Making Men in the City: Articulating Masculinity and Space in Urban India

In my dissertation, I illustrate the way in which processes in contemporary urban India structure the making/ unmaking of gendered identities for young men in a working class, scheduled caste neighborhood in the western Indian city of Pune. Present day Pune, an aspiring metropolis, presents a complex socio-spatial intersection of neoliberal processes and peculiar historical trajectories of caste exclusion; this dissertation seeks to highlight how socio-spatial dynamics of the city produce and sustain gendered identities and inequalities in Pune, a city hitherto neglected in academic research. Also, my focus on young men’s gendered identities speaks to a growing recognition that men need to be studied in gendered terms, as ‘men,’ in order to understand fully the dimensions of gendered inequalities and violence prevalent in South Asian cities today. I follow the lives of young men between 16 and 30 in a neighborhood in the eastern part of Pune, who belong to a scheduled caste called Matang. The historical incorporation of this caste group as municipal sweepers in the city’s labour regime has had adverse implications for the young men, in terms of low levels of education and precarious chances of employment in an increasingly skill-based and informalized labor market. I explore ethnographically the deep sense of gendered inadequacy that this lack generates in the young men, articulated in explicitly spatialised terms: through the continuous dismissal by the young men of their neighborhood as ‘backward’ as opposed to the middle class ‘standard’ areas in the city; and through their aspirational struggles to master the new spaces of consumption in the city. Relevant to my dissertation are the practices of local, exclusively male voluntary associations and of local electoral politics, which I argue constitute distinct subcultures shaped by and embedded in the historical, socio-political and spatial organisation of the city. I demonstrate in ethnographic terms how the membership of the neighborhood voluntary association and its activities enables the enactment of a ‘moral masculinity’ for the young men in the neighborhood, while simultaneously equipping them with the tools to acquire specialised knowledge about the informal, criminal city, itself a highly gendered terrain. The young men’s participation in local political brokering is an expression of the peculiar culture of urban local politics that incorporated poor neighborhoods as vital nodes of populist political bargaining in post-colonial urban India. I show how the spatialized nature of these processes allow the young men temporary feelings of power and self-worth during these negotiations, thus constituting a sense of self which tightly binds location/ place with caste, class and a gendered identity. I also illustrate the role that women’s evaluations and expectations play in shaping the gendered identities of men in the galli. I conclude that the construction and enactment of gendered identities of young men in the neighborhood is intimately moulded by their multiple marginalisations from the city’s economic, social and democratic political processes, a historical trajectory intensified in the city’s current neoliberal ethos. At the same time, the possibilities of recuperating this gendered sense of inadequacy in the spaces of the neighborhood also ensures their being trapped in these very spaces, further entrenching them firmly in the geography of the city’s caste and class based exclusion

A comparative study of inflammatory marker highly sensitive C- Reactive Protein in depression patients exhibiting suicidal behaviour and depression patients without suicidal behaviour

Background: Recent research have found a link between inflammatory pathway and suicidal behaviour. hs-CRP, IL, TNF have been shown to have significant alterations in suicidality, however multiple covariates influence this relationship. One of the main limitations of most of the studies is that they have evaluated the CRP in patients demonstrating suicidal behaviour but not in depression. No study has been conducted in Indian subpopulation with parameters of our study. Aims of the study was to compare hsCRP levels between depression patients with suicidal behaviour and without suicidal behaviour.Methods: Authors compared 50 depression patients with suicidal behaviour and 50 depression patients without suicidal behaviour, diagnosed using ICD10. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS‑17), Suicide behaviour Questionnaire- Revised (SBQ-R), Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSSI) were applied for assessment of depression and suicidality. Highly sensitive CRP was measured using autoanalyzer.Results: hsCRP levels were significantly high in depression patients with suicidal behaviour (4.12 mg/dl) than depression without suicidal behaviour (2.42 mg/dl). Duration of illness, HAM-D, BSSI and SBQ-R scores correlated positively with hsCRP levels.Conclusions: Depression with suicidal behaviour patients have a significantly higher hs-CRP levels than depression without suicidal behaviour. Patients of depression with suicidal behaviour group have a strong positive correlation between hs-CRP levels and HAM-D, BSSI and SBQ-R scores

Clinico-biochemical correlation between psoriasis and lipid profile

Background: Psoriasis is an autoimmune disorder associated with alteration of different metabolism. The present study was aimed to assess the lipid metabolism and its correlation with severity of disease and associated cardiovascular risk factors in psoriasis.Methods: Study comprises total of 60 cases of psoriasis attended the dermatology clinics at Maharaja Yashwant Rao hospital, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India and 30 age, gender matched healthy controls. Subjects were enrolled in the study as per the inclusion criteria. Severity of the disease was assessed by PASI score. Fasting blood samples were collected and evaluated for Lipid profile and risk ratio was calculated.Results: The results indicated that serum total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-C,VLDL-C were significantly increased in moderate to severe cases in comparison to control and level of HDL-C significantly decreased in moderate psoriasis and highly significant decreased was observed in severe cases when compared to control. Serum triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein showed a significant positive correlation with severity of psoriasis. Study concludes that lipid derangement correlate with the severity of disease and also acts as a good prognostic sign.  Conclusions: Present study concludes that psoriatic patients should be evaluated and followed up for the risk of dyslipidemia and cardiovascular morbidity

L-Valin combined PLGA nanoparticles for oral insulin delivery

Oral delivery is the preferred route of administration because it offers several advantages over other routes. However, it is not an effective route for the delivery of peptides and proteins because of so many constraints. The small intestine has been shown to be able to transport the L-forms of amino acids against a concentration gradient and that they compete for the mechanism concerned. So L-Valine was used as a ligand for carrier mediated transport of insulin loaded PLGA nanoparticles. L-valine-conjugated PLGA-nanoparticles were prepared using double emulsion solvent evaporation method. The insulin bearing nanoparticles were also studied for size, drug entrapment efficiency, zeta potential and polydispersity index, in vitro insulin release. Ex-vivo studies on intestine revealed that conjugated nanoparticles showed greater insulin uptake as compared to nonconjugated nanoparticles. In-vivo studies were performed on streptozotocin induced diabetic rabbits.  Oral suspension of insulin loaded PLGA nanoparticles reduced blood glucose level from 265.4±8.5 to 246.6±2.4 mg/dl within 4 hrs which further decreased to 198.7±7.1 mg/dl value after 8 hrs, The ligand conjugated formulation on oral administration produced hypoglycaemic effect within 4 hrs of administration, the hypoglycaemic effect prolonged till 12 hours of oral administration. Simultaneously, the insulin concentration in withdrawn samples was also assessed and found that profile of insulin level is in compliance with the blood glucose reduction profile. Compared with formulation loaded with the drug, the valine conjugated nanoparticles produced a sustained hypoglycaemic response till 12 hrs than 8 hrs. Hence, it is concluded that the L-valine conjugated NPs bearing insulin are the promising carrier for the transportation of insulin across the intestine on oral administration Keywords: L-valine, Streptozotocin, PLGA nanoparticles, Insulin

Enhancement in hydrophilicity of different polymer phase-inversion ultrafiltration membranes by introducing PEG/Al2O3 nanoparticles

The influence of the modification by additives in the characteristics of several ultrafiltration polymeric membranes was studied. Three asymmetric membranes with similar pore size (molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) of around 30 kDa) but different materials and pore microstructures – polysulfone, polyethersulfone and polyetherimide – were used. Effects of two different hydrophilic additives on membrane structure and the resulting performance were compared to determine the material with the best antifouling properties. Polyethyleneglycol (PEG) and alumina (Al2O3) were employed as additives in the phaseinversion method, N,N-Dimethylacetamide and deionized water were used as solvent and coagulant, respectively. Membranes were characterized in terms of hydraulic permeability, membrane resistance, MWCO profile and hydrophilicity (by membrane porosity and contact angle). The cross-sectional and membrane surface were also examined by microscopic techniques. Membrane antifouling properties were analysed by the experimental study of fouling/rinsing cycles using feed solutions of PEG of 35 kDa. Permeation and morphological studies showed that the addition of PEG/Al2O3 results in formation of a hydrophilic finger-like structure with macrovoids, whereas the addition of Al2O3 results in the formation of a hydrophilic structure with a dense top layer with Al2O3 nanoparticles and a porous sponge-like sublayer. Furthermore, polyethersulfone/PEG/Al2O3 membranes displayed superior antifouling properties and desirable ultrafiltration performance.The authors of this work thank the financial support of CDTI (Centre for Industrial Technological Development) depending on the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The authors also thank the Center for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia) for contact angle measurements and BASF (Germany) and General Electric (United States) for supplying the polymers used.García Ivars, J.; Alcaina Miranda, MI.; Iborra Clar, MI.; Mendoza Roca, JA.; Pastor Alcañiz, L. (2014). Enhancement in hydrophilicity of different polymer phase-inversion ultrafiltration membranes by introducing PEG/Al2O3 nanoparticles. Separation and Purification Technology. 128:45-57. doi:10.1016/j.seppur.2014.03.012S455712

Thermal and dynamic processes in deposition, growth, and etching of materials: I. Thermal and collision-induced activation of alkyl intermediates on aluminum. II. Chemical vapor deposition and growth of silicide on copper

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is becoming an increasingly important manufacturing process for the fabrication of VLSI and ULSI devices. A major challenge in optimizing a CVD process is developing an understanding of the complex mechanistic pathways followed. The first section in this thesis reports studies on the thermal and dynamical activation of surface bound alkyl species which play a vital role in the form of intermediates in metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The particular systems of interest are those of aluminum CVD precursors. Models of these intermediates are obtained by thermal decomposition of alkyl iodides. The results provide an insight into the complex reaction patterns involved in the thermal reactions and rate-structure sensitivities of the alkyl species in the presence of the coadsorbed halogen atom. Multiple reaction pathways including metal etching processes which bear direct implications to the synthesis of organometallics and metal etching, are identified.It is becoming apparent that chemistry at surfaces, whether it be heterogeneous catalysis, semiconductor etching, or chemical vapor deposition, is controlled by much more than the nature and structure of the surface. Also, nonthermal activation of autocatalytic reactions is often required for the nucleation and growth of thin films in devices so that the stability of the device structure is maintained. Dynamical pathways followed in these high pressure and energy processes have to be well understood. The second part of these studies describe an investigation of collision-induced reaction of alkyl intermediates using supersonic inert gas atomic beams. Selective activation of a thermodynamically favored unimolecular decomposition reaction is initiated by hyperthermal collisions. Quantitative estimations of the reaction cross sections are made using straightforward hard sphere energy transfer dynamics. This successful demonstration of collision-induced activation of large, multiatomic moieties has paved the way for proposed studies (now underway in our group) on actual CVD precursors with known barriers to nucleation and growth.In the second section, the reaction mechanisms and kinetics of competitive dissociation, disproportionation, and thin film growth processes involved in the chemical vapor deposition of metal-silicide thin films are investigated. Metal-silicides are widely used as interconnect and gate materials in devices and also as corrosion resistant materials. Reactivity of silane and disilane with copper is studied in detail using temperature programmed reaction, Auger electron, Fourier transform infrared reflection absorption spectroscopies and low energy electron diffraction. For both the precursors, the structural chemistry and product distributions of adsorbed intermediates found at low temperatures are quite rich but significantly differ at the mechanistic level. It is shown quantitatively that disilane is almost 2-3 orders of magnitude more reactive than silane due to its facile Si-Si bond dissociation. However, in both cases, kinetics of silicon deposition and silicide formation are limited by the site-blocking effect of surface bound hydrogen generated by the decomposition of the silyl fragments. An ordered silicide overlayer is readily formed at higher coverages effected above dihydrogen desorption temperatures. This bimolecular process has to compete with an associative reaction which leads to the formation of silane. The results obtained from the different spectroscopic data show that the growth process involves an intriguing set of coupled reactions in which deposition, island growth, and Si etching effectively compete in a complex manner. Understanding of these parameters and the reaction mechanisms involved, enables the application of this process for the vapor phase growth of silicide thin films.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

Deep Learning Bot for League of Legends

In this paper, we take the first step towards building comprehensive bots capable of playing a simplified version of League of Legends, a popular 5v5 online multiplayer game. We implement two different agents, one using Reinforcement Learning and the other via Supervised Long Short Term Memory Network. League of Legends provides a partially observable game environment with an action space much larger than games like Chess or Go. Source code and demonstrations can be found at https://github.com/csci-599-applied-ml-for-games/league-of-legends-bot

SUBSTITUTED ALPO4-11 MOLECULAR-SIEVES SAPO-11 AND COAPO-11 - SYNTHESIS, ACIDITY AND ALKYLATION OF TOLUENE WITH METHANOL

AlPO4-11 as well as substituted SAPO-11 and CoAPO-11 have been synthesized hydrothermally in the pure state. Results of acidity measurement show that the acid strength depends on the substituent. This is also supported by the results of alkylation of toluene with methanol on these catalysts. These molecular sieves exhibit very high para selectivity because of the elliptical 10-membered oxygen ring channels

Substituted AIPO4-11 molecular sieves-SAPO-11 and CoAPO-11: Synthesis, acidity and alkylation 'of toluene with methanol

742-746AIPO4-11 as well as substituted SAPO-11 and CoAPO-11 have been synthesized hydrothermally in the pure state. Results of acidity measurement show that the acid strength depends on the substituent. This is also supported by the results of alkylation of toluene with methanol on these catalysts. These molecular sieves exhibit very high para selectively because of the elliptical 10-membered oxygen ring chennals