Identities of Transgender People in Ancient Tamil Literature

In human society, it is natural to see two genders, male and female. It is somewhat surprising that the work of transgender people, who can be called the third gender, is somewhat surprising. In the Mahabharatam, the story of the birth of a transsexual is extended. In nature's creation, we find these people incarnated as transsexuals in practical life. The records of transgenders can be found in abundance in Sangam literary grammar. Transgender people, who have been marginalized in society, are denied the right to participate in public. Transgenders living in small groups in the human community have been ridiculed as "identityless." This is the situation today. In the Sangam literary records, their identity has been recognized socially. It can be said that their contribution to the level of education is low. Transgenders, who are marginalized people, are more likely to be rejected at all levels. Since they lacked the right to education, there was no context in grammatical and literary fiction in which the pedis (hermaphrodites), the transgenders, could register their right to life. No one comes forward to help in public, fearing that if they raise their voice for them, they will be respected as untouchables in society. This denial is also a contemporary phenomenon. As a result, it is necessary to compile how third-gender identities are recorded in the literary field. Transgenders, also known as hermaphrodites, exist as records in literary life. The location of such people's lives is clearly visible in grammatical and literary fiction

Waste Coir Nanofiller Fused Gallus-Gallus Fibres Reinforced PMC

This research aims to increase the utility of globally and abundantly available waste natural fibres of Gallus-Gallus fibres coir waste from mattress and car seat manufacturing factories. The composite samples were prepared with a rally round of polyester resin of grade GP500 bio-epoxy by synthesizing specially treated Gallus-Gallus fibres selectively used for reinforcement and characterizing them through static and dynamic mechanical analyses to identify their wide range of applicability. The Gallus-Gallus fibres are preprocessed with sodium oxidative and a half per cent of potassium manganate (VII) chemical solution. The selective use includes 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm, and 20 mm length of the Gallus-Gallus fibre, and the quantity of reinforcement was 10%, 20%, and 30%. Five alternate layers of matrix and fibres, with vertical and horizontal orientation, are considered; 12 different samples of Gallus-Gallus fibres reinforced polyester polymer composites and a neat polyester composites were synthesized and characterized for moisture absorbability, tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, wear resistance, and outperformed composites were included in microscopic examination and dynamic Mmchanical analysis. The interesting results are the preferred resin, supported for good surface finish, interface bonding, and totally in the enhancement of Composite properties. The composites are strong in tension (760.89 MPa) and sufficiently flexible (flexural modulus 5441.32 MPa), absorbed less moisture (5.8 g), high wear-resistant (least weight loss upon abrasion with a value of 0.1989 g), secured good results in dynamic analysis, and ensured homogeneous distribution of fibres in the matrix through a scanning electron microscopy image. The composites CPPC10, CPPC11, and CPPC12 performed well but composite CPPC12 outperformed

Harbingers of Hope: Scientists and the Pursuit of World Peace

The ongoing wars in many regions-such as the conflict between Israel and Hamas-as well as the effects of war on communities, social services, and mental health are covered in this special editorial. This article emphasizes the need for international efforts to promote peace, offer humanitarian aid, and address the mental health challenges faced by individuals and communities affected by war and violence

Effects of Cyclic Strain and Growth Factors on Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Responses

Under physiological and pathological conditions, vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) are exposed to different biochemical factors and biomechanical forces. Previous studies pertaining to SMC responses have not investigated the effects of both factors on SMCs. Thus, in our research we investigated the combined effects of growth factors like Bfgf (basic fibroblast growth factor), TGF-β (transforming growth factor β) and PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor) along with physiological cyclic strain on SMC responses. Physiological cyclic strain (10% strain) significantly reduced SMC proliferation compared to static controls while addition of growth factors bFGF, TGF-β or PDGF-AB had a positive influence on SMC growth compared to strain alone. Microarray analysis of SMCs exposed to these growth factors and cyclic strain showed that several bioactive genes (vascular endothelial growth factor, epidermal growth factor receptor, etc.) were altered upon exposure. Further work involving biochemical and pathological cyclic strain stimulation will help us better understand the role of cyclic strain and growth factors in vascular functions and development of vascular disorders

Impact of primary kidney disease on the effects of empagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease: secondary analyses of the EMPA-KIDNEY trial

Background: The EMPA KIDNEY trial showed that empagliflozin reduced the risk of the primary composite outcome of kidney disease progression or cardiovascular death in patients with chronic kidney disease mainly through slowing progression. We aimed to assess how effects of empagliflozin might differ by primary kidney disease across its broad population. Methods: EMPA-KIDNEY, a randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial, was conducted at 241 centres in eight countries (Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the UK, and the USA). Patients were eligible if their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 20 to less than 45 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or 45 to less than 90 mL/min per 1·73 m2 with a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) of 200 mg/g or higher at screening. They were randomly assigned (1:1) to 10 mg oral empagliflozin once daily or matching placebo. Effects on kidney disease progression (defined as a sustained ≥40% eGFR decline from randomisation, end-stage kidney disease, a sustained eGFR below 10 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or death from kidney failure) were assessed using prespecified Cox models, and eGFR slope analyses used shared parameter models. Subgroup comparisons were performed by including relevant interaction terms in models. EMPA-KIDNEY is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03594110. Findings: Between May 15, 2019, and April 16, 2021, 6609 participants were randomly assigned and followed up for a median of 2·0 years (IQR 1·5–2·4). Prespecified subgroupings by primary kidney disease included 2057 (31·1%) participants with diabetic kidney disease, 1669 (25·3%) with glomerular disease, 1445 (21·9%) with hypertensive or renovascular disease, and 1438 (21·8%) with other or unknown causes. Kidney disease progression occurred in 384 (11·6%) of 3304 patients in the empagliflozin group and 504 (15·2%) of 3305 patients in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·71 [95% CI 0·62–0·81]), with no evidence that the relative effect size varied significantly by primary kidney disease (pheterogeneity=0·62). The between-group difference in chronic eGFR slopes (ie, from 2 months to final follow-up) was 1·37 mL/min per 1·73 m2 per year (95% CI 1·16–1·59), representing a 50% (42–58) reduction in the rate of chronic eGFR decline. This relative effect of empagliflozin on chronic eGFR slope was similar in analyses by different primary kidney diseases, including in explorations by type of glomerular disease and diabetes (p values for heterogeneity all >0·1). Interpretation: In a broad range of patients with chronic kidney disease at risk of progression, including a wide range of non-diabetic causes of chronic kidney disease, empagliflozin reduced risk of kidney disease progression. Relative effect sizes were broadly similar irrespective of the cause of primary kidney disease, suggesting that SGLT2 inhibitors should be part of a standard of care to minimise risk of kidney failure in chronic kidney disease. Funding: Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, and UK Medical Research Council

A novel approach for protein secondary structure prediction using encoder–decoder with attention mechanism model

Computational biology faces many challenges like protein secondary structure prediction (PSS), prediction of solvent accessibility, etc. In this work, we addressed PSS prediction. PSS is based on sequence-structure mapping and interaction among amino acid residues. We proposed an encoder–decoder with an attention mechanism model, which considers the mapping of sequence structure and interaction among residues. The attention mechanism is used to select prominent features from amino acid residues. The proposed model is trained on CB513 and CullPDB open datasets using the Nvidia DGX system. We have tested our proposed method for Q 3 and Q 8 accuracy, segment of overlap, and Mathew correlation coefficient. We achieved 70.63 and 78.93% Q 3 and Q 8 accuracy, respectively, on the CullPDB dataset whereas 79.8 and 77.13% Q 3 and Q 8 accuracy on the CB513 dataset. We observed improvement in SOV up to 80.29 and 91.3% on CullPDB and CB513 datasets. We achieved the results using our proposed model in very few epochs, which is better than the state-of-the-art methods

A novel approach for protein secondary structure prediction using encoder–decoder with attention mechanism model

A NOVEL APPROACH FOR PROTEIN SECONDARY STRUCTURE PREDICTION USING ENCODER–DECODER WITH ATTENTION MECHANISM MODEL Biomolecular concepts (Rights reserved) (-) A novel approach for protein secondary structure prediction using encoder–decoder with attention mechanism model / Sonsare, Pravinkumar M. (CC BY) (-

Dry spell analysis for effective water management planning

Abstract: Knowing the dry and wet periods with rainy seasons is essential for successful water management planning in any particular area. With this view, this study analyzed the thirty years (1975-2004) monthly rainfall data of Udumalpet station located in Parambikulam Aliyar sub basin (Tamilnadu) on annual, seasonal and monthly basis for planning a suitable water conservation management system. Sixty two per cent of the total rainfall is received from North East Monsoon and seventeen per cent from South-West Monsoon. In the study period, four years were found to be wet, four years were found to be dry and the remaining twenty two years were found to be normal years. The analysis showed that the annual and seasonal rainfall data did not clearly indicate the problem of drought in the region; whereas the monthly rainfall data indicated serious concerns to deal with drought particularly during the winter and summer months. It also revealed that the winter months were the most susceptible to severe drought conditions. Out of 30 years of study, January and February were found to be the dry months which normally facilitate for the good harvest of the kharif sown long duration crops. There is a need to adopt adequate moisture conservation measures like mulching etc. to mitigate the effect of drought spells during critical periods of crop growth, and to construct water harvesting ponds/tanks for application of pre-sowing irrigation to Rabi (winter) crops, and supplemental irrigation during periods of water scarcity

Novel structures of PII signal transduction proteins from oxygenic phototropic organisms

PII proteins constitute one of the most widely distributed families of signal transduction proteins, whose representatives are present in archaea, bacteria and plants. They play a pivotal role to control the nitrogen metabolism in response to the central metabolites ATP, ADP and 2- oxoglutarate (2-OG). These signals from energy status, carbon and nitrogen metabolism are integrated and transmitted to the regulatory targets (key enzymes, transporters and transcription factors). In oxygenic phototrophic organisms, from cyanobacteria to higher plants, the controlling enzyme of arginine synthesis, N-acetyl-glutamate kinase (NAGK), is a major PII target, whose activity responds to the cellular 2- OG and energy status via PII signalling. Novel crystal structures of PII signal transduction proteins from oxygenic phototrophs in the presence of signaling metabolites and in complex with NAGK give deeper insights into their control mechanism and sheds light on the evolutionary adaptation of PII signal transduction