Ultra-thin graphene–polymer heterostructure membranes

The fabrication of arrays of ultra-thin conductive membranes remains a major challenge in realising large-scale micro/nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), since processing-stress and stiction issues limit the precision and yield in assembling suspended structures. We present the fabrication and mechanical characterisation of a suspended graphene–polymer heterostructure membrane that aims to tackle the prevailing challenge of constructing high yield membranes with minimal compromise to the mechanical properties of graphene. The fabrication method enables suspended membrane structures that can be multiplexed over wafer-scales with 100% yield. We apply a micro-blister inflation technique to measure the in-plane elastic modulus of pure graphene and of heterostructure membranes with a thickness of 18 nm to 235 nm, which ranges from the 2-dimensional (2d) modulus of bare graphene at 173 ± 55 N m$^{-1}$ to the bulk elastic modulus of the polymer (Parylene-C) as 3.6 ± 0.5 GPa as a function of film thickness. Different ratios of graphene to polymer thickness yield different deflection mechanisms and adhesion and delamination effects which are consistent with the transition from a membrane to a plate model. This system reveals the ability to precisely tune the mechanical properties of ultra-thin conductive membranes according to their applications

An Efficient Approach for Finding Near Duplicate Web pages using Minimum Weight Overlapping Method

The existence of billions of web data has severely affected the performance and reliability of web search. The presence of near duplicate web pages plays an important role in this performance degradation while integrating data from heterogeneous sources. Web mining faces huge problems due to the existence of such documents. These pages increase the index storage space and thereby increase the serving cost. By introducing efficient methods to detect and remove such documents from the Web not only decreases the computation time but also increases the relevancy of search results. We aim a novel idea for finding near duplicate web pages which can be incorporated in the field of plagiarism detection, spam detection and focused web crawling scenarios. Here we propose an efficient method for finding near duplicates of an input web page, from a huge repository. A TDW matrix based algorithm is proposed with three phases, rendering, filtering and verification, which receives an input web page and a threshold in its first phase, prefix filtering and positional filtering to reduce the size of record set in the second phase and returns an optimal set of near duplicate web pages in the verification phase by using Minimum Weight Overlapping (MWO) method. The experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms in terms of two benchmark measures, precision and recall, and a reduction in the size of competing record set.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v1i2.7

AflaB2® and osteoarthritis: a multicentric, observational, post-marketing surveillance study in Indian patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most debilitating chronic degenerative joint disorder characterized by pain, inflammation and stiffness of joints with wear and tear of the cartilage. Recent evidences suggest the involvement of the immune pathway in OA development. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of AflaB2® capsules containing Aflapin® and native collagen type II in knee OA patients.Methods: Total 40 knee OA subjects were enrolled at the out-patient department (OPD) of three different sites under supervision of physicians as per the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study. Subjects were instructed to consume AflaB2® capsules once daily orally for three months. They were informed to visit the respective study center as per the schedule visits to assess and record the efficacy and safety.Results: AflaB2® treatment showed significant reduction in pain and stiffness with improvement in physical functions compared to the baseline. The reduction in pain score was observed from 2nd visit on visual analogue scale (VAS). The VAS score was reduced to 1.63±1.23 (p<0.001) from its baseline score 6.0±1.04 at the end of the treatment. The WOMAC Total Score was reduced to 18.1±6.04 (p<0.001) from its baseline score 74.4±8.07 at the end of the treatment. The improvement was observed in WOMAC pain, stiffness and physical functions score. No significant side-effect was reported with AflaB2® treatment throughout the study.Conclusions: The present study provides the evidence in support of the potential efficacy and excellent tolerability of oral intake of AflaB2® capsules in reducing OA symptoms

An Approach for Optimal Feature Subset Selection using a New Term Weighting Scheme and Mutual Information

With the development of the web, large numbers of documents are available on the Internet and they are growing drastically day by day. Hence automatic text categorization becomes more and more important for dealing with massive data. However the major problem of document categorization is the high dimensionality of feature space.  The measures to decrease the feature dimension under not decreasing recognition effect are called the problems of feature optimum extraction or selection. Dealing with reduced relevant feature set can be more efficient and effective. The objective of feature selection is to find a subset of features that have all characteristics of the full features set. Instead Dependency among features is also important for classification. During past years, various metrics have been proposed to measure the dependency among different features. A popular approach to realize dependency is maximal relevance feature selection: selecting the features with the highest relevance to the target class. A new feature weighting scheme, we proposed have got a tremendous improvements in dimensionality reduction of the feature space. The experimental results clearly show that this integrated method works far better than the others

PRELIMINARY IN VIVO EVALUATION OF ANTI-INFLAMMATORY ACTIVITIES OF VARIOUS SOLVENT EXTRACTS OF CADABA INDICA LAM ON CARRAGEENAN-INDUCED PAW EDEMA IN SWISS ALBINO RATS

ABSTRACTObjective: Among the invention of novel anti-inflammatory agents from modern research and drug development, the natural sources exist asevergreen to produce potential secondary metabolites that possess multiple efficacy against inflammatory mediators with no adverse reactions.Methods: Accordingly, Cadaba indica lam (Capparidaceae) produced the positive results for phenol, flavonoids, steroid, and saponins in preliminaryphytochemical screening and exhibited the potent anti-inflammatory activity (100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg) by methanolic leaf extract against carrageenaninducedpawedemausing ratsindose-dependentmanner stayedcloser toreferencestandardindomethacin (25mg/kg)comparedtopetroleumetherandaqueous extract.Results: Thus, the plant C. indica lam might be considered to posses potential secondary metabolites against inflammatory agents and act as lead toisolation of novel therapeutic compounds.Conclusion: The phytochemical test indicates the presence of phenol, flavonoids, steroid, and saponins in leaf extract of C. indica may be known topossess anti-inflammatory property. The result of anti-inflammatory activity produced by the methanolic extract was threshold of isolation of biomolecules from the natural sources in diverse drug development in the near future being responsible for the pharmaceutical industries.Keywords: Preliminary phytochemical, Cadaba indica, Anti-inflammatory

Stock assessment of the Indian oil-sardinella (Sardinella longiceps) off the West Coast of India

The Indian oil-sardinella (Sardinella longiceps Val .) has traditionally played a critical role in the marine fishery economics of India, and in particular in the State of Kerala. It's production on the west coast of India exhibits large fluctuations over the years, though it continues to be commercially the most important and abundant pelagic resource (Table 1). These fluctuations have attracted the attention of many research workers. As early as 1910 Hornell attributed them to changes in diatom production or food availability to the fry and the prevalence of favourable hydrological conditions. Kesteven (1967) was of the view that the fluctuations are related to shifts in the migratory path of the fish, causing variations in the accessibility of the stocks to fishing due to the limited range of the fishing operations

Raman investigations of diamond films prepared by combustion flames

A detailed Raman analysis has been carried out to establish the mixed nature of carbon bonding in diamond films, deposited at atmospheric pressures in combustion flames. By monitoring the sp3 bonded 1334 cm−1 Raman signature of diamond and sp2 bonded 1350 and 1580 cm−1 signatures of graphite, it has been established that under optimum conditions of flow rates and substrate temperatures, the primary combustion zone provides an ideal situation for diamond growth. The study points out to an a-Si1-xCx like interface (0.5≤x≤1) and an amorphous diamondlike precursor phase. These investigations provide insights into the nature of the diamond films prepared by this technique in establishing their potential in various technological applications

Occurrence of powdery mildew disease of Gerbera in Kerala

A purposive sampling survey on the hilly tracts of Wayanad, Kerala revealed the existence of powdery mildew disease in gerbera crops, grown under both protected and open field condition. Among the other fungal diseases of gerbera, powdery mildew disease causes decisive damage to the ornamental cut flower crop, thereby decline in the industrial value of the crop. Symptom of the disease include as white powdery mat on the upper surface of leaf lamina that gradually turned pale yellow to brown. Powdery mildew existed in two locations of Wayanad viz., Ambalavayal and Chulliyode where highest per cent disease severity (PDS) of 50.72 was observed at Chulliyode and 47.2 per cent was observed at Ambalavayal during November-December. In Ambalavayal, the disease was non-significant and no correlation existed between weather parameters and disease progress. But, in Chulliyode, correlation studies revealed that it was significant with positive correlation to relative humidity and a reverse relation existed with temperature and rainfall. The weather data clearly depicts that at a low rainfall of 96 mm and above average relative humidity of 80.27 per cent during November-December was the congenial factor influencing the disease development. But during summer, decline in relative humidity (78.37%) and rainfall (63.13 mm) caused a slight reduction in mean per cent disease severity of 49.12 per cent and 33.6 per cent at Chulliyode and Ambalavayal respectively. Morohological and cultural characters of the pathogen depicts presence of two distinct organism viz., Golovinomyces cichoracearum (Erysiphe cichoracearum) and Podosphaera sp. as the causative organism of the disease. Golovinomyces cichoracearumproduced hyaline, septate mycelia with globose conidia with irregular peripheral end formed in a chain and Podosphaera sp. produced superficial, hyaline, coenocytic mycelium with oval or ellipsoidal, catenate conidia with dimension ranging from 22.1-30.18 x 13.36-18.08ìm formed in unbranched erect conidiophores

Clinical profile of a case of lumbar sacralisation- a naturopathy and physiotherapy management: case report

Lumbar sacralisation is a congenital anamoly, in which the transverse process of the last lumbar vertebrae (L5) fuses to the sacrum on one side (or) both (or) to ilium (or) both. They occur during the period of growth, grow away from spinal column and rarely responsible for mechanical symptoms and varies postural defect. This paper reports a rare presentation of deeper radiological structures of spine with mechanical instability, postural defect, mild to moderate pain in back and radiating towards left leg. Patient was 23 years old female and misdiagnosed as mechanical back pain and disc prolapsed. We assessed her clinically and radiologically and diagnosis was established based on X-rays and MRI of Spine. She was treated with integrated approach [naturopathy& physiotherapy] and patients recover uneventfully

Granulosa cell tumours of ovary: variables affecting prognosis

Background: Granulosa cell tumours account for less than 5% of all ovarian malignancies. Limited data is available from India. Methods: 27 patients with diagnosis of granulosa cell tumour of the ovary were treated between 1991 and 2003 at our Institute. The surgical records were reviewed and the patients were staged according to the FIGO system. The clinical and histological findings are correlated with prognosis and survival. Results: Mean age at diagnosis was 46.2 (2- 64) years. The number of patients in various stages was I-19; II-1; III-5 and IV-2. Menstrual irregularity was diagnosed in 22%, and postmenopausal bleeding in 7.4% of women. Twenty-five patients were treated with primary surgery, 9 patients received adjuvant chemotherapy (CT) and only one patients received chemotherapy as primary treatment. Overall survival was 82% at 5 years. Overall survival for stage I was 100% after 5 and 10 years and in stage II-IV, was 56.4% after 5 and 10 years. Mean tumour size was 18cm (range 3-30 cm). Women with larger tumour diameter (>15cm) had significantly worse outcome than those with tumours of smaller diameter (P<0.05). The frequency of observed mitosis influenced the survival rate; with 0-3/10 HPF the survival was 100% in 5 years and with 4/10 HPF the survival was 2.6 years. Conclusion: The tumour size, mitotic rate and stage of disease are well-defined variables and influence the survival significantly and should be considered as important prognostic factors for treatment planning