Search

Cloud computing is very popular due to its unique features, such as scalability, flexibility, on-demand service, and security. A competent task scheduler is necessary to boost the efficiency of a cloud system, which executes several tasks at once. With the incorporation of cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) has seen tremendous improvements recently. IoT devices produce various data sets they want to store in particular places on the cloud. Data and resources may be spread across several locations and accessible from the VM through suitable technology. Cloud computing has changed how resources are used, stored, and shared for industrial applications, including data, services, and applications. Virtual Machine Placement (VMP)'s main goal is to map Virtual Machines (VMs) to Physical Machines (PMs), allowing the VMs to be used to their fullest potential without interfering with the PMs that are currently running. VM performs the selected task and stores the data in a cloud location. Recently, many algorithms have worked on only VM selection or VM migration; instead of this, we also work on the data storage related to a particular IoT device in the cloud. It considerably lowers energy usage and offers a list of live VM migrations that must be completed to obtain the best solution and store the data on the cloud in a linked location. The authors present a novel scheduling technique that outperforms other widely recognized scheduling algorithms regarding load balancing in compression, specifically the quality of service parameters. In this research, we propose a Background-based task scheduling (BBTS) algorithm to decrease energy usage and boost throughput while choosing a light VM for any activity. Furthermore, the proposed approach is compared to various task scheduling methodologies, considering multiple performance metrics such as makespan time, resource utilization, success rate, and computation time. The evaluation is conducted on a task set ranging from 100 to 1000, with makespan time ranging from 55 to 654, resource utilization ranging from 35.45 to 42.13, success rate ranging from 88.63 to 96.48, and computation time ranging from 39.12 to 529.46. These metrics are compared to the corresponding algorithms (IWC, WOA, and ALO) utilized in this research study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An emerging area of study known as Cognitive IoT (CIoT) has emerged as a result of recent efforts to include cognition in the design of the Internet of Things (IoT). Several features and challenges from the IoT are carried over to the CIoT. A lot of applications in CIoT generate massive heterogeneous data, and they require inferential tasks with less computational overhead. Therefore, this study suggests a decentralized computing approach to handle multiple hypothesis testing in less computational time. The first stage is to minimize error at the cluster node by total variance regularization through the alternating direction method of multipliers. Subsequently, the fusion center handles the heterogeneity of data, minimizes model error, extracts the most informative data, and adjusts the p-value for multiple hypotheses testing. The experimental evaluation and cross-validation on six-month traces of the carbon monoxide dataset reveal the efficacy of the proposed algorithm over competing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating cognition into the design and architecture of the Internet of Things (IoT) has recently been the subject of much research, giving rise to a new subfield known as the cognitive IoT (CIoT). Consequently, CIoT takes on some characteristics and challenges of the IoT. Many applications in CIoT generate a massive amount of data that require meaningful insight in a computationally efficient manner. Therefore, this research proposed a novel way to extract meaningful insight from huge amounts of data using probabilistic values. Along with that, it finds the most informative observation from each cluster based on the amount of information associated with each sensory observation. Subsequently, the modified Lagrangian L1 algorithm is used to extract conscious points, which are further combined, and the highest entropy row is selected as the conscious pattern. Experimenting with 21.25 years of environmental data and cross-validating using many metrics, it outperforms current approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current Internet of Things (IoT) research focuses on inserting cognition into its system architecture and design. Therefore, Cognitive IoT (CIoT) has emerged. CIoT inherits several features and challenges from IoT. Since IoT generates huge amounts of heterogeneous data, a cognitively inspired technique is required to extract meaningful insight from these data in less computation time. Keeping this requirement as a main goal, this research proposes a novel algorithm which executes the total variance regularization, probabilistic clustering, and the alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM) of robust principal component analysis (RPCA) at cluster node and rest of the computation, i.e., copula modelling, the measurement of the amount of information to each copula-modelled sensory data for interesting patterns extraction, and Bayesian network formation, is executed at the fusion centre. Experimental evaluation across 21 years of environmental data and the cross-validation with different measures reveals its efficacy over competing approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, there is such an outbreak of corona in the whole world that people are taking many precautions to avoid it, but according to the Guidelines of WHO, wearing a mask and maintaining distance is the best way to escape from this epidemic. It has been said that those who do not wear facemasks are at risk of infection. In technology, computer vision-based facemask detection uses a different learning algorithm to recognize face masks in real time. This research compares the performance of seven machine learning, deep learning, and transfer learning algorithms, such as K-NN, SGD, SVM, CNN, MobileNetV2, InceptionV3, and VGG-19, to discover the best algorithm for detecting who is wearing a masked face in a real-time environment. In addition, we got a higher accuracy of 100% in the InceptionV3 algorithm, that InceptionV3 tends to be faster when compared to another algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critically examines the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021, its development process spanning 15 years, and its potential shortcomings in addressing the needs of India's 27 million infertile couples. By scrutinizing the recommendations presented in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare's 129th report, the critique argues that the Act may not effectively cater to the diverse reproductive rights of the population. The article claims that most of its suggestions are in opposition to redefining families and accepting inclusive family structures other than heterosexual marriages. The study posits that the Act, with its inherent limitations, perpetuates the reinforcement of patriarchal family structures that medical science intends to disrupt. In order to foster inclusivity and comprehensibility, the article advocates for necessary amendments that align with the interest of the general populace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the immuno-modulatory and stress-relieving properties of β-glucan is well elucidated in humans and other animal models, including fish, its role as a dietary supplement on reproduction is extremely scarce. Therefore, in this study, adult female fish were fed one of four test diets having 0 (control), 0.5, 1, and 1.5% β-d-glucan for 130 days and its effect on reproductive performance, ovarian and liver histology, sex hormones, and transcript abundance of selected reproduction-related genes was assessed. Low dietary intake of β-glucan improved fertilization and hatching rates (p<0.05). The relative fecundity and percentage of spawning females were higher (non-significant) in 0.5% β-glucan-fed groups. Surprisingly, even after 130 days, spawning did not occur in 1.5% β-glucan-fed individuals. Irrespective of β-glucan intake, all the brooders recorded similar plasma 17β-estradiol and maturation-inducing hormone (p>0.05). Higher intake of β-glucan (1.5%) upregulated aromatase genes without a parallel increase in 17β-estradiol. However, plasma vitellogenin increased with increasing β-glucan up to 1.0% then declined at 1.5% (p<0.05). The fish that received control, 0.5, and 1.5% β-glucan recorded similar vitellogenin levels in their plasma. Significantly higher plasma cortisol was evidenced in 1.5% β-glucan fed brooders (p<0.05). Histologically, higher follicular atresia and leaking of yolk material was evidenced in 1.5% β-glucan-fed group. Liver histology revealed the highest nutrient/lipid accumulation in fish that received 1.0% and 1.5% β-glucan. This study demonstrated the stimulatory effect of β-glucan intake at a lower dose (0.5%) on reproduction. However, higher intake (1.5%) could perturb normal reproductive function in a fish model and caused an increased number of atretic follicles leading to spawning/reproductive failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the efficiency of composting agricultural organic waste (AOW), this study aimed to examine the impact of inoculating tomato straw compost with two distinct microbial agents: ZymoZone (ZZ), a composite microbial agent derived from the straw compost and Effective Microorganisms (EM), a commercial microbial agent. Furthermore, in order to reactivate the microorganisms within the compost during the initial high temperature phase, 10% brown sugar was introduced as a carbon source. The objective of this addition was to assess its influence on the composting process. The findings revealed that compared to the control (CK) group, the ZZ and EM treatments extended the first high-temperature phase by 2 and 1 day, respectively. Furthermore, with the addition of 10% brown sugar, the ZZ and EM treatments remained in the second high-temperature phase for 8 and 7 days, respectively, while the CK treatment had already entered the cooling stage by then. Notably, the inoculation of microbial agents and the addition of brown sugar substantially augmented the activity of lignocellulose-related hydrolases, thereby promoting the degradation of lignocellulose in the ZZ and EM treatment groups. This was confirmed by FTIR analysis, which demonstrated that the addition of microbial agents facilitated the degradation of specific substances, leading to reduced absorbance in the corresponding spectra. XRD analysis further indicated a notable reduction in cellulose crystallinity for both the ZZ (8.00%) and EM (7.73%) treatments. Hence, the incorporation of microbial agents and brown sugar in tomato straw compost effectively enhances the composting process and improves the quality of compost products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New geological and geochemical data have been presented in this paper to improve the understanding of the petrogenesis and regional geodynamic evolution of the 2.8–2.5 Ga Dhanjori volcanics. These volcanics exhibit porphyritic texture and classified as picritic basalt. The Dhanjori volcanics are MgO-rich (9.97–15.81 wt%) with moderate SiO2 (51.62–53.82 wt%), FeOT (9.97–12.57 wt%) and TiO2 (0.73–1.21 wt%) but relatively higher Ni (123.56–545.35 ppm) and Cr (241.87–1158.41). The rare earth element (REE) patterns and their ratios indicate their derivation from the garnet to spinel stability field due to decompressive melting of a mantle plume head near the crust-mantle boundary, which is supported by the presence of high positive gravity anomaly over the Dhanjori lavas. The thermobarometric studies indicate that the primary magma had an initial mantle potential temperature between 1350 and 1500°C in a pressure range of 1 to 1.8 GPa, thus conforming with the mantle origin, which is further endorsed by supplementary geophysical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy have enabled many to achieve their dreams of parenthood. With a turnover of $500 million, reproductive tourism in India has helped transform the country into a "global baby factory." However, as the surrogacy industry grew, so did concerns of women's exploitation, commodification of motherhood, and human rights violations. In an effort to prevent women from being exploited, the Indian government had taken successive administrative measures to regulate surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 and Assisted Reproductive Technologies Bill 2008 were introduced in the Parliament to regulate various aspects of surrogacy arrangements. Yet, it was not until 25 January 2022, that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 went into effect. The Act does, however, leave certain important points unaddressed. The article claims that the legislation's purposeful exclusion of the LGBTQ population and emphasis on "familial altruism" stinks of inequity and moral conservatism. It also delineates the mechanics of altruistic surrogacy by examining documents that illustrate how the connections between money and morality are framed via the framing of altruism. The article therefore demands that a comprehensive dialogue must be held considering the socio-economic realities of Indian society, or else India risks enacting yet another law that cannot be implemented or that society dislikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ER stress signaling is linked to the pathophysiological and clinical disease manifestations in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Here, we have investigated ER stress-induced adaptive mechanisms in C9ORF72-ALS/FTD, focusing on uncovering early endogenous neuroprotective mechanisms and the crosstalk between pathological and adaptive responses in disease onset and progression. We provide evidence for the early onset of ER stress-mediated adaptive response in C9ORF72 patient-derived motoneurons (MNs), reflected by the elevated increase in GRP75 expression. These transiently increased GRP75 levels enhance ER–mitochondrial association, boosting mitochondrial function and sustaining cellular bioenergetics during the initial stage of disease, thereby counteracting early mitochondrial deficits. In C9orf72 rodent neurons, an abrupt reduction in GRP75 expression coincided with the onset of UPR, mitochondrial dysfunction and the emergence of PolyGA aggregates, which co-localize with GRP75. Similarly, the overexpression of PolyGA in WT cortical neurons or C9ORF72 patient-derived MNs led to the sequestration of GRP75 within PolyGA inclusions, resulting in mitochondrial calcium (Ca2+) uptake impairments. Corroborating these findings, we found that PolyGA aggregate-bearing human post-mortem C9ORF72 hippocampal dentate gyrus neurons not only display reduced expression of GRP75 but also exhibit GRP75 sequestration within inclusions. Sustaining high GRP75 expression in spinal C9orf72 rodent MNs specifically prevented ER stress, normalized mitochondrial function, abrogated PolyGA accumulation in spinal MNs, and ameliorated ALS-associated behavioral phenotype. Taken together, our results are in line with the notion that neurons in C9ORF72-ALS/FTD are particularly susceptible to ER–mitochondrial dysfunction and that GRP75 serves as a critical endogenous neuroprotective factor. This neuroprotective pathway, is eventually targeted by PolyGA, leading to GRP75 sequestration, and its subsequent loss of function at the MAM, compromising mitochondrial function and promoting disease onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “manual scavenging,” prevalent in India and deeply entrenched within the caste system, signifies a dehumanizing practice involving the manual handling and transportation of human excreta without protective equipment. With the burgeoning global trend of integrating social justice themes into children’s literature, discussions on caste, particularly regarding manual scavenging, have become indispensable. This article analyzes two Indian picturebooks: Puu (2018) by C.G. Salamander and Samidha Gunjal, and My Name is Gulab (2021) by Sagar Kolwankar. These texts distinctively engage with the sensitive topic of manual scavenging, with Salamander notably pioneering the introduction of such radical themes to young readers through the picturebook medium. The authors and illustrators delve beyond the linear representation of manual scavenging, exploring its multidimensional socio-political facets, including caste, stigma, and untouchability. Expounding upon Rudine Sims Bishop’s theoretical framework on “multiculturalism,” this article explores how these character portrayals provide a “mirror” for certain readers who can identify with the depicted scenarios and a “window” for some readers to comprehend the estranged concept of manual scavenging. Through the model of purity/pollution, the article examines the delicate balance between words and images, highlighting how the authors and illustrators manage the subject’s radical potential without obscuring its subtleties for a young audience. Thus, this study analyzes the relevance of including manual scavenging in picturebooks to facilitate dialogue, foster empathy, and contribute to societal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singhbhum craton in eastern India is one of the oldest and perhaps geologically and geophysically most complex geological terrains on the surface of the Earth, containing a number of intra-cratonic Archean volcanic suites. In the present study, we investigate Mesoarchean volcanic rocks of the Simlipal complex, a tiger reserve in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha (India). Our results provide a new understanding of the regional geodynamic scenario of the Eoarchean Singhbhum craton, including the nature of plume–lithosphere interaction based on the detailed analysis of geological, geochemical and geophysical data. Whole-rock geochemical studies exhibit large variation in SiO2 (39.30–60.57 wt%), TiO2 (0.20–1.55 wt%), Al2O3 (4.45–15.63 wt%), MgO (5.25–37.00 wt%) and CaO (3.46–11.26 wt%) with low to moderately high Cr (50–1503 ppm) and Ni (36–550 ppm) contents. These rocks are cumulates to porphyritic and petrographically and geochemically, can be classified as ultramafic (lherzolite, pyroxenite), picrite, basalt, basaltic andesite, andesite and boninite. Their trace elements and HFSE/REE patterns indicate that they belong to the same parental magma. Rare earth elements and trace element patterns exhibit moderate fractionation with a coherent pattern of (La/Yb)n: 1.38–8.50, (Gd/Yb)n: 0.92–2.59 and (La/Sm)n: 1.11–4.40, consistent with polybaric melting. The present study suggests that these rocks were generated by decompressive melting of a mantle plume head at a depth of garnet to spinel lherzolite field together with fractional crystallization and crustal contamination in the subcontinental lithospheric mantle (SCLM), which is corroborated by the highly uplifted nature of this terrain, associated with positive gravity anomalies. This plume had a mantle potential temperature between 1400 and 1700 °C and pressure reaching 4.4 GPa. Massive upwarping of the lower crust to an extremely shallow depth of about 4 km from the surface, 21 km thick magmatic underplating above the Moho and the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary at 81 km, would support plume-induced active crust–mantle thermal interaction and extremely warm and deformed nature of the lithosphere beneath the Simlipal volcanic complex. Based on the findings of millerite (NiS), quench/spinifex texture and shock metamorphic features in these volcanic rocks, we infer that there could be a possibility that the suggested mantle plume in the study area may have been triggered by an asteroidal impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have shown that deficiency of neutral sphingomyelinase 2 (nSMase2), an enzyme generating the sphingolipid ceramide, improves memory in adult mice. Here, we performed sphingolipid and RNA-seq analyses on the cortex from 10-month-old nSMase2-deficient (fro/fro) and heterozygous (+ /fro) mice. fro/fro cortex showed reduced levels of ceramide, particularly in astrocytes. Differentially abundant transcripts included several functionally related groups, with decreases in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and astrocyte activation transcripts, while axon guidance and synaptic transmission and plasticity transcripts were increased, indicating a role of nSMase2 in oxidative stress, astrocyte activation, and cognition. Experimentally induced oxidative stress decreased the level of glutathione (GSH), an endogenous inhibitor of nSMase2, and increased immunolabeling for ceramide in primary + /fro astrocytes, but not in fro/fro astrocytes. β-galactosidase activity was lower in 5-week-old fro/fro astrocytes, indicating delayed senescence due to nSMase2 deficiency. In fro/fro cortex, levels of the senescence markers C3b and p27 and the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin 1β, interleukin 6, and tumor necrosis factor α were reduced, concurrent with twofold decreased phosphorylation of their downstream target, protein kinase Stat3. RNA and protein levels of the ionotropic glutamate receptor subunit 2B (Grin2b/NR2B) were increased by twofold, which was previously shown to enhance cognition. This was consistent with threefold reduced levels of exosomes carrying miR-223-3p, a micro-RNA downregulating NR2B. In summary, our data show that nSMase2 deficiency prevents oxidative stress-induced elevation of ceramide and secretion of exosomes by astrocytes that suppress neuronal function, indicating a role of nSMase2 in the regulation of neuroinflammation and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive Internet of Things (CIoT) is a new subfield of the Internet of Things (IoT) that aims to integrate cognition into the IoT's architecture and design. Various CIoT applications require techniques to inevitably extract machine-understandable concepts from unprocessed sensory data to provide value-added insights about CIoT devices and their users. The time series classification, which is used for the concept's extraction poses challenges to many applications across various domains, i.e., dimensionality reduction strategies have been suggested as an effective method to decrease the dimensionality of time series. The most common approach for time-series classification is the symbolic aggregate approximation (SAX). However, its main drawback is that it does not select the most significant point from the segment during the piecewise aggregate approximation (PAA) stage. The situation is cumbersome when data is heterogeneous and massive. Therefore, this research presents a novel technique for the selection of the most significant point from a segment during the PAA stage in SAX. The proposed technique chooses the maximum informative point as the most significant point using the probabilistic interpretation of sensory data with an appropriate copula design. The appropriate copula is selected using the minimum akaike information criteria (AIC) value. Subsequently, the modified SAX considers the maximum informative points instead of a selection of mean/max/extreme data points on a given segment during the PAA stage. The experimental evaluation of the environmental dataset reveals that the proposed method is more accurate and computationally efficient than classic SAX. Also, for cross-validation it computes the entropy of the information point (i-value) from each dataset to verify the successful transformation of normal data points to information points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A detailed mineral chemistry and geothermobarometry of the Deccan volcanic covered Neoarchean crystalline basement rocks is presented, pierced by KLR-1 borehole, drilled in the Killari region of Maharashtra, which was a site of major earthquake disaster in 1993, killing almost 10,000 people. The present study provides unequivocal evidence that the entire drilled basement is mainly made up of tonalite/granodiorite and amphibolite/granulite. They contain hornblende, clinopyroxene, plagioclase, biotites and minor orthopyroxene, apart from accessories like ilmenite, magnetite, pyrite, titanite, zoisite, clinozoisite and epidote. Compositionally, amphibole conform to ferropargasite, magnesiohastingsite, ferro-edenite and edenite. Similarly, the clinopyroxenes correspond to diopside and orthopyroxenes to clino-enstatite. Further, biotites are found to be magnesium and iron-rich, while feldspars correspond mainly to albite and orthoclase. Bulk rock chemistry and mineral chemistry of amphibole and biotites indicate calc-alkaline nature of the rock associated with high oxygen fugacity, that may have been formed in subduction zone related environments as evidenced by geochemical data and tectonic discrimination diagrams. Geothermobarometric studies carried out on amphibolite and granulite, indicate that the underlying basement was subjected to metamorphic temperatures between 540 and 860°C and pressure, 5 to 7 kb, corresponding to 15–21 km depth. Petrographically, these rocks appear deformed, retrogressed and metasomatized by halogen-rich mantle-derived CO2 and brought to the surface by continued geodynamic process of uplift and erosion, even before the onset of Deccan volcanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolutionary nature of the Neoarchean basement, concealed below 66 Ma Deccan Large Igneous Province, remains largely unknown. We present here detailed results of integrated geoscientific investigations, carried out on 43 basement cores that cover an entire 270 m thick column, penetrated by the KLR-1 deep scientific borehole, drilled in the epicentral zone of 1993 Killari earthquake (Maharashtra, India). They dominantly contain high velocity-high density, halogen-rich, retrogressed and metasomatized amphibolite to granulite facies mid-crustal rocks, with intercalations of TTG, which were subjected to temperatures between 540 and 860 °C and pressure 5–7 kb, equating to 15–21 km emplacement depth. The granitic-gneissic layer, typical of the upper crust, appears absent. Geochemically, these iron-rich rocks are characterized by wide variation in which SiO2, MgO and FeOT contents vary from 45.12 to 69.96 wt% (avg. 58.11 wt%), 0.18–11.95 wt% (avg. 4.22 wt%), and 0.34–22.92 wt% (avg. 9.01 wt%) respectively. Measured FeOT contents are even higher than the normal lower crust. The granulite rocks exhibit tholeiite affinity, while amphibolite (which dominate the lithology) and TTG rocks show calc-alkaline character. Further, chondrite and primitive mantle normalized plots, show consistent and complimentary REE patterns (except in HREE), with negative Eu anomalies and LILE enrichment, indicating source rock fractionation. Well-marked depletion in Nb–Ta, Zr–Hf, subordinate depletion in Sr and Ba, and their distinct calc-alkaline to tholeiite character, indicate their subduction zone/arc-related affinity. In addition, large-scale crust-mantle interaction and pervasive metasomatism, have led to considerable alteration to the basic fabric of the rock thereby making it weak and characterized by reduced velocities due to biotitization and substantial Fe-enrichment. Quite likely, earthquake nucleation in intraplate stable regions may have a close link with mantle metasomatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative land management options which enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities to climatic change are critical to ensure livelihood security. Adoptability of climate smart land use systems can be enhanced by building on existing knowledge and practices of local communities. The impacts of climate change on the quality and productivity of fruit based systems have been observed across the state of Himachal Pradesh in the Indian Western Himalayas. The effect of the intercropping of medicinal and aromatic plants on the yield of peach cv. July Elberta was assessed over 2010–2011 in the experimental farm of the Department of Fruit Science, Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. There were four treatments, which included peach with medicinal plants namely Ocimum sanctum, Withania somnifera and Andrographis paniculata, and peach without medicinal plants as control. Photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate and difference in above and below canopy temperature of peach were higher where peach was intercropped with medicinal plants than in control. Growth characteristics of peach, fruit yield and physicochemical characteristics of fruits were markedly improved in the intercropping than sole cropping system. Among the three medicinal plant species Withania somnifera showed superior performance under peach than either Ocimum sanctum or Andrographis paniculata. The results suggest that fruit productivity and quality can be improved through careful integration of fruit trees and medicinal crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of improved satellite technology generates a huge amount of remote sensing data, these data play the crucial role in natural resource management. The land use and land cover (LULC) change intensely affects local environment, as well as the global environment. Therefore, the quantifiable knowledge about LULC changes occur in global scale is important to make effective planning for conservation and precise use of natural resources, that has motivated the scientists to develop the various land cover change detection techniques. In this paper, we have proposed neural network-based approach, i.e., focused time delay neural network (FTDNN)-based approach for land cover change detection, which is a time series prediction-based approach and detect the sudden change in the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) time series. The performance of the proposed method has been addressed by using quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques. For the quantitative evaluation, the proposed algorithm is applied to the standard synthetic data set, which are analogous to EVI time series data set. The performance result of the proposed method compares with the four previously existing data mining-based benchmark techniques. The analysis was shown that the FTDNN-based method significantly outperforms than other techniques. For qualitative analysis, the San Francisco Bay Area data set has been used, which comprises real EVI time series. The proposed FTDNN-based method is applied to the San Francisco Bay Area data set and observe the interesting land cover changes. These outcomes indicate the effectiveness of data mining techniques for the land cover change detection problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a lethal disease characterized by motor neuron degeneration and associated with aggregation of nuclear RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), including FUS. How FUS aggregation and neurodegeneration are prevented in healthy motor neurons remain critically unanswered questions. Here, we use a combination of ALS patient autopsy tissue and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons to study the effects of FUS mutations on RBP homeostasis. We show that FUS' tendency to aggregate is normally buffered by interacting RBPs, but this buffering is lost when FUS mislocalizes to the cytoplasm due to ALS mutations. The presence of aggregation-prone FUS in the cytoplasm causes imbalances in RBP homeostasis that exacerbate neurodegeneration. However, enhancing autophagy using small molecules reduces cytoplasmic FUS, restores RBP homeostasis and rescues motor function in vivo. We conclude that disruption of RBP homeostasis plays a critical role in FUS-ALS and can be treated by stimulating autophagy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In text classification, the Global Filter-based Feature Selection Scheme (GFSS) selects the top-N ranked words as features. It discards the low ranked features from some classes either partially or completely. The low rank is usually due to varying occurrence of the words (terms) in the classes. The Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) can be used to address this issue as it eliminates the redundant terms. It assigns an equal rank to the terms that represent similar concepts or meanings, e.g. four terms "carcinoma", "sarcoma", "melanoma", and "cancer" represent a similar concept, i.e. "cancer". Thus, any selected term by the algorithms from these four terms doesn't affect the classifier performance. However, it does not guarantee that the selection of top-N LSA ranked terms by GFSS are the representative terms of each class. An Improved Global Feature Selection Scheme (IGFSS) solves this issue by selecting an equal number of representative terms from all the classes. However, it has two issues, first, it assigns the class label and membership of each term on the basis of an individual vote of the Odds Ratio (OR) method thereby limiting the decision making capability. Second, the ratio of selected terms is determined empirically by the IGFSS and a common ratio is applied to all the classes to assign the positive and negative membership of the terms. However, the ratio of positive and negative nature terms varies from one class to another and it may be very less for one class, whereas high for other classes. Thus, one common negative features ratio used by the IGFSS affects those classes of a dataset in which there is an imbalance between positive and negative nature words. To address these issues of IGFSS, a new Soft Voting Technique (SVT) is proposed to improve the performance of GFSS. There are two main contributions in this paper: (i) The weighted average score (Soft Vote) of three methods, viz. OR, Correlation Coefficient (CC), and GSS Coefficients (GSS) improves the numerical discrimination of words to identify there positive and negative membership to a class. (ii) A mathematical expression is incorporated in the IGFSS that computes a varying ratio of positive and negative memberships of the terms for each class. The membership is based on the occurrence of the terms in the classes. The proposed SVT is evaluated using four standard classifiers applied on five bench-marked datasets. The experimental results based on Macro_F1 and Micro_F1 measures show that SVT achieves a significant improvement in the performance of classifiers in comparison of standard methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Training speed of the classifier without degrading its predictive capability is an important concern in text classification. Feature selection plays a key role in this context. It selects a subset of most informative words (terms) from the set of all words. The correlative association of words towards the classes increases an incertitude for the words to represent a class. The representative words of a class are either of positive or negative nature. The standard feature selection methods, viz. Mutual Information (MI), Information Gain (IG), Discriminating Feature Selection (DFS) and Chi Square (CHI), do not consider positive and negative nature of the words that affects the performance of the classifiers. To address this issue, this paper presents a novel feature selection method named Correlative Association Score (CAS). It combines the strength, mutual information, and strong association of the words to determine their positive and negative nature for a class. CAS selects a few (k) informative words from the set of all words (m). These informative words generate a set of N-grams of length 1-3. Finally, the standard Apriori algorithm ensembles the power of CAS and CHI to select the top most, b informative N-grams, where b is a number set by an empirical evaluation. Multinomial Naive Bayes (MNB) and Linear Support Vector Machine (LSVM) classifiers evaluate the performance of the selected N-Grams. Four standard text data sets, viz. Webkb, 20Newsgroup, Ohsumed10, and Ohsumed23 are used for experimental analysis. Two standard performance measures named Macro_F1 and Micro_F1 show a significant improvement in the results using proposed CAS method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land cover change detection has been a topic of active research in the remote sensing community. Due to enormous amount of data available from satellites, it has attracted the attention of data mining researchers to search a new direction for solution. The Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) vegetation index (EVI/NDVI) data products are used for land cover change detection. These data products are associated with various challenges such as seasonality of data, spatio-temporal correlation, missing values, poor quality measurement, high resolution and high dimensional data. The land cover change detection has often been performed by comparing two or more satellite snapshot images acquired on different dates. The image comparison techniques have a number of limitations. The data mining technique addresses many challenges such as missing value and poor quality measurements present in the data set, by performing the pre-processing of data. Furthermore, the data mining approaches are capable of handling large data sets and also use some of the inherent characteristics of spatio-temporal data; hence, they can be applied to increasingly immense data set. This paper stretches in detail various data mining algorithms for land cover change detection and each algorithm's advantages and limitations. Also, an empirical study of some existing land cover change detection algorithms and results have been presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

65 Ma Deccan Volcanic Province of western India forms one of the largest flood basaltic eruptions on the surface of the earth. The nature of the concealed crust below this earthquake prone region, which is marked by several low velocity zones at different depths has hardly been understood. These low velocity zones have been invariably interpreted as fluid-filled zones, genetically connected to earthquake nucleation. While carrying out detailed geological and petrophysical studies on the Late Archean basement cores, obtained from a 617 m deep KLR-1 borehole, drilled in the epicentral zone of 1993 Killari earthquake region of the southern Deccan Volcanic Province, we came across several instances where we observed remarkable drop in measured P-wave velocity in a number of high density cores. We provide detailed petrographic and geological data on 11 such anomalous samples which belong to mid-crustal amphibolite to granulite facies transitional rocks. They are associated with a mean P-wave velocity of 6.02 km/s (range 5.82-6.22 km/s) conforming to granitic upper crust, but in contrast have a high mean density of 2.91 g/cm (range 2.75-3.08 g/cm), which characterise mid to lower crust. This velocity drop, which is as much as 15 % in some cores, is primarily attributed to FeO enrichment (up to about 23 wt%) during the course of mantle-fluid driven retrogressive metasomatic reactions, caused by exhumation of deep-seated mafic rocks. Presence of Iron content (mainly magnetite), widely seen as opaques in thin sections of the rocks, seems to have resulted into sharp increase in density, as well as mean atomic weight. Our study indicates that the measured V is inversely related to FeO content as well as mean atomic weight of the rock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contiguous sequences of the terms (N-grams) in the documents are symmetrically distributed among different classes. The symmetrical distribution of the N-Grams raises uncertainty in the belongings of the N-Grams towards the class. In this paper, we focused on the selection of most discriminating N-Grams by reducing the effects of symmetrical distribution. In this context, a new text feature selection method named as the symmetrical strength of the N-Grams (SSNG) is proposed using a two pass filtering based feature selection (TPF) approach. Initially, in the first pass of the TPF, the SSNG method chooses various informative N-Grams from the entire extracted N-Grams of the corpus. Subsequently, in the second pass the well-known Chi Square (χ) method is being used to select few most informative N-Grams. Further, to classify the documents the two standard classifiers Multinomial Naive Bayes and Linear Support Vector Machine have been applied on the ten standard text data sets. In most of the datasets, the experimental results state the performance and success rate of SSNG method using TPF approach is superior to the state-of-the-art methods viz. Mutual Information, Information Gain, Odds Ratio, Discriminating Feature Selection and χ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Taxonomic revision of. Bychowskyella bagariusi Sharma, 1983 and Bychowskyella singhi Rajeshwari & Kulkarni, 1983 Jain, 1952 found on Indian Siluriform fishes is being done in the present work. These species were considered as species inquirenda or nomen nudum, (Lim et al. Syst Parasitol 50:159-197, ) and thus, their taxonomical clarification was required Among them, B. bagariusi Sharma, 1983 from Bagarius bagarius (Hamilton) is considered as valid and B. singhi Rajeshwari & Kulkarni, 1983 from Wallago attu (Bloch & Schneider), belongs to the genus Thaparocleidus Jain, 1952. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted in Solan Forest Division of Himachal Pradesh covering an area of about 57,158 ha. The aim was to estimate and assess the temporal change in carbon stock of the Chil Working Circle, in two forest ranges of the Division, Solan and Dharampur, over the period of 1956-2011. The inventory data of the working plans of Solan Forest Division from 1956-1957, 1984-1985 and 2002-2003 were used in the present study while field data for biomass estimation was collected for the year 2011. The results showed a declining trend in carbon stock over 1956-1984 period, however, an increasing trend over 1984-2002 was observed, which showed a further increase for the period 2002-2011. These fluctuating trends in the forest carbon stock can be related to increasing anthropogenic pressure on forests and the subsequent introduction of a ban on green felling envisaging efficient forest management, both of which affect the forest carbon pool significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fluid driven metasomatism and mass transfer from the earth's mantle have played an important role in the evolution of the lower continental crust in many geodynamically active areas. The epicentral region of the disastrous 1993 Killari earthquake (M 6.2), concealed below a thick suite of Deccan volcanics in central India, appear to be one such region. In connection with the study of seismotectonics of the earthquake prone Deccan volcanic region, we have carried out systematic and detailed geochemical and mineralogical investigation on core samples from the basement, obtained from the 617m deep KLR-1 borehole, drilled in the epicentral region of Killari. Our investigations indicate that the basement, concealed below 338m thick Deccan volcanics, is made up of CO, Cl, FeO and CaO-rich, high density (2.82 g/cm) - high velocity (avg. Vp: 6.2 km/s) moderately retrogressed upper amphibolite to granulite facies mid crustal rocks, which were subjected to pervasive Ca-metasomatism due to infiltration of mantle fluids. Graniticgneissic layer, typical of the upper crust, seems to be totally absent from this earthquake region. Chondrite normalized trace and rare earth elemental patterns display negative Eu anomalies together with LILE enrichment. Similarly, spider diagrams for incompatible elements show depletion in Zr, Hf, Y, Ta and Nb relative to the primitive mantle, indicating possible alterations of such relatively immobile elements at relatively high temperatures. Selective enrichment is also observed in transitional elements like Cu and Zn, indicating the possible role of chlorine in metal transport. The present study suggests that regional metasomatism beneath the Deccan Traps, which apparently alters the basic fabric of the rock during recrystallisation and makes it weak, may have a link with the nucleation of large earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different physiological and nutritional parameters affect the fermentative production of shikimic acid. In our study, Citrobacter freundii initially produced 0.62 g/L of shikimic acid in 72 h. However, when process optimization was employed, 5.11 g/L of shikimic acid was produced in the production medium consisting of glucose (5.0 %), asparagine (4.5 %), CaCO (2.0 %), at pH 6.0, when inoculated with 6 % inoculum and incubated at 30 ± 1 °C, 200 rpm for 60 h. Preliminary fed-batch studies have resulted in the production of 9.11 g/L of shikimic acid on feeding the production medium by 20 g/L of glucose at 24 h of the fermentation run. Production of similar amount of shikimic acid was observed when the optimized conditions were employed in a 10-L bioreactor as obtained in shake flask conditions. A total of 9.11 g/L of shikimic acid was produced in 60 h. This is approximately 14.69-fold increase in shikimic acid production when compared to the initial un-optimized production conditions. This has also resulted in the reduction of the production time. The present study provides useful information to the industrialists seeking environmentally benign technology for the production of bulk biomolecules through manipulation of various chemical parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shikimic acid is an industrially important chiral compound used as a key ingredient in formulation of drug Oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu) for the treatment of swine/avian flu. The high cost and limited availability of shikimic acid isolated from plants has detained the use of this valuable building block of the drug. It is a versatile compound having many characteristic properties for many synthetic reactions particularly in pharmaceuticals and cosmetic industries. By virtue of being a natural product, the relevant biochemical pathway in microorganisms can be harnessed into fermentation processes to produce shikimic acid. This is an excellent alternative for the sustainable and efficient production of shikimic acid over the tedious and cumbersome process of plant based extraction methods. Various strategies of shikimic acid production are reviewed and an account of comparison of their challenges, promises and restraint is presented. Furthermore, present review attempts to focus on the market trend of shikimic acid due to its high demand with particular emphasis laid on the pandemics of swine flu. This review not only covers the recent advances in shikimic acid production but also highlights the versatile applications and its market scenario. The concluding remarks and its potential as a commercial bulk chemical are discussed in the light of current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shikimic acid has wide use in pharmaceuticals due to its application in the synthesis of drug Tamiflu used in the treatment of Swine flu. The high cost and limited availability of shikimic acid isolated from plants has impeded the use of this valuable building block of the drug. In this context, fermentation route to produce shikimic acid from renewable resources has become increasingly attractive. The present study was embarked upon isolation of wild-type microorganisms able to produce shikimic acid. Out of the 42 isolates obtained from the soil, isolate GR-21 was selected as the best with initial production of 0.54 g/L shikimic acid and later identified as Citrobacter sp. The process optimization resulted in 14-fold increase in the shikimic acid production, thereby claiming this process to be a sustainable alternative for the production of this important biomolecule. The process was further scaled up to 14 L bioreactor to validate the production of shikimic acid. Further, the product formed is shikimic acid was confirmed by FTIR analysis. The current studies suggest that the selected isolate could be used as a promising agent to fulfill the worldwide demand of shikimic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here for the first time geochemical, mineralogical and stable carbon and oxygen isotopic data on the crystalline basement rocks of the 1993 Killari earthquake region of Maharashtra (India), which is covered by a thick suite of Deccan volcanics. Our results revealed the hitherto unknown amphibolite-granulite nature of the 2.5 Ga basement, which contains 2.00-2.28 wt% of CO. The stable carbon (δC) and oxygen (δO) isotopic measurements on carbonates separated from two basement samples KIL-13 (440.5 m depth) and KIL-20 (499.6 m depth) collected from the KLR-1 borehole drilled in the epicentral region showed the respective values of −6.23 and −6.22‰ versus PDB for δC and 7.94 and 8.11‰ versus SMOW for δO. The samples plot in the primary igneous carbonatite field, indicating the mantle origin of the carbonates, derived through the process of mantle metasomatism from the deep mantle carbon reservoir. This would suggest large-scale crust-mantle thermal fluid interaction beneath the Killari seismogenic region, which is characterized by massive upwarping of the high-velocity mafic crust and retrograde metamorphism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parasitic microhabitat distribution of the monogenoideans Thaparocleidus wallagonoius Jain, 1952, Mizelleus indicus Jain, 1957and T. gomtius Jain, 1957 parasitizing the gills of a fresh-water demersal Wallago attu and their seasonal variations were investigated in the present study. The microhabitat preferences of these species were observed. The gill segments and gill areas were the most important factors segregating the monogenoidean parasites on gills, not their abundance. Low niche overlap was found within each of the four gill arches and parasites were segregated in the same microhabitats within each gill arch. The distribution of parasites was independent of the left or right side of gill. The distribution plots in our study indicated that the anterior segment of first and fourth gill arches were more preferred site of infection. Seasonal variation of parasites, recorded during 2006 & 2007, in male and female hosts was also investigated. Due to ectoparasitic nature and high host specificity exhibited by the species of monogenoidea, studies on their seasonal dynamics are very significant as they could contribute significantly to the understanding of their biological adaptations to their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "A Natural Isolate Producing Shikimic Acid: Isolation, Identification and Culture Condition Optimization" published in "Applied Biochemistry & Biotechnology" journal is presented.

The article critically examines the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021, its development process spanning 15 years, and its potential shortcomings in addressing the needs of India's 27 million infertile couples. By scrutinizing the recommendations presented in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare's 129th report, the critique argues that the Act may not effectively cater to the diverse reproductive rights of the population. The article claims that most of its suggestions are in opposition to redefining families and accepting inclusive family structures other than heterosexual marriages. The study posits that the Act, with its inherent limitations, perpetuates the reinforcement of patriarchal family structures that medical science intends to disrupt. In order to foster inclusivity and comprehensibility, the article advocates for necessary amendments that align with the interest of the general populace., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© National University of Singapore and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy have enabled many to achieve their dreams of parenthood. With a turnover of $500 million, reproductive tourism in India has helped transform the country into a "global baby factory." However, as the surrogacy industry grew, so did concerns of women's exploitation, commodification of motherhood, and human rights violations. In an effort to prevent women from being exploited, the Indian government had taken successive administrative measures to regulate surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 and Assisted Reproductive Technologies Bill 2008 were introduced in the Parliament to regulate various aspects of surrogacy arrangements. Yet, it was not until 25 January 2022, that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 went into effect. The Act does, however, leave certain important points unaddressed. The article claims that the legislation's purposeful exclusion of the LGBTQ population and emphasis on "familial altruism" stinks of inequity and moral conservatism. It also delineates the mechanics of altruistic surrogacy by examining documents that illustrate how the connections between money and morality are framed via the framing of altruism. The article therefore demands that a comprehensive dialogue must be held considering the socio-economic realities of Indian society, or else India risks enacting yet another law that cannot be implemented or that society dislikes., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest/Competing InterestsNo conflict of interest.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)., (© National University of Singapore and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)