StuA: An Intelligent Student Assistant

With advanced innovation in digital technology, demand for virtual assistants is arising which can assist a person and at the same time, minimize the need for interaction with the human. Acknowledging the requirement, we propose an interactive and intelligent student assistant, StuA, which can help new-comer in a college who are hesitant in interacting with the seniors as they fear of being ragged. StuA is capable of answering all types of queries of a new-comer related to academics, examinations, library, hostel and extra curriculum activities. The model is designed using CLIPS which allows inferring using forward chaining. Nevertheless, a generalized algorithm for backward chaining for CLIPS is also implemented. Validation of the proposed model is presented in five steps which show that the model is complete and consistent with 99.16% accuracy of the knowledge model. Moreover, the backward chaining algorithm is found to be 100% accurate

An observational study of clinical profile and outcome of syphilis infection during pregnancy in the tertiary care center

Background: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium treponema pallidum, but little is known about its mechanism of action. In pregnancy it leads to adverse outcomes among more than half of the women with active disease, including early fetal loss, stillbirth, prematurity, low birth weight, neonatal and infant death.Methods: It is an observational study in the department of obstetrics and gynecology Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College Maharaja Yashwant Rao Hospital, Indore between January 2014 to December 2015 total 20870. In Include written informed consent, All the patients attending STI/RTI clinic with clinical diagnosis of STD. In Exclusion criteria include patients not give informed consent. Case definition: All VDRL + TPHA positive patients.Results: Out of 20870 females on which VDRL was performed 77 (0.036%) were found to be positive. The seroprevalence at study hospital thus came out to be 0.036%. These were further confirmed by TPHA and 73 (94.8%) out of 77 samples were positive. A total agreement was seen between TPHA and VDRL with a titer of 1 in 8 and above. Among total 20870 screened females, 77% (16101) were ANC patients of which 26 cases out of 77 that is 33.76% females were syphilis positive.Conclusions: Low prevalence of syphilis in pregnant women and adult general population is very encouraging. participation of people and public health approach to promote awareness of syphilis among physicians and populations at risk in India are very urgently needed to avoid the adverse consequences which could result from undiagnosed or improper treatment

Biogenesis of nanoparticles using microorganisms: A Review

Bionanoparticles are synthesized using novel strategies through environmentally benign approaches. Emphasis is on synthesizing nanoparticles using green chemistry principles to reduce the burden of pollution on the environment. The biological approach for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles is also described as green synthesis (bioprocess) of nanoparticles, is now being looked at as an alternative to physio-chemical approaches and generally uses biological components like plants and microbes (bacteria, fungi, algae and yeast) and cause minimal harm to the nature. The naturally occurring potential biodegradable agents like enzymes (secreted by microbes) act as reducing agents and play a very distinct role in the synthesis of nanoparticles. Most bioprocesses occur under normal air pressure and temperature, resulting in vast energy savings and reducing the use of expensive chemicals making the green approach less costly. This process of synthesis of nanoparticles using biological systems is referred to as nanobiotechnology. Nanobiotechnology has emerged as an integration between biotechnology and nanotechnology for developing biosynthetic and environmentally friendly technology for nanoparticle synthesis. This review is mainly focused on the microbial synthesis of nanoparticles utilizing the extract of bacteria and algae. In the present review, the bio-reduction capacity of various bacteria and algae is highlighted in detail, which has yet to be discussed earlier. This is a comprehensive work underlining the synthesis of nanoparticles, their bio-reduction ability, and application of nanoparticles

Single-walled carbon nanotube interactions with HeLa cells

This work concerns exposing cultured human epithelial-like HeLa cells to single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) dispersed in cell culture media supplemented with serum. First, the as-received CoMoCAT SWNT-containing powder was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and thermal gravimetric analyses. Characterizations of the purified dispersions, termed DM-SWNTs, involved atomic force microscopy, inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry, and absorption and Raman spectroscopies. Confocal microRaman spectroscopy was used to demonstrate that DM-SWNTs were taken up by HeLa cells in a time- and temperature-dependent fashion. Transmission electron microscopy revealed SWNT-like material in intracellular vacuoles. The morphologies and growth rates of HeLa cells exposed to DM-SWNTs were statistically similar to control cells over the course of 4 d. Finally, flow cytometry was used to show that the fluorescence from MitoSOX™ Red, a selective indicator of superoxide in mitochondria, was statistically similar in both control cells and cells incubated in DM-SWNTs. The combined results indicate that under our sample preparation protocols and assay conditions, CoMoCAT DM-SWNT dispersions are not inherently cytotoxic to HeLa cells. We conclude with recommendations for improving the accuracy and comparability of carbon nanotube (CNT) cytotoxicity reports

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

StuA: An Intelligent Student Assistant

With advanced innovation in digital technology, demand for virtual assistants is arising which can assist a person and at the same time, minimize the need for interaction with the human. Acknowledging the requirement, we propose an interactive and intelligent student assistant, StuA, which can help new-comer in a college who are hesitant in interacting with the seniors as they fear of being ragged. StuA is capable of answering all types of queries of a new-comer related to academics, examinations, library, hostel and extra curriculum activities. The model is designed using CLIPS which allows inferring using forward chaining. Nevertheless, a generalized algorithm for backward chaining for CLIPS is also implemented. Validation of the proposed model is presented in five steps which show that the model is complete and consistent with 99.16% accuracy of the knowledge model. Moreover, the backward chaining algorithm is found to be 100% accurate

StuA: An Intelligent Student Assistant

With advanced innovation in digital technology, demand for virtual assistants is arising which can assist a person and at the same time, minimize the need for interaction with the human. Acknowledging the requirement, we propose an interactive and intelligent student assistant, StuA, which can help new-comer in a college who are hesitant in interacting with the seniors as they fear of being ragged. StuA is capable of answering all types of queries of a new-comer related to academics, examinations, library, hostel and extra curriculum activities. The model is designed using CLIPS which allows inferring using forward chaining. Nevertheless, a generalized algorithm for backward chaining for CLIPS is also implemented. Validation of the proposed model is presented in five steps which show that the model is complete and consistent with 99.16% accuracy of the knowledge model. Moreover, the backward chaining algorithm is found to be 100% accurate

Me, My Stuttering, and Them! Effect of Self-Disclosure of Stuttering on Listener Perception

Purpose: A common question encountered by speech-language pathologists while dealing with adults who stutter (AWS) is whether their disclosure of stuttering to listeners would change their perception. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of self-disclosure and speaker sex on adult listeners’ perceptions of simulated stuttering. Method: The study involved a group of 100 college students between the age range of 18 and 25 years, who judged the videotaped speech samples of 1 male and 1 female person, who simulated stuttering in disclosed and undisclosed state. The listener perception was evaluated through a questionnaire developed for the purpose. Results: The trends suggested that a female AWS possessed overall better listener perception as compared with male AWS in undisclosed condition and received better perception by listeners in more domains than male AWS in disclosed state. Conclusions: Listener perception seems to be a sex-specific phenomenon which gets affected by one’s disclosure about stuttering and the culture of the listeners