Earthquake Induced Liquefaction Using Shake Table Test

Loose saturated cohesionless soils may undergo liquefaction due to strong ground motions. Such liquefaction causes significant damage to the structure resting on such soil. The extent of damage primarily depends upon soil properties, intensity of earthquake and type of structure. Various analytical models have been developed to estimate the likelihood of liquefaction of particular site based on field performance. However, if it is possible to identify the sites which are likely to liquefy due to specific intensity of earthquake it will help implementing the reduction in the damage which it would otherwise cause. One such analytical model has been developed by one of the authors of this paper and has been found to satisfactorily demarcate ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ zones of liquefaction for number of earthquakes. However, earlier research shows that laboratory tests could also be conducted to study the liquefaction behavior of soil under specific condition. The present study mainly deals with an attempt made in conducting Shake Table Test in laboratory by simulating earthquake conditions on site. The results obtained from the trial tests have been compared with the actual field cases and also with laboratory tests conducted for such soil by other researchers. It is observed that the criterion of the occurrence of liquefaction in the laboratory model is in close agreement with actual field data. Shake table test is found to be more effective in simulating the strong ground motion during earthquake

Comparative Performance of Mango Varieties Grafted on Vellaikolamban and Mixed Rootstock

Research on rootstock in mango is very limited in our country. Kalapady was reported to be a dwarfing rootstock. Recent trend among mango growers is to high density orcharding with dwarfening nature of the varietie. Efforts were made at Agriculture Research Station, Mulde, to study comparative performance of Ratna, Alphonso and Kesar mango on Vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock i.e., heterozygous seedling stock and the effect of rootstock on a scion under high density of 5m x 5m spacing. Results indicated that use of Vellaikolamban rootstock reduced plant volume in scion cv. Alphonso by 39.1%, followed by 24.9% in Ratna and 26.5% in cv. Kesar. As volume of the canopy was reduced, it directly influenced fruit yield cvs. Alphonso and Ratna. However, reduction in canopy volume had a positive influence on yield in cv. Kesar. Net returns of Rs.38,629/- per ha were maximum for Kesar with the rootstock Vellaikolamban

High Density Planting in Mango cv. Alphonso

A trial was conducted to optimize spacing for high density planting in mango cv. Alphonso to obtain higher yield/ unit area at the Agriculture Research Station, Mulde, during 2006-07 to 2008-09 with four close spacings and one normal spacing as control. Highest yield (6.4 MT/ha) was recorded with a spacing of 5 m x 5 m without reduction in fruit size in 10 year old plants compared to the mean yield of 1.12 MT/ha in 10m x 10m normal spacing. High density plantation helped to get significantly higher yield per unit area compared to the normal spacing, without affecting size and quality of mango fruits. The highest cost:benefit ratio (2.33) was recorded in high density plantation of 5m x 5m, with maximum net returns of Rs.1,12,000/- per hectare. The present findings show promise for more yield and returns per unit area during the initial years of mango plantation by adopting 5m x 5m high density planting

Uncertainty in data integration systems: automatic generation of probabilistic relationships

This paper proposes a method for the automatic discovery of probabilistic relationships in the environment of data integration systems. Dynamic data integration systems extend the architecture of current data integration systems by modeling uncertainty at their core. Our method is based on probabilistic word sense disambiguation (PWSD), which allows to automatically lexically annotate (i.e. to perform annotation w.r.t. a thesaurus/lexical resource) the schemata of a given set of data sources to be integrated. From the annotated schemata and the relathionships defined in the thesaurus, we derived the probabilistic lexical relationships among schema elements. Lexical relationships are collected in the Probabilistic Common Thesaurus (PCT), as well as structural relationships

FORMULATION AND IN-VITRO EVALUATION GASTRORETENTIVE DRUG DELIVERY OF TINIDAZOLE

The aim of the current study was to design oral controlled release gastro-retentive drug delivery of Tinidazole. that are designed to retain in the stomach for a long time and have developed as a Local drug delivery system for better eradication of Helicobacter Pylori in peptic ulcer diseases. Tablets were prepared by direct compression and evaluated for evaluated for various physical parameters, Hardness, friability, drug Content, floating ability, Lag time, Swelling Index studies, and in vitro dissolution parameters as well as kinetics of release were assessed.  Factorial design for 2 factors at 3 levels each was employed to systematically optimize drug release profile and Floating Behaviour. Sodium Alginate and Hydroxy Propyl Metheyl Celluiose (HPMC K15M) were taken as the independent variables. Response surface plots and contour plots were drawn.Compressed tablets exhibited zero order drug release kinetics, resulting in regulated and complete release until 12 hours. Polynomial mathematical models, generated for various response variables using multiple linear regression analysis, were found to be statistically significant (P < 0.05).Both the polymers had significant effect on the release profiles of the tablets, Besides unraveling the effect of the 2 factors on the various response variables, the study helped in finding the optimum Formulation ‘F4’ with Floating Lag Time (20 sec.) and having controlled release upto 12 hours (99.47%). Meanwhile, sustained profiles of drug release were also obtained.  In general, these systems can float in the gastric conditions and control the drug release from the tablets

One-Time Compilation of Device-Level Instructions for Quantum Subroutines

A large class of problems in the current era of quantum devices involve interfacing between the quantum and classical system. These include calibration procedures, characterization routines, and variational algorithms. The control in these routines iteratively switches between the classical and the quantum computer. This results in the repeated compilation of the program that runs on the quantum system, scaling directly with the number of circuits and iterations. The repeated compilation results in a significant overhead throughout the routine. In practice, the total runtime of the program (classical compilation plus quantum execution) has an additional cost proportional to the circuit count. At practical scales, this can dominate the round-trip CPU-QPU time, between 5% and 80%, depending on the proportion of quantum execution time. To avoid repeated device-level compilation, we identify that machine code can be parametrized corresponding to pulse/gate parameters which can be dynamically adjusted during execution. Therefore, we develop a device-level partial-compilation (DLPC) technique that reduces compilation overhead to nearly constant, by using cheap remote procedure calls (RPC) from the QPU control software to the CPU. We then demonstrate the performance speedup of this on optimal pulse calibration, system characterization using randomized benchmarking (RB), and variational algorithms. We execute this modified pipeline on real trapped-ion quantum computers and observe significant reductions in compilation time, as much as 2.7x speedup for small-scale VQE problems

Snakebite: Admissions at a tertiary health care centre in Maharashtra, India

Objectives. To determine the outcome, seasonal variation, and death pattern of snakebite cases admitted at the tertiary health care centre in the last 10 years. Methods. This was a record-based retrospective descriptive study at the Dr Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital in Vazirabad, a tertiary health care centre in Maharashtra, India. Results. Out of 5 639 admitted snakebite cases, 65.24% were male. The 16 - 45-year age group accounted for 84.7% of cases; 46% were referred from other health centres, mostly from rural areas; 55.2% occurred during July to September, which coincided with the rainy season in this region; 94.6% of the snakebite patients survived; and 5.4% died. Case fatality rates were higher for females (8.78%) and for bites by neurotoxic snakes (8.91%). Conclusions. Snakebite is a common life-threatening emergency in the study area. Ready availability and appropriate use of antivenom, early referral when required and close monitoring of patients in the hospital will help to reduce mortality from snakebites

Supporting User-Defined Functions on Uncertain Data

Uncertain data management has become crucial in many sensing and scientific applications. As user-defined functions (UDFs) become widely used in these applications, an important task is to capture result uncertainty for queries that evaluate UDFs on uncertain data. In this work, we provide a general framework for supporting UDFs on uncertain data. Specifically, we propose a learning approach based on Gaussian processes (GPs) to compute approximate output distributions of a UDF when evaluated on uncertain input, with guaranteed error bounds. We also devise an online algorithm to compute such output distributions, which employs a suite of optimizations to improve accuracy and performance. Our evaluation using both real-world and synthetic functions shows that our proposed GP approach can outperform the state-of-the-art sampling approach with up to two orders of magnitude improvement for a variety of UDFs. 1

LSD1 modulates the non-canonical integrin β3 signaling pathway in non-small cell lung carcinoma cells

The epigenetic writer lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) is aberrantly upregulated in many cancer types and its overexpression correlates with poor survival and tumor progression. In this study, we analysed LSD1 function in non-small cell lung cancer adenocarcinomas. Expression profiling of 182 cases of lung adenocarcinoma proved a significant correlation of LSD1 overexpression with lung adenocarcinoma progression and metastasis. KRAS-mutated lung cancer cell clones were stably silenced for LSD1 expression. RNA-seq and comprehensive pathway analysis revealed, that genes related to a recently described non-canonical integrin β3 pathway, were significantly downregulated by LSD1 silencing. Hence, invasion and self-renewal capabilities were strongly decreased. Notably, this novel defined LSD1/integrin β3 axis, was also detected in human lung adenocarcinoma specimens. Furthermore, the linkage of LSD1 to an altered expression pattern of lung-lineage specific transcription factors and genes, which are involved in alveolar epithelial differentiation, was demonstrated. Thus, our findings point to a LSD1-integrin β3 axis, conferring attributes of invasiveness and tumor progression to lung adenocarcinoma

Randomisation and Derandomisation in Descriptive Complexity Theory

We study probabilistic complexity classes and questions of derandomisation from a logical point of view. For each logic L we introduce a new logic BPL, bounded error probabilistic L, which is defined from L in a similar way as the complexity class BPP, bounded error probabilistic polynomial time, is defined from PTIME. Our main focus lies on questions of derandomisation, and we prove that there is a query which is definable in BPFO, the probabilistic version of first-order logic, but not in Cinf, finite variable infinitary logic with counting. This implies that many of the standard logics of finite model theory, like transitive closure logic and fixed-point logic, both with and without counting, cannot be derandomised. Similarly, we present a query on ordered structures which is definable in BPFO but not in monadic second-order logic, and a query on additive structures which is definable in BPFO but not in FO. The latter of these queries shows that certain uniform variants of AC0 (bounded-depth polynomial sized circuits) cannot be derandomised. These results are in contrast to the general belief that most standard complexity classes can be derandomised. Finally, we note that BPIFP+C, the probabilistic version of fixed-point logic with counting, captures the complexity class BPP, even on unordered structures