Traumatic Experiences: Doldrums and Anguish in the Select Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro

The paper mainly aims to explore the traumatic experiences including pains, pangs of suffering, loss, and anguish of the protagonists’ past lives in Kazuo Ishiguro's novels The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and The Unconsoled. Though they recollect their memories, they do not narrate them directly in the novels. The objective of the paper is to bring out how each protagonist uncovers their own traumatic experiences slowly through other characters in the novel is explained. The paper also examines the representations of emotions in the notions of nostalgia, narrative, and trauma as how the protagonists of each novel suppressed their emotions for so long in their life and why did they do that is mentioned. Ishiguro’s characters in the novels have projected different aspects of human life. Mainly the existence of suffering is examined from the existentialist point of view with the purpose to accept whatever happened in the character’s life as it is without complaining about them

Statistical Screening of Supplementary Nitrogen Source for Enhanced Production of L-Asparaginase by Aspergillus terreus 1782

In the present work, Latin Square Design (LSD) was applied to find the best supplementary nitrogen source for extracellular L-asparaginase production by Aspergillus terreus MTCC 1782 using corn flour as substrate in submerged fermentation. The independent effect of supplementary nitrogen source such as ammonium chloride, urea and sodium nitrate was studied on growth and production of L-asparaginase by A. terreus. Statistical significance of the nitrogen sources was studied by performing analysis of variance (ANOVA) and graphical ANOVA for LSD using Data plot software. It was found that there is no significant difference on growth due to the change in supplementary nitrogen source studied. Urea was identified as best supplementary nitrogen source with mean L-asparaginase production of 33.25 IU mL–1 and mean biomass production of 12.99 mg mL–1

Detection of Outlying Cells in Contingency Tables Using Model Based Diagnostics

Detecting outliers in contingency table is an interesting statistical problem and it poses additional difficulties due to the polarization of cell counts. The fundamental definition of ’markedly deviant’ cell as an outlier is clearly exploited in this study by introducing a pivot element to capture the deviations. The present study considers a two-step confirmatory procedure to detect outliers in I × J contingency table. The procedure deals with (i) identifying the reliable set of candidate outliers using the deviation from the pivot element and then (ii) detect those set of outlying cells by examining different type of residuals of the suitable fitted model. The robustness of the procedure is investigated through a simulation study along with applications to real datasets

March Towards Green Steel Production-Efforts at Tata Steel

The paper discusses the various initiatives taken by Tata Steel in the utilisation of waste materials generated in the blast furnaces, LD plants and rolling mills. In its drive towards total utilisation of wastes, the company is likely to become the first integrated green steel industry in our country

A Study of the Electrocardiographic Changes in Normal Pregnant Women

ABSTRACT There are significant cardio respiratory changes in pregnancy and labour. ECG examination is not a routine during antenatal period. In this background, we tried to find out the incidence of any abnormal ECG findings during pregnancy. Two hundred pregnant women, aged 18 to 38, across all stages of gestation from 20 to 34 weeks from a single hospital were recruited for this study. Singleton pregnancies without any previous cardiac illness, hypertension or a metabolic illness possibly affecting ECG were taken for the study. The ECG was reported both by software and a physician well versed in reading ECGs. In case of any doubt, a second physician opinion was sought. Any abnormality was recorded. Parturients with doubtful ischemic change were subjected to Echo evaluation. The mean and standard deviation of the age of the patient is 24.19 ± 4.0 years with an average gestational age of 29.11 weeks. The incidence of abnormal ECG was 27%, the commonest change was short PR interval (13.5%) which can be taken as benign. The respective incidence of sinus tachycardia and WPW syndrome were 5 and 4.5%. Dextrocardia was observed in one patient and nonspecific ST-T changes were observed in three patients who were subjected to echocardiogram which established the diagnosis of dextrocardia and found normal in the other three patients. As the incidence of ECG changes are high (27%) with some specific changes prone for tachyarrhythmias, we conclude that ECG examination may be part of the investigation armentarium of parturients

ANTIOXIDANT, FREE RADICAL SCAVENGING ACTIVITY AND GC-MS STUDIES ON PEDILANTHUS TITHYMALOIDES (L.) POIT

Objective: To evaluate the methanolic extract of the leaves of Pedilanthus tithymaloides for total phenol, total flavonoid, total antioxidant and free radical scavenging ability and detect the phytoconstituents using GC-MS. Methods: The total phenols were quantified using Folin-Ciocalteu method. Aluminium chloride method and Phosphomolybdenum method were used to quantify total flavonoid and total antioxidant contentrespectively. In addition to the above, Ferric thiocyanate assay, the thiobarbituric acid assay,Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power assay and ABTS assay were performed to know the antioxidant potency of the methanolic extract of leaves of Pedilanthus tithymaloides. The phytoconstituents was detected using GC-MS. Results: The leaves of Pedilanthus tithymaloides recorded a phenolic content of 10.98±0.08 mg TAE/g DW, flavonoid content of 11.49±0.15 µg QE/g DW and total antioxidant content of 6.64±0.05 mg TAE/g DW. The study also revealed significant free radical scavenging ability of the plant leaves as assessed by FTC, TBA, FRAP and ABTS assays. The structural elucidation by GC-MS analysis revealed five different compounds, includingthree esters, an amine and an alkaloid. Conclusion: The study proves the anticipative potential ability of Pedilanthus tithymaloides, suggesting its exploitation in pharmaceutical applications

Application of a comfort index for evaluating tactile and thermo-physiological comfort properties of surgical gowns

The primary objective of this study is to develop a mathematical tool to calculate a global desirability index value (comfort index) for disposable surgical gowns which will enhance the market value for the product. The mathematical tool is based on the desirability function approach, by using its different modules such as maximization, minimization, and target as per the objectives chosen. Three different disposable nonwoven surgical gowns, such as Fabrics C (44.35 g/m2, 0.32 mm thickness & 11 micron pore size), A (46.31 g/m2, 0.29 mm thickness & 10 micron pore size) & S (44.71 g/m2, 0.36 mm thickness & 8.9 micron pore size), intended for hospital application have been used. The developed model focuses on predicting tactile and thermophysiological comfort, by considering the importance of certain physical properties, leading to the comfort of the wearer. Results reveal that out of the three gowns, Fabric C gown fetches the best comfort index value of 0.5689 followed by the Fabric S and A gowns with the values of 0.3009 and 0.1969 respectively

Application of a comfort index for evaluating tactile and thermo-physiological comfort properties of surgical gowns

146-153The primary objective of this study is to develop a mathematical tool to calculate a global desirability index value (comfort index) for disposable surgical gowns which will enhance the market value for the product. The mathematical tool is based on the desirability function approach, by using its different modules such as maximization, minimization, and target as per the objectives chosen. Three different disposable nonwoven surgical gowns, such as Fabrics C (44.35 g/m2, 0.32 mm thickness & 11 micron pore size), A (46.31 g/m2, 0.29 mm thickness & 10 micron pore size) & S (44.71 g/m2, 0.36 mm thickness & 8.9 micron pore size), intended for hospital application have been used. The developed model focuses on predicting tactile and thermophysiological comfort, by considering the importance of certain physical properties, leading to the comfort of the wearer. Results reveal that out of the three gowns, Fabric C gown fetches the best comfort index value of 0.5689 followed by the Fabric S and A gowns with the values of 0.3009 and 0.1969 respectively

Adeno-Associated Virus Toolkit to Target Diverse Brain Cells

Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are commonly used gene delivery vehicles for neuroscience research. They have two engineerable features: the capsid (outer protein shell) and cargo (encapsulated genome). These features can be modified to enhance cell type or tissue tropism and control transgene expression, respectively. Several engineered AAV capsids with unique tropisms have been identified, including variants with enhanced central nervous system transduction, cell type specificity, and retrograde transport in neurons. Pairing these AAVs with modern gene regulatory elements and state-of-the-art reporter, sensor, and effector cargo enables highly specific transgene expression for anatomical and functional analyses of brain cells and circuits. Here, we discuss recent advances that provide a comprehensive (capsid and cargo) AAV toolkit for genetic access to molecularly defined brain cell types