Schoenorchis manilaliana M.Kumar & Sequiera (Orchidaceae): A new record for Orchidaceae of Tamil Nadu, India

Schoenorchis manilaliana M.Kumar & Sequiera collected during a field expedition to Megamalai Wildlife Sancturary forms a new distributional record for the state of Tamil Nadu. The present collection is a first report from outside the type locality. A brief description, photo-plate and other details of this endemic orchid is presented here

Tool Wear and its Effect on Residual Tensile Strength in Drilling of Quartz Cyanate Ester Polymeric Composite

Quartz-Fibre-Reinforced cyanate ester Plastics (QFRP) has superior performance in terms of mechanical, electromagnetic properties and are being widely used in military applications. Drilling is the general machining process for making hole to join the composite part to another sub-assembly. This study presents an influence of optimized drilling parameters on carbide tool wear and its impact on hole characteristics in QFRP composite. The aim is to achieve the optimum use of drill during the drilling process from application perspective without compromising the quality. In addition, the effect of tool wear and its impact on residual tensile strength of quartz composite are studied. The dominant wear mechanism observed is flank wear caused by the abrasive nature of the quartz fibre. The tool wear and delamination factor after drilling 200 holes are 186 µm and 1.40 respectively. The residual strength is affected by the tool wear due to relatively poor interlaminar property between fiber and resin in this quartz composite. The residual strength of quartz specimen drilled with the tool after drilling 200 holes is 14 % lower than the property of specimen drilled with fresh drill. The highlight of the present work is a combined analysis of wear in the tool, delamination induced and residual strength of quartz specimen. The results of this study strengthen the understanding of the drilling process of quartz polymeric composite material in aerospace applications

A Systematic Review: Significance of Plyometric Training on Functional Performance and Bone Mineral Density in Basketball Players of Different Age Groups

Aim: Basketball necessitates a holistic approach to player development, encompassing both skill and physicality, with a critical emphasis on understanding these requirements due to its complex tactics. Plyometric training’s potential in sport performance lacks comprehensive research. This systematic review, guided by PRISMA guidelines, aims to analyse diverse range of literature concerning healthy athletes, investigating its significance on functional performance and bone mineral density in basketball players of different age groups (pre-teen, adolescent, and young adult).Methods: The study conducted electronic searches in databases like PubMed, ScienceDirect, and ResearchGate, supplemented with manual reference searches, covering the period from 2013 to June 2023. Initially, 783 items were identified. Inclusion criteria involved English-language publications focusing on basketball players aged 8 to 28 years, assessing plyometric training’s effect on functional performance with quantitative measurements. Screening began with titles and abstracts, followed by full-text evaluation to ensure eligibility.Results: A database search yielded 26 peer-reviewed articles, primarily randomized controlled trials, showing significant functional improvements through plyometric training (4-36 weeks, 2-3 times weekly). Assessments covered explosive leg power, agility, sprinting, muscle strength, and bone density. Male participants dominated, but female and mixed-gender groups were included. Results consistently highlighted plyometric training’s positive impact with statistical significance.Conclusion: This review provides evidence that plyometric training improves agility, sprinting ability, leg power, basketball skills as well as BMD across different age groups of players. It establishes plyometrics as effective for boosting on-court performance. Integrating plyometric training holds great promise in advancing athlete success in basketball

Faster Algorithms for Weighted Recursive State Machines

Pushdown systems (PDSs) and recursive state machines (RSMs), which are linearly equivalent, are standard models for interprocedural analysis. Yet RSMs are more convenient as they (a) explicitly model function calls and returns, and (b) specify many natural parameters for algorithmic analysis, e.g., the number of entries and exits. We consider a general framework where RSM transitions are labeled from a semiring and path properties are algebraic with semiring operations, which can model, e.g., interprocedural reachability and dataflow analysis problems. Our main contributions are new algorithms for several fundamental problems. As compared to a direct translation of RSMs to PDSs and the best-known existing bounds of PDSs, our analysis algorithm improves the complexity for finite-height semirings (that subsumes reachability and standard dataflow properties). We further consider the problem of extracting distance values from the representation structures computed by our algorithm, and give efficient algorithms that distinguish the complexity of a one-time preprocessing from the complexity of each individual query. Another advantage of our algorithm is that our improvements carry over to the concurrent setting, where we improve the best-known complexity for the context-bounded analysis of concurrent RSMs. Finally, we provide a prototype implementation that gives a significant speed-up on several benchmarks from the SLAM/SDV project

Estradiol and lipid levels in men with acute myocardial infarction

Background: The incidence of myocardial infarction (MI) is more common in men when compared with women and women after menopause are at high risk of MI. This gender difference in CVD risk might be because of the difference in the circulating estrogen levels in men and women. Dyslipidemia is also one of the major causes of MI. The present study was aimed to estimate the levels of serum estradiol and serum lipids in newly diagnosed male MI cases and to find out any correlation between these two.Methods: The study was conducted on 50 newly diagnosed MI admitted in Cardiology department Narayana general hospital and Medical College, Nellore. Only males were included in the study. Fifty age and sex-matched healthy individuals were selected as controls. Lipid levels are estimated by endpoint colorimetric assay (HUMANSTAR kit) and estradiol was estimated by Chemiluminance immune assay (CLIA).Results: Significantly raised levels of estradiol (p-value <0.0001) and low HDL cholesterol (p-value =0.0085) levels were noticed among the cases compared to controls. No significant correlation was observed between estradiol and lipoproteins (HDL and LDL).Conclusions: The results of the present study in acute MI compared to controls show hyper estrogenemia in Male MI cases, which may be the underlying cause for thrombosis in acute MI. Decreased levels of HDL cholesterol are observed in the MI cases which are known to increase the risk of Atherosclerosis. No significant correlation were noticed between Estradiol and HDL cholesterol in men with acute MI

Development of an Agent Based Specialized Multi-Lingual Web Browser for Visually Handicapped

In the modern age everyone needs access to Internet; Visually handicapped are not an exception for that. SPECS (SPEcialized Computer System) is a system developed to give access to the visually handicapped.  It has a Braille shell. The user can enter his spoken language. After the selection of the language the user can present his request to the browser through chosen language in Braille. The output generated by the browser is given out as voice message.  The effectiveness of this system is measured based on number of requests processed, access speed and precision of the syste

Signaling of the p21-activated kinase (PAK1) coordinates insulin-stimulated actin remodeling and glucose uptake in skeletal muscle cells

Skeletal muscle accounts for ~80% of postprandial glucose clearance, and skeletal muscle glucose clearance is crucial for maintaining insulin sensitivity and euglycemia. Insulin-stimulated glucose clearance/uptake entails recruitment of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) to the plasma membrane (PM) in a process that requires cortical F-actin remodeling; this process is dysregulated in Type 2 Diabetes. Recent studies have implicated PAK1 as a required element in GLUT4 recruitment in mouse skeletal muscle in vivo, although its underlying mechanism of action and requirement in glucose uptake remains undetermined. Toward this, we have employed the PAK1 inhibitor, IPA3, in studies using L6-GLUT4-myc muscle cells. IPA3 fully ablated insulin-stimulated GLUT4 translocation to the PM, corroborating the observation of ablated insulin-stimulated GLUT4 accumulation in the PM of skeletal muscle from PAK1−/− knockout mice. IPA3-treatment also abolished insulin-stimulated glucose uptake into skeletal myotubes. Mechanistically, live-cell imaging of myoblasts expressing the F-actin biosensor LifeAct-GFP treated with IPA3 showed blunting of the normal insulin-induced cortical actin remodeling. This blunting was underpinned by a loss of normal insulin-stimulated cofilin dephosphorylation in IPA3-treated myoblasts. These findings expand upon the existing model of actin remodeling in glucose uptake, by placing insulin-stimulated PAK1 signaling as a required upstream step to facilitate actin remodeling and subsequent cofilin dephosphorylation. Active, dephosphorylated cofilin then provides the G-actin substrate for continued F-actin remodeling to facilitate GLUT4 vesicle translocation for glucose uptake into the skeletal muscle cell

Eosinophils Are Important for Protection, Immunoregulation and Pathology during Infection with Nematode Microfilariae

Eosinophil responses typify both allergic and parasitic helminth disease. In helminthic disease, the role of eosinophils can be both protective in immune responses and destructive in pathological responses. To investigate whether eosinophils are involved in both protection and pathology during filarial nematode infection, we explored the role of eosinophils and their granule proteins, eosinophil peroxidase (EPO) and major basic protein-1 (MBP-1), during infection with Brugia malayi microfilariae. Using eosinophil-deficient mice (PHIL), we further clarify the role of eosinophils in clearance of microfilariae during primary, but not challenge infection in vivo. Deletion of EPO or MBP-1 alone was insufficient to abrogate parasite clearance suggesting that either these molecules are redundant or eosinophils act indirectly in parasite clearance via augmentation of other protective responses. Absence of eosinophils increased mast cell recruitment, but not other cell types, into the broncho-alveolar lavage fluid during challenge infection. In addition absence of eosinophils or EPO alone, augmented parasite-induced IgE responses, as measured by ELISA, demonstrating that eosinophils are involved in regulation of IgE. Whole body plethysmography indicated that nematode-induced changes in airway physiology were reduced in challenge infection in the absence of eosinophils and also during primary infection in the absence of EPO alone. However lack of eosinophils or MBP-1 actually increased goblet cell mucus production. We did not find any major differences in cytokine responses in the absence of eosinophils, EPO or MBP-1. These results reveal that eosinophils actively participate in regulation of IgE and goblet cell mucus production via granule secretion during nematode-induced pathology and highlight their importance both as effector cells, as damage-inducing cells and as supervisory cells that shape both innate and adaptive immunity