Selective DNA-Directed Assembly on Dual-Functionalized Microparticles

The bottom-up assembly of functional devices requires novel building blocks to facilitate the incorporation of functional and structural hierarchy. Anisotropic building blocks can substantially broaden the creation of self-assembled devices with unique properties because of their morphological and/or chemical asymmetry. In this regard, we have created microspheres with one hemispherical face exposing silica and the other exposing gold. These microspheres were formed by the shadow deposition of gold onto silica microspheres. The two chemical surfaces allowed use of different surface reactions—silane chemistry for the silica side and thiol chemistry for the gold side—for immobilizing different oligonucleotide sequences on each of the two faces. These dual-functionalized microspheres were used in the selective orthogonal assembly of fluorophore-tagged target oligonucleotides. The DNA-directed assembly was confirmed by confocal microscopy of the microspheres. In essence, employing DNA as the linker molecule, these “Janus” particles can be assembled into various novel 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D structures, which are difficult to realize using symmetric building blocks.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

An Analysis of the Fund Raising Issues for Indian Family Businesses

Family controlled businesses are a very important organizational type as families control many large businesses around the world. In India, family controlled businesses account for 70 percent of total sales and net profits of the biggest 250 private sector companies. Family businesses play a very important role in the Indian economy. The literature on financial intermediation system has divided the system in two types: 1) Bank Based and 2) Market Based. The literature in Indian financial intermediation system has stated that India's stock markets have a long history and have a large number of listed firms, but the size and role in terms of allocating resources of the markets are dominated by those of the banking sector. The literature also states that informal lending market is a very important source of finance in India. The dissertation has taken the finding of the literature as base and has attempted to develop an understanding about the view point of family businesses on the bank finance market and informal financing market in India, The dissertation also tries to develop an understanding about the belief of the family businesses in India about various options available for raising finance. The dissertation has used the qualitative method of research to achieve its objectives. Case Studies are used as the research strategy. Questionnaires are used as the main means for collecting the data. Further telephonic conversation was made with two respondents to gain a better insight about some specific issues. In contradiction to earlier study this study has found that the bank financing market in India is very competitive and generally established family businesses do not face anyproblem in raising bank finance. The banks are very co-operative with the family businesses and are eager to finance projects of family businesses who have good market credibility. Informal lending markets are found to be important source of finance and established family businesses use it as a source of short term financing. Family businesses in India appear to have a positive approach towards bank financing and listing of companies as funding options. The reason for a positive approach towards bank financing and listing of firms is that the family businesses seems to believe that there is no threat of reduction of influence and control in these options of funding. Another important reason for a positive approach towards bank financing seems to be easy availability of bank financing for family businesses. Family businesses in India seems to have a negative approach towards private placement or external investors in the firm. The positive economic outlook in India has increased the level of activity in India. The majority family businesses in India are bullish about their businesses. This appears to have a positive effect on their mindset about various options of funding

A step closer in the management of uncontrolled neuropathic pain: gabapentin-nortriptyline combination

Neuropathic pain is extremely distressing as it significantly hampers the performance of daily activities and impedes overall quality of life. A large number of illnesses are linked with neuropathic pain like radiculopathy, sciatica, diabetes, herpes infection, spinal injury, stroke, etc. Treating neuropathic pain is challenging as response to the treatment is at times uncertain and associated with undesirable side effects. Uncontrolled neuropathic pain is observed in large group of patients receiving current treatment regimen. Almost half of the neuropathic pain patients need more than two drugs for pain relief. Various clinical trials have demonstrated better efficacy of combination therapy in reducing pain than monotherapy. Utilizing drug combination with different mechanism of action or acting on two different sites has demonstrated superior analgesic effect in painful neuropathic condition. The first tier agents recommended by various guidelines are calcium channel alpha-2-delta ligands and tricyclic antidepressants that act on different pain pathways. A clinical trial has shown enhanced pain relief with no increase in side effects with the administration of gabapentin and nortriptyline combination in patients suffering from neuropathic pain. Moreover, symptoms associated with neuropathic pain like sleep disturbances, altered mood, decreased walking ability, depression and quality of life were also significantly improved. Hence, combination therapy of gabapentin and nortriptyline offers a pivotal modality in the management of uncontrolled neuropathic pain

Calculation of Gilbert damping and magnetic moment of inertia using torque-torque correlation model within ab initio Wannier framework

Magnetization dynamics in magnetic materials are well described by the modified semiclassical Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation, which includes the magnetic damping $\alpha$ and the magnetic moment of inertia $\mathrm{I}$ tensors as key parameters. Both parameters are material-specific and physically represent the time scales of damping of precession and nutation in magnetization dynamics. $\alpha$ and $\mathrm{I}$ can be calculated quantum mechanically within the framework of the torque-torque correlation model. The quantities required for the calculation are torque matrix elements, the real and imaginary parts of the Green's function and its derivatives. Here, we calculate these parameters for the elemental magnets such as Fe, Co and Ni in an ab initio framework using density functional theory and Wannier functions. We also propose a method to calculate the torque matrix elements within the Wannier framework. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by comparing it with the experiments and the previous ab initio and empirical studies and show its potential to improve our understanding of spin dynamics and to facilitate the design of spintronic devices

Automated Pollution Control System in Vehicles: A Review

No Abstrac

Automated Control System for Air Pollution in Vehicle

The main objective of this paper is to implement the concept of Automated Pollution Control Detection system in vehicles to indicate the owner of the vehicle that it is high time he/she should get the vehicle for the pollution test. In case the pollution level is beyond the defined threshold level then the owner shall get the vehicle serviced. This is done with the help of a smoke sensor, microcontroller, relay, tachometer, and IR sensor. Smoke sensor senses the smoke emitted from the vehicle and the output is given to microcontroller, which compares the output received with a standardized value and displays it on the LCD. If the emission is very high i.e. if it crosses the threshold value red led will glow and with the use of tachometer a certain kilometer limit will be given to the owner, after that the fuel supply to the engine will be cut off and the vehicle stops. A real time work is implemented where a demo application is made with the help of Atmega-8 controller. All the other devices get integrated and work accordingly. Comparing with the existing methods which indicates the owner to get his/her vehicle serviced done through a message using a GSM module, our method is effective because in this concept the vehicle will come to hold if the service is not done instead of just informing the owner, which will stop the emission of harmful pollutants at any cost

Controlling Umklapp scattering in bilayer graphene moir'e superlattice

In this Letter, we present experimental findings on electron-electron scattering in a two-dimensional moir'e heterostructure with tunable Fermi wave vector, reciprocal lattice vector, and band gap. We achieve this in high-mobility aligned heterostructures of bilayer graphene (BLG) and hBN. Around half-filling, the primary contribution to the resistance of BLG/hBN aligned superlattices arises from electron-electron Umklapp (Uee) scattering, making the resistance of graphene/hBN moir'e devices significantly larger than that of non-aligned devices (where Uee is forbidden). We quantify the strength of the Uee scattering and find that it follows a universal scaling with Fermi energy and has a non-monotonic dependence on the charge carrier density. The Uee scattering is strongly electric field tunable and affected by layer-polarization of BLG. It has a strong particle-hole asymmetry - the resistance when the chemical potential is in the conduction band is significantly lesser than when it is in the valence band, making the electron-doped regime more practical for potential applications.Comment: Comments and suggestion are welcom

A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes

Zero hunger and good health could be realized by 2030 through effective conservation, characterization and utilization of germplasm resources1 . So far, few chickpea (Cicerarietinum) germplasm accessions have been characterized at the genome sequence level2 . Here we present a detailed map of variation in 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessions to provide publicly available resources for chickpea genomics research and breeding. We constructed a chickpea pan-genome to describe genomic diversity across cultivated chickpea and its wild progenitor accessions. A divergence tree using genes present in around 80% of individuals in one species allowed us to estimate the divergence of Cicer over the last 21 million years. Our analysis found chromosomal segments and genes that show signatures of selection during domestication, migration and improvement. The chromosomal locations of deleterious mutations responsible for limited genetic diversity and decreased fitness were identified in elite germplasm. We identified superior haplotypes for improvement-related traits in landraces that can be introgressed into elite breeding lines through haplotype-based breeding, and found targets for purging deleterious alleles through genomics-assisted breeding and/or gene editing. Finally, we propose three crop breeding strategies based on genomic prediction to enhance crop productivity for 16 traits while avoiding the erosion of genetic diversity through optimal contribution selection (OCS)-based pre-breeding. The predicted performance for 100-seed weight, an important yield-related trait, increased by up to 23% and 12% with OCS- and haplotype-based genomic approaches, respectively. On the basis of WGS of 3,366 chickpea germplasm accessions, we report here a rich map of the genetic variation in chickpea. We provide a chickpea pan-genome and offer insights into species divergence, the migration of the cultigen (C. arietinum), rare allele burden and fitness loss in chickpea. We propose three genomic breeding approaches— haplotype-based breeding, genomic prediction and OCS—for developing tailor-made high-yielding and climate-resilient chickpea varieties. We sequenced 3,366 chickpea germplasm lines, including 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessions at an average coverage of around 12× (Methods, Extended Data Fig. 1, Supplementary Data 1 Tables 1, 2). Alignment of WGS data to the CDC Frontier reference genome11 identified 3.94 million and 19.57 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 3,171 cultivated and 195 wild accessions, respectively (Extended Data Table 1, Supplementary Data 1 Tables 3–7, Supplementary Notes). This SNP dataset was used to assess linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay (Supplementary Data 2 Tables 1, 2, Extended Data Fig. 2, Supplementary Notes) and identify private and population-enriched SNPs (Supplementary Data 3 Tables 1–4, Supplementary Notes). These private and population-enriched SNPs suggest rapid adaptation and can enhance the genetic foundation in the elite gene pool

Whole genome resequencing and phenotyping of MAGIC population for high resolution mapping of drought tolerance in chickpea

Terminal drought is one of the major constraints to crop production in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). In order to map drought tolerance related traits at high resolution, we sequenced multi-parent advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) population using whole genome resequencing approach and phenotyped it under drought stress environments for two consecutive years (2013-14 and 2014-15). A total of 52.02 billion clean reads containing 4.67 TB clean data were generated on the 1136 MAGIC lines and eight parental lines. Alignment of clean data on to the reference genome enabled identification of a total, 932,172 of SNPs, 35,973 insertions, and 35,726 deletions among the parental lines. A high-density genetic map was constructed using 57,180 SNPs spanning a map distance of 1606.69 cM. Using compressed mixed linear model, genome-wide association study (GWAS) enabled us to identify 737 markers significantly associated with days to 50% flowering, days to maturity, plant height, 100 seed weight, biomass, and harvest index. In addition to the GWAS approach, an identity-by-descent (IBD)-based mixed model approach was used to map quantitative trait loci (QTLs). The IBD-based mixed model approach detected major QTLs that were comparable to those from the GWAS analysis as well as some exclusive QTLs with smaller effects. The candidate genes like FRIGIDA and CaTIFY4b can be used for enhancing drought tolerance in chickpea. The genomic resources, genetic map, marker-trait associations, and QTLs identified in the study are valuable resources for the chickpea community for developing climate resilient chickpeas

Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to <90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], >300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of <15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P<0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P<0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years