The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Banking for Leveraging Customer Experience

Purpose: In light of digital advancements, banks need to create customer experiences that strengthen loyalty and trust. For establishing a strong digital banking base, it is crucial for banks to make their processes efficient and fast. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the efficacy of banking functions on implementing Artificial Intelligence for enhancing customer engagement and improving customer satisfaction. It targets banks in metropolitan cities of India having tech-savvy customers, leading a fast-paced life who desire personalization and expect faultless and seamless services. Methodology: The study focusses on front, middle and back-office banking processes. The data for middle and back-office processes is collected through 10 interviews of senior officials and head of IT team in major banks. Literature review and theoretical research is carried out for various international and Indian banks with respect to the integration of AI to improve customer interactions and internal banking processes. For understanding the front-office user experience with AI-Banking, data has been gathered through a survey regarding usage of Chatbots on online banking platforms. A quantitative analysis using the Relative Importance Index reveals major use-cases ranked by customers. Spearman correlation is applied to find the relationship between the two most popular use-cases. Findings: The research paper reveals banking features integrated with AI. Chatbot use-cases on banking platforms are ranked based on customer experience. It is proved that there is a positive correlation (0.247) between the two most popular use-cases. The paper proposes IT Architecture and best practices for the digital banking sector. Practical/Theoretical implications: Based on the complete picture of AI integration with banking operations, evolving Indian banks could focus on the most popular use-cases to attract customers. A comparison with the features developed for various banks may provide a way for growth in the digital banking sector. The correlation between Chatbot use-cases may benefit the established Indian banks to further expand business. Originality/value: Implementation of AI in banking is identified for Indian Banks. It is proved that if a person uses Chatbot for assistance in customer service, they are likely to use Chatbot for recommendation regarding offers and discounts

The Nature, Cause and Consequence of COVID-19 Panic among Social Media Users in India

Aims The recent pandemic of COVID-19 has not only shaken the healthcare but also economic structure around the world. In addition to these direct effects, it has also brought in some indirect difficulties owing to the information epidemic on social media. As India experienced a later outbreak of COVID-19 and a prolonged uninterrupted lockdown, we aimed to understand the nature of panic social media users in India are experiencing due to the flow of (mis)information. We further extend this investigation to other countries. Methods We performed a cross-sectional study by conducting survey on multiple social media platforms. We received 1075 responses (sex ratio 2:1) through opportunity sampling from social media users of 30 different countries (between April 11, 2020 and May 15, 2020). We performed both quantitative and qualitative analyses on the 935 respondents from India. Several hypotheses are statistically tested on them and are further examined on rest of the 140 social media users from 29 other countries. We also performed a separate Twitter hashtag analysis and sentiment analysis on the responses. We applied a citizen science approach to involve the respondents in the analysis pipeline after the survey. Results This cross-sectional study on 1075 social media users from India and 29 other countries revealed a significant increase of social media usage and rise of panic over time in India. Middle-aged people and female exhibit a higher panic in India. The amount of panic was independent of the nature of association with COVID-19. The change of mental health was associated with panic level and productivity. Further qualitative analysis highlights the occurrences of information panic, economic panic, moral panic and spiritual panic, among other causes. Conclusions Several panic behaviors are unique to social media users in India possibly because COVID-19 broke out relatively later in comparison with the other countries and the uninterrupted lockdown prolonged for a long time. The amount of social media usage might not be causal but has a significant role in generating panic among the people in India. A significantly higher level of panic among the middle-aged people can be attributed to their higher amount of responsibility. The popularity of different hashtags, including the names of drugs under trial for COVID-19, in limited countries highlight that the causes of panic are not the same everywhere. As some of the respondents took part as citizen scientists a robust perspective to the outcome is obtained

EXPLORATION OF GOITROGENIC/ANTITHYROIDAL POTENTIALITY OF BAMBOO-SHOOTS IN RELATION TO THIOUREA

Objective: Natural goitrogens present in plant foods or antithyroidal drugs both alter the morphology and normal functional status of the thyroid gland interfering the synthesis and secretion of thyroid hormones. In this study, the goitrogenic potential of bamboo shoots (BS) containing natural goitrogens has been compared against a potent synthetic antithyroidal drug thiourea.Methods: BS was fed to 6 rats by 1/3rdreplacement of 180grams (g) of their food i.e.60g of BS containing 35g of goitrogens of cyanogenic origin such that each rat ideally consumed 6 mg/100g of body weight per day and thiourea at a near equal dose of 6 mg/100g of body weight per day was force fed to another 6 rats for a period of 45 d. Changes in food consumption pattern, serum toxicity marker SGOT and SGPT, morphological changes like thyroid gland weight and histology and functional aspects like TPO activity, Na+-K+ATPase activity, urinary iodine excretion and serum T3,T4 and TSH levels induced by this natural and synthetic agent respectively were investigated. Results analyzed by ANOVA followed by post hoc tests.Results: Food consumption pattern was similar in all groups while serum toxicity markers SGOT, SGPT showed a non-significant increase in experimental groups. Increase in body and thyroid gland weight as compared to control was seen on treatment with both antithyroidal agents, a greater percentage of increase was seen in thiourea treated group. TPO activity, Na+-K+ATPase activity, serum T3 and T4levels were decreased significantly in both treated groups as compared to normal, with maximum inhibition in the thiourea treated group. Histological plates of BS treated thyroid revealed hypertrophy and thyroid follicular cell disruption with microcytic infiltration. Thiourea treated gland histological plate revealed complete abolition of normal histoarchitecture with marked changes in colloidal area and hyperplasia with folding and papillae on the epithelium.Conclusion: In overall, the data indicate that though the goitrogenic potentiality of BS cannot be considered having similar efficacy to that of thiourea but as a food entity by itself, it has potent antithyroidal activity even in presence of adequate iodine intake

Apoptotic effects of mahanine on human leukemic cells are mediated through crosstalk between Apo-1/Fas signaling and the Bid protein and via mitochondrial pathways

Apo-1 (Fas/CD95), a cell surface receptor, triggers apoptosis after binding to its physiological ligand, Apo-1L (FasL/CD95L). This study reports that mahanine, purified from the leaves of Murraya koenigii, has a dose- and time-dependent anti-proliferative activity in acute lymphoid (MOLT-3) and chronic myeloid (K562) leukemic cell lines and in the primary cells of leukemic and myeloid patients, with minimal effect on normal immune cells including CD34+ cells. Leukemic cells underwent phosphatidylserine externalization and DNA fragmentation, indicating mahanine-induced apoptosis. An increase in reactive oxygen species suggests that the mahanine-induced apoptosis was mediated by oxidative stress. A significant drop in the Bcl2/Bax ratio, the loss of mitochondrial transmembrane potential as well as cytochrome c release from the mitochondria to the cytosol suggested involvement of the mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis. Cytochrome c release was followed by the activation of caspase-9, caspase-3 and caspase-7, and cleavage of PARP in both MOLT-3 and K562 cells. In MOLT-3 cells, formation of the Fas-FasL-FADD-caspase-8 heterotetramer occurred, leading to the cleavage of Bid to its truncated form, which consequently resulted in formation of the mitochondrial transmembrane pore. The incubation of MOLT-3 cells with mahanine in the presence of caspase-8 inhibitor or FasL-neutralizing NOK-2 antibody resulted in the decrease of mahanine-induced cell death. Mahanine was also a potent inhibitor of K562 xenograft growth, which was evident in an athymic nude mice model. In summary, these results provide evidence for involvement of the death receptor-mediated extrinsic pathway of apoptosis in the mahanine-induced anticancer activity in MOLT-3 cells, but not in K562 cells, which are deficient in Fas/FasL

Differential carbonic anhydrase activities control EBV-induced B-cell transformation and lytic cycle reactivation.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) contributes to ~1% of all human cancers including several B-cell neoplasms. A characteristic feature of EBV life cycle is its ability to transform metabolically quiescent B-lymphocytes into hyperproliferating B-cell blasts with the establishment of viral latency, while intermittent lytic cycle induction is necessary for the production of progeny virus. Our RNA-Seq analyses of both latently infected naïve B-lymphocytes and transformed B-lymphocytes upon lytic cycle replication indicate a contrasting expression pattern of a membrane-associated carbonic anhydrase isoform CA9, an essential component for maintaining cell acid-base homeostasis. We show that while CA9 expression is transcriptionally activated during latent infection model, lytic cycle replication restrains its expression. Pharmacological inhibition of CA-activity using specific inhibitors retards EBV induced B-cell transformation, inhibits B-cells outgrowth and colony formation ability of transformed B-lymphocytes through lowering the intracellular pH, induction of cell apoptosis and facilitating degradation of CA9 transcripts. Reanalyses of ChIP-Seq data along with utilization of EBNA2 knockout virus, ectopic expression of EBNA2 and sh-RNA mediated knockdown of CA9 expression we further demonstrate that EBNA2 mediated CA9 transcriptional activation is essential for EBV latently infected B-cell survival. In contrast, during lytic cycle reactivation CA9 expression is transcriptionally suppressed by the key EBV lytic cycle transactivator, BZLF1 through its transactivation domain. Overall, our study highlights the dynamic alterations of CA9 expression and its activity in regulating pH homeostasis act as one of the major drivers for EBV induced B-cell transformation and subsequent B-cell lymphomagenesis

Supervised Machine Learning Enables Geospatial Microbial Provenance

The recent increase in publicly available metagenomic datasets with geospatial metadata has made it possible to determine location-specific, microbial fingerprints from around the world. Such fingerprints can be useful for comparing microbial niches for environmental research, as well as for applications within forensic science and public health. To determine the regional specificity for environmental metagenomes, we examined 4305 shotgun-sequenced samples from the MetaSUB Consortium dataset—the most extensive public collection of urban microbiomes, spanning 60 different cities, 30 countries, and 6 continents. We were able to identify city-specific microbial fingerprints using supervised machine learning (SML) on the taxonomic classifications, and we also compared the performance of ten SML classifiers. We then further evaluated the five algorithms with the highest accuracy, with the city and continental accuracy ranging from 85–89% to 90–94%, respectively. Thereafter, we used these results to develop Cassandra, a random-forest-based classifier that identifies bioindicator species to aid in fingerprinting and can infer higher-order microbial interactions at each site. We further tested the Cassandra algorithm on the Tara Oceans dataset, the largest collection of marine-based microbial genomes, where it classified the oceanic sample locations with 83% accuracy. These results and code show the utility of SML methods and Cassandra to identify bioindicator species across both oceanic and urban environments, which can help guide ongoing efforts in biotracing, environmental monitoring, and microbial forensics (MF)

UBR7 in concert with EZH2 inhibits the TGF-β signaling leading to extracellular matrix remodeling

Summary: The intricate interplay between resident cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) profoundly influences cancer progression. In triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), ECM architecture evolves due to the enrichment of lysyl oxidase, fibronectin, and collagen, promoting distant metastasis. Here we uncover a pivotal transcription regulatory mechanism involving the epigenetic regulator UBR7 and histone methyltransferase EZH2 in regulating transforming growth factor (TGF)-β/Smad signaling, affecting the expression of ECM genes. UBR7 loss leads to a dramatic reduction in facultative heterochromatin mark H3K27me3, activating ECM genes. UBR7 plays a crucial role in matrix deposition in adherent cancer cells and spheroids, altering collagen content and lysyl oxidase activity, directly affecting matrix stiffness and invasiveness. These findings are further validated in vivo in mice models and TNBC patients, where reduced UBR7 levels are accompanied by increased ECM component expression and activity, leading to fibrosis-mediated matrix stiffness. Thus, UBR7 is a master regulator of matrix stiffening, influencing the metastatic potential of TNBC

COVID-19 drug practices risk antimicrobial resistance evolution

International audienc

A global metagenomic map of urban microbiomes and antimicrobial resistance

We present a global atlas of 4,728 metagenomic samples from mass-transit systems in 60 cities over 3 years, representing the first systematic, worldwide catalog of the urban microbial ecosystem. This atlas provides an annotated, geospatial profile of microbial strains, functional characteristics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers, and genetic elements, including 10,928 viruses, 1,302 bacteria, 2 archaea, and 838,532 CRISPR arrays not found in reference databases. We identified 4,246 known species of urban microorganisms and a consistent set of 31 species found in 97% of samples that were distinct from human commensal organisms. Profiles of AMR genes varied widely in type and density across cities. Cities showed distinct microbial taxonomic signatures that were driven by climate and geographic differences. These results constitute a high-resolution global metagenomic atlas that enables discovery of organisms and genes, highlights potential public health and forensic applications, and provides a culture-independent view of AMR burden in cities.ISSN:0092-8674ISSN:1097-417

A global metagenomic map of urban microbiomes and antimicrobial resistance

We present a global atlas of 4,728 metagenomic samples from mass-transit systems in 60 cities over 3 years, representing the first systematic, worldwide catalog of the urban microbial ecosystem. This atlas provides an annotated, geospatial profile of microbial strains, functional characteristics, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers, and genetic elements, including 10,928 viruses, 1,302 bacteria, 2 archaea, and 838,532 CRISPR arrays not found in reference databases. We identified 4,246 known species of urban microorganisms and a consistent set of 31 species found in 97% of samples that were distinct from human commensal organisms. Profiles of AMR genes varied widely in type and density across cities. Cities showed distinct microbial taxonomic signatures that were driven by climate and geographic differences. These results constitute a high-resolution global metagenomic atlas that enables discovery of organisms and genes, highlights potential public health and forensic applications, and provides a culture-independent view of AMR burden in cities