Identity Assertion by the Bodos of North East India: Exploring the Role of the Educated Middle Class

The paper examines the different phases of identity assertion by the Bodos the largest plains tribe of Assam a state situated in Northeast India Available evidence indicates that the emerging educated middle class has been playing a catalytic role in articulation of Bodo identity in various phases It observes that the Assam movement against foreign nationals failed to accommodate the aspirations of smaller nationalities like Bodos and argues that as the Bodo middle class has been apprehensive of Assamese middle class hegemony it sought to carve out its own political space by transforming and consolidating Bodo ethnic and regional identity into a distinct national identity and by raising the demand for a separate homeland for protection of its class interests The paper proposes to examine the dynamics of this phenomeno

The first structure of polarity suppression protein, Psu from enterobacteria phage P4, reveals a novel fold and a knotted dimer

Psu is a capsid decoration protein of bacteriophage P4 and acts as an antiterminator of Rho-dependent transcription termination in bacteria. So far, no structures have been reported for the Psu protein or its homologues. Here, we report the first structure of Psu solved by the Hg2+ single wavelength anomalous dispersion method, which reveals that Psu exists as a knotted homodimer and is first of its kind in nature. Each monomer of Psu attains a novel fold around a tight coiled-coil motif. CD spectroscopy and the structure of an engineered disulfide-bridged Psu derivative reveal that the protein folds reversibly and reassembles by itself into the knotted dimeric conformation without the requirement of any chaperone. This structure would help to explain the functional properties of the protein and can be used as a template to design a minimal peptide fragment that can be used as a drug against Rho-dependent transcription termination in bacteria

Switch or stay? Automatic classification of internal mental states in bistable perception

The human brain goes through numerous cognitive states, most of these being hidden or implicit while performing a task, and understanding them is of great practical importance. However, identifying internal mental states is quite challenging as these states are difficult to label, usually short-lived, and generally, overlap with other tasks. One such problem pertains to bistable perception, which we consider to consist of two internal mental states, namely, transition and maintenance. The transition state is short-lived and represents a change in perception while the maintenance state is comparatively longer and represents a stable perception. In this study, we proposed a novel approach for characterizing the duration of transition and maintenance states and classified them from the neuromagnetic brain responses. Participants were presented with various types of ambiguous visual stimuli on which they indicated the moments of perceptual switches, while their magnetoencephalogram (MEG) data were recorded. We extracted different spatio-temporal features based on wavelet transform, and classified transition and maintenance states on a trial-by-trial basis. We obtained a classification accuracy of 79.58% and 78.40% using SVM and ANN classifiers, respectively. Next, we investigated the temporal fluctuations of these internal mental representations as captured by our classifier model and found that the accuracy showed a decreasing trend as the maintenance state was moved towards the next transition state. Further, to identify the neural sources corresponding to these internal mental states, we performed source analysis on MEG signals. We observed the involvement of sources from the parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and cerebellum in distinguishing transition and maintenance states. Cross-conditional classification analysis established generalization potential of wavelet features. Altogether, this study presents an automatic classification of endogenous mental states involved in bistable perception by establishing brain-behavior relationships at the single-trial level

Bringing an ecological view of change to Landsat-based remote sensing

When characterizing the processes that shape ecosystems, ecologists increasingly use the unique perspective offered by repeat observations of remotely sensed imagery. However, the concept of change embodied in much of the traditional remote-sensing literature was primarily limited to capturing large or extreme changes occurring in natural systems, omitting many more subtle processes of interest to ecologists. Recent technical advances have led to a fundamental shift toward an ecological view of change. Although this conceptual shift began with coarser-scale global imagery, it has now reached users of Landsat imagery, since these datasets have temporal and spatial characteristics appropriate to many ecological questions. We argue that this ecologically relevant perspective of change allows the novel characterization of important dynamic processes, including disturbances, long-term trends, cyclical functions, and feedbacks, and that these improvements are already facilitating our understanding of critical driving forces, such as climate change, ecological interactions, and economic pressures.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Ecological Society of America and can be found at: http://www.esajournals.org/loi/fron.Keywords: Time-series, Forest disturbanc

Use of Indian digital libraries by biomedical practitioners in West Bengal region: a study

The use of Internet by students, teachers, researchers, journalists, librarians, information scientists, and numerous other professionals have already gathered momentum in our country with the strengthening of information infrastructure day-by-day. The number of Internet service providers, personal Internet connections, institutional Internet connections, cyber cafes, etc are also multiplying at a rapid rate. Biomedical practitioners in the world are also finding Internet-based information resources highly useful inasmuch as it is providing latest information about the harmful drugs being withdrawn, new drugs being introduced in the world, novel medical equipments being marketed, unique surgical techniques becoming successful, and so on. At this juncture, a question automatically arises as to what extent this facility is being used by biomedical practitioners of a region of our country, where computerization and Internet facility etc have started rather late. The study aims to find out the use of Indian digital libraries by biomedical practitioners in the West Bengal region. The data is to be gathered through a structured questionnaire that was circulated among biomedical practitioners. The questionnaire seeks to elicit the information on the extent of the use of open access biomedical literature; awareness about the biomedical databases, electronic journals, digital libraries, digital archives, web portals of biomedical organizations, etc. Digital libraries have already started coming up in India. National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources is developing Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), and National Informatics Centre is developing INDmed (Indian Biomedical Database), medIND (Indian Biomedical Literature) and OpenMed (Open Access archive on biomedical literature). All these databases are accessible free of cost. The study will lay special emphasis on the use of these biomedical information resources. Based on the findings of the study, suggestions are made as to how the awareness among biomedical practitioners can be increased to optimize the use of biomedical information resources in general and Indian digital libraries in particular

Nationality Question and National Integration: Reflections on Paradoxes Confronting the Indian State

The paper examines the nationality questionin India and takes a critical look at the role of theIndian state in dealing with the problems ofnationalities primarily by using the unifying ideologyof ‘national integration’ as a process of statebuilding.It focuses on the reactions of differentnationalities, with special reference to the responsesof some regional parties which have been articulatingthe aspirations of smaller nationalities, to attempts atassimilation and examines the contradictions arisingout of the two parallel processes of nationalintegration and identity assertion by nationalities. Thepaper concludes by observing that the aspirations ofnationalities need not come in conflict with statebuildingin India, provided the Indian State refrainsfrom all assimilationist moves including a resort to aforced integration which will alienate rather thanintegrate the emerging nationalities

Removal of Orange II dye from aqueous solution by adsorption and photodegradation with visible light in presence of nitrogen doped titania nanocatalyst

The possibility of treating water spiked with an azo dye, Orange II by adsorption and photo-catalytic decolourisation with nitrogen doped TiO2 has been investigated. The prepared material has been characterised by XRD, BET, TEM, DRS and XPS study. The photocatalytic reaction is carried out after the attainment of adsorption equilibrium between N-TiO2 and dye. The batch process is chosen to adsorb the dye under different experimental conditions. The photocatalyst dose, initial dye concentration and solution pH have been found to influence both the processes. The percentage decoulorisation increases from 73.42% to 91.32% on increasing the N-TiO2 dose 0.25 to 1.25 g L-1. However, further increase of the catalyst dose to 1.50 g L-1 decreases the extent of decoulorisation (88.29 %). The lower dye concentration favour decolourisation (decreases from 84.24 to 75.43% for dye concentration of 18.0 to 36.0 µmol L-1). At pH 2.0, N-TiO2 decolourises almost 84% of the dye within 240 min of irradiation time. COD results reveal ~91% mineralisation of the dye on 360 min of irradiation. The percentage decolourisation of the dye is found to be higher with N-TiO2 compared to TiO2 P25. The adsorption process follow the Lagergren first order model while the decolourisation process follow modified Langmuir-Hinshelwood model

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) decorated ZnO-SnO2: A ternary nanocomposite towards improved low concentration VOC sensing performance

A ternary p-n-n heterojunction has been prepared by introducing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) in ZnO-SnO2 nanocomposite and its ppm level volatile organic compounds (VOCs) sensing properties have been exploited. Using a simple, facile sol-gel process, initially, ZnO-SnO2 nanocomposites containing different concentrations of ZnO and SnO2 were prepared and subsequently this was followed by rGO incorporation. The as-synthesized powders were well characterized through XRD, FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, FESEM, TEM, and XPS analyses. The sensing study revealed that, the ternary nanocomposite sensor delineated similar to 91% n type sensing response towards similar to 10 ppm acetone gas at an optimum working temperature of 150 degrees C. Even it could sense similar to 1 ppm acetone with appreciable sensing response of similar to 71%. Additionally, the sensor displayed fast response (similar to 10 s) and recovery time (similar to 100 s) suitable for detection of multiple pulses in short time duration. It also exhibited a considerable similar to 65% sensing response towards similar to 10 ppm ethanol at 150 degrees C. These superior sensing performances of rGO decorated ZnO-SnO2 nanocomposite illustrated with band structure modification. Our results indicated that, the fabricated rGO decorated ZnO-SnO2 sensor, with remarkable high sensing response, minimum interference from other toxic, inflammable gases and profound long term stability, could be considered as a prolific candidate for real time detection of low concentration VOCs in versatile commercial applications. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Removal of Orange II dye from aqueous solution by adsorption and photodegradation with visible light in presence of nitrogen doped titania nanocatalyst

34-41<span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-language: EN-IN" lang="EN-GB">The possibility of treating water spiked with an azo dye, Orange II by adsorption and photo-catalytic decolourisation with nitrogen doped TiO2 has been investigated. <span style="font-size:9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt" lang="EN-GB">The prepared material has been characterised by XRD, BET, TEM, DRS and XPS study. The photocatalytic reaction is carried out after the attainment of adsorption equilibrium between N-TiO2 and dye. The batch process is chosen to adsorb the dye under different experimental conditions. The photocatalyst dose, initial dye concentration and solution pH have been found to influence both the processes. <span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:Slimbach-Medium; color:#231F20;mso-fareast-language:EN-IN" lang="EN-GB">The percentage decoulorisation increases from 73.42% to 91.32% on increasing the N-TiO2 dose 0.25 to 1.25 g L-1. However, further increase of the catalyst dose to 1.50 <span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt; mso-fareast-language:EN-IN" lang="EN-GB">g L-1 decreases the extent of decoulorisation (88.29 %). The lower dye concentration favour decolourisation (decreases from 84.24 to 75.43% for dye concentration of 18.0 to 36.0 µmol L-1). At pH 2.0, N-TiO2 decolourises almost 84% of the dye within 240 min of irradiation time. COD results reveal ~91% mineralisation of the dye on 360 min of irradiation. The percentage decolourisation of the dye is found to be higher with N-TiO2 compared to TiO2 P25. The adsorption process follow the Lagergren first order model while the decolourisation process follow modified Langmuir-Hinshelwood model. <span style="font-size:9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-IN" lang="EN-GB"> </span

Photocatalytic decolourisation of a toxic dye, Acid Blue 25, with graphene based N-doped titania

1293-1301This study investigates adsorption of Acid Blue 25 dye and photocatalytic decolourisation with graphene based nitrogen doped TiO2. The prepared material has been characterised by XRD, BET, DRS, PL, TEM and XPS study. The photocatalytic reaction was carried out after the attainment of adsorption equilibrium between graphene based nitrogen doped TiO2 and dye. The photocatalyst dose, initial dye concentration and solution pH are found to influence both the processes. The percentage decolourisation increases on increase of amount of catalyst from 95.57% (load: 0.125 g L-1) to 99.91% (load: 0.75 g L-1). However, further increase of the catalyst dose to 1.25 g L-1 leads to decrease in the extent of decolourisation. The decolourisation is favoured by lower dye concentration. The solution pH influences the reaction process and at pH 3.0, the material can decolourise almost 99% of the dye within 180 min of irradiation time. COD results reveal ~99% mineralisation of the dye on 420 min of irradiation. The percentage decolourisation of the dye is higher with graphene based nitrogen doped TiO2 as compared to NTiO2 or TiO2 P25. The adsorption interaction follows the Lagergren first order model and modified Langmuir-Hinselwood model is preferably followed by dye decolourisation