Know2Look: Commonsense Knowledge for Visual Search

With the rise in popularity of social media, images accompanied by contextual text form a huge section of the web. However, search and retrieval of documents are still largely dependent on solely textual cues. Although visual cues have started to gain focus, the imperfection in object/scene detection do not lead to significantly improved results. We hypothesize that the use of background commonsense knowledge on query terms can significantly aid in retrieval of documents with associated images. To this end we deploy three different modalities - text, visual cues, and commonsense knowledge pertaining to the query - as a recipe for efficient search and retrieval

Story-oriented Image Selection and Placement

Multimodal contents have become commonplace on the Internet today, manifested as news articles, social media posts, and personal or business blog posts. Among the various kinds of media (images, videos, graphics, icons, audio) used in such multimodal stories, images are the most popular. The selection of images from a collection - either author's personal photo album, or web repositories - and their meticulous placement within a text, builds a succinct multimodal commentary for digital consumption. In this paper we present a system that automates the process of selecting relevant images for a story and placing them at contextual paragraphs within the story for a multimodal narration. We leverage automatic object recognition, user-provided tags, and commonsense knowledge, and use an unsupervised combinatorial optimization to solve the selection and placement problems seamlessly as a single unit

Non-equilibrium VLS-grown stable ST12-Ge thin film on Si substrate: A study on strain-induced band-engineering

The current work describes a novel method of growing thin films of stable crystalline ST12-Ge, a high pressure polymorph of Ge, on Si substrate by a non-equilibrium VLS-technique. The study explores the scheme of band engineering of ST12-Ge by inducing process-stress into it as a function of the growth temperature and film thickness. In the present work, ST12-Ge films are grown at 180 C - 250 C to obtain thicknesses of ~4.5-7.5 nm, which possess extremely good thermal stability up to a temperature of ~350 C. Micro-Raman study shows the stress induced in such ST12-Ge films to be compressive in nature and vary in the range of ~0.5-7.5 GPa. The measured direct band gap is observed to vary within 0.688 eV to 0.711 eV for such stresses, and four indirect band gaps are obtained to be 0.583 eV, 0.614-0.628 eV, 0.622-0.63 eV and 0.623-0.632 eV, accordingly. The corresponding band structures for unstrained and strained ST12-Ge are calculated by performing DFT simulation, which shows that a compressive stress transforms the fundamental band gap at M-G valley from indirect to direct one. Henceforth, the possible route of strain induced band engineering in ST12-Ge is explored by analyzing all the transitions in strained and unstrained band structures along with substantiation of the experimental results and theoretical calculations. The investigation shows that unstrained ST12-Ge is a natural n-type semiconductor which transforms into p-type upon incorporation of a compressive stress of ~5 GPa, with the in-plane electron effective mass components at M-G band edge to be ~0.09 me. Therefore, such band engineered ST12-Ge exhibits superior mobility along with its thermal stability and compatibility with Si, which can have potential applications to develop high-speed MOS devices for advanced CMOS technology

A potent betulinic acid analogue ascertains an antagonistic mechanism between autophagy and proteasomal degradation pathway in HT-29 cells

Betulinic acid (BA), a member of pentacyclic triterpenes has shown important biological activities like anti-bacterial, anti-malarial, anti-inflammatory and most interestingly anticancer property. To overcome its poor aqueous solubility and low bioavailability, structural modifications of its functional groups are made to generate novel lead(s) having better efficacy and less toxicity than the parent compound. BA analogue, 2c was found most potent inhibitor of colon cancer cell line, HT-29 cells with IC50 value 14.9 μM which is significantly lower than standard drug 5-fluorouracil as well as parent compound, Betulinic acid. We have studied another mode of PCD, autophagy which is one of the important constituent of cellular catabolic system as well as we also studied proteasomal degradation pathway to investigate whole catabolic pathway after exploration of 2c on HT-29 cells. Mechanism of autophagic cell death was studied using fluorescent dye like acridine orange (AO) and monodansylcadaverin (MDC) staining by using fluorescence microscopy. Various autophagic protein expression levels were determined by Western Blotting, qRT-PCR and Immunostaining. Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) was used to study the colocalization of various autophagic proteins. These were accompanied by formation of autophagic vacuoles as revealed by FACS and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Proteasomal degradation pathway was studied by proteasome-Glo™ assay systems using luminometer.The formation of autophagic vacuoles in HT-29 cells after 2c treatment was determined by fluorescence staining – confirming the occurrence of autophagy. In addition, 2c was found to alter expression levels of different autophagic proteins like Beclin-1, Atg 5, Atg 7, Atg 5-Atg 12, LC3B and autophagic adapter protein, p62. Furthermore we found the formation of autophagolysosome by colocalization of LAMP-1 with LC3B, LC3B with Lysosome, p62 with lysosome. Finally, as proteasomal degradation pathway downregulated after 2c treatment colocalization of ubiquitin with lysosome and LC3B with p62 was studied to confirm that protein degradation in autophagy induced HT-29 cells follows autolysosomal pathway. In summary, betulinic acid analogue, 2c was able to induce autophagy in HT-29 cells and as proteasomal degradation pathway downregulated after 2c treatment so protein degradation in autophagy induced HT-29 cell

Modulation of Mrp1 (ABCc1) and Pgp (ABCb1) by Bilirubin at the Blood-CSF and Blood-Brain Barriers in the Gunn Rat

Accumulation of unconjugated bilirubin (UCB) in the brain causes bilirubin encephalopathy. Pgp (ABCb1) and Mrp1 (ABCc1), highly expressed in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB) respectively, may modulate the accumulation of UCB in brain. We examined the effect of prolonged exposure to elevated concentrations of UCB on expression of the two transporters in homozygous, jaundiced (jj) Gunn rats compared to heterozygous, not jaundiced (Jj) littermates at different developmental stages (2, 9, 17 and 60 days after birth). BBB Pgp protein expression was low in both jj and Jj pups at 9 days (about 16–27% of adult values), despite the up-regulation in jj animals (2 and 1.3 fold higher than age matched Jj animals at P9 and P17–P60, respectively); Mrp1 protein expression was barely detectable. Conversely, at the BCSFB Mrp1 protein expression was rather high (60–70% of the adult values) in both jj and Jj at P2, but was markedly (50%) down-regulated in jj pups starting at P9, particularly in the 4th ventricle choroid plexuses: Pgp was almost undetectable. The Mrp1 protein down regulation was accompanied by a modest up-regulation of mRNA, suggesting a translational rather than a transcriptional inhibition. In vitro exposure of choroid plexus epithelial cells obtained from normal rats to UCB, also resulted in a down-regulation of Mrp1 protein. These data suggest that down-regulation of Mrp1 protein at the BSCFB, resulting from a direct effect of UCB on epithelial cells, may impact the Mrp1-mediated neuroprotective functions of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier and actually potentiate UCB neurotoxicity

Collective and noncollective excitations in 122Te

High-spin states in 122Te were populated in the reaction 82Se(48Ca, α4n)122Te at a beam energy of 200 MeV and γ-ray coincidences were measured with the Gammasphere spectrometer. The previously known level scheme was extended to considerably higher spin. Maximally aligned states and several high-energy transitions feeding into some of these levels were observed. In addition, seven collective high-spin bands were discovered for the first time in this nucleus. The experimental results are compared with cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky model calculations and possible configuration assignments to the new high-spin structures are discussed

Gender Based Within-Household Inequality in Childhood Immunization in India: Changes over Time and across Regions

Background and Objectives: Despite India’s substantial economic growth in the past two decades, girls in India are discriminated against in access to preventive healthcare including immunizations. Surprisingly, no study has assessed the contribution of gender based within-household discrimination to the overall inequality in immunization status of Indian children. This study therefore has two objectives: to estimate the gender based within-household inequality (GWHI) in immunization status of Indian children and to examine the inter-regional and inter-temporal variations in the GWHI. Data and Methods: The present study used households with a pair of male-female siblings (aged 1–5 years) from two rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS, 1992–93 and 2005–06). The overall inequality in the immunization status (after controlling for age and birth order) of children was decomposed into within-households and between-households components using Mean log deviation to obtain the GWHI component. The analysis was conducted at the all-India level as well as for six specified geographical regions and at two time points (1992–93 and 2005–06). Household fixed-effects models for immunization status of children were also estimated. Results and Conclusions: Findings from household fixed effects analysis indicated that the immunization scores of girls were significantly lower than that of boys. The inequality decompositions revealed that, at the all-India level, the absolute level of GWHI in immunization status decreased from 0.035 in 1992–93 to 0.023 in 2005–06. However, as a percentage o

Highly deformed high-spin band in 125I

High-spin states in 125I have been investigated using the reaction 82Se(48Ca,p4n) at a beam energy of 200 MeV and γ-ray coincidence events were detected using the Gammasphere spectrometer. A deformed rotational band, extending up to Iπ=95/2-, was observed for the first time in a heavier odd-A iodine nucleus. The characteristics of the band are very similar to those of the highly deformed bands observed recently in neighboring nuclei and it is essentially identical to one of the previously known bands in 126Xe. The experimental results are compared to cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky calculations and possible configurations for the band are discussed

Noncollective aligned and antialigned states in I125

High-spin states in I125 were populated using the reaction Se82(Ca48,p4n) at a beam energy of 200 MeV and γ-ray coincidence events were acquired with the Gammasphere spectrometer. The level scheme of I125 was extended considerably. In particular, maximally aligned states involving all eleven particles outside the Sn114 core were observed. Comparison with cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky calculations suggests that three of these states are the final Imax states in terminating bands with all spin vectors aligned along a common axis. In two of these, one spin vector is antialigned and points in the opposite direction. In one of the states two spin vectors are antialigned. This is the first observation of a state with such a structure