Routing Protocols in Delay Tolerant Networks: Comparative and Empirical Analysis

Wireless Personal Communications - A Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) is a network capable of handling long delays and data loss efficiently in various challenged scenarios and environments. Owing to...     

Differential proteomics of human seminal plasma: A potential target for searching male infertility marker proteins

The clinical fertility tests, available in the market, fail to define the exact cause of male infertility in almost half of the cases and point toward a crucial need of developing better ways of infertility investigations. The protein biomarkers may help us toward better understanding of unknown cases of male infertility that, in turn, can guide us to find better therapeutic solutions. Many clinical attempts have been made to identify biomarkers of male infertility in sperm proteome but only few studies have targeted seminal plasma. Human seminal plasma is a rich source of proteins that are essentially required for development of sperm and successful fertilization. This viewpoint article highlights the importance of human seminal plasma proteome in reproductive physiology and suggests that differential proteomics integrated with functional analysis may help us in searching potential biomarkers of male infertility.     

Effect of low frequency ultrasonic assisted extraction on the quality of seed oils of Indian origin

The study gives an insight into the effect of low frequency ultrasonic enhancement of solvent extraction on the quality of non-edible oils (Jatropha and Pongamia as model seed varieties) in comparison to conventional methods of extraction i.e. direct reflux or soxhlet extraction using hexane. A series of experiments have been carried out to study the effect of variables; solute to solvent ratio (1:2.5-1:10) and reaction time (30 s-60 min) on the yield of oil. The quality of oil extracted by different methods have been assessed by determining the acid value of oil by ASTM D-974/04 method, a measurement of triglyceride and fatty acid degradation, by the presence of phorbol esters in Jatropha curcas and phenolic compounds in Pongamia oil analyzed using HPLC. Under optimized conditions solute to solvent ratio of 1:10 (w/v), 3 min extraction time yields > 95% pure oil having < 1% FFA in Jatropha curcas and 30 s extraction time in Pongamia seed yields oil with less than 2% FFA in comparison to conventional method of extraction in 16 h.     

Structural and Luminescence Studies on Barium Sodium Borosilicate Glasses Containing Uranium Oxides

Barium sodium borosilicate glasses containing different amounts of uranium oxides were prepared by conventional melt quench method and investigated for their structural aspects by ²⁹Si and ¹¹B MAS NMR technique combined with steady‐state luminescence and lifetime measurements. Based on MAS NMR studies, it is confirmed that uranium ions act as network modifier up to 15 wt% and beyond which a separate uranium containing phase is formed. From the luminescence studies, it is inferred that uranyl species is in a highly distorted environment. For more than 15 wt% uranium oxide incorporation, weaker U–O–U linkages are formed at the expense stronger U–O–Si/B linkages, as suggested by the excited state lifetime value of the uranyl species as well as red shift in emission peak maximum. For glass samples containing more than 25 wt% uranium oxides, crystalline barium uranium silicate gets phase separated from glass matrix as confirmed by XRD studies.     

Reduced Maternal Erythrocyte Long Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Exist in Early Pregnancy in Preeclampsia

The present prospective study examines proportions of maternal erythrocyte fatty acids across gestation and their association with cord erythrocyte fatty acids in normotensive control (NC) and preeclamptic pregnancies. We hypothesize that maternal fatty acid status in early pregnancy influences fetal fatty acid stores in preeclampsia. 137 NC women and 58 women with preeclampsia were included in this study. Maternal blood was collected at 3 time points during pregnancy (16–20th weeks, 26–30th weeks and at delivery). Cord blood was collected at delivery. Fatty acids were analyzed using gas chromatography. The proportions of maternal erythrocyte α‐linolenic acid, docosahexaenoic acid, nervonic acid, and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) (p < 0.05 for all) were lower while total n‐6 fatty acids were higher (p < 0.05) at 16–20th weeks of gestation in preeclampsia as compared with NC. Cord 18:3n‐3, 22:6n‐3, 24:1n‐9, MUFA, and total n‐3 fatty acids (p < 0.05 for all) were also lower in preeclampsia as compared with NC. A positive association was observed between maternal erythrocyte 22:6n‐3 and 24:1n‐9 at 16–20th weeks with the same fatty acids in cord erythrocytes (p < 0.05 for both) in preeclampsia. Our study for the first time indicates alteration in maternal erythrocyte fatty acids at 16th weeks of gestation which is further reflected in cord erythrocytes at delivery in preeclampsia.     

Dainty—A screen editor for data entry

Earth scientists generally handle large arrays of multivariate data (tabular form) which have to be entered into a computer for further processing. This paper is concerned with a user-friendly screen data editor named DAINTY, developed by the authors to serve the needs of data entry and printing. Whereas column operations are required for tabular data, text data entry requires row operations. DAINTY provides a number of column operations which generally are not present in commercial editors. These operations are discussed.     

A joint intensity and edge magnitude-based multilevel thresholding algorithm for the automatic segmentation of pathological MR brain images

Multilevel thresholding is one of the most popular image segmentation techniques due to its simplicity and accuracy. Most of the thresholding approaches use either the histogram of an image or information from the grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) to compute the threshold. The medical images like MRI usually have vague boundaries and poor contrast. So, segmenting these images using solely histogram or texture attributes of GLCM proves to be insufficient. This paper proposes a novel multilevel thresholding approach for automatic segmentation of tumour lesions from magnetic resonance images. The proposed technique exploits both intensity and edge magnitude information present in image histogram and GLCM to compute the multiple thresholds. Subsequently, using both attributes, a hybrid fitness function has been formulated which can capture the variations in intensity and the edge magnitude present in different tumour groups effectively. Mutation-based particle swarm optimization (MPSO) technique has been used to optimize the fitness function so as to mitigate the problem of high computational complexity existing in the exhaustive search methods. Moreover, MPSO has better exploration capabilities as compared to conventional particle swarm optimization. The performance of the devised technique has been evaluated and compared with two other intensity- and texture-based approaches using three different measures: Jaccard, Dice and misclassification error. To compute these quantitative metrics, experiments were conducted on a series of images, including low-grade glioma tumour volumes taken from brain tumour image segmentation benchmark 2012 and 2015 data sets and real clinical tumour images. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms the other competing algorithms by achieving an average value equal to 0.752, 0.854, 0.0052; 0.648, 0.762, 0.0177; 0.710, 0.813, 0.0148 and 0.886, 0.937, 0.0037 for four different data sets.

     

Co-processed κ-carrageenan-pectin as pelletizing aid for immediate-release pellets

This study investigates the extrusion-spheronization performance of some mixtures of co-processed κ-carrageenan and pectin (as excipient), and sodium starch glycolate (as superdisintegrant). Attention is focused with an objective to improve the mechanical stability and the dissolution rate of poorly soluble domperidone (as a model drug). Initially, co-processed κ-carrageenan-pectin excipient is prepared with different ratios of κ-carrageenan and pectin. Different marketed brands of κ-carrageenan (Gelcarin, Aquagel and Eugel) were employed and dried by solvent evaporation method. Further characterization was carried out by SEM, XRD and FTIR analysis. Pellets were prepared using extrusion-spheronization technique. Pellets were evaluated for flow properties, particle size, sphericity, tensile strength, friability, disintegration time and in-vitro drug release studies. Solid-state characterization of pellets was also done by FTIR, DSC and SEM analysis. The mechanical stability and dissolution rate of prepared pellets were found to be dependent on the concentration of pectin and type of κ-carrageenan employed in the fabrication of pellets. The pellets made with a high proportion of Eugel showed a very high dissolution rate of domperidone and undergo rapid disintegration validating co-processed k-carrageenan-pectin as a promising pelletizing aid for immediate-release pharmaceutical formulations.