Role of culture in the process of resource creation : a case study on Temple Town Bishnupur, district Bankura, West Bengal, India

The prerogative of cultural geography is to analyse how space, place and landscape are shaped by culture. It focuses on people’s relationship to the natural world and the modification of that natural landscape into cultural landscape. Cultural landscape is tangible outcome of the complex interaction between human groups with its own practice, preferences, values, aspirations and a natural or modified environment (Knox & Manston, 1987). This interaction is time and space specific. Thus each and every place has its own cultural identity. This identity may become a resource for the further development of that place. So is happen in case of the ‘temple town’ Bishnupur. Geographically it is located between 22057’15" N to 23012’32"N latitude and 87031’46"E to 87024’11"E longitude. The place significance of Bishnupur is historically rooted. It was the capital of Malla (local chieftain) dynasty. The Malla kings patronise many handloom and cottage industries including Silk, Tasar, Conch shell carvings, Bell metal, Patachitra etc. Along with this the Malla kings constructed many terracotta and brick made temples as religious symbols from locally available building materials. Malla reign faced many ups and downs for several times. Naturally many cultural practices imprinted their material and non material culture to the indigenous Bishnupur culture. The terracotta temples witnessed as piece of evidence of that acculturation process. The temples of Bishnupur and surrounding areas were constructed in 16th or 17th century. The temple architecture of neighbouring state Orissa has great impact on the temple of the study area. Incarnation of Mughal and South Indian style of temple can also be found (Santra, 1998). The Mughal, Parsic, Indo-Parsic, Hindu classics, Buddhist style and the mythological influences are prominent in terracotta ornamentation. Beside that the influence of Portuguese architecture is prominent (Dasgupta 1980). Thus mixture of tangible or natural resource and intangible resource in form of religious beliefs makes temples as a part of cultural environment which becomes a resource base for tourism

ROLE OF YEAST ISOLATES FOR DEGRADATION OF THIRD GENERATION CEPHALOSPORIN ANTIBIOTICS : CEFOTAXIME AND CEFOPERAZONE

Objective: The objective of the present study was to study the degradation of third generation cephalosporin antibiotics viz. cefotaxime and cefoperazone using four yeast isolates under optimal conditions.Methods: The steps include screening of yeasts for degradation of cefotaxime and cefoperazone in minimal broth (MB). The effect of various parameters like pH, temperature, shaking speed, inoculum size and initial substrate concentration during degradation was studied. The effect of carbon and nitrogen as additional sources in MB on the yeast biomass production was tested. The degradation efficiency of four yeasts on cefotaxime and cefoperazone were calculated.Results: Under optimized conditions viz. pH 6.0, temperature 30°C, shaking speed of 120 rpm, inoculum dosage of 4% (v/v) and initial cefotaxime concentration of 200 mg/L and cefoperazone concentration of 150 mg/L, maximum yeast growth was noted. No improvement in yeast growth was observed due to the addition of extra carbon and nitrogen sources. Among four yeast isolates, maximum degradation of 61% cefotaxime at a concentration of 200 mg/L and 64 % cefoperazone at a concentration of 150 mg/L was shownby Candida sp. SMN04 under optimal condition.Conclusion: Therefore, based on the results of the present study, it can be concluded that the yeasts isolates can serve as degraders of cephalosporin antibiotics viz. cefotaxime and cefoperazone in aqueous environment

Veltman Criteria in Beyond Standard Model Effective Field Theory of Complex Scalar Triplet

The Standard Model Higgs mass, not being protected by any symmetry, suffers from large correction terms due to quadratic divergence coming from the self energy corrections. Veltman Condition (V.C.) ensures that the coefficient of the quadratic divergent term either vanishes or becomes negligible. If the Standard Model is valid up-to a scale ($\Lambda$) and new physics takes over beyond that; Veltman condition demands $\Lambda\lesssim 760$ GeV. But the non-observation of new physics has pushed $\Lambda$ to be $\geq 1$ TeV already, making it impossible to satisfy the Veltman condition in the Standard Model without very large fine tuning. Attempts has been made to satisfy the V.C. in many Beyond Standard Model theories but they fail to satisfy the V.C. at large $\Lambda$ including the theory of complex scalar triplet with hypercharge $1$. Hence, an alternate scenario can be considered where the new physics appears much above the Electroweak scale. Then, the effect of the new physics can be observed by integrating out the new degrees of freedoms in terms of the Wilson Coefficients of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) operators. Here we consider some specific new physics models to appear at a very large scale, and name it Beyond Standard Model Effective Field Theory (BSM-EFT). We found that the V.C. satisfies easily in the type-II seesaw model with complex scalar triplet ($Y=1$) compared to the other extensions in the BSM-EFT framework. We examine the model parameter dependence of the Wilson Coefficients in detail and show how the cancellation of the Wilson Coefficients appearing in the V.C. is highly dependent on some specific values of the model parameters.Comment: 13 pages, 3 Figure

ISOLATION, SCREENING AND IDENTIFICATION OF CEFDINIR DEGRADING YEASTS FOR THE TREATMENT OF PHARMACEUTICAL WASTEWATER

Objective: The aim of the present study was to isolate, screen and identify the cefdinir degrading yeasts for the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater. Methods: The steps include isolation of yeasts from pharmaceutical wastewater, screening of yeasts for cefdinir degradation, studies on effects of pH, carbon and nitrogen sources on yeast growth, treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater using yeast. Results: Out of five yeast isolates, four were screened for cefdinir degradation and identified by molecular techniques. Yeast isolates were found to utilize cefdinir as sole carbon and energy source at an optimum pH 6.0. Addition of extra carbon and nitrogen sources in the growth medium did not show any improvement of yeast growth. Maximum cefdinir degradation by four yeast isolates was found to be 72%, 78%, 81% and 84% respectively and significant reduction in BOD, COD, TSS and TDS was noted after treating the pharmaceutical wastewater with the yeast isolates. Conclusion: The isolated yeasts may serve as potential remediation agents for the treatment of pharmaceutical wastewater containing cefdinir, a semi-synthetic cephalosporin derivative

ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POTENTIAL PROBIOTIC YEASTS FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES

objective The main objective of the present study is to isolate yeasts from different environmental sources to investigate their potential probiotic characteristics.Methods Appropriate in vitro assays has been conducted to examine their probiotic potentiality, such as acid and bile salt tolerance, temperature resistance, stimulated GIT tolerance, cell adhesion and cholesterol removal. All the yeast isolates were tested under in vitro conditions.Results In the present study, 20 yeast species have been isolated from different sources, screened and their desirable probiotic properties viz. pH tolerance, bile salt tolerance and thermo-tolerance have been evaluated. Screened yeast isolates treated with gastric juices showed increased survival rate above 60%. A further in vitro study investigates cholesterol removal and it showed increased cholesterol removal rate up to 92%. Exopolysaccharide production was estimated for selected yeast isolates and applications are under investigation.Conclusion Among 20 yeast isolates, 5 isolates showed increased growth under stress tolerance. It can be concluded that the screened yeast isolates LM, MR, GOI, GII2 and WI can serve as promising probiotics in various fields of food industry.Key words:  Acid tolerance; bile tolerance, cholesterol removal, probiotics, yeast

MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF PROBIOTIC YEAST STRAINS AND THEIR CHARACTERIZATION

Objective The objective of the present study was to identify the potential yeast isolates at themolecular level and evaluate their probiotic characteristics.MethodsMolecular characterization was done for 5 potential probiotic yeast strains. In vitro assays have been conducted to evaluate the probiotic properties such as NaCl tolerance, autoaggregation and co-aggregation. Haemolyticactivity, urease activity and cytotoxicity tests were carried out for safety assay during the characterization of yeast strains.ResultsIn this study, the yeast strains viz. LM,MR,GOI,GII2and WI were identified at molecular level and named as Yarrowialipolytica VIT-MN01, Kluyveromyces lactis VIT-MN02, Lipomyces starkeyi VIT-MN03, Saccharomycopsis fibuligera VIT-MN04, Brettanomyces custersianus VIT-MN05 respectively. Maximum autoaggregation and coaggregationwere noted in case of Lipomyces starkeyi VIT-MN03, Saccharomycopsis fibuligeraVIT-MN04, and Brettanomyces custersianus VIT-MN05. In vitro toxicity assay was performed and all the yeast strains showednon-toxic nature.ConclusionFive yeast strains have been studied for their probiotic characteristics and identified at molecular level. Out offive yeast strains, three strains showed maximum adhesion ability,which is a prerequisite for colonization and protection of gastrointestinal tract. All the yeast strains are validated as a safe bioresources because of their non - hemolytic activities and non-production of urease. It can be concluded that the identified yeast strainscan serve as promising probiotics in various fields offood industry

A novel role for Skp2 in mitotic entry

S phase kinase associated protein 2 (Skp2) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase, an established oncogene and an important G1-S regulator. The critical and well-studied target of Skp2 is the Cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor p27/Dap. Overexpression of Skp2 has been observed in a wide variety of cancer types and in most of these cancer types, downregulation of p27/Dap has also been observed. However, loss of Skp2 in mammals and in Drosophila also results in polyploidy in mitotic tissues. Polyploidy resulting from overexpression of Skp2 has been widely studied but there is still no clear understanding on how loss of Skp2 results in polyploidy. We found that loss of Skp2 results in premature degradation of Cyclin A and other mitotic cyclins - possibly by the premature activation of APC-CDH1/Fzr resulting in mitotic failure. The cells then enter a G-like state and start endoreplicating, causing polyploidy. Our results show that the N-terminus of Skp2 interacts directly with Cyclin A and is required for rescuing polyploidy in Skp2 null mitotic cells. We also showed that polyploidy resulting from overexpression of p27/Dap is different from polyploidy resulting from loss of Skp2. Our results show that the polyploid Skp2 null cells which enter mitosis, delay in prometaphase/metaphase of the cell cycle with the activation of the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint (SAC). These cells frequently undergo double stranded DNA damage and activates apoptosis and autophagy mediated cell death. Our results argue that it is not polyploidy but the entry of polyploid cells into mitosis that activates the checkpoints that cause apoptosis for genome stability

Change Management using Generative Modeling on Digital Twins

A key challenge faced by small and medium-sized business entities is securely managing software updates and changes. Specifically, with rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats, changes/updates/patches to software systems are necessary to stay ahead of emerging threats and are often mandated by regulators or statutory authorities to counter these. However, security patches/updates require stress testing before they can be released in the production system. Stress testing in production environments is risky and poses security threats. Large businesses usually have a non-production environment where such changes can be made and tested before being released into production. Smaller businesses do not have such facilities. In this work, we show how "digital twins", especially for a mix of IT and IoT environments, can be created on the cloud. These digital twins act as a non-production environment where changes can be applied, and the system can be securely tested before patch release. Additionally, the non-production digital twin can be used to collect system data and run stress tests on the environment, both manually and automatically. In this paper, we show how using a small sample of real data/interactions, Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models can be used to generate testing scenarios to check for points of failure