Performance Decrement by Exposure to Sub-Lethal Doses of lonising Radiations

Under many circumstances, exposure to ionising radiation can impede performance significantly. After large doses, lethal or supra-Iethal, behavioural effects are rapid (within minutes), but up to 10 Gy, performance deficits develop rather slowly and are long-Iasting. All tasks are not equally radiosensitive; tasks with complex and demanding requirements may be disrupted even at low radiation doses (<1 Gy). Combined injuries can act synergistically with radiation exposure to greatly increase behavioural deficits. Most of the adioprotectors developed todate are themselves behaviourally toxic at radioprotective as well as non-protective doses and the adverse effects are further aggravated in the presence of radiation. A very limited number of radioprotectors have been found to give behavioural radioprotection at very low, almost non-toxic doses

Partial Purification and Characterization of the Inhibitory Substance of Bacillus subtilis against Common Bacterial Fish Pathogens

The present investigation was carried out to study the active component of Bacillus subtilis, a gastrointestinal bacterium of mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala) that shows inhibitory activity against a wide range of fish pathogens. The bacterium was found to inhibit all the fish pathogens and an extra cellular protein fraction (ECP) of 5-10 kD was found to be the active component responsible for inhibitory activity. The component was heat stable (60°C for 1 h) and a change in pH had no effect on the antibacterial activity. The protein fraction was sensitive to trypsin, chymotrypsin, lysozyme, and proteinase K at 2.5 mg/ml and resistant at 0.1 and 0.5 mg/ml. The present investigation confirmed that the active component of the B. subtilis responsible for antibacterial activities against common fish pathogens is a low molecular weight protein fraction (5-10 kD). A protein or peptide with such a low molecular weight has the potential to serve as an alternative health management strategy for combating disease in aquaculture

Duality for Multiobjective Fractional Variational Problems

AbstractA class of multiobjective fractional variational problems is considered and duals are formulated. Under concavity assumptions on the functions involved, duality theorems are proved through a parametric approach to relate efficient solutions of the primal and dual problems. We generalize those results for control problems also

Pricing water for sustainable development

Pricing water for sustainable developmen

Pathology of mixed infections of saprolegniasis-myxosporidiosis in Indian major carp (Catla catla Ham.)

An outbreak of saprolegniasis in Catla catla in composite carp culture ponds were recorded during winter season. The typical cotton wool growths were observed on whole body surfaces of catla along with sporadic mortality. The fungal invasion was only restricted to skin and no fungal elements were visible in any internal organs after periodic acid schiff staining. On histology, periportal accumulation of mononuclear cells in liver, presence of myxosporidean cysts in antieror kidney, eosinophilic granular cells reaction in submucosa of stomach and intestine, dilated and engorged blood vessels of brain along with sloughing of epidermis and hyperplasia at gill lamellar base were pronounced changes. The possible role of release of Saprolegnia toxin in producing internal organs pathology has been discussed

XRD TEM EELS Studies on Memory Device Structures

Over the past decade, numerous emerging memory technologies are being considered as contenders to displace either or both NAND flash and DRAM as scaling limitations of these conventional memories are perceived for applications in mobile devices. Some of these include Magnetic and Spin Transfer Torque Random Access Memory MRAM, STTRAM , Phase Change RAM PCRAM , Ferroelectric RAM and Resistive RAM memories. These technologies can be classified as relying on one of the movements atomic, ionic, electron charge or spin in nanoscale thin films comprising of a variety of materials. The literature shows about 50 elements of the periodic table being investigated for these memory applications owing to their unique physical and chemical properties. Engineering memory devices requires nanoscale characterizations of film stacks for their chemical compositions and crystalline nature in addition to electronic properties such as resistance, magnetization and polarization depending upon the principle involved. This paper focuses on how x ray diffraction XRD , transmission electron microscopy TEM and electron energy loss spectroscopy EELS techniques have been employed to obtain insight into engineering magnetic tunnel junctions MTJ and PCM device

Epidemiology of HIV Infection Among Brothel-based Sex Workers in Kolkata, India

A cross-sectional study was carried out during January-June 2004 to assess the status of HIV infection among brothel-based sex workers in Kolkata city, India. Six hundred and twenty-two sex workers, selected from six brothels, were included in the study to assess their HIV status, and 362 sex workers, a subset of the above population, were interviewed to study their risk behaviour and practices. Blood samples were collected from each sex worker for testing HIV by an unlinked anonymous method. The prevalence of HIV infection was 9.6%, but was much higher among younger sex workers aged 20 years or less (27.7%) compared to the older age group (8.4%). This difference was statistically significant, indicating an association of younger ages with HIV infection [p=0.006 and odds ratio (OR)=4.18; (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2-13.8)]. HIV was not associated with duration of sex work, average number of clients entertained per day, condom use, practice of sex during menstruation, precoital examination of penis for visible ulcer/discharge, suffering from sexually transmitted infections, and entertaining clients outside the brothel. There was a big gap between the reported and the evaluated condom use by sex workers. The results suggest that there is a need to develop suitable HIV intervention strategies, considering the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of city sex workers, with a provision for continuous monitoring and evaluation

Rabies Virus Infection in Domestic Buffaloes and Wild Animals in India

Rabies is one of the most significant diseases in India with severe health implication to humans, domestic and wild animals. In the present study, four concomitant incidents of rabies related deaths were recorded in the western province of India, Gujarat during 2012 - 2014. Brain samples were collected from two buffaloes, nilgai, and mongoose during these incidents and rabies virus was identified from these samples. Further genetic relationship of these isolates was determined and the rabies virus transmission among the wild and domestic mammals was established. Molecular epidemiology based on the glycoprotein ecto-domain and complete nucleoprotein gene showed that all the four isolates belonged to Arctic-like 1 lineage which is predominant in India. Phylogenetic analysis and time scaled evolutionary tree analysis indicated that the wild animals are playing an important role in the maintenance and also transmission of the rabies virus in India

Unified customer service interactions

A server device configured to receive first-information associated with a call that was received by a first server device; receive second-information associated with the call, where the second-information is associated with processing of the call by the first server device and at least one second server device; generate a unified record associated with the call, where the unified record includes at least some of the first-information and at least some of the second-information; determine, based on the unified record, that a condition exists with respect to the call; and send an instruction to perform a customer operation with respect to the call when the condition is determined to exist, where the customer operation includes increasing a priority for handling of the call by a customer service agent