Question paper generation through progressive model and difficulty calculation on the Promexa Mobile Application

Education and Information Technologies - Mobile learning has been increased in past years and has attracted the interests of academicians and educators in the past many years especially in higher...     

Asymmetry in nature—Discrete symmetries in particle physics and their violation

This two-part article considers certain fundamental symmetries of nature, namely the discrete symmetries of parity (P), charge conjugation (C) and time reversal (T), and their possible violation. Recent experimental results are discussed in some depth. In the first part of this article we present a general background and discuss parity violation. B Ananthanarayan is at the Centre for Theoretical Studies, Indian Institute of Science His research interests are in the field of elementary particle physics. J Meeraa is finishing her MSc at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. Bharti Sharma is finishing her MSc at Aligarh Muslim University. Seema Sharma is finishing her MSc at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. Ritesh K Singh is working towards his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science in the field of elementary particle physics.     

Studies on the effect of monosodium glutamate (MSG) administration on the activity of xanthine oxidase, superoxide dismutase and catalase in hepatic tissue of adult male mice

Subcutaneous administration of monosodium glutamate (MSG), to normal adult male mice, for six consecutive days at dose levels of 4 and 8 mg/g body weight, significantly increased the level of free radical initiating enzyme, xanthine oxidase, whereas the activity of free radical scavenging enzymes, like catalase and superoxide dismutase was significantly decreased in hepatic tissue. These observations suggested that ingestion of MSG at dose level of 4 mg/g body weight and above, induced oxidative stress in the hepatic tissue of adult male mice.     

Effect of simultaneous sodium oxalate and methionine feeding with and without Varuna (Crataeva nurvala hook & Frost) therapy on urolithogenesis in guinea pigs

The effect of sodium oxalate and methionine supplementation on stone-related constituents of urine was studied in 18 adult male guinea pigs. Their serum and tissue chemistry and histological changes in urinary tract and liver were also studied. The calciuretic effect of methionine was blocked by oxalate. The decrease in uric acid and citric acid, caused by oxalate, was offset by methionine. Oxalate-induced crystalluria and calcium and oxalate deposition in kidney tissue were lessened by methionine. Administration of Varuna, an indigenuous drug, to oxalate and methionine-supplemented animals prevented either totally or partially most of the urolithogenic effects of oxalate and methionine.     

Use of antigen prepared from in vitro culture ofPlasmodium falciparum for the detection of antibodies in sera from patients exposed toPlasmodium vivax

The blood stage parasites fromin vitro cultures ofPlasmodium falciparum were employed for the detection of malaria antibodies in patient sera havingP. vivax infections employing indirect fluorescent antibody (IFA) test. The antibody titres obtained for theP. vivax infected sera ranged from 1∶128 to 1∶1024. Control slides smeared with non-immune sera did not show any fluorescence. On the basis of the results of the present study it maybe concluded that antigen prepared fromin vitro cultures ofP. falciparum cross-reacts withP. vivax antibodies.     

Effect of nicorandil and amlodipine on bio-chemical parameters during isoproterenol induced myocardial necrosis in rats

Objective  To investigate the protective effect of nicorandil and amlodipine in isoproterenol induced myocardial necrosis in rats. Methods  The effect of nicorandil and amlodipine on bio-chemical parameters during isoproterenol induced myocardial necrosis in rats was examined by determining the activity of creatine phosphokinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and transaminases (AST, ALT) in the serum of the animals. Results  Isoproterenol (150mg/kg/day) administered rats showed statistically significant rise in activities of LDH(1.02±0.19 to 1.85±0.05), CK(4.3±0.19 to 7.37±.27), AST(0.38±.03 to 0.78±.05) and ALT(0.19±.017 to 0.346±.027) in the serum. Pre-co-treatment of rats with nicorandil and amlodipine significantly lowered the raised levels of these enzymes and thereby restoring the enzyme activity to near normal as was clear from the chart i.e. LDH was 1.10±0.04, CK was 4.37±0.19, AST and ALT were 0.39±0.028 and 0.199±0.04 respectively. Conclusion  It is demonstrated that pre-co-treatment with nicorandil and amlodipine either alone or in combination help in providing protective effect on isoproterenol induced myocardial necrosis.     

On the approximate discrete KLT of fractional Brownian motion and applications

This paper establishes connection between discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the discrete-time fractional Brownian motion process (dfBm). It is proved that the eigenvectors of the auto-covariance matrix of a dfBm can be approximated by DCT basis vectors in the asymptotic sense. This shows that DCT basis acts as discrete Karhunen–Loève transform (DKLT) for these processes in the approximate sense. Analytic perturbation theory of linear operators is used to prove this result. This result will be of great practical significance in applications where one is looking for an appropriate basis to work with signals that can perhaps be modeled as belonging to fBm processes. The utility of the proposed work has been illustrated with two real-life data (a) on compressive sampling based reconstruction of financial time-series and (b) in denoising gravitational wave event GW150914 data obtained from a binary black hole merger.     

Implications of ACE (I/D) Gene Variants to the Genetic Susceptibility of Coronary Artery Disease in Asian Indians

Angiotensin-1-converting enzyme (ACE) gene has established substantial attention in the recent years as a candidate gene for hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association of ACE (I/D) polymorphism with coronary artery disease (CAD) in a north Indian population. A total of 662 subjects (330 CAD patients and 332 healthy controls) were examined for association of ACE gene (I/D) polymorphism and environmental risk factors. The mean age of the CAD patients and control subjects was 60.53 ± 8.6 years and 56.55 ± 7.7 years, respectively (p = 0.000). Anthropometric and demographic data showed BMI values significantly higher among CAD patients and control subjects (26.98 ± 4.9 vs 24.04 ± 4.7, p = 0.000). We observed pronounced central obesity in both CAD patients and controls, even at the lowest BMI values (<23 kg/m²). Dyslipidemia was highly prevalent in CAD patients compared to control subjects. Genotypic data showed significantly higher frequency of DD genotype in CAD patients than that of control subjects (40 vs 28.3 %). No significant difference was observed in the distribution of ID genotypes between CAD patients and control subjects. Logistic regression analysis of data demonstrate that DD genotype was associated with 1.8 fold increased risk of development of CAD in Asian Indians (OR 1.8; 95 % CI 1.22–2.66; p = 0.003). The frequency of D allele was significantly higher in CAD patients (p = 0.001). No significant difference was observed in the clinical and biochemical characteristics of CAD patients and controls when the data was stratified according to the genotypes of ACE gene. In conclusion, DD genotype of ACE gene may be associated with increased risk of CAD in Asian Indian population.     

Expression of Telomere Binding Proteins (RAP1 and POT1) in Renal Cell Carcinoma and Their Correlation with Clinicopathological Parameters

Telomere stability is indispensable for continuous proliferation of cells. Telomere structure is maintained by group of six proteins termed as shelterin. RAP1 and POT1 proteins are significant members of shelterin complex. Expression of RAP1 and POT1 are crucial for telomere maintenance and hence uncontrolled division of cells. Notably, expression of RAP1 and POT1 is unknown in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In view of these facts, the present study was initiated to investigate the expression of RAP1 and POT1 in RCC and their relationships with clinicopathological features. In total 65 histopathologically confirmed RCC cases and their adjacent normal renal parenchyma were analyzed for gene expression. The mRNA expression of telomere binding proteins RAP1 and POT1 were measured using RT-PCR. Expression of RAP1 was observed to be significantly increased in tumour tissues as compared to corresponding normal renal tissues (P = 0.004). The gene expression of RAP1 was documented to be related to grades of RCC (P = 0.002) and subtypes of RCC (P = 0.01). Although, POT1 expression was up-regulated in RCC tissue, however it was not statistically significant. Also, POT1 expression was not related to grades, stages and subtypes of RCC. This is the first study which shows correlation RAP1 with grades and subtypes of RCC.