Aetiology and treatment of epidermal depigmentory disorder in humans

The epidermal depigmentary trigger in humans at post-natal level may occur with the toxification of skin organ with the endogenously produced melanocytotoxic hydrogen peroxide and subsequent formation of hydrogen peroxide- melanolipoprotein conjugate involving the hydrogen bonding of complementary hydroxyl and carbonyl molecular surfaces of these biosignitures respectively. The condition is multifactorial but reversible. The structural and functional degeneration of melanocytes under the acquired condition never occur. The molecular conjugation theory on the aetiology and line of treatment of the epidermal depigmentary disorder (recoined as hepato-epidermal syndrome HES) has been proposed. The inherent sulfoxides of Allium cepa have been found as the renaturant of HES condition with the capacity to dislodge the denaturant hydrogen peroxide forming stronger hydrogen bonding with hydrogen peroxide than that of carbonyl molecular surface of melanolipoprotein, the epidermal colour determinant. The orally and topically defined plant based combined therapy advances the recovery time of HES condition

Enzyme activity and electrophoretic pattern of isoenzymes of amylase, catalase and peroxidase in photo- and gibberellin-induced plants of Impatiens balsamina L. var. rose

Floral buds were induced either by 8 h photoperiods or by the application of GA3 and GA13 in Impatiens balsamina. Total enzyme activity was not directly related to floral morphogenesis although some interesting qualitative correlations existed. Thus, the presence of a new isoenzyme of amylase (RF 0·05) may be related to flower formation since it was present only in the induced plants and not in the vegetative ones, regardless of whether the flowering was caused by inductive photoperiods or by gibberellin treatment. Catalase activity, as well as its isoenzyme forms, could not be detected in the stem and the isoenzyme profile in leaves did not alter with photoperiodic or gibberellin treatment. Treatment with gibberellins induced the synthesis of new isoenzymes of peroxidase but inductive photoperiods did not. The enzyme profiles in relation to photoperiod and gibberellin application are discussed

5-Hydroxy-1,4-naphthaquinone (Juglone), a New Indicator in Acidimetry & Alkalimetry

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Parametric Modelling for Designing Offsite Construction

Increasing population and progressing economies around the world are generating huge demand for built assets. When this demand is dealt with conventional ‘sticks-and-bricks’ approach, it leads to usual delays, wastages, cost overruns, and quality issues, etc. Consequently, the traditional approach results in negative impacts on economic and social scenarios apart from being just unable to deliver required supply level of built assets. On the other hand, offsite construction techniques, when utilized appropriately, can significantly speed up the construction process and improve the quality of deliverables in addition to bringing in improved sustainability and better worker health and safety. But offsite practices are marred with a general perspective of its being cause of rigidity in the design processes and disproportional increment in coordination requirements. To address this perceived problem, the application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been conceptualized for the design of a prototype in this research. Simpler ways of modularization and effective optimization of design through parametric modelling has been developed. The methodology coming out of this design exercise, which is of reporting values of parametric variables real-time, is promising in the sense of ensuring the general and flexible usage of offsite practices. Further as experienced during the BIM modelling exercise for the prototype, the design iterations can be accomplished in a more informed manner and optimization run in an automated fashion by using the Application Programming Interface (API) of BIM authoring tool by taking advantage of already defined key parameters. This paper addresses these important issues at the conceptual level and determines a roadmap for further research

Biocompatible microcapsules

Biocompatible microcapsules useful for transplanting foreign material into an animal body, and the method of their production, are described, wherein the microcapsules contain an outermost layer of water soluble non-ionic polymers such as PEO to create resistance to cell adhesion on the surface of the microcapsules.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Biocompatible microcapsules

Biocompatible microcapsules useful for transplanting foreign material into an animal body, and the method of their production, are described, wherein the microcapsules contain an outermost layer of water soluble non-ionic polymers such as PEO to create resistance to cell adhesion on the surface of the microcapsules.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Blimp-1-dependent and -independent natural antibody production by B-1 and B-1-derived plasma cells.

Natural antibodies contribute to tissue homeostasis and protect against infections. They are secreted constitutively without external antigenic stimulation. The differentiation state and regulatory pathways that enable continuous natural antibody production by B-1 cells, the main cellular source in mice, remain incompletely understood. Here we demonstrate that natural IgM-secreting B-1 cells in the spleen and bone marrow are heterogeneous, consisting of (a) terminally differentiated B-1-derived plasma cells expressing the transcriptional regulator of differentiation, Blimp-1, (b) Blimp-1+, and (c) Blimp-1neg phenotypic B-1 cells. Blimp-1neg IgM-secreting B-1 cells are not simply intermediates of cellular differentiation. Instead, they secrete similar amounts of IgM in wild-type and Blimp-1-deficient (PRDM-1ΔEx1A) mice. Blimp-1neg B-1 cells are also a major source of IgG3. Consequently, deletion of Blimp-1 changes neither serum IgG3 levels nor the amount of IgG3 secreted per cell. Thus, the pool of natural antibody-secreting B-1 cells is heterogeneous and contains a distinct subset of cells that do not use Blimp-1 for initiation or maximal antibody secretion

MOVIEMOD: An Implementable Decision-Support System for Prerelease Market Evaluation of Motion Pictures

In spite of the high financial stakes involved in marketing new motion pictures, marketing science models have not been applied to the prerelease market evaluation of motion pictures. The motion picture industry poses some unique challenges. For example, the consumer adoption process for movies is very sensitive to word-of-mouth interactions, which are difficult to measure and predict before the movie has been released. In this article, we undertake the challenge to develop and implement MOVIEMOD—a prerelease market evaluation model for the motion picture industry. MOVIEMOD is designed to generate box-office forecasts and to support marketing decisions for a new movie after the movie has been produced (or when it is available in a rough cut) but before it has been released. Unlike other forecasting models for motion pictures, the calibration of MOVIEMOD does not require any actual sales data. Also, the data collection time for a product with a limited lifetime such as a movie should not take too long. For MOVIEMOD it takes only three hours in a “consumer clinic” to collect the data needed for the prediction of box-office sales and the evaluation of alternative marketing plans. The model is based on a behavioral representation of the consumer adoption process for movies as a macroflow process. The heart of MOVIEMOD is an interactive Markov chain model describing the macro-flow process. According to this model, at any point in time with respect to the movie under study, a consumer can be found in one of the following behavioral states: undecided, considerer, rejecter, positive spreader, negative spreader, and inactive. The progression of consumers through the behavioral states depends on a set of movie-specific factors that are related to the marketing mix, as well as on a set of more general behavioral factors that characterize the movie-going behavior in the population of interest. This interactive Markov chain model allows us to account for word-of-mouth interactions among potential adopters and several types of word-of-mouth spreaders in the population. Marketing variables that influence the transitions among the states are movie theme acceptability, promotion strategy, distribution strategy, and the movie experience. The model is calibrated in a consumer clinic experiment. Respondents fill out a questionnaire with general items related to their movie-going and movie communication behavior, they are exposed to different sets of information stimuli, they are actually shown the movie, and finally, they fill outpostmovie evaluations, including word-of-mouth intentions.These measures are used to estimate the word-of-mouth parameters and other behavioral factors, as well as the movie-specific parameters of the model. MOVIEMOD produces forecasts of the awareness, adoption intention, and cumulative penetration for a new movie within the population of interest for a given base marketing plan. It also provides diagnostic information on the likely impact of alternative marketing plans on the commercial performance of a new movie. We describe two applications of MOVIEMOD: One is a pilot study conducted without studio cooperation in the United States, and the other is a full-fledged implementation conducted with cooperation of the movie\u27s distributor and exhibitor in the Netherlands. The implementations suggest that MOVIEMOD produces reasonably accurate forecasts of box-office performance. More importantly, the model offers the opportunity to simulate the effects of alternative marketing plans. In the Dutch application, the effects of extra advertising, extra magazine articles, extra TV commercials, and higher trailer intensity (compared to the base marketing plan of the distributor) were analyzed. We demonstrate the value of these decision-support capabilities of MOVIEMOD in assisting managers to identify a final plan that resulted in an almost 50% increase in the test movie\u27s revenue performance, compared to the marketing plan initially contemplated. Management implemented this recommended plan, which resulted in box-office sales that were within 5% of the MOVIEMOD prediction. MOVIEMOD was also tested against several benchmark models, and its prediction was better in all cases. An evaluation of MOVIEMOD jointly by the Dutch exhibitor and the distributor showed that both parties were positive about and appreciated its performance as a decision-support tool. In particular, the distributor, who has more stakes in the domestic performance of its movies, showed a great interest in using MOVIEMOD for subsequent evaluations of new movies prior to their release. Based on such evaluations and the initial validation results, MOVIEMOD can fruitfully (and inexpensively) be used to provide researchers and managers with a deeper understanding of the factors that drive audience response to new motion pictures, and it can be instrumental in developing other decision-support systems that can improve the odds of commercial success of new experiential products

Area of linkage between lean construction and sustainability in indian construction industry

Purpose-The purpose of the research paper to study the area of linkage between lean construction (LC) and sustainability in Indian construction industry and rank the identified attributes on the basis of the responses given to their severity to construction projects in India. Design/methodology/approach-The research was conducted by a structured questionnaire that was sent to 180 professional working in Indian construction industry. This questionnaire requested the respondents to give a score to the 26 attributes identified that are 15 lean construction tools for enabling sustainability and 11 attributes as area of linkage between lean construction and sustainability in Indian construction industry through literature review. They were asked to rate the attributes on a Likert scale rating of 1 to 5. The data collect than analysed using relative importance index and reliability analysis. Findings-The research study identifies the top five Significant lean tools for enabling sustainability are: first run studies, six sigma, kanaban, last planner system and visualization tool having relative importance index (Rii) of 0.80, 0.781, 0.779, 0.77 and 0.75 respectively. Most significant area of linkage between sustainability and lean construction are: resource management, waste reduction, energy minimization, elimination of non-value added activities and health and safety improvement as the outcome benefits of linking lean construction and sustainability in Indian construction industry having a relative importance index of 0.83, 0.779, 0.776, 0.77 and 0.76 respectively. Research limitations-The research focused on the responses received through the questionnaire and the number of respondents is 180 with a response rate of 41%. A further more detailed research is required to know the broad effect of lean tools on sustainability in Indian construction industry. © IAEME Publication