An inexpensive microfluidic device for three-dimensional hydrodynamic focusing in imaging flow cytometry

We present design, characterization, and testing of an inexpensive, sheath-flow based microfluidic device for three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamic focusing of cells in imaging flow cytometry. In contrast to other 3D sheathing devices, our device hydrodynamically focuses the cells in a single-file near the bottom wall of the microchannel that allows imaging cells with high magnification and low working distance objectives, without the need for small device dimensions. The relatively large dimensions of the microchannels enable easy fabrication using less-precise fabrication techniques, and the simplicity of the device design avoids the need for tedious alignment of various layers. We have characterized the performance of the device with 3D numerical simulations and validated these simulations with experiments of hydrodynamic focusing of a fluorescently dyed sample fluid. The simulations show that the width and the height of the 3D focused sample stream can be controlled independently by varying the heights of main and side channels of the device, and the flow rates of sample and sheath fluids. Based on simulations, we also provide useful guidelines for choosing the device dimensions and flow rates for focusing cells of a particular size. Thereafter, we demonstrate the applicability of our device for imaging a large number of RBCs using brightfield microscopy. We also discuss the choice of the region of interest and camera frame rate so as to image each cell individually in our device. The design of our microfluidic device makes it equally applicable for imaging cells of different sizes using various other imaging techniques such as phase-contrast and fluorescence microscopy.     

The effect of peer feedback for blogging on college students' reflective learning processes

Reflection is an important prerequisite to making meaning of new information, and to advance from surface to deep learning. Strategies such as journal writing and peer feedback have been found to promote reflection as well as deep thinking and learning. This study used an empirical design to investigate the interaction effects of peer feedback and blogging on college students' reflective thinking skills and their learning approaches. Forty-four first- and second-year undergraduate students participated in the study. Students kept blogs each week throughout a whole semester. Two journals were sampled at the beginning and end of the semester for each student. A repeated measure one-way ANOVA suggested that students' reflective thinking level increased significantly over time; however, peer feedback was found to negatively affect students' reflective thinking skills. The result of the study suggests more carefully designed uses in the future.     

Fermion number fractionization

Solitons emerge as non-perturbative solutions of non-linear wave equations in classical and quantum theories. These are non-dispersive and localised packets of energy — remarkable properties for solutions of non-linear differential equations. In the presence of such objects, the solutions of Dirac equation lead to the curious phenomenon of ‘fractional fermion number’. Under normal conditions the fermion number takes strictly integral values. In this article, we describe this accidental discovery and its manifestation in polyacetylene chains, which has led to the development of organic conductors. (left) Kumar Rao is a Postdoctoral Fellow at PRL, Ahmedabad. He is interested in particle physics phenomenology as probed in particle colliders and formal aspects of quantum field theory. (right) Narendra Sahu is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Lancaster University, UK. His main research area includes Cosmology and Astroparticle physics. Currently he is working on dark matter and matter anti-matter asymmetry of the universe. (center) P K Panigrahi’s research interests are in the area of quantum computation, solitons in Bose Einstein condensates & nonlinear optical media. He is also deeply interested in science education and derives pleasure from long weekend walks.     

What is a Species? An endless debate

Everybody is familiar with the ubiquitous term ‘species’. But what is a species? Undeniably, this is one of the most complex dilemmas in the history of biology. There is no other concept in biology as elementary yet controversial as the concept of species. In practice, a species is regarded as the fundamental unit of comparison in all biological disciplines like systematics, evolution, ecology, ethology, physiology, and genetics. However, little agreement exists in the scientific community regarding the nature of species, whether it is a real entity or a cultural artifact, its biological significance or how to delineate a species. This article is a review of the seemingly endless debate on the species concept and its implications.     

Antioxidant status and peroxidative stress in mother and newborn —A pilot study

Serum antioxidant status and peroxidative stress was estimated in 30 pregnant women, their newborn infants and 25 non-pregnant women. Serum Ascorbic acid, α-tocopherol, retinol & β-carotene levels were found to be significantly reduced and peroxidative stress was significantly higher in mothers as compared to matched non-pregnant women. Newborn had significantly higher levels of ascorbic acid as compared to their mother but had significantly lower levels of lipid soluble vitamins. The peroxidative stress in newborn was found to be significantly less as compared to their mothers. A positive correlation of ascorbic acid and α-tocopherol levels between mother and newborn reflects that their status in mother does influence the newborn status.     

An efficient page ranking approach based on vector norms using sNorm(p) algorithm

In the whole world, the internet is exercised by millions of people every day for information retrieval. Even for a small to smaller task like fixing a fan, to cook food or even to iron clothes persons opt to search the web. To fulfill the information needs of people, there are billions of web pages, each having a different degree of relevance to the topic of interest (TOI), scattered throughout the web but this huge size makes manual information retrieval impossible. The page ranking algorithm is an integral part of search engines as it arranges web pages associated with a queried TOI in order of their relevance level. It, therefore, plays an important role in regulating the search quality and user experience for information retrieval. PageRank, HITS, and SALSA are well-known page ranking algorithm based on link structure analysis of a seed set, but ranking given by them has not yet been efficient. In this paper, we propose a variant of SALSA to give sNorm(p) for the efficient ranking of web pages. Our approach relies on a p-Norm from Vector Norm family in a novel way for the ranking of web pages as Vector Norms can reduce the impact of low authority weight in hub weight calculation in an efficient way. Our study, then compares the rankings given by PageRank, HITS, SALSA, and sNorm(p) to the same pages in the same query. The effectiveness of the proposed approach over state of the art methods has been shown using performance measurement technique, Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR), Precision, Mean Average Precision (MAP), Discounted Cumulative Gain (DCG) and Normalized DCG (NDCG). The experimentation is performed on a dataset acquired after pre-processing of the results collected from initial few pages retrieved for a query by the Google search engine. Based on the type and amount of in-hand domain expertise 30 queries are designed. The extensive evaluation and result analysis are performed using MRR, [email protected], MAP, DCG, and NDCG as the performance measuring statistical metrics. Furthermore, results are statistically verified using a significance test. Findings show that our approach outperforms state of the art methods by attaining 0.8666 as MRR value, 0.7957 as MAP value. Thus contributing to the improvement in the ranking of web pages more efficiently as compared to its counterparts.     

Analysis of SEVA TB ES-31 antigen specific immunoglobulins IgM, IgA and IgG in sera of sputum and culture positive pulmonary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains major health problem in India and developing countries Immunodiagnosis has important role in screening, diagnosis and management of tuberculosis. SEVA TB ES-31 antigen has shown potential in detecting tuberculous IgG antibody in earlier studies from our laboratory. In the present study we have analysedSEVA TB ES-31 antigen specific immunoglobulinsIgM, IgA and IgG in clinically and bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis cases to determine the usefulness of specific immunoglobulin class in the diagnosis of patients attending the hospital. Of the 30 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis 25 (83.3%) were positive for IgG, 19 (63.3%) for IgM and 16 (53.3%) for IgA. On combining IgG and IgM positivity, sensitivity was increased to 93.3%. While combining IgG and IgA positivity, sensitivity increased to 90%. However specificity was decreased to 66.6% and 70% for both of these combinations respectively. It could be envisaged from this study that IgG antibody detection against ES-31 antigen showed acceptable sensitivity (83.3%) and specificity (86.6%) compared to IgM or IgA alone or in combination. When immune responses were analysed according to degree of sputum positivity, IgG response was observed to be predominant in all grades, compared to IgM or IgA antibody. The addition of IgM or IgA as an adjunct test increases the sensitivity but at the cost of specificity. Hence the detection of IgG alone is more useful compared to IgM or IgA assay, in detecting tuberculosis disease cases coming to the hospital.