E-Procurement System

This dissertation is done to fulfill the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Technology (Hons), Information Technology department. The research of this project is done to study the processes involved in procurement. The objective of the project is to come up with an automated procurement system which will conduct all required processes through the internet. The design methodology used in this project is the waterfall modelwhere in the designphase of the model, the project has been dividedinto three modules which are the user interface, the backend and the graph representation. In order to have full understanding of e-procurement, two main areas need to be covered first, electronic businessand procurementprocesses. This is necessaryin order to develop a good e-procurement system. This research will result in creating an e-procurement system which will be more enhanced such as representing the bidding results by graph. This research will result in producing an e-procurement system which will handle procurement activities in an electronic environment where it enables better management of the information and knowledge exchanged with suppliers and customers. As a conclusion, the automation of procurement is to enhance the conventional method of procurement processes

Kinetics of Self-decomposition of Peroxydiphosphate in Aqueous Sulphuric Acid Medium

35-3

Characterizing Silicone and Polyacrylamide Gel Substrates for Mechanobiology Studies Using a Widefield Fluorescence Microscope

Tissues in the human body are predominantly made of cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM). The elastic modulus (Young’s Modulus E) of these tissues varies over many orders of magnitude. Epithelial and other cells in soft tissues adhere to a microenvironment whose stiffness typically falls in the kilopascal range. For example, the elastic modulus of brain is several hundred pascal, whereas that of muscle is more than 10 kilo pascals and that of cartilage is in the range of megapascals. Flexible substrates such as polyacrylamide and silicone gels have proven to be excellent biomimetic substrates for cell culture in vitro. Several methods have been used to measure the stiffness of flexible substrates, including atomic force microscopy, macroscopic deformation of whole samples upon stretching, rheology and indentation using spheres and spherically tipped micro-indentors. While each technique has its own advantages and disadvantages, indentation with a sphere is an especially simple yet fairly accurate method that only requires access to a widefield fluorescence microscope. Recently, confocal microscopy has also been used for an elegant characterization of the indentor method. To characterize the Young’s moduli of isotropic linear elastic substrates, we present here a simple method that only employs a widefield fluorescence microscope for the actual stiffness testing. Common availability of this equipment, use of suitable indentors and methods to restrict fluorescent marker beads to the substrate top surface, enables this method potentially widely accessible.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/engineering_batten/1009/thumbnail.jp

Effect of Substrate Stiffness and Formin on Fibrillar Force Generation by Fibroblasts

Fibroblasts in connective tissues often interact with a fibrillar extra-cellular matrix (ECM) that restricts their shape along one-dimension (1D, along the fiber). At the same time, the fibroblast responds to and affects the mechanical nature of its microenvironment which consists of the inter-woven fibrillary ECM, other matrix components and cells. The determinants of force generation by fibroblasts, which is necessary to understand normal physiology and disease, is however unclear. In order to construct the 1D geometry of fibroblasts, we plated NIH 3T3 fibroblasts on micropatterned 1.5 μm-wide fibronectin lines on polyacrylamide gels with stiffness of 13 or 45 kPa. We used traction force microscopy to quantify the cellular traction force exerted and the associated strain energy stored in the substrate. We found that strain energy or maximum traction stress is not a function of cell length. Even though cell length depends on substrate stiffness, the strain energy and the maximum traction forces exerted were independent of substrate stiffness. Besides, we found that fibroblasts in a 1D morphology have prominent linear actin structures and inhibition of a family of actin nucleators (formin) significantly reduced linear actin level. Importantly, we found that the fibrillar force exerted by fibroblasts also strongly decreased, implicating formin in fibrillar fibroblast force exertion.https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/engineering_batten/1010/thumbnail.jp

Kinetics of Oxidation of Acetaldehyde, Propionaldehyde & n-Butyraldehyde by Peroxydiphosphate

420-42

Biophysical Tools to Study Cellular Mechanotransduction

The cell membrane is the interface that volumetrically isolates cellular components from the cell’s environment. Proteins embedded within and on the membrane have varied biological functions: reception of external biochemical signals, as membrane channels, amplification and regulation of chemical signals through secondary messenger molecules, controlled exocytosis, endocytosis, phagocytosis, organized recruitment and sequestration of cytosolic complex proteins, cell division processes, organization of the cytoskeleton and more. The membrane’s bioelectrical role is enabled by the physiologically controlled release and accumulation of electrochemical potential modulating molecules across the membrane through specialized ion channels (e.g., Na+, Ca2+, K+ channels). The membrane’s biomechanical functions include sensing external forces and/or the rigidity of the external environment through force transmission, specific conformational changes and/or signaling through mechanoreceptors (e.g., platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM), vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin, epithelial (E)-cadherin, integrin) embedded in the membrane. Certain mechanical stimulations through specific receptor complexes induce electrical and/or chemical impulses in cells and propagate across cells and tissues. These biomechanical sensory and biochemical responses have profound implications in normal physiology and disease. Here, we discuss the tools that facilitate the understanding of mechanosensitive adhesion receptors. This article is structured to provide a broad biochemical and mechanobiology background to introduce a freshman mechano-biologist to the field of mechanotransduction, with deeper study enabled by many of the references cited herein

PHYTOCHEMICAL PROFILING OF MEDICALLY SIGNIFICANT CRUDE EXTRACT USING GC-MS ANALYSIS

Objective: The objective of this research is to identify the phytochemical constitutions present in Natural crude extract which obtained from Thumlappati district.Methods: Kidney stone is one of the most clinical disorder arising nowadays. They are existing due to the depletion of the urine and disproportionate execration of the components such as oxalate, phosphate, uric, cysteine, and struvite. Many alopathy medicine are not effectively curable in the case of kidney stone, consequently people are in need of traditional medicine system. Thus there is a great demand for research on potential inhibitor from natural products for dissolving kidney stone. In present work deals with an unknown crude extract collected from G. Thumlappati, Battalagundu Dindugal district Tamil Nadu. The crude extract of phytochemical are analyzed by using GCMS method.Results: Thus the sample has some bioactive compound to discharge the stone particles. So we subjected the crude extract sample to GC-MS process which reveals 210 compounds in 21 different peaks.Conclusion: This studies forms a basis for the biological characterization and importance of bioactive compounds were identified

Metasecretome analysis of a lignocellulolytic microbial consortium grown on wheat straw, xylan and xylose

Background: Synergistic action of different enzymes is required to complete the degradation of plant biomass in order to release sugars which are useful for biorefining. However, the use of single strains is often not efficient, as crucial parts of the required enzymatic machinery can be absent. The use of microbial consortia bred on plant biomass is a way to overcome this hurdle. In these, secreted proteins constitute sources of relevant enzyme cocktails. Extensive analyses of the proteins secreted by effective microbial consortia will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of lignocellulose degradation. Results: Here, we report an analysis of the proteins secreted by a microbial consortium (metasecretome) that was grown on either wheat straw (RWS), xylose or xylan as the carbon sources. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was used to analyze the proteins in the supernatants. Totals of 768 (RWS), 477 (xylose) and 103 (xylan) proteins were identified and taxonomically and functionally classified. In RWS, the proteins were mostly affiliated with Sphingobacterium-like consortium members (similar to 50 %). Specific abundant protein clusters were predicted to be involved in polysaccharide transport and/or sensing (TonB-dependent receptors). In addition, proteins predicted to degrade plant biomass, i.e. endo-1,4-beta-xylanases, alpha-l-arabinofuranosidases and alpha-l-fucosidases, were prominent. In the xylose-driven consortium, most secreted proteins were affiliated with those from Enterobacteriales (mostly Klebsiella species), whereas in the xylan-driven one, they were related to Flavobacterium-like ones. Notably, the metasecretomes of the consortia growing on xylose and xylan contained proteins involved in diverse metabolic functions (e.g. membrane proteins, isomerases, dehydrogenases and oxidoreductases). Conclusions: An analysis of the metasecretomes of microbial consortia originating from the same source consortium and subsequently bred on three different carbon sources indicated that the major active microorganisms in the three final consortia differed. Importantly, diverse glycosyl hydrolases, predicted to be involved in (hemi) cellulose degradation (e.g. of CAZy families GH3, GH10, GH43, GH51, GH67 and GH95), were identified in the RWS metasecretome. Based on these results, we catalogued the RWS consortium as a true microbial enzyme factory that constitute an excellent source for the production of an efficient enzyme cocktail for the pretreatment of plant biomass