Snow leopard

Snow leopard, an elusive mammal species of the cat family, is the top-predator of the Central and South Asian, high-altitude ecosystem. Snow leopards occur at low densities across the Central Asian mountains and the Indian Himalayan region. Owing to their secretive nature and inaccessible habitat, little is known about its ecology and distribution. Due to its endangered status and high aesthetic value, the snow leopard is considered as an ‘umbrella species’ for wildlife conservation in the Indian Himalayas. This article summarizes the current knowledge on snow leopard ecology and conservation issues in the Indian context.     

Know your personal computer

This article surveys personal computing with the IBM personal computer as a platform to discuss details of hardware.     

Know your personal computer

This article surveys system software organization in personal computers using the IBM personal computer software. Details of the hierarchical levels of the system software organization are explained.     

Know your personal computer

This article briefly describes the memory organization of the base architecture by illustrating it with a map and explains how to expand or extend the memory.     

Know your personal computer

This article briefly describes the input-output port organization of the IBM PC architecture.     

Bicausal bond graphs for supervision: From fault detection and isolation to fault accommodation

Model-based fault detection and isolation (FDI) requires an analytical system model from which fault indicators can be derived by assigning proper computational causalities. Many bond graph (BG) model-based techniques for FDI have been developed in recent past. Furthermore, many other advances have been made in the field of control engineering applications of BG modelling. Supervision systems not only perform FDI, but also take the necessary steps for fault accommodation. Fault accommodation is done either through system reconfiguration or through fault tolerant control (FTC). In this paper, it is shown that bicausal BG modelling proves to be a unified approach for sensor placement from the FDI and FTC viewpoint, identification of hardware redundancies for system reconfiguration, generation of fault indicators, estimation of fault parameters for fault accommodation, inversion of systems and actuator sizing for FTC, etc. It is shown that the use of bicausalled BG helps to integrate many of the recently developed advances made in the field of control engineering into development of complex supervision systems.     

Know your personal computer

This article describes the instruction set of the base architecture by illustrating it with an assembly language program.     

Role of Oncofetal Protein CR-1 as a Potential Tumor Marker for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cripto-1 (CR-1) is an oncofetal protein with its role as a key factor in early process of carcinoma has been evaluated in cases of various cancers. However, very few studies have reported its role in oral cancer, which is the sixth most common cancer around the world, particularly with high prevalence in developing countries. Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most predominant (90%) of all the histological types of oral cancer. Late detection, associated with increased morbidity and mortality, is mainly attributed to non-availability of a suitable biomarker for the disease. In the present pilot study, we have evaluated the role of soluble CR-1, in serum as a potential tumor marker for OSCC. CR-1 was estimated using sandwich ELISA in serum samples of 50 biopsy proven OSCC patients (pre and post treatment) along with age and gender matched healthy controls. Immunohistochemistry was also done in corresponding tumor tissue sections to check the expression of CR-1. Pre-treatment CR-1 was found to be 2.25-fold higher in serum of OSCC patients as compared to control (p < 0.0001***), which was reduced to 1.6 folds post treatment (p = 0.0006***). CR-1 levels were comparatively higher in early stage of disease. Upon IHC 80% of the cases were found to be positive for CR-1. This study provides evidence that serum levels of CR-1 are elevated in patients of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma, which decrease post treatment. Also, the association of expression of protein with tumor progression predicts CR-1 as a molecule that can be further evaluated as a potential tumor maker in OSCC.