College Football Rankings: Maximum Flow Model

College football is a very popular sport in the United States. There is much debate over the college football rankings every week. A maximum flow network is implemented into the CMS+ rankings to observe the effects it has on the college football rankings

Demonetization in India: An Analysis of an Instant Decision

This analytical study examines the impact of demonetizing the Rs. 500 and the Rs. 1000 legal tender in India, which occurred on November 8th, 2016. The study analyzes impacts on the GDP of India, employment rate, stock market volatility, agriculture sector, and the overall economy. The study shows that the demonetization movement had more short-term impacts than long-term and it generally failed to achieve its main objective

Synthesis and Antimicrobial Activity of 3-(1,3,4-Oxadiazol-2-yl)quinazolin-4(3H)-ones

In attempt to find new pharmacologically active molecules, we report here the synthesis and in vitro antimicrobial activity of various 3-(1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl)-quinazolin-4(3H)-ones. The antimicrobial activity of title compounds were examined against two gram positive bacteria (S. aureus, S. pyogenes), two gram negative bacteria (E. coli, P. aeruginosa) and three fungi (C. albicans, A. niger, A. clavatus) using the broth microdilution method. Some derivatives bearing a bromo or iodo group exhibited very good antimicrobial activity

Near Optimal Receive Antenna Selection Scheme for MIMO System under Spatially Correlated Channel

Spatial correlation is a critical impairment for practical Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. To overcome from this issue, one of the solutions is receive antenna selection. Receive antenna selection is a low-cost, low-complexity and no requirement of feedback bit alternative option to capture many of the advantages of MIMO systems. In this paper, symbol error rate (SER) versus signal to noise ratio (SNR) performance comparasion of proposed receive antenna selection scheme for full rate non-orthogonal Space Time Block Code (STBC) is obtained using simulations in MIMO systems under spatially correlated channel at transmit and receive antenna compare with several existing receive antenna selection schemes. The performance of proposed receive antenna selection scheme is same as conventional scheme and beat all other existing schemes

THE MOUSE BRAIN: A 3D ATLAS REGISTERING MRI, CT, AND HISTOLOGICAL SECTIONS IN THE THREE CARDINAL PLANES

Mouse brain atlases based on histology can be improved through the reconstruction of the 2D histological sections into a continuous 3D volume. Impediments to a continuous reconstruction include distortion caused by excision, fixation, and sectioning of the brain. In prior works, MR images have been used as a reference for global alignment of the sections and various methods have been implemented for local alignment. In this thesis, we offered an alternative method for local alignment and developed a method for registering orthogonal histological data sets into one coordinate system. As an end result we established a comprehensive mouse brain atlas with Nissl-stained histology images with 362 coronal, 162 horizontal, and 112 sagittal histological sections at 40 µm interval. For the global alignment, our MRI/CT population atlas was used to guide the alignment accuracy. The local alignment was performed using Large Deformation Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping (LDDMM) with a hierarchical approach to minimize structural discontinuity. Then the coordinate consistency was optimized by iteratively registering the three 3D volume data from the coronal, horizontal, and sagittal sections. The landmark-based analysis revealed the MRI-histology accuracy level was 0.1632 ± 0.1131 mm. This work established the coordinate link between the MRI/CT atlas and around 300 GB of histology data in the cellular-level anatomical information

Molecular Epidemiology of Malaria in Pregnancy

Malaria in pregnancy remains a significant public health problem with an estimated 125 million pregnant women at risk for Plasmodium falciparum malaria globally every year. Pregnancy associated malaria (PAM) causes several adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes including maternal anemia, low birth weight (LBW), and small-for-gestational age (SGA). PAM also results in 10,000 maternal and 70,000-200,000 infant deaths annually. The key biological mechanism by which the plasmodium parasite infects pregnant women is through sequestration of infected erythrocytes in the placenta. This sequestration facilitated by a large polymorphic plasmodium surface antigen, VAR2CSA. Efforts are underway to develop the first syndrome-specific malaria vaccine against PAM targeting VAR2CSA. The ID1-DBL2x region of VAR2CSA is the minimal binding epitope and has emerged as a lead vaccine candidate. However, there is limited data on the extent of genetic diversity of ID1-DBL2x in field isolates. Also it is unknown if particular variants are more pathogenic than others. In this dissertation, we leveraged advanced molecular methods, population genetics, and epidemiology to inform vaccine development efforts. Using samples from P. falciparum-infected pregnant women in Malawi and Benin, we characterized the genetic diversity of the ID1-DBL2x vaccine target and identified pathogenic clades. We demonstrated that ID1-DBL2x region is highly diverse in both countries. We found that the entire 1.6kb region is primarily under balancing selection, confirming its role as an important epitope. Importantly, our phylogenetic analyses showed clustering of ID1-DBL2x variants in multiple distinct clades. Two clades containing the vaccine referent strains (3D7 and FCR3) were found in both countries in addition to three unique clades in Benin. Across multiple birth outcomes we consistently identified variants from 3D7-like clade as pathogenic. We did detect LBW and SGA variants in FCR3-like clade. However, compared to FCR3-like clade, 3D7-like clade was associated with LBW, SGA, and lower infant birth weight. Overall, our results provide strong evidence for developing a polyvalent VAR2CSA-based vaccine against PAM. A vaccine that includes variants from most common and pathogenic clades will be more efficacious than current monovalent vaccines in phase I trials. The integrative approach used here can be employed to inform development of future malaria vaccine candidates targeting polymorphic antigens.Doctor of Philosoph

Bridge Design between AXI Lite and AHB Bus Protocol

Architecture of bridge model between AXI Lite and AHB for this paper were simulated using Synopsys VCS and DC in Verilog HDL. Bridge structure mainly comprises of arbitration techniques, control signals, multiplexing techniques for writing data signals and Decoder for reading data section. In this work, bridge model between AHB and AXI lite was simulated and characterized. The proposed model of bridge design provides efficient communication between on chip bus protocols like AXI and AHB on chip in the era of deep sub-micron technology where channel side is reduced as much as 5 nm

Design, synthesis and antimicrobial activity of 4-thiazolidinonyl-quinazolin-4(3H)-ones of diclofenac analogue

A series of 7-chloro-3-(2-substituted phenyl-4-oxo-thiazolidin-3-yl)-2-[2-(2,6-dichlorophenyl) amino]benzyl-quinazolin-4(3H)-ones (5a-j) have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analyses as well as IR and NMR spectra. The Schiff bases 4a-j and 4-thiazolidinones 5a-j have been sceened for in vitro antimicrobial activity by cup-plate method. Compounds 4f, 4g, 4h, 5f, 5g and 5h possessed very good antibacterial as well as antifungal activity.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Th-17 cell activation in response to high salt following acute kidney injury is associated with progressive fibrosis and attenuated by AT-1R antagonism

Exposure of rats to elevated dietary salt following recovery from acute kidney injury (AKI) accelerates the transition to chronic kidney disease (CKD), and is dependent on lymphocyte activity. Here we tested whether high salt diet triggers lymphocyte activation in postischemic kidneys to worsen renal inflammation and fibrosis. Male Sprague-Dawley rats on a 0.4% salt diet were subjected to left unilateral ischemia-reperfusion and allowed to recover for 5 weeks. This resulted in a mild elevation of CD4(+) T cells relative to sham animals. Contralateral unilateral nephrectomy and elevated dietary salt (4%) for 4 extra weeks hastened CKD and interstitial fibrosis. Activated T cells were increased in the kidney threefold after 4 weeks of elevated dietary salt exposure relative to post-AKI rats before salt feeding. The T cell subset was largely positive for IL-17, indicative of Th-17 cells. Because angiotensin II activity may influence lymphocyte activation, injured rats were given the AT1R antagonist, losartan, along with high salt diet. This significantly reduced the number of renal Th-17 cells to levels of sham rats, and significantly reduced the salt-induced increase in fibrosis to about half. In vitro studies in AKI-primed CD4(+) T cells indicated that angiotensin II and extracellular sodium enhanced, and losartan inhibited, IL-17 expression. Thus, dietary salt modulates immune cell activity in postischemic recovering kidneys because of the activity of local RAS, suggesting the participation of these cells in CKD progression post-AKI

Hyperuricemic Renal Failure in Nonhematologic Solid Tumors: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Tumor lysis syndrome (TLS) is an oncologic emergency that is caused by massive tumor cell lysis. It is commonly associated with hematological cancers like leukemia and lymphoma and uncommonly with solid nonhematologic tumors as well. However, spontaneous tumor lysis syndrome (STLS) without any cytotoxic chemotherapy rarely occurs in solid tumors. We describe a case of STLS in a metastatic adenocarcinoma of unknown primary and review the literature of STLS in solid non-hematologic tumors to identify various risk factors for pathogenesis of this entity