Influence of music on the growth of koi carp, Cyprinus carpio (Pisces: Cyprindae)

An experiment was carried out to investigate the influence of music on the growth of Koi Carp (Cyprinus carpio) by subjecting the fish to music. Weekly growth in weight was recorded and used to calculate the growth rate and specific growth rate. The difference in growth between the control and experiment groups of fishes was statistically tested for significance. It was observed that the growth of fish subjected to music was significantly higher

Influence of music on the growth of koi carp, Cyprinus carpio (Pisces: Cyprindae)

An experiment was carried out to investigate the influence of music on the growth of Koi Carp (Cyprinus carpio) by subjecting the fish to music. Weekly growth in weight was recorded and used to calculate the growth rate and specific growth rate. The difference in growth between the control and experiment groups of fishes was statistically tested for significance. It was observed that the growth of fish subjected to music was significantly higher.Growth rate, Audio recordings, Sound Cyprinus carpio

An Energy E cient Routing Protocol for extending Lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks by Transmission Radius Adjustment

Wireless Sensor Networks needs energy e cient routing protocols for increasing the network lifetime. e en- ergy consumption of sensor nodes can be decreased by reducing the transmission radius range. In this proposed work an Energy E cient Routing Protocol (EERP) is developed for wireless sensor network by adjusting the node transmission radius and conserves the node energy. EERP follows on demand routing method for packet forwarding from source to destination. When the node’s energy reaches certain threshold then node reduces its transmission radius again in order to achieve less energy consumption under the circumstance. e trans- mission range distribution optimizations for networks are developed in order to obtain the maximum lifetime. Analysis of the solution shows that network lifetime improvement can be obtained through optimization comes at the expense of energy-ine ciency and a wasting of system resources. e simulation results shows that EERP protocol outperforms the existing routing protocols in terms of network lifetime, energy consumption and has a balanced network load and routing tra c

DELINEATING THE BINDING SITES OF MASON-PFIZER MONKEY VIRUS (MPMV) GAG PRECURSOR POLYPROTEIN (Pr78GAG) ON GENOMIC RNA FOR ITS SELECTIVE PACKAGING

A key step in retroviral life cycle is the selective packaging of its dimeric RNA genome (gRNA) from a pool of cellular and spliced viral RNAs into nascent virions. This involves binding of the retroviral Gag polyprotein to sequences at the 5’ end of the viral genome, the packaging signal. The aim of this study was to identify full-length Gag polyprotein (Pr78Gag) binding sites on Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (MPMV) gRNA, a promising candidate for the development of safe human gene therapy vectors. Towards this end, recombinant MPMV Pr78Gag-His6-tagged protein was cloned and expressed in bacterial cells, and purified from the soluble fraction using immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) followed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The biological activity of the purified protein was determined by its ability to assemble virus like particles (VLPs), while its ability to package MPMV specific subgenomic RNAs was confirmed in eukaryotic cells. Competitive band shift assays demonstrated preferential Pr78Gag binding to unspliced over spliced viral RNA. Further competitive band shift assays were performed using mutants in two purinerich motifs consisting of a 16-nucleotide stretch of single-stranded purines (ssPurines; U191UAAAAGUGAAAGUAA206) and a partially base-paired purine-rich region (bpPurines; G246AAAGUAA253), previously found to be important for MPMV gRNA packaging. To map the precise Pr78Gag binding sites on the MPMV gRNA, in vitro Gag-RNA foot-printing experiments followed by high-throughput selective 2\u27 hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (hSHAPE) were performed. These revealed that Pr78Gag binds to ssPurines, and the A252AGUGUU258 loop, corresponding to two unpaired adenosine residues of the bpPurines and the adjacent region called the “GU-rich region” (G254UGUU258), both of which flank the major splice donor. Hence, ssPurines are present on both the genomic and spliced viral RNAs, while the A252AGUGUU258 loop is found only on the gRNA, revealing how MPMV discriminates between genomic and spliced RNAs. Collectively, this study reveals how MPMV Pr78Gag binds in a redundant fashion to the two single-stranded loops (ssPurines and the A252AGUGUU258 loop) to bring about selective gRNA packaging over spliced viral RNAs. These results should help in understanding virion assembly and facilitate development of safe and efficient retroviral vectors for human gene therapy

DELINEATING THE BINDING SITES OF MASON-PFIZER MONKEY VIRUS (MPMV) GAG PRECURSOR POLYPROTEIN (Pr78GAG) ON GENOMIC RNA FOR ITS SELECTIVE PACKAGING

A key step in retroviral life cycle is the selective packaging of its dimeric RNA genome (gRNA) from a pool of cellular and spliced viral RNAs into nascent virions. This involves binding of the retroviral Gag polyprotein to sequences at the 5’ end of the viral genome, the packaging signal. The aim of this study was to identify full-length Gag polyprotein (Pr78Gag) binding sites on Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (MPMV) gRNA, a promising candidate for the development of safe human gene therapy vectors. Towards this end, recombinant MPMV Pr78Gag-His6-tagged protein was cloned and expressed in bacterial cells, and purified from the soluble fraction using immobilized metal affinity chromatography (IMAC) followed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The biological activity of the purified protein was determined by its ability to assemble virus like particles (VLPs), while its ability to package MPMV specific subgenomic RNAs was confirmed in eukaryotic cells. Competitive band shift assays demonstrated preferential Pr78Gag binding to unspliced over spliced viral RNA. Further competitive band shift assays were performed using mutants in two purinerich motifs consisting of a 16-nucleotide stretch of single-stranded purines (ssPurines; U191UAAAAGUGAAAGUAA206) and a partially base-paired purine-rich region (bpPurines; G246AAAGUAA253), previously found to be important for MPMV gRNA packaging. To map the precise Pr78Gag binding sites on the MPMV gRNA, in vitro Gag-RNA foot-printing experiments followed by high-throughput selective 2\u27 hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension (hSHAPE) were performed. These revealed that Pr78Gag binds to ssPurines, and the A252AGUGUU258 loop, corresponding to two unpaired adenosine residues of the bpPurines and the adjacent region called the “GU-rich region” (G254UGUU258), both of which flank the major splice donor. Hence, ssPurines are present on both the genomic and spliced viral RNAs, while the A252AGUGUU258 loop is found only on the gRNA, revealing how MPMV discriminates between genomic and spliced RNAs. Collectively, this study reveals how MPMV Pr78Gag binds in a redundant fashion to the two single-stranded loops (ssPurines and the A252AGUGUU258 loop) to bring about selective gRNA packaging over spliced viral RNAs. These results should help in understanding virion assembly and facilitate development of safe and efficient retroviral vectors for human gene therapy

Deep multimodal biometric recognition using contourlet derivative weighted rank fusion with human face, fingerprint and iris images

The goal of multimodal biometric recognition system is to make a decision by identifying their physiological behavioural traits. Nevertheless, the decision-making process by biometric recognition system can be extremely complex due to high dimension unimodal features in temporal domain. This paper explains a deep multimodal biometric system for human recognition using three traits, face, fingerprint and iris. With the objective of reducing the feature vector dimension in the temporal domain, first pre-processing is performed using Contourlet Transform Model. Next, Local Derivative Ternary Pattern model is applied to the pre-processed features where the feature discrimination power is improved by obtaining the coefficients that has maximum variation across pre-processed multimodality features, therefore improving recognition accuracy. Weighted Rank Level Fusion is applied to the extracted multimodal features, that efficiently combine the biometric matching scores from several modalities (i.e. face, fingerprint and iris). Finally, a deep learning framework is presented for improving the recognition rate of the multimodal biometric system in temporal domain. The results of the proposed multimodal biometric recognition framework were compared with other multimodal methods. Out of these comparisons, the multimodal face, fingerprint and iris fusion offers significant improvements in the recognition rate of the suggested multimodal biometric system

Molecular unfolding formulation with enhanced quantum annealing approach

Molecular docking is a crucial phase in drug discovery, involving the precise determination of the optimal spatial arrangement between two molecules when they bind. The such analysis, the 3D structure of molecules is a fundamental consideration, involving the manipulation of molecular representations based on their degrees of freedom, including rigid roto-translation and fragment rotations along rotatable bonds, to determine the preferred spatial arrangement when molecules bind to each other. In this paper, quantum annealing based solution to solve Molecular unfolding (MU) problem, a specific phase within molecular docking, is explored and compared with a state-of-the-art classical algorithm named "GeoDock". Molecular unfolding focuses on expanding a molecule to an unfolded state to simplify manipulation within the target cavity and optimize its configuration, typically by maximizing molecular area or internal atom distances. Molecular unfolding problem aims to find the torsional configuration that increases the inter-atomic distance within a molecule, which also increases the molecular area. Quantum annealing approach first encodes the problem into a Higher-order Unconstrained Binary Optimization (HUBO) equation which is pruned to an arbitrary percentage to improve the time efficiency and to be able to solve the equation using any quantum annealer. The resultant HUBO is then converted to a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization equation (QUBO), which is easily embedded on a D-wave annealing Quantum processor.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

Awareness of lifestyle modification in females diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome in India: explorative study

Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) adversely affect women at varying stages of their life and imperative to emphasis on prevention strategies since incidence of PCOS is on the rise. Study aims to explore perception on PCOS, awareness on life style modification, emotional attributes, concern regarding PCOS and utilization of physiotherapy services.Methods: The study was conducted in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, India. Self-made validated questionnaire was administered. Descriptive analysis was done. Perception on PCOS, lifestyle modification, emotional attribution and biggest concern were calculated as absolute frequencies and were reported as overall percentages. Chi square test was applied on the demographic factor’s influence on level of awareness.Results: 21% of the respondents are very well aware about PCOS. 51% reported as doctor was their main source of information about PCOS. 81% expressed that PCOS is manageable one. 62% aware that exercise helps in the management of PCOS. Out of this, 39% are doing exercise on a regular basis. However all the study participants reported, they have not had any consultation from physiotherapist for their structured exercise program.32% attributed to anxiety after the diagnosis of PCOS. 64% of the respondents aware that changing in diet or eating habits can influence in PCOS. However 95% of the subjects concurred to follow life style modification.Conclusions: Efforts need to intensify in creating awareness on the general public about PCOS. Absolute majority of the study participant uncoerced to follow lifestyle modification however emphasis needs to address on multidisciplinary approach in managing PCOS