Identification of novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in DPB1 gene in ethnic population from West Bengal

HLA-DP antigens present peptides to CD4+ T cells and play an important role in autoimmune diseases and parasitic infections. We have sequenced HLA-DPB1 exon-2 from the ethnic populations in West Bengal, India and report a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) - rs111221466. The rs111221466 SNP induced silent mutation from CGA (Arg) to TGA (Stop Codon) and showed a frequency of 83.24%. In conventional sense, the frequency of novel SNP is very high. We have sequenced HLA-DPB1 exon-2 from a Bengali Population in West Bengal, India. HLA-DP antigens present peptides to CD4+ T cells and play an important role in autoimmune diseases and parasitic infections. Here, we report a novel single nucleotide polymorphism of HLA-DPB1 gene in the population. rs111221466 showed a frequency of 83.24, which is important to note, in view of common polymorphisms involved in disease susceptibility

Morphometric evaluation of the body and odontoid process of the axis vertebra and its clinical significance. A cross-sectional anatomical study.

Introduction: The axis, which is the second cervical vertebra, serves as a pivot, allowing the atlas to rotate and support the head. Despite its small size, this area can lead to significant complications because of the intricate anatomy of the cranio-cervical junction. The axis vertebra is distinct because it features a dens or odontoid process. Fractures of the dens in the axis account for 7–27% of all cervical spine fractures. Surgical procedures in the craniovertebral region carry a high risk, as vertebral artery injury is common. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the anatomy of the body and the odontoid process of the axis vertebra is essential.  Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out using fifty-two intact dry human axis vertebrae of unspecified sex. Measurements of the body and odontoid process of these vertebrae were obtained with a digital vernier caliper, which has an accuracy of up to 0.01mm. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Version 21.  Results: The body of the axis vertebra measured as follows: mean length of the body, 14.93±1.11 mm; vertebral body superior width, 15.79±1.76 mm; vertebral body inferior width, 16.22±1.31 mm; vertebral body anterior height, 18.69±2.17 mm; and vertebral body posterior height, 15.96±1.89 mm. The odontoid process of the axis vertebra measured as follows: odontoid process height, 17.60±1.94 mm; odontoid process anteroposterior diameter, 10.61±0.85 mm; maximum transverse diameter of the odontoid process, 9.78±0.93 mm; minimum transverse diameter of the odontoid process, 8.53±0.82 mm; atlanto-odontoid facet height, 9.67±1.43 mm; and atlanto-odontoid facet width, 7.86±0.90.  Conclusion: These measurements are essential for the safe and effective application of modern orthopedic techniques. This data helps surgeons in reducing complications such as vertebral artery injury and other vital structures during surgical procedures in the cranio-vertebral region.  Recommendations: Future studies should include larger, diverse samples with radiologic correlation

A CRITICAL STUDY ON THE CONCEPT OF WELFARE STATE AND WELFARE SCHEMES

The welfare state takes the accountability of security, protection and support of the economic and social well-being of its people. The government gives attention to such people of the state who are not capable of avail themselves of the minimum necessities of a good life. These are mainly like food, cloth, shelter, pension, health insurance etc. It is the moral duty of a welfare state to provide such facilities to the needy sections of the society. The welfare of its citizens remains on the main concern list of the state. Previously, India was not a welfare state because of the foreigner’s autocratic rule. India was not a welfare state under the British rule. They have no equal rights. Even their life is not safe under their rule. Whatever developments British did was in keeping with the benefits of the British colonial government. The industrialization and taxes levied by British government damaged the agro-artisan based economy. It caused poverty in India. Their policies were not in the interests of the people of India. This paper aims to examine the concept of welfare state and welfare schemes

Oxygen-ion transport and electrocatalysis in high entropy oxides

Global average temperatures have been increasing since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, with the most pronounced rise occurring between 2023 and 2024, exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This temperature increase is primarily attributed to the elevated atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO₂ and CH₄, largely resulting from fossil fuel combustion. To mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, significant research efforts have been devoted to sustainable energy solutions. One widely investigated strategy involves the utilization of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, to meet energy demands through efficient energy-to-fuel and fuel-to-energy conversion processes. The development of these technologies necessitates high-performance solar cells, electrolyzers, fuel cells, and batteries, all of which rely on advanced electrolyte and electrode materials. A fundamental challenge in materials science is the design and optimization of materials with superior functional properties to enhance the efficiency, stability, and performance of these energy conversion and storage systems. High entropy oxides are a new class of promising materials known for their single-phase stability, compositional complexity, and exceptional functional properties. The main objective of the thesis is to explore the potential of high entropy oxides as oxygen ion conductors and electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction. The initial step in assessing these functional properties involves synthesizing the high entropy oxides in various forms, such as powders, pellets, and films. The high entropy oxides are synthesized using mechanochemical synthesis, sol-gel processing, reverse co-precipitation, pulsed laser deposition, and conventional sintering techniques. The fluorite-structured high entropy oxide (Ce,La,Pr,Sm,Y)O2-δ is considered for comparison. Powders produced using mechanochemical synthesis, sol-gel processing, and reverse co-precipitation consistently exhibit the desired fluorite structure. Likewise, thin films synthesized using the sol-gel process and pulsed laser deposition also maintain the fluorite structure, with pulsed laser deposition allowing the production of films with various morphologies, such as polycrystalline, columnar, and epitaxial. In contrast, pellets synthesized through conventional sintering exhibit a mixture of fluorite and bixbyite structure due to the high sintering temperatures. These techniques are applied to various high entropy oxides to evaluate their potential as oxygen ion conductors and electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. Fluorite- and perovskite-type high entropy oxides are explored as oxygen ion conductors. The oxygen ion conduction is studied for the pellets of these high entropy oxides. However, the pellets of fluorite structured high entropy oxide - (Ce,La,Pr,Sm,Y)O2-δ transition to phase mixture of fluorite and bixbyite structure due to high sintering temperatures. In order to prevent the formation of the phase mixture during the sintering, Zr was added at different atomic fractions. Indeed, the fluorite structure is stabilized approximately at 10 at.% of Zr content. Additionally, (Ce,La,Pr,Sm,Y)1-xZrxO2-δ exhibit a homogenous distribution of elements with Pr exhibiting multivalency. As an additional benefit of adding Zr, the ionic conductivity increases with the addition of Zr and reaches a maximum at 8 at.% of Zr and decreases with further addition of Zr. Interestingly, the electronic conductivity in an oxidizing atmosphere expected from a multivalent Pr is suppressed, while high ionic conduction is observed in the fluorite-structured high entropy oxides. The thesis also investigates perovskite-type high entropy oxides, specifically high entropy rare-earth aluminates. Traditional perovskite-structured rare-earth aluminates are known oxygen ion conductors; however, they exhibit p-type electronic conduction in oxidizing environments due to oxygen exchange between the atmosphere and lattice oxygen at high temperatures. High entropy materials, with their elevated configurational entropies, offer stability at high temperatures, suggesting they could reduce unwanted electronic conduction. To explore this phenomenon, high entropy aluminates - (Gd0.2La0.2Nd0.2Pr0.2Sm0.2)1-xCaxAlO3 are considered. These high entropy aluminates exhibit an orthorhombic perovskite structure with a homogenous distribution of elements, with minor secondary phases appearing at x = 0.15 and x = 0.2. Conductivity increases with Ca content which peaks at x = 0.1 and stays constant with further addition of Ca. At the same time, the p-type conduction typically observed in doped rare-earth aluminates is effectively mitigated. High entropy oxides offer promising potential to constrict the electronic conduction observed in traditional oxygen ion conductors. Furthermore, the conductivities achieved in this research are comparable to the state-of-the-art oxygen ion conductor, yttria-stabilized zirconia. High entropy materials are promising for developing high-activity electrocatalysts. Their inherent tunability and multiple active sites create opportunities for designing earth-abundant catalytic materials that support energy-efficient electrochemical energy storage. In this thesis, the high entropy perovskite-type oxides are shown to significantly enhance catalytic activity for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the kinetically limiting half-reaction in electrochemical energy conversion, including green hydrogen production. Specifically, the catalytic performance of the (001) facet of La(Cr0.2Mn0.2Fe0.2Co0.2Ni0.2)O3-δ was compared to its parent compounds with a single B-site in the ABO3 perovskite structure. While these single B-site perovskites generally follow expected volcano-type activity trends, the high entropy oxide outperforms all parent compounds, achieving 17 to 680 times higher currents at a fixed overpotential. Since all samples were grown as epitaxial layers, these results confirm an intrinsic composition-function relationship independent of geometry or surface variability. X-ray photoemission studies reveal a synergistic effect from the simultaneous oxidation and reduction of transition metal cations during intermediate adsorption, highlighting high entropy oxides as a highly attractive class of earth-abundant materials for OER catalysis with activity potential beyond the scaling limits of traditional mono- or bimetallic oxides

Dynamic Stability and Analysis of SMIB system with FLC Based PSS including Load Damping Parameter Sensitivity

This paper studies Dynamic Analysis and Stability of Single machine connected to infinite bus (SMIB) with power system stabilizer (PSS) in presence of Fuzzy logic controller (FLC) including load damping parameter sensitivity. Here PSS is modeled using fuzzy logic controller and the response is compared with the responses of the system in presence of conventional PI, PID controllers including load damping parameters sensitivity. In case of FLC based PSS the responses are compared different load damping parameters. Matlab-Simulink is used to test the results

Population structure and genetic differentiation among the substructured Vysya caste population in comparison to the other populations of Andhra Pradesh, India

The present paper focuses on the study of the patterns of genetic microdifferentiation among one of the substructured caste populations of Andhra Pradesh, namely Vysya, with reference to 17 other Telugu speaking populations from the same region of India. A total of 302 individuais from the three Vysya subgroups (101 of Arya Vysya, 100 from Kalinga Vysya and 101 from Thrivarnika) were typed in 17 blood groups and protein polymorphisms. Nei's gene diversity analysis, as well as neighbour-joining tree and UPGMA cluster diagrams, derived from standard genetic distances, R-matrix analysis and a regression model for investigating the patterns of external gene flow and genetic drift due to isolation under the island model, were done at two levels: (1) considering only the three Vysya populations and (2) considering common loci among 20 populations of Andhra Pradesh. Seven of the 17 systems investigated were found to be monomorphic among all the three Vysya groups. The UPGMA tree and bidimensional scaling of the D2 distances derived from R-matrix analysis show a very distinct cluster of Vysya populations. Application of the model of regression of average heterozygosity versus the distance of populations from the centroid shows the three Vysya populations placed as clear outliers above the theoretical regression line. Different approaches employed in this study give support to the hypothesis of different origin and/or demographic story for the three Vysya groups compared with other populations of Andhra Pradesh.Fil: Lakshmi, N.. Andhra University; IndiaFil: Demarchi, Dario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Veerraju, P.. Andhra University; IndiaFil: Rao, T. V.. Andhra University; Indi

A Novel Approach Based on Decreased Dimension and Reduced Gray Level Range Matrix Features for Stone Texture Classification

The human eye can easily identify the type of textures in flooring of the houses and in the digital images visually.  In this work, the stone textures are grouped into four categories. They are bricks, marble, granite and mosaic. A novel approach is developed for decreasing the dimension of stone image and for reducing the gray level range of the image without any loss of significant feature information. This model is named as “Decreased Dimension and Reduced Gray level Range Matrix (DDRGRM)” model. The DDRGRM model consists of 3 stages.  In stage 1, each 5×5 sub dimension of the stone image is reduced into 2×2 sub dimension without losing any important qualities, primitives, and any other local stuff.  In stage 2, the gray level of the image is reduced from 0-255 to 0-4 by using fuzzy concepts.  In stage 3, Co-occurrence Matrix (CM) features are derived from the DDRGRM model of the stone image for stone texture classification.  Based on the feature set values, a user defined algorithm is developed to classify the stone texture image into one of the 4 categories i.e. Marble, Brick, Granite and Mosaic. The proposed method is tested by using the K-Nearest Neighbor Classification algorithm with the derived texture features.  To prove the efficiency of the proposed method, it is tested on different stone texture image databases.  The proposed method resulted in high classification rate when compared with the other existing methods

Insertion/Deletion Polymorphisms in Indian Tribal Populations

Five Alu markers (Alu APO, PV 92, TPA 25, D1 and ACE) were studied in five tribal populations namely, Konda Reddi, Koya Dora and Konda Kammara of East Godavari district, Lambada and Chenchu of Mahaboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. All the five loci were found to be highly polymorphic. While the lowest heterozygosity was observed in the Chenchu the Lambadi shows the highest. Both Neighbour Joining tree and Principal Component analysis based on genetic distances suggest two broad clusters, one formed by the Lambada and Chenchu and the other by the Konda Reddi and Koya Dora with Konda Kammara as an outer element to this three-point cluster. Another cluster analysis carried out along with 19 other Indian populations brings out no distinct cluster of the 5 AP tribes; instead these AP tribal populations are integrated into different subclusters of the UP and Bengal suggesting lack of distinct genetic identity of these AP tribes as far as the few Alu markers are concerned.Fil: Veerraju, P.. Andhra University; IndiaFil: Demarchi, Dario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Lakshmi, N.. Andhra University; IndiaFil: Venkateswara Rao, T.. Andhra University; Indi

Web-Based Malaria Diagnosis using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Granular Blood Sample Analysis

Malaria is a serious health concern for modern humans, affecting people of all ages. Infected mosquitoes carry the fatalparasites responsible for malaria. Malaria can be diagnosed by examining a sample of the patient\u27s blood under amicroscope for parasites. The project comprises creating a web tool that employs deep learning to detect malariaparasites in blood smear photos. Convolutional neural network (CNN) models such as ResNet50, VGG19, andCustomized CNN can be used to collect and categorize a set of blood smear images in order to identify patterns andcharacteristics. Convolutional layers, max-pooling layers, entirely linked layers, and a SoftMax layer are all utilized tocreate a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model. This technique can improve the accuracy of parasite diagnosis,increase detection rates, and reduce the disease\u27s impact on global health.&nbsp