Review Article: Current Knowledge on Microarray Technology - An Overview

The completion of whole genome sequencing projects has led to a rapid increase in the availability of genetic information. In the field of transcriptomics, the emergence of microarray-based technologies and the design of DNA biochips allow high-throughput studies of RNA expression in cell and tissue at a given moment. It has emerged as one of the most important technology in the field of molecular biology and transcriptomics. Arrays of oligonucleotide or DNA sequences are being used for genome-wide genotyping and expression profiling, and several potential clinical applications have begun to emerge as our understanding of these techniques and the data they generate improves. From its emergence to date, several database, software and technology updates have been developed in the field of microarray technology. This paper reviews basics and updates of each microarray technology and serves to introduce newly compiled resources that will provide specialist information in this area.Keywords: Microarray, Databases, cDNA array, Oligonucleotide arra

Scalable Microfabrication Procedures for Adhesive-Integrated Flexible and Stretchable Electronic Sensors.

New classes of ultrathin flexible and stretchable devices have changed the way modern electronics are designed to interact with their target systems. Though more and more novel technologies surface and steer the way we think about future electronics, there exists an unmet need in regards to optimizing the fabrication procedures for these devices so that large-scale industrial translation is realistic. This article presents an unconventional approach for facile microfabrication and processing of adhesive-peeled (AP) flexible sensors. By assembling AP sensors on a weakly-adhering substrate in an inverted fashion, we demonstrate a procedure with 50% reduced end-to-end processing time that achieves greater levels of fabrication yield. The methodology is used to demonstrate the fabrication of electrical and mechanical flexible and stretchable AP sensors that are peeled-off their carrier substrates by consumer adhesives. In using this approach, we outline the manner by which adhesion is maintained and buckling is reduced for gold film processing on polydimethylsiloxane substrates. In addition, we demonstrate the compatibility of our methodology with large-scale post-processing using a roll-to-roll approach

The social construction of identity in HIV/AIDS home-based care volunteers in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Home-based care volunteer (HBCV) identity and how it is shaped was the main focus of the study. Fifteen HBCVs were interviewed about their work and personal life stories and then interviewed reflectively using a narrative interviewing style. Specific attention was paid to contextual meta-narratives and social field narratives in understanding the women’s stories. Findings indicate that social field narratives of the women’s stories were dominated by negative aspects of gender, poverty and socio-political factors. These were seen to coincide with the ‘feminisation of responsibility’ in this context effectively coercing the women into agency which manifested as theirhome-based care work. Meta-narratives influencing the women’s lives were dominated by stories of communal motherhood, aspirations to service-oriented work and religious beliefs and commitment. The question of how it is possible for women who are seemingly constrained by oppressive narratives to voluntarily engage in community participation was answered in the women’s personal life stories about being compassionate, hopeful, helpful and ambitious and having initiative. These characteristicscollectively pointed to personal agency. Exploring connections between the different aspects of identity and context revealed that the women made sense of their community participation through their personal identities as strong and loving mothers. Connections between volunteer personal identity, agency and volunteer group identity were explored to make sense of the link between HBCV identity and volunteerism. The mother identity, encompassing personal agency (strength or power) and love (themeta-narrative of communal motherly love), was salient in influencing community participation of the group

Validated gradient Stability-Indicating UPLC Method for the Determination of Lidocaine and its Degradation Impurities in Pharmaceutical Dosage Form

Objective: Aim of the present work was to develop a stability indicating ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method to determine Lidocaine and its degradation impurities in pharmaceutical dosage forms. Method: Chromatographic separation was achieved by gradient elution on Agilent eclipse plus C18 (100x4.6) mm, and 1.8m column with potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (pH 4.50) and acetonitrile within a short runtime of 14.0 min. The eluted compounds were monitored at 230 nm using photodiode array (PDA) detector, the flow rate was 1.0 mL/min, and the column oven temperature was maintained at 40 ?C. Result: The resolution of Lidocaine and six (potential, bi-products and degradation) impurities was greater than 2.0 for all pairs of components. The repeatability and intermediate precision, expressed by the RSD, were less than 1.0%. The accuracy and validity of the method were further ascertained by performing recovery studies. The specificity of the method was investigated under different stress conditions including hydrolytic, oxidative, photolytic and thermal as recommended by ICH guidelines. Relevant degradation was found to take place under oxidative condition. Conclusion: Method was Robustness against small modification in pH, column oven temperature, flow rate and percentage of the mobile phase composition was ascertained. All these results provide that the method has stability indicating properties being fit for its intended purpose; it may find application for the routine analysis of the related substances of Lidocaine formulations

Performance Analysis of MIMO SFBC CI-COFDM System against the Nonlinear Distortion and Narrowband Interference

Carrier Interferometry Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CI-COFDM) system has been widely studied in multi-carrier communication system. The CI-COFDM system spreads each coded information symbol across all N sub-carriers using orthogonal CI spreading codes. The CI-COFDM system shows the advantages of Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) reduction, frequency diversity and coding gain without any loss of communication throughput. On the other side, a great attention has been devoted to Multi Input Multi Output (MIMO) antenna systems and space-time-frequency processing. In this paper, we focus on two Transmit (Tx)/one Receive (Rx) antennas configuration and evaluate the performance of MIMO OFDM, MIMO CIOFDM and MIMO CI-COFDM systems. Space Frequency Block Coding (SFBC) is applied to MIMO OFDM, MIMO CI-ODFM and MIMO CI-COFDM systems. For CI-COFDM realization, digital implemented CI-COFDM is used in which information conventional is encoded, CI code spreading operation and carrier allocation are processed by IFFT type operation. From simulation results, it is shown that MIMO SFBC CI-COFDM reduces PAPR significantly as compared with that of MIMO SFBC CI-OFDM and MIMO SFBC OFDM systems. In Narrow Band Interference (NBI) channel MIMO SFBC CI-COFDM systems achieve considerable Bit Error Rate (BER) improvement compared with MMO SFBC CI-OFDM and MIMO SFBC OFDM system

Performance Degradation in Pre-rake Frequency-division Duplex/ Direct Sequence-code Division Multiple Access Systems

The transmitter-based pre-rake diversity combining technique reduces the complexity, size and cost of the mobile unit (MU), while achieving the same inter symbol interference (ISI) mitigation effects of rake receiver for direct sequence-code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) systems. The technique is based on preprocessing of transmitted signal relying on knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) before transmission. In most of the previous works, this a priori information is either assumed or estimated for the uplink and the same is applied to the downlink in time division duplex (TDD) systems due to channel reciprocity. In this paper, a method for channel prediction to evaluate the pre-rake system using binary phaseshift keying (BPSK) modulation in frequency-division duplex (FDD) through analytical and computer simulations for DS-CDMA downlink has been proposed. The performance of the system was also evaluated under ideal and predicted channel conditions using different spreading codes. The findings will have widespread applications in defence communication equipment.Defence Science Journal, 2010, 60(3), pp.282-289, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.60.35

Finger Ridge Count Correlations Among Four Tribes of Andhra Pradesh, India

The present paper reports the distribution of finger ridge count correlations among four tribal populations from Andhra Pradesh, India viz., Dulia, Kotia, Manne Dora and Manzai Mali, and examines the intra and inter population variation. Higher correlations are recorded in left hands compared to right hands, but they are not significant. The homologous fingers exhibit a stronger correlation. In all the tribes, the correlations between right hand fingers are relatively higher among women when compared to men. Regarding inter population variation Dulia men differ significantly from the men of Manne Dora and the Manzai Mali tribes, and Kotia women also differ from the women of the Manne Dora significantly. The average correlation coefficient of the present populations is similar to other Indian populations reported earlier but lower than African and European populations

Experimental observation of quantum corrections to electrical resistivity in nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloys

X-ray diffraction patterns of nanocrystalline Fe-Cu-Nb-Si-B (FINEMET) alloys reveal that bcc α-Fe/α -FeSi crystallites with the average grain size of 20(5) nm are dispersed in amorphous matrix. Enhanced electron-electron interaction (EEI) and quantum interference (QI) effects as well as electron-magnon (and/or electron-spin fluctuation) scattering turn out to be the main mechanisms that govern the temperature dependence of resistivity. Of all the inelastic scattering processes, inelastic electron-phonon scattering is the most effective mechanism to destroy phase coherence of electron wave functions. The diffusion constant, density of states at the Fermi level and the inelastic scattering time have been estimated, for the first time, for the alloys in question

Fractional-submerged membrane distillation crystallizer (F-SMDC) for treatment of high salinity solution

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Membrane distillation with crystallization (MDC) is an attractive process for high saline seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) brine treatment. MDC produces additional fresh water while simultaneously recovering valuable resources. This study developed a novel approach of fractional-submerged MDC (F-SMDC) process, in which MD and crystallizer are integrated in a feed tank with a submerged membrane. F-SMDC principle is based on the presence of temperature/concentration gradient (TG/CG) in the feed reactor. The operational conditions at the top portion of the feed reactor (higher temperature and lower feed concentration) was well suited for MD operation, while the bottom portion of the reactor (lower temperature and higher concentration) was favourable for crystal growth. F-SMDC performance with direct contact MD to treat brine and produce sodium sulfate (Na2SO4) crystals using TG/CG showed positive results. The TG/CG approach in F-SMDC enabled to achieve higher water recovery for brine treatment with a volume concentration factor (VCF) of over 3.5 compared to VCF of 2.9 with a conventional S-MDC set-up. Further, the high feed concentration and low temperature at the reactor bottom in F-SMDC enabled the formation of Na2SO4 crystals with narrow crystal size distribution