Understanding Co-evolution in Large Multi-relational Social Networks

Understanding dynamics of evolution in large social networks is an important problem. In this paper, we characterize evolution in large multi-relational social networks. The proliferation of online media such as Twitter, Facebook, Orkut and MMORPGs\footnote{Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games} have created social networking data at an unprecedented scale. Sony's Everquest 2 is one such example. We used game multi-relational networks to reveal the dynamics of evolution in a multi-relational setting by macroscopic study of the game network. Macroscopic analysis involves fragmenting the network into smaller portions for studying the dynamics within these sub-networks, referred to as `communities'. From an evolutionary perspective of multi-relational network analysis, we have made the following contributions. Specifically, we formulated and analyzed various metrics to capture evolutionary properties of networks. We find that co-evolution rates in trust based `communities' are approximately $60\%$ higher than the trade based `communities'. We also find that the trust and trade connections within the `communities' reduce as their size increases. Finally, we study the interrelation between the dynamics of trade and trust within `communities' and find interesting results about the precursor relationship between the trade and the trust dynamics within the `communities'

Estimating kinetic temperature from H I 21 cm absorption studies: correction for the turbulence broadening

Neutral hydrogen 21 cm transition is a useful tracer of the neutral interstellar medium. However, inferring physical condition from the observed 21 cm absorption and/or emission spectra is often not straightforward. One complication in estimating the temperature of the atomic gas is that the line width may have significant contribution from non-thermal broadening. We propose a formalism here to separate the thermal and non-thermal broadening using a self-consistent model of turbulence broadening of the HI 21 cm absorption components. Applying this novel method, we have estimated the spin and the kinetic temperature of diffuse Galactic neutral hydrogen, and found that a large fraction of gas has temperature in the unstable range. The turbulence is found to be subsonic or transonic in nature, and the clouds seem to have a bimodal size distribution. Assuming that the turbulence is magnetohydrodynamic in nature, the estimated magnetic field strength is of {\mu}G order, and is found to be uncorrelated with the HI number density.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures. Accepted(16-Nov-2018) for publication in MNRA

Phytoreclamation of Abandoned Acid Mine Drainage Site After Treatment with Fly Ash

Acid mine drainage and coal fly ash both are the sibling products from man’s increasing demand for power. Mining of coal from coal mines generates acid mine drainage (AMD), and burning of coal for thermal power generation produces fly ash (FA). Although both are hazardous to the ecosystem and human health, reunion of them into one would reduce their toxic effect on nature. Mining causes exposure of hidden rock materials containing an abundance of sulphide to the atmosphere. Oxidation of the metal sulphides (pyrite, as iron sulphide) within the surrounding rock and overburden generates acidity. Subsurface mining that pumps out water to prevent flooding releases acidic water to nearby areas, known as acid mine drainage. Tailings piles, mine waste rock dumps, and coal spoils contribute in AMD. Improper disposal of the fly ash contaminates the soil, water and air by leaching of the pollutants or air borne particulate matters. However filler properties and presence of macronutrients makes fly ash an excellent filler material for mine sites, and its soil-like properties help in plant growth if provided with organic carbon and nitrogen. This chapter proposes development of a green cover into AMD site after treatment of the AMD site with FA

Clinicobiochemical and pathological correlation in alcoholic liver disease among Indian patients

Background: Alcohol is one of the leading causes of “preventable” morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is associated with liver damage. A gray area is temporal relation between clinico-biochemical severity and histological changes in liver, neither this issue has been widely studied.Methods: A hospital based cross sectional clinico-pathological pilot study was undertaken in a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal in patients with a history of alcohol intake who had been admitted in the inpatient department of medicine. Assessment of patients with history of alcohol intake with respect to clinical, biochemical and histopathological examination was performed. The correlation between clinico-biochemical severity and histopathological stages in cases of alcoholic liver disease was evaluated.Results: There was a significant correlation between clinico-biochemical severity and liver biopsy changes. The severity of histopathological changes of alcoholic liver disease was found to correlate significantly with the severity of abdominal parameters with Pearson correlation cofactor of 0.819.Conclusions: Both the clinic-biochemical severity and histological changes had no correlation with the duration of alcohol intake in contrast to earlier studies which had demonstrated a definite correlation of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) with both the amount and duration of alcohol intake. Larger studies will be required to substantiate the findings of this study.

Mapping of Axial Strain in InAs/InSb Heterostructured Nanowires

The article presents a mapping of the residual strain along the axis of InAs/InSb heterostructured nanowires. Using confocal Raman measurements, we observe a gradual shift in the TO phonon mode along the axis of these nanowires. We attribute the observed TO phonon shift to a residual strain arising from the InAs/InSb lattice mismatch. We find that the strain is maximum at the interface and then monotonically relaxes towards the tip of the nanowires. We also analyze the crystal structure of the InSb segment through selected area electron diffraction measurements and electron diffraction tomography on individual nanowires.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Transition Metal Oxide-Based Nano-materials for Energy Storage Application

With improvement of global economy, the fatigue of energy becomes inevitable in twenty-first century. It is expected that the increase of world energy requirements will be triple at the end of this century. Thus, there is an imperative need for development of renewable energy sources and storage systems. Among various energy storage systems, supercapacitors are ascertained one of the most significant storage devices. But the development of supercapacitor devices with high power and energy density are the greatest challenges for modern research. In this article, transition metal oxides such as TiO2-V2O5, NiMn2O4 etc. with porous structure are considered as high performance supercapacitors electrode. The effects of its structural, morphological and electrochemical properties have been studied extensively. A TiO2-V2O5 and NiMn2O4 based electrode delivered specific capacitance of 310 and 875 F g−1, respectively at a scan rate 2 mV s−1. This TiO2-V2O5 based asymmetric supercapacitor also exhibits excellent device performance with specific energy 20.18 W h kg−1 at specific power 5.94 kW kg−1, and retained 88.0% specific capacitance at current density of 10 A g−1 after 5000 cycles

A spectroscopic study of the interaction of the antioxidant naringin with bovine serum albumin

The interaction of naringin with bovine serum albumin has been performed using fluorescence, circular dichroism and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in 20 mM phosphate buffer of pH 7.0 as well as molecular docking studies. The changes in enthalpy (ΔH°) and entropy (ΔS°) of the interaction were found to be +18.73 kJ/mol and +143.64 J mol-1 K-1 respectively, indicating that the interaction of naringin with bovine serum albumin occurred mainly through hydrophobic interactions. Negative values of free energy change (ΔG°) at different temperatures point toward the spontaneity of the interaction. Circular dichroism studies reveal that the helical content of bovine serum albumin decreased after interaction with naringin. According to the Förster non-radiative energy transfer theory the distance between Trp 213 residue and naringin was found to be 3.25 nm. Displacement studies suggest that naringin binds to site 1 (subdomain IIA) of bovine serum albumin (BSA) which was also substantiated by molecular docking studies