Low-level Modality Specific and Higher-order Amodal Processing in the Haptic and Visual Domains

The aim of the current study is to further investigate cross- and multi-modal object processing with the intent of increasing our understanding of the differential contributions of modal and amodal object processing in the visual and haptic domains. The project is an identification and information extraction study. The main factors are modality (vision or haptics), stimulus type (tools or animals) and level (naming and output). Each participant went through four different trials: Visual naming and size, Haptic naming and size. Naming consisted of verbally naming the item; Size (size comparison) consisted of verbally indicating if the current item is larger or smaller than a reference object. Stimuli consisted of plastic animals and tools. All stimuli are readily recognizable, and easily be manipulated with one hand. The actual figurines and tools were used for haptic trials, and digital photographs were used for visual trials (appendix 1 and 2). The main aim was to investigate modal and amodal processing in visual and haptic domains. The results suggest a strong effect, of modality type with visual object recognition being faster in comparison to haptic object recognition leading to a modality (visual-haptic) specific effect. It was also observed that tools were processed faster than animals regardless of the modality type. There was interaction reported between the factors supporting the notion that once naming is accomplished, if subsequent size processing, whether it is in the visual or haptic domain, results in similar reaction times this would be an indication of, non-modality specific or amodal processing. Thus, through using animal and tool figurines, we investigated modal and amodal processing in visual and haptic domains

PHYTOCHEMICALS AND PHARMACEUTICAL POTENTIAL OF DELONIX REGIA (BOJER EX HOOK) RAF A REVIEW

Traditionally Delonix regia (Boj.) Raf. has been used in various ailments such as chronic fever, antimicrobial, constipation, inflammation, arthritis, hemoplagia, piles, boils, pyorrhea, scorpion bite, bronchitis, asthma and dysmenorrhoea. However, there is little experimental evidence for its traditional use. In this review an attempt has been made to gather and compile the scattered traditional information along with the experimental evidence on the beneficial properties of Delonix regia (Boj.) Raf. The plant shows diverse therapeutic prospective such as antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, antiemetic, larvicidal, hepatoprotective, anti-diarrhoeal, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial, anthelmintic, antiarthritic, wound healing and anticarcinogenic potential. It possess copious phytochemicals, viz. saponins, alkaloids, carotene, hydrocarbons, phytotoxins, flavonoids, tannins, steroids, carotenoids, galactomannon, lupeol, β-sitosterol, terpenoids, glycosides and carbohydrates, in leaves, flowers, bark and roots. Though Delonix regia (Boj.) Raf. has been widely used in traditional medicines in various ailments, yet studies need to be conducted to explore the potential phyto-constituents of this plant for the prevention of various other diseases and to further unravel, characterize, patent and commercialize the protective components from different parts of this plant for the benefit of humans.Â

Induced chlorophyll mutations in bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum)

An investigation entitled “Induced chlorophyll mutations in bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L. var. grossum)” was conducted during kharif (summer-rainy season) 2012 and 2013 at Experimental farm of the Department of Vegetable Science and Floriculture, CSK Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishvavidyalaya, Palampur, H.P., India. Healthy seeds of California Wonder of bell pepper were exposed to physical mutagen Gamma rays using 60CO as a source of radiation at Mutation Breeding Centre, Department of Biotechnology, BARC Trombay, Mumbai and chemical mutagen EMS (Ethyl Methane Sulphonate) to obtain the spectrum and frequency of chlorophyll mutations in M2 generation. The M1 generation was produced from these mutagen treated seeds. Several unique and interesting chlorophyll and viable mutants were obtained in M2 generation. In M2 generation, gamma rays induced higher proportion of chlorophyll mutants then EMS. A progressive increase in mutation frequency of chlorophyll mutations was observed with increasing doses/concentrations. Four different types of chlorophyll mutants namely xantha, yellow xantha, chlorina and viridis were induced. Out of these mutants, chlorina and viridis were most frequent and were produced even in lower doses/concentrations while yellow xantha was least frequent and produced only in higher doses. The highest frequency of chlorophyll mutations (18.8 %) was reported in the 22 kR of gamma dose, while the lowest (0.80 %) frequency of chlorophyll mutations was found in the treatment of 1.0 % EMS. There was a dose dependent increase in the spectrum and frequency of chlorophyll mutations. These chlorophyll mutants induced by gamma radiation and EMS could be used in mutation breeding programme for inducing viable mutations for improvement of bell pepper varieties

Rethinking Counterfactual Data Augmentation Under Confounding

Counterfactual data augmentation has recently emerged as a method to mitigate confounding biases in the training data for a machine learning model. These biases, such as spurious correlations, arise due to various observed and unobserved confounding variables in the data generation process. In this paper, we formally analyze how confounding biases impact downstream classifiers and present a causal viewpoint to the solutions based on counterfactual data augmentation. We explore how removing confounding biases serves as a means to learn invariant features, ultimately aiding in generalization beyond the observed data distribution. Additionally, we present a straightforward yet powerful algorithm for generating counterfactual images, which effectively mitigates the influence of confounding effects on downstream classifiers. Through experiments on MNIST variants and the CelebA datasets, we demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of our approach

Revamping The British Era Laws: IPC, CrPC And Evidence Act

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, 2023 defines crimes and prescribes punishments for them. It also includes provisions for the protection of victims of crime and for the speedy trial of cases. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023 deals with the procedures for investigation and trial of criminal cases. It also includes provisions for the protection of witnesses and for the speedy disposal of cases. The Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, 2023 deals with the admissibility of evidence in criminal trials

ROLE OF PROBIOTICS IN GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT DISEASES: INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE AND NECROTIZING ENTEROCOLITIS

Bacterial microflora which is present in gastrointestinal tract cause various disorders. Probiotics provides beneficial effects in gut related disease. Previously probiotics are used as alternative medicine but now entering in mainstream medicine. Probiotics help in restoring normal bacterial microflora and regulate the gastrointestinal tract functioning through different mechanisms. There are only few evidences available which show potential benefits of probiotics. The efficiency of probiotics used as a single strain or multiple formulation is tested in various diseases such oral health, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, necrotising enterocolitis and many more. The purpose of this paper is to focus on diseases related to gastrointestinal tract including inflammatory bowel disease and necrotising enterocolitis based on the literature review available and propose future perspective to reduce the translocation of bacterial microflora in gastrointestinal tract and reducing subsequent inflammation of gut. Keywords were searched in goggle scholar, academic research, PubMed and Embase databases

Counterfactual Generation Under Confounding

A machine learning model, under the influence of observed or unobserved confounders in the training data, can learn spurious correlations and fail to generalize when deployed. For image classifiers, augmenting a training dataset using counterfactual examples has been empirically shown to break spurious correlations. However, the counterfactual generation task itself becomes more difficult as the level of confounding increases. Existing methods for counterfactual generation under confounding consider a fixed set of interventions (e.g., texture, rotation) and are not flexible enough to capture diverse data-generating processes. Given a causal generative process, we formally characterize the adverse effects of confounding on any downstream tasks and show that the correlation between generative factors (attributes) can be used to quantitatively measure confounding between generative factors. To minimize such correlation, we propose a counterfactual generation method that learns to modify the value of any attribute in an image and generate new images given a set of observed attributes, even when the dataset is highly confounded. These counterfactual images are then used to regularize the downstream classifier such that the learned representations are the same across various generative factors conditioned on the class label. Our method is computationally efficient, simple to implement, and works well for any number of generative factors and confounding variables. Our experimental results on both synthetic (MNIST variants) and real-world (CelebA) datasets show the usefulness of our approach

GREEN CHEMISTRY APPROACH TO THE SUSTAINABLE ADVANCEMENT TO THE SYNTHESIS OF HETEROCYCLIC CHEMISTRY

ABSTRAC

Retinotopic organization in children measured with fMRI

Many measures of visual function reach adult levels by about age 5, but some visual abilities continue to develop throughout adolescence. Little is known about the underlying functional anatomy of visual cortex in human infants or children. We used fMRI to measure the retinotopic organization of visual cortex in 15 children aged 7–12 years. Overall, we obtained adult-like patterns for most children tested. We found that significant head motion accounted for poor quality maps in a few tested children who were excluded from further analysis. When the maps from 10 children were compared with those obtained from 10 adults, the magnitude of retinotopic signals in visual areas V1, V2, V3, V3A, VP, and V4v was essentially the same between children and adults. Furthermore, one measure of intra-area organization, the cortical magnification function, did not significantly differ between adults and children for V1 or V2. However, quantitative analysis of visual area size revealed some significant differences beyond V1. Adults had larger extrastriate areas (V2, V3, VP, and V4v), when measured absolutely or as a proportion of the entire cortical sheet. We found that the extent and laterality of retinotopic signals beyond these classically defined areas, in parietal and lateral occipital cortex, showed some differences between adults and children. These data serve as a useful reference for studies of higher cognitive function in pediatric populations and for studies of children with vision disorders, such as amblyopia