A Critical review about Haratala (Orpiment)

Haratala (Arsenic trisulphide) is an inorganic compound with the formula As2S3. The Haratala is used without proper purification the toxic effects are Daha (burning sensation), Kampaka (tremors), Toda (pricking pain), Kshobha, Pida, Raktadusti (vitiates blood), Kushta (skin disease), Malinikaroti Gatram, Vata Kapha Prakopatamaka Roga, Mrtyusankakara. Coarse powdered material is less toxic because it can be eliminated in faeces before it dissolves, experimental evidence has shown a high degree of gastro-intestinal absorption of both trivalent and pentavalent forms of arsenic. Arsenic is eliminated by many routes (faeces, urine, sweat, hair, skin, lungs) although most is excreted in urine of man

Variable Chaplygin Gas: Constraints from CMBR and SNe Ia

We constrain the parameters of the variable Chaplygin gas model, using the location of peaks of the CMBR spectrum and SNe Ia ``gold '' data set. Equation of state of the model is $P=-A(a)/\rho$, where $A(a)=A_0 a^{-n}$ is a positive function of the cosmological scale factor $a$, $A_0$ and $n$ being constants. The variable Chaplygin gas interpolates from dust-dominated era to quintessence dominated era. The model is found to be compatible with current type Ia Supernovae data and location of first peak if the values of $\Omega_m$ and $n$ lie in the interval $[0.017,~0.117]$ and $[-1.3,~2.6]$ respectively.Comment: 9 pages,4 figure

Draft genome sequence of Sclerospora graminicola, the pearl millet downy mildew pathogen:Genome sequence of pearl millet downy mildew pathogen

Sclerospora graminicola pathogen is one of the most important biotic production constraints of pearl millet worldwide. We report a de novo whole genome assembly and analysis of pathotype 1. The draft genome assembly contained 299,901,251 bp with 65,404 genes. Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.], is an important crop of the semi-arid and arid regions of the world. It is capable of growing in harsh and marginal environments with highest degree of tolerance to drought and heat among cereals (1). Downy mildew is the most devastating disease of pearl millet caused by Sclerospora graminicola (sacc. Schroet), particularly on genetically uniform hybrids. Estimated annual grain yield loss due to downy mildew is approximately 10?80 % (2-7). Pathotype 1 has been reported to be the highly virulent pathotype of Sclerospora graminicola in India (8). We report a de novo whole genome assembly and analysis of Sclerospora graminicola pathotype 1 from India. A susceptible pearl millet genotype Tift 23D2B1P1-P5 was used for obtaining single-zoospore isolates from the original oosporic sample. The library for whole genome sequencing was prepared according to the instructions by NEB ultra DNA library kit for Illumina (New England Biolabs, USA). The libraries were normalised, pooled and sequenced on Illumina HiSeq 2500 (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) platform at 2 x100 bp length. Mate pair (MP) libraries were prepared using the Nextera mate pair library preparation kit (Illumina Inc., USA). 1 ?g of Genomic DNA was subject to tagmentation and was followed by strand displacement. Size selection tagmented/strand displaced DNA was carried out using AmpureXP beads. The libraries were validated using an Agilent Bioanalyser using DNA HS chip. The libraries were normalised, pooled and sequenced on Illumina MiSeq (Illumina Inc., USA) platform at 2 x300 bp length. The whole genome sequencing was performed by sequencing of 7.38 Gb with 73,889,924 paired end reads from paired end library, and 1.15 Gb with 3,851,788 reads from mate pair library generated from Illumina HiSeq2500 and Illumina MiSeq, respectively. The sequences were assembled using various assemblers like ABySS, MaSuRCA, Velvet, SOAPdenovo2, and ALLPATHS-LG. The assembly generated by MaSuRCA (9) algorithm was observed superior over other algorithms and hence used for scaffolding using SSPACE. Assembled draft genome sequence of S. graminicola pathotype 1 was 299,901,251 bp long, with a 47.2 % GC content consisting of 26,786 scaffolds with N50 of 17,909 bp with longest scaffold size of 238,843 bp. The overall coverage was 40X. The draft genome sequence was used for gene prediction using AUGUSTUS. The completeness of the assembly was investigated using CEGMA and revealed 92.74% proteins completely present and 95.56% proteins partially present, while BUSCO fungal dataset indicated 64.9% complete, 12.4% fragmented, 22.7% missing out of 290 BUSCO groups. A total of 52,285 predicted genes were annotated using BLASTX and 38,120 genes were observed with significant BLASTX match. Repetitive element analysis in the assembly revealed 8,196 simple repeats, 1,058 low complexity repeats and 5,562 dinucleotide to hexanucleotide microsatellite repeats.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Low energy theorems and the unitarity bounds in the extra U(1) superstring inspired E6 models

The conventional method using low energy theorems [3] does not seem to lead to an explicit unitarity limit in the scattering processes of longitudinally polarized gauge bosons for the high energy case in the extra U(1) superstring inspired models, commonly known as eta model, emanating from E6 group of superstring theory. We have made use of an alternative procedure given in [14], which is applicable to SUSY GUT. Explicit unitarity bounds on the Yukawa couplings are obtained from both using unitarity constraints as well as using RGE analysis at one-loop level utilizing critical couplings concepts implying divergence of scalar coupling at MG. These are found to be consistent with finiteness over the entire range MZ<=sqrt(s)<=MG. For completeness, the similar approach has been made use of in other models, i.e., chi, psi, and nu models emanating from E6 and it has been noticed that at weak scale, the unitarity bounds on Yukawa couplings do not differ among E6 extra U(1) models significantly except for the case of chi model in 16 representations. Theoretically we have obtained the upper bounds on top quark and lightest neutral higgs boson mass using the unitarity constrained superpotential couplings and also obtained the D-quark mass as a function of MZ2 is O(3 TeV) for MZ2 is O(1 TeV). The obtained bounds on these physical parameters are found consistent with the present day experimental precision measurements.Comment: 57 Pages, 13 Tables, 7 Figs.; PACS: 12.10.Dm, 12.60.Cn; http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v72/e09501

Queer In AI: A Case Study in Community-Led Participatory AI

Queerness and queer people face an uncertain future in the face of ever more widely deployed and invasive artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies have caused numerous harms to queer people, including privacy violations, censoring and downranking queer content, exposing queer people and spaces to harassment by making them hypervisible, deadnaming and outing queer people. More broadly, they have violated core tenets of queerness by classifying and controlling queer identities. In response to this, the queer community in AI has organized Queer in AI, a global, decentralized, volunteer-run grassroots organization that employs intersectional and community-led participatory design to build an inclusive and equitable AI future. In this paper, we present Queer in AI as a case study for community-led participatory design in AI. We examine how participatory design and intersectional tenets started and shaped this community’s programs over the years. We discuss different challenges that emerged in the process, look at ways this organization has fallen short of operationalizing participatory and intersectional principles, and then assess the organization’s impact. Queer in AI provides important lessons and insights for practitioners and theorists of participatory methods broadly through its rejection of hierarchy in favor of decentralization, success at building aid and programs by and for the queer community, and effort to change actors and institutions outside of the queer community. Finally, we theorize how communities like Queer in AI contribute to the participatory design in AI more broadly by fostering cultures of participation in AI, welcoming and empowering marginalized participants, critiquing poor or exploitative participatory practices, and bringing participation to institutions outside of individual research projects. Queer in AI’s work serves as a case study of grassroots activism and participatory methods within AI, demonstrating the potential of community-led participatory methods and intersectional praxis, while also providing challenges, case studies, and nuanced insights to researchers developing and using participatory methods

Sub-second periodicity in a fast radio burst

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration flashes of radio waves that are visible at distances of billions of light-years. The nature of their progenitors and their emission mechanism remain open astrophysical questions. Here we report the detection of the multi-component FRB 20191221A and the identification of a periodic separation of 216.8(1) ms between its components with a significance of 6.5 sigmas. The long (~3 s) duration and nine or more components forming the pulse profile make this source an outlier in the FRB population. Such short periodicity provides strong evidence for a neutron-star origin of the event. Moreover, our detection favours emission arising from the neutron-star magnetosphere, as opposed to emission regions located further away from the star, as predicted by some models.Comment: Updated to conform to the accepted versio