality and the presence of a strong macroeconomic tie between territory and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country lead to a reduction in these costs, while offshore financial centers lead to their increase. We argue that this highlights a shortcoming of agency theory's more limited view of institutions. Practitioner/policy implications: the results support regulator's focus on board of director composition and in particular nonexecutive remuneration in the form of ownership. Given the increasing dominance of Anglo-American governance, firms worldwide are increasing the proportions of nonexecutive directors on their boards. However, their role is acutely context specific which is reflected in the relationship between their personal ownership and the liquidity-borne transaction costs of the firm as a whole.</p

Identification and Management of High Risk Complications during Postnatal Period by Ground Level Workers

What to expect after the child birth. A healthy newborn is considered as priority, but postnatal care counts too. It is not always that story ended up with safe child birth; mother is still at high risk if not taken care after birth. Antenatal and intra natal period are the hardest part of a life span of a pregnant women. Mandatory Antenatal visits and maternal and child health services provided by the government with hand holding national programs and schemes have converted this tough path into smooth platform. Similarly postnatal period is equally important in the life of a new mother. The transition has already been set up by creating fourth stage of pregnancy instead of traditional three stages. Several studies have observed complications in postnatal period especially Primary PPH but very minimal studies had concentrated on Secondary PPH. Over and above there are no significant and standardized guidelines made available for the health workers to define the set limits of blood loss and management of secondary PPH. The condition becomes more critical when severe secondary PPH came for the hospitalization when the exact cause and associated factors remains often unknown. Also many postpartum infections emerge 24 hours after the delivery and discharge from hospital. Consequently, in the lack of proper knowledge and skills regarding identification of postnatal complications like secondary PPH and Puerperal infection, many cases go undiagnosed and unreported. This chapter will deals with the skills of the ground level workers required to identify and manage selected high risk complications in postnatal period

Design of Swap Space in Virtual Memory Management System

Abstrac

Machine Learning Techniques for 5G and beyond

Wireless communication systems play a very crucial role in modern society for entertainment, business, commercial, health and safety applications. These systems keep evolving from one generation to next generation and currently we are seeing deployment of fifth generation (5G) wireless systems around the world. Academics and industries are already discussing beyond 5G wireless systems which will be sixth generation (6G) of the evolution. One of the main and key components of 6G systems will be the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for such wireless networks. Every component and building block of a wireless system that we currently are familiar with from our knowledge of wireless technologies up to 5G, such as physical, network and application layers, will involve one or another AI/ML techniques. This overview paper, presents an up-to-date review of future wireless system concepts such as 6G and role of ML techniques in these future wireless systems. In particular, we present a conceptual model for 6G and show the use and role of ML techniques in each layer of the model. We review some classical and contemporary ML techniques such as supervised and un-supervised learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL), Deep Learning (DL) and Federated Learning (FL) in the context of wireless communication systems. We conclude the paper with some future applications and research challenges in the area of ML and AI for 6G networks. © 2013 IEEE

Plasmon-free polymeric nanowrinkled substrates for surface-enhanced raman spectroscopy of two-dimensional materials

We report plasmon-free polymeric nanowrinkled substrates for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Our simple, rapid, and cost-effective fabrication method involves depositing a poly(ethylene glycol)diacrylate (PEGDA) prepolymer solution droplet on a fully polymerized, flat PEGDA substrate, followed by drying the droplet at room conditions and plasma treatment, which polymerizes the deposited layer. The thin polymer layer buckles under axial stress during plasma treatment due to its different mechanical properties from the underlying soft substrate, creating hierarchical wrinkled patterns. We demonstrate the variation of the wrinkling wavelength with the drying polymer molecular weight and concentration (direct relations are observed). A transition between micron to nanosized wrinkles is observed at 5 v % concentration of the lower molecular-weight polymer solution (PEGDA Mn 250). The wrinkled substrates are observed to be reproducible, stable (at room conditions), and, especially, homogeneous at and below the transition regime, where nanowrinkles dominate, making them suitable candidates for SERS. As a proof-of-concept, the enhanced SERS performance of micro/nanowrinkled surfaces in detecting graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is illustrated. Compared to the SiO2/Si surfaces, the wrinkled PEGDA substrates significantly enhanced the signature Raman band intensities of graphene and h-BN by a factor of 8 and 50, respectively

A role for apoptosis-inducing factor in T cell development

Apoptosis-inducing factor (Aif) is a mitochondrial flavoprotein that regulates cell metabolism and survival in many tissues. We report that aif-hypomorphic harlequin (Hq) mice show thymic hypocellularity and a cell-autonomous thymocyte developmental block associated with apoptosis at the β-selection stage, independent of T cell receptor β recombination. No abnormalities are observed in the B cell lineage. Transgenes encoding wild-type or DNA-binding–deficient mutant Aif rectify the thymic defect, but a transgene encoding oxidoreductase activity–deficient mutant Aif does not. The Hq thymic block is reversed in vivo by antioxidant treatment, and Hq T but not B lineage cells show enhanced oxidative stress. Thus, Aif, a ubiquitous protein, serves a lineage-specific nonredundant antiapoptotic role in the T cell lineage by regulating reactive oxygen species during thymic β-selection

Biological interactions of biocompatible and water-dispersed MoS2 nanosheets with bacteria and human cells

Two dimensional materials beyond graphene such as MoS2 and WS2 are novel and interesting class of materials whose unique physico-chemical properties can be exploited in applications ranging from leading edge nanoelectronics to the frontiers between biomedicine and biotechnology. To unravel the potential of TMD crystals in biomedicine, control over their production through green and scalable routes in biocompatible solvents is critically important. Furthermore, considering multiple applications of eco-friendly 2D dispersions and their potential impact onto live matter, their toxicity and antimicrobial activity still remain an open issue. Herein, we focus on the current demands of 2D TMDs and produce high-quality, few-layered and defect-free MoS2 nanosheets, exfoliated and dispersed in pure water, stabilized up to three weeks. Hence, we studied the impact of this material on human cells by investigating its interactions with three cell lines: two tumoral, MCF7 (breast cancer) and U937 (leukemia), and one normal, HaCaT (epithelium). We observed novel and intriguing results, exhibiting evident cytotoxic effect induced in the tumor cell lines, absent in the normal cells in the tested conditions. The antibacterial action of MoS2 nanosheets is then investigated against a very dangerous gram negative bacterium, such as two types of Salmonellas: ATCC 14028 and wild-type Salmonella typhimurium. Additionally, concentration and layer-dependent modulation of cytotoxic effect is found both on human cells and Salmonellas