Moonshots for aging

As the global population ages, there is increased interest in living longer and improving one's quality of life in later years. However, studying aging - the decline in body function - is expensive and time-consuming. And despite research success to make model organisms live longer, there still aren't really any feasible solutions for delaying aging in humans. With space travel, scientists couldn't know what it would take to get to the moon. They had to extrapolate from theory and shorter-range tests. Perhaps with aging, we need a similar moonshot philosophy. And though "shot" might imply medicine, perhaps we need to think beyond biological interventions. Like the moon, we seem a long way away from provable therapies to increase human healthspan (the healthy period of one's life) or lifespan (how long one lives). This review therefore focuses on radical proposals. We hope it might stimulate discussion on what we might consider doing significantly differently than ongoing aging research

Managing Large Enclaves in a Data Center

Live migration of an application or VM is a well-known technique for load balancing, performance optimization, and resource management. To minimize the total downtime during migration, two popular methods -- pre-copy or post-copy -- are used in practice. These methods scale to large VMs and applications since the downtime is independent of the memory footprint of an application. However, in a secure, trusted execution environment (TEE) like Intel's scalable SGX, the state-of-the-art still uses the decade-old stop-and-copy method, where the total downtime is proportional to the application's memory footprint. This is primarily due to the fact that TEEs like Intel SGX do not expose memory and page table accesses to the OS, quite unlike unsecure applications. However, with modern TEE solutions that efficiently support large applications, such as Intel's Scalable SGX and AMD's Epyc, it is high time that TEE migration methods also evolve to enable live migration of large TEE applications with minimal downtime (stop-and-copy cannot be used any more). We present OptMig, an end-to-end solution for live migrating large memory footprints in TEE-enabled applications. Our approach does not require a developer to modify the application; however, we need a short, separate compilation pass and specialized software library support. Our optimizations reduce the total downtime by 98% for a representative microbenchmark that uses 20GB of secure memory and by 90 -- 96% for a suite of Intel SGX applications that have multi-GB memory footprints

Development of 2024 p/m aluminium alloy–SiCp nanocomposites via mechanical alloying

Aluminum alloy 2024 is the best known most widely used aircraft structural alloy. Now a days it is also gaining ground in automotive industry. In the present studies, 2024 P/M Al alloy and SiC particulates have been chosen as matrix and reinforcement materials, respectively. Mechanical alloying (MA) was used to obtain uniform SiCp dispersion in the matrix. MA powder was vacuum degassed and consolidated by hot pressing and subsequent hot forging. Thereafter the composites were heat treated to give T-6 temper. Optical and scanning electron microscopy of the composite was carried out and evaluation of mechanical properties was done. The principal objective of the present investigations was to determine how the particulate volume fraction and extent of mechanical alloying affect the microstructure and tensile properties of 2024 P/M Al alloy-SiCp composites. In these efforts it could be possible to develop nano composites of 2024 P/M Al alloy-SiCp having tensile strength of 504 MPa and modulus of elasticity of 105 GPa

EMAT Based Ultrasonic System for Determination of Thickness Variation in Metallic Samples

Thickness measurement is an important primary measurement parameter. It itself and from the various derived para-meters, provides valuable information in testing and process industries. Although numerous techniques are avail-able for thickness measurement which provide very good results for transparent material and when both sides are accessible, but these methods have limitations in case of opaque material and when only one side is accessible. A new EMAT based non contact technique is reported in this paper which is capable of measuring thickness variation even in opaque material and if only one side is accessible. Using EMAT it was possible to measure the thickness of a material in the order of a few nanometers. This was achi-evable by the facility developed at NPL, India to measure ultrasonic Time of Flight (TOF) to an accuracy of nano-seconds with deviation of 300 picoseconds. An experiment was done using EMAT to measure the variation in thickness due to stamped notch in an aluminium block having thick-ness of 25mm. EMAT system was able to measure considerable variation in the thickness due to notch. An experiment was also done on circular metallic pipe to determine the variation in inner diameter by measuring wall thickness. Excellent result was obtained with greater precision. This better precision is achieved because of Beam Width to Reflector ratio being close to unity. In case of flat plates this ratio is much greater than unity. To reduce this ratio to unity even in case of flat plates several samples were used in conjunction with EMAT and experiments were again performed on the above mentioned aluminium block to determine the variation in thickness due to notch

Expression of Dkk 1 in Endometrial Endometrioid Carcinoma & Its Correlation with Wnt / β-catenin Signaling Pathway

Objective: Endometrial cancer is the most common form of cancer affecting female reproductive organs. Most common histologic type endometrioid carcinoma constitutes 75 to 80% of all cases. Studies on Dkk1 expression profiles and its inhibitory role in Wnt signaling pathway in genesis and development of endometrial carcinoma are very few. This study aims to investigate Dkk1 expression in endometrial carcinoma and its correlation with Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Methods: A total of 160 formalin fixed paraffin embedded samples including 50 cases each of endometrial atypical hyperplasia and endometrioid endometrial carcinoma along with 30 cases each of proliferative and secretory endometrium were included in this study. We investigated expression pattern of Dkk1, E-cadherin, β-catenin and c-myc in endometrial atypical hyperplasia and carcinoma as well as compared with that of proliferative and secretory endometrium. Immunohistochemistry and analysis were performed from July, 2018 to June, 2020. Results: We showed decreasing pattern of immunopositivity for Dkk1, E-cadherin and β-catenin from proliferative/secretory endometrium to endometrial atypical hyperplasia and endometrioid carcinoma. Increasing c-myc immunopositivity was noted from proliferative/secretory endometrium to endometrial atypical hyperplasia and endometrioid carcinoma. Moreover, decreasing Dkk1 immunopositivity was well correlated with both E-cadherin, β-catenin and c-myc immunopositivity. Conclusion: Decreasing Dkk1 positivity from benign endometrium to endometrioid carcinoma suggests a negative regulatory function of Dkk1 in endometrioid carcinoma. Dkk1 is downregulated in Wnt signaling pathway in endometrioid endometrial carcinoma. Thus, Dkk1 can show promise as a biomarker for screening endometrioid carcinoma. Future researches can study the reactivation of the Dkk1 gene that could be a valuable strategy for antagonizing Wnt signaling pathway. Keywords: Endometrioid carcinoma, Dkk1, Wnt/β-catenin pathway, β-catenin, E-cadheri

THE AWARENESS ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN RETAIL INDUSTRY- A STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO ANDHRA PRADESH

The current study carries numerous aspects like recent trends, attitudes of buyers and how they participate in the digital marketing in retail sector. The researcher identifying the satisfaction of the consumers, perceptions and their problemstowards the digital marketing in retail stores. The researcher utilizes both the primary and secondary data for the research. The researcher uses books, magazines, newspapers, journals etc. as the second-hand data. And survey method is used as primary data for this research. Convenience sampling technique is used. The researcher analyzes the current study with the help of the percentages and mea

Development of Nano SiO2 Particles Dispersed Shape Memory Epoxy Composites

Thermo responsive shape memory epoxy based composites are being investigated for their excellent mechanical and thermal properties. In present study the thermosetting epoxy containing different composition of SiO2 nano particles ranging from 1 to 4 wt. % have been prepared through solvent casting route. Developed composites have been studied for grain analysis, FTIR, shape recovery, impact strength and hardness. Addition of 3 wt. % SiO2 improves hardness and impact strength significantly. Average grain size of SiO2 particles increase at higher wt. % of SiO2 in polymer matrix due to agglomeration of nanoparticles