Theme of Alienation in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men (1937) is a novella written by Steinbeck. He has expressed his strong concern for the impoverished and disadvantaged, particularly migrant labourers. He depicts believable individuals in this work to show a glorious past. He has been acquainted with the poor, notably migrant agricultural laborers, both American and Mexican, since arriving in California in the 1930s, and has written from their perspective. His main purpose is to provide a genuine portrait of these people. One of Steinbeck’s most recurring themes is loneliness. Every character in Of Mice and Men, for example, is dealing with loneliness and isolation in some way; the two main characters, George and Lennie, have no families, no social circle, and no background to speak of. They've displaced ranch employees who appear out of nowhere at the start of the tale, with nowhere else to turn but each other. They currently constitute a single entity, each complementing the other. But Lennie is physically strong but intellectually frail, George is mentally strong but physically frail; Lennie is a spendthrift, whereas George is a saver. Lennie has no notion what the ramifications of his actions will be; he acts on instinct. George, on the other hand, is always trying to restrict him and giving him advice on the dos and don’ts of social interaction. Even this George and Lennie team is shattered by the novel's conclusion when George is compelled to murder Lennie to spare him from a far more terrible death. George’s loneliness and isolation must be palpable now that Lennie isn't at his side to keep him company and make him feel alive

The Struggle for the Existence in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

The issue of struggle for existence in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is examined in this research article. The struggle for existence is a universal topic that appears in Steinbeck’s writings as well. Steinbeck’s works are full of characters who struggle to make both ends meet as migrant farmers during the Great Depression. He admired those who worked hard and lived honourably. The characters were given Steinbeck’s voice and vibe. Their flaws, struggle for survival, and unwavering courage are not only theirs but also Steinbeck's. Even though the fact that he authored fiction, his characters are realistic in their portrayals of contemporary America. The Grapes of Wrath earned Steinbeck both praise and scorn. It’s based on the American Great Depression, which ran from 1929 to 1939. Many people were destroyed by the stock market fall, which resulted in widespread unemployment. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s followed. Due to a lack of rain and strong gusts, the top soil swept away. Farmers were forced to sell their lands to the banks as a result of this. The Grapes of Wrath was inspired by the migrants’ suffering and sacrifice. This single work serves as a testament to the human experience in tough times

Single Input Single Head CNN-GRU-LSTM Architecture for Recognition of Human Activities

Due to its applications for the betterment of human life, human activity recognition has attracted more researchers in the recent past. Anticipation of intension behind the motion and behaviour recognition are intensive applications for research inside human activity recognition. Gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer sensors are heavily used to obtain the data in time series for every timestep. The selection of temporal features is required for the successful recognition of human motion primitives. Different data pre-processing and feature extraction techniques were used in most past approaches with the constraint of sufficient domain knowledge. These approaches are heavily dependent on the quality of handcrafted features and are also time-consuming and not generalized. In this paper, a single head deep neural network-based approach with the combination of a convolutional neural network, Gated recurrent unit, and Long Short Term memory is proposed. The raw data from wearable sensors are used with minimum pre-processing steps and without the involvement of any feature extraction method. 93.48 % and 98.51% accuracy are obtained on UCI-HAR and WISDM datasets. This single-head deep neural network-based model shows higher classification performance over other architectures under deep neural networks

Exchange of plant genetic resources: Prospects in India

National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has the major responsibility of introducing genetic resources and distributing the same to various research Institutes/organizations within the country. It is involved in enrichment of plant genetic resources through germplasm exchange, procurement and collection from centres of diversity suitable for different agro-climatic conditions. Different biotic and abiotic stresses are the major production constraints in many crops, hence, introduction of crops from the centre of diversity is much needed to bring into superior seeds of various crops with high yield, quality, resistance to pest and diseases and tolerant to abiotic stresses through crop improvements programmes. Future emphasis is to introduce specific genotypes with special characters especially like high quality lines and lines resistant to various biotic and abiotic stresses. During the past five years 211 298 accessions including 467 995 samples of seed/planting material were introduced from 103 countries. Out of theses 116 149 accessions having 138 352 samples were germplasm while 58 024 entries having 329 704 samples were trials/nurseries entries and 1 139 wild species of different agri-horticultural crops were also introduced. During this period a total of 78 298 accessions were exported as per norms/regulation lay down by NBA and with permission of ICAR/DARE, for research purposes only. NBPGR has supplied 50 657 samples of various crops to national users in different institutes/organizations across the country for various crop improvement and breeding programmes

PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE PRIORITIES FOR INTRODUCTION OF OIL PALM IN INDIA

Not AvailableOil palm is a crop of future and source for diversification, value addition, health and nutrition, waste land utilization and ecofriendly. NBPGR have been introduced 154 accessions from Sierra Leone, Czech Republic, Nigeria, Malaysia, Canada, Singapore, Cameroon, Belgium, Tanzania, Zambia, Costa Rica. Oil palm germplasm from Pupua New Guinea (EC197907, EC197908), Malaysia (EC99313, EC99353), Indonesia (EC159876 to 877) and hybrids as in vitro cultures (EC332236 to 304) from Costa Rica and Cameroon were also introduced. Also two accessions of American oil palm (Elaeis oleifera) were introduced from Malaysia and Costa Rica and planted at Palode, Kerala. During the year 2000, two advanced generations of Dura accessions were imported from Costa Rica. Future emphasis is for introduction of specific genotypes with desirable traits like high productivity, oil yield and superior oil quality and dwarf palms. Yield promissing dura palms are suitable for irrigated and stress environments, resistant to pests and diseases, pollinating weevils, other pests like Psychid, Slug catterpillars and leaf web worms are needed to be introduced. Major source countries are African countries (Ghana, Nigeria) for high yielding dwarf and drought tolerant material; South and Central America (Brazil, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast) for Elaesis oleifera material having high yield, compact canopy, drought tolerance and high oil quality; South Asian countries (Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea) for high yielding and good oil quality varieties.Not Availabl

Not Available

Not AvailableIndia has a good amount of diversity in spices like black pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, tamarind and garcinia. The other important spices relevant to India are coriander, fennel, fenugreek, cumin, nutmeg, clove and vanilla. Introduction of useful germplasm from exotic sources has been one of the major activities of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. More than 1000 accessions of spices and condiments have been introduced from diverse ecological areas of the world. Some accessions with specific traits are namely ginger-extra bold, low fiber, high dry recovery, small rhizomes, round fingers, compact rhizomes, globose smooth, close nodes, firm, long and slender rhizome ; Apium spp-tolerant to high temperatures and long duration type coriander. Major source countries were Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, Israel, Mauritius, Nepal, Russia, UK and USA. These accessions were utilized in various crop improvements and breeding programs. Future emphasis is to introduce specific genotypes with special characters especially like high quality lines and lines resistant to various biotic and abiotic stresses, early maturing erect, long spikes with high alkaloid content, bold seeded and suitable for high density planting.Not Availabl

Activation of GPR56, a novel adhesion GPCR, is necessary for nuclear androgen receptor signaling in prostate cells.

The androgen receptor (AR) is activated in patients with castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) despite low circulating levels of androgen, suggesting that intracellular signaling pathways and non-androgenic factors may contribute to AR activation. Many G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) and their ligands are also activated in these cells indicating that they may play a role in development of Prostate Cancer (PCa) and CRPC. Although a cross talk has been suggested between the two pathways, yet, the identity of GPCRs which may play a role in androgen signaling, is not established yet. By using blast analysis of 826 GPCRs, we identified a GPCR, GPCR 205, which exhibited maximum similarity with the ligand binding domain of the AR. We demonstrate that adhesion GPCR 205, also known as GPR56, can be activated by androgens to stimulate the Rho signaling pathway, a pathway that plays an important role in prostate tumor cell metastasis. Testosterone stimulation of GPR56 also activates the cAMP/ Protein kinase A (PKA) pathway, that is necessary for AR signaling. Knocking down the expression of GPR56 using siRNA, disrupts nuclear translocation of AR and transcription of prototypic AR target genes such as PSA. GPR56 expression is higher in all twenty-five prostate tumor patient's samples tested and cells expressing GPR56 exhibit increased proliferation. These findings provide new insights about androgen signaling and identify GPR56 as a possible therapeutic target in advanced prostate cancer patients