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Background: Drug therapy is an inevitable cause of cutaneous adverse reactions. Aims and Objectives: The primary aim was to identify the incidence and magnitude of various dermatological adverse reactions including Steven-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Moreover, secondary aim was to quantify the risks associated with the use of specific medications. Materials and Methods: A prospective and hospital-based study was conducted in the department of dermatology SMHS hospital on hospitalized cases of cutaneous adverse drug reactions (CADRs). Informed consent was sought and reactions were reported on validated questionnaire based on adverse drug reaction (ADR) monitoring form provided by Central Drug Standard Control organization Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. These dermatological reactions were assessed for the clinical pattern, causative agents, and prognosis. The WHO-Uppsala Monitoring centre system for standardized case was used for causality assessment of all cases identified. Results: A total of 101 hospitalized patients with varied dermatological ADRs were reported during the study period. Cases were found more in females (n=75, 74.25%) than in males (n=26, 25.75%). CADRs that were reported in our study were exanthematous rash, fixed drug eruptions, urticarial rashes, SJS, TEN, urticarial vasculitis, anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome, erythema multiforme, contact dermatitis, exfoliative dermatitis, mucosal hyperpigmentation, and nail pigmentation, respectively. After a meticulous drug history, the drugs implicated in causing the cutaneous reactions were anticonvalscents such as phenytoin, carbamazepine, lamotrigine, and phenobarbitone. Other drugs identified were non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as oxicam, antibiotics such as sulfasalazine, cefixime, cefpodoxime, amoxicillin, fluoroquinolones such as levofloxacin and ciprofloxacin, chemotherapeutic agents such as cyclophosphamide, 5FU, and hydroxurea. Conclusion: The present study concluded that skin is most common target for ADRs. Drug-induced cutaneous reactions can be as simple as a mild rash to rare life-threatening SJS and TEN. Moreover, certain group of patients is at increased risk for developing CADR’s as women are more susceptible than men.

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) Pandemic affected healthcare delivery worldwide from all quarters be it routine or essential care, including cancer care. All aspects like screening, diagnosis, and treatment were affected regardless of the developmental status of countries. Aim: To find out the extent and magnitude of cancer care affected during pandemic by comparing the data during pandemic for outpatient visits, new registrations, admissions, and day-care chemotherapy sessions with prepandemic data. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in the Department of Medical Oncology of State Cancer Institute in Srinagar, India. The parameters assessed were the number of outpatient visits, new registrations, admissions, and day care chemotherapy sessions from the department of Medical Oncology. Anonymised cumulative data of all the patients who availed these services was included. Data were collected for eight months, during pandemic in 2020 and were compared with the data from previous year 2019. The effect of lockdown was assessed by comparing these parameters with the non lockdown period. Statistical analysis was done by independent t-test. Results: The number of outpatient visits dropped from 15425 from non lockdown period to 12670 in lockdown period (p-value=0.019), number of new admissions from 1613 to 1418 (p-value=0.001), and chemotherapy sessions from 9374 to 8081, (p-value=0.004). The number of patient registrations also declined but the drop was not significant (p-value=0.171). All the parameters except in-patient admission improved during the non lockdown period with the highest improvement in registration, but inpatient admission revealed a similar reduction as in the lockdown period. Conclusion: There was a significant effect of lock down due to COVID-19 pandemic on the number of outpatient visits, new admissions and chemotherapy sessions. This infers that, the treatment protocols and chemotherapeutic management of cancer care were badly affected by the advent of the pandemic.

The Chaotic Gravitational Search Algorithm (CGSA) is a physics-based heuristic algorithm inspired by Newton's law of universal gravitation. It uses 10 chaotic maps for optimal global search and fast convergence rate. The advantages of CGSA has been incorporated in various Mechanical and Civil engineering design frameworks which include Speed Reducer Design (SRD), Gear Train Design (GTD), Three Bar Truss Design (TBTD), Stepped Cantilever Beam Design (SCBD), Multiple Disc Clutch Brake Design (MDCBD), and Hydrodynamic Thrust Bearing Design (HTBD). The CGSA has been compared with eleven state of the art stochastic algorithms. In addition, a non-parametric statistical test namely the Signed Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test has been carried out at a 5% significance level to statistically validate the results. The simulation results indicate that CGSA shows efficient performance in terms of high convergence speed and minimization of the design parameter values as compared to other heuristic algorithms. The source codes are publicly available on Github i.e. https://github.com/SajadAHMAD1.

This study was carried out to conduct the geographical discrimination of various types of honey, and their utilization in development of novel functional foods where in honey could be substituted in place of white sugar. Honey based apple spread and marmalade products were developed and evaluated for quality analysis. The results showed higher water activity (aw) and moisture content in Plectranthus rugosus (PR) honey based apple spread and marmalade while, TSS was highest (p < 0.05) in Multifloral (MF) honey based apple spread and marmalade. Hydroxymethylfurfural was found to be in the ranged of 6.77–7.05 (mg/kg) for honey based apple spread products and 3.09–3.46 (mg/kg) for honey based apple marmalade products. The lightness (L*) value was significantly highest in MF honey based apple spread and marmalades (p < 0.05). Redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) values were significantly highest in PR honey based apple spreads and marmalades and lowest in Robinia pseudo acacia (RSA) honey based apple spread and marmalades. In general, all MF honey based apple spreads and marmalades has the highest score for overall acceptability in comparison to RSA and PR honey based apple spreads. The values of gel strength (Fe), rupture force (FR), energy of penetration (E) and adhesiveness (A) in the given spread products were in the range of 1.50–1.54 N, 1.70–1.73 N, 17.00–17.05 Ns and −1.11–−1.08 Ns, respectively. The values of gel strength (Fe), rupture force (FR), energy of penetration (E) and adhesiveness (A) in the investigated marmalade products were in the range of 1.65–1.69 N, 2.08–2.13 N, 16.05–16.10 Ns and −1.14–−1.10 Ns, respectively.

Kashmir has had been recognised as the exception in the entire sub-continent for having authentic literary tradition which other areas are lacking. This paper provides initially a brief political history with the glimpse of both indigenous and British laws and regulations prior to the codification of the laws. The main focus of this paper is on the process of flexibility of the criminal justice system in the pre-colonial period. It tries to show how these different legal systems were in practice, equally plural and made up of multiple layers of rules and authorities—the dharmadhkari, the qazi and the judge. &nbsp

When Punjab was annexed in 1846 AD, Kashmir was handed over to the Gulab Singh through the famous treaty of Amritsar. It is believed that main motive of British to hand over Kashmir to Gulab Singh was to lessen the force of the Sikhs and Afghans because North-West Frontier and Afghanistan problem was yet unsettled. Though, they were successful in checking the Punjab and Afghan threat but during the seventies of nineteenth century, Czarist Russia had her covetous eyes on the Kashmir Valley whose conquest would give her an opportunity to directly confront the British regime in India. The British administrators on the other hand wanted to check the expansion policy of the Russians and began to secure scientific borders wherever Russian peril was possible and this made British intervention in Kashmir inevitable. The present paper attempts to highlight the clash and complexities of the relationship between the British colonial power and Dogra maharajas of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The main focus of this paper is to highlight the British imperialist quest for a scientific frontier and in this process how policy towards Kashmir was backed by both political as well as commercial interests.&nbsp

PurposeIn this paper, a newly proposed hybridization algorithm namely constriction coefficient-based particle swarm optimization and gravitational search algorithm (CPSOGSA) has been employed for training MLP to overcome sensitivity to initialization, premature convergence, and stagnation in local optima problems of MLP.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the exploration of the search space is carried out by gravitational search algorithm (GSA) and optimization of candidate solutions, i.e. exploitation is performed by particle swarm optimization (PSO). For training the multi-layer perceptron (MLP), CPSOGSA uses sigmoid fitness function for finding the proper combination of connection weights and neural biases to minimize the error. Secondly, a matrix encoding strategy is utilized for providing one to one correspondence between weights and biases of MLP and agents of CPSOGSA.FindingsThe experimental findings convey that CPSOGSA is a better MLP trainer as compared to other stochastic algorithms because it provides superior results in terms of resolving stagnation in local optima and convergence speed problems. Besides, it gives the best results for breast cancer, heart, sine function and sigmoid function datasets as compared to other participating algorithms. Moreover, CPSOGSA also provides very competitive results for other datasets.Originality/valueThe CPSOGSA performed effectively in overcoming stagnation in local optima problem and increasing the overall convergence speed of MLP. Basically, CPSOGSA is a hybrid optimization algorithm which has powerful characteristics of global exploration capability and high local exploitation power. In the research literature, a little work is available where CPSO and GSA have been utilized for training MLP. The only related research paper was given by Mirjalili et al., in 2012. They have used standard PSO and GSA for training simple FNNs. However, the work employed only three datasets and used the MSE performance metric for evaluating the efficiency of the algorithms. In this paper, eight different standard datasets and five performance metrics have been utilized for investigating the efficiency of CPSOGSA in training MLPs. In addition, a non-parametric pair-wise statistical test namely the Wilcoxon rank-sum test has been carried out at a 5% significance level to statistically validate the simulation results. Besides, eight state-of-the-art meta-heuristic algorithms were employed for comparative analysis of the experimental results to further raise the authenticity of the experimental setup.

Background:The present investigation was carried to develop amaranth based wheat flour bread. Products were developed by using different levels of amaranth flour and wheat flour in the ratio of 0:100,5:95, 10:90 and 15:85 respectively.Methods:Physico-chemical, antioxidant activity, total phenolic content and physical properties of amaranth supplemented bread were evaluated.Results:Results revealed an increase in moisture content from31.41 -33.35%, ash content 0.95- 1.52%, protein content 12.19% -13.23%, fat content 2.21% -2.81% and crude fiber 1.13-1.74%, and decrease in nitrogen free extract, alkali water retention capacity 52.11-47.35% and 137.66-112.00% respectively. Also it was observed that amaranth flour supplemented bread showed decrease in total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and FRAP assay with increase in substitution level. Color evaluation showed increase in L* and a* value of bread crust, while as bread crumb shows decrease in b* and L* value respectively. Nutritional evaluation revealed that among the samples tested 85% wheat flour and 15% amaranth flour supplemented bread was rated best as it was also evident from nutritional analysis.Conclusion:Maximum substitution of wheat flour with amaranth flour were 10% in terms of desirable bread quality attributes. The composite breads would serve as functional food, because of its high nutritional value than whole-wheat bread.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of chaotic gravitational search algorithm (CGSA) in solving mechanical engineering design frameworks including welded beam design (WBD), compression spring design (CSD) and pressure vessel design (PVD).Design/methodology/approachIn this study, ten chaotic maps were combined with gravitational constant to increase the exploitation power of gravitational search algorithm (GSA). Also, CGSA has been used for maintaining the adaptive capability of gravitational constant. Furthermore, chaotic maps were used for overcoming premature convergence and stagnation in local minima problems of standard GSA.FindingsThe chaotic maps have shown efficient performance for WBD and PVD problems. Further, they have depicted competitive results for CSD framework. Moreover, the experimental results indicate that CGSA shows efficient performance in terms of convergence speed, cost function minimization, design variable optimization and successful constraint handling as compared to other participating algorithms.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of chaotic maps in standard GSA is a new beginning for research in GSA particularly convergence and time complexity analysis. Moreover, CGSA can be used for solving the infinite impulsive response (IIR) parameter tuning and economic load dispatch problems in electrical sciences.Originality/valueThe hybridization of chaotic maps and evolutionary algorithms for solving practical engineering problems is an emerging topic in metaheuristics. In the literature, it can be seen that researchers have used some chaotic maps such as a logistic map, Gauss map and a sinusoidal map more rigorously than other maps. However, this work uses ten different chaotic maps for engineering design optimization. In addition, non-parametric statistical test, namely, Wilcoxon rank-sum test, was carried out at 5% significance level to statistically validate the simulation results. Besides, 11 state-of-the-art metaheuristic algorithms were used for comparative analysis of the experimental results to further raise the authenticity of the experimental setup.

This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of different pre treatments, drying methods, and storage period on physicochemical and nutraceutical properties of tomato powder. The results revealed that freeze-dried tomato powder showed significantly (p .05) between hot-air- and freeze-dried samples. Comparing the different pretreatments sodium metabisulphite 1% treated sample (T2) showed highest total sugar, reducing sugar, rehydration ratio, TSS (oBx), lightness (L*), redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) values than non-pretreated samples (T0) and 0.5% ascorbic acid + 0.5% citric acid-treated samples (T1). While T1 showed the highest ascorbic acid, lycopene, and β-carotene contents than T2 and T0. The results obtained indicated that TSS (oBx), pH, total sugar, reducing sugar, rehydration ratio, ascorbic acid, β-carotene, lycopene, and color parameters (L*, a,* and b*) of both freeze-dried and hot-air dried powdered samples showed decreasing trend, while moisture and titratable acidity showed an increasing trend with the advancement of storage period from 0 to 30 days.

This study was aimed at development of freeze drying powders from three types of honeys viz. Robinia pseudoacacia (RSA), Plectranthus rugosus (PR) and multifloral honey (MF) from Kashmir Himalayas of India using whey protein isolate (WPI) and maltodextrin (MD) as drying carriers. The powders were evaluated for physical, morphological and structural characterization. Results exhibited that powders with MD as drying carrier showed significantly higher water activity (aw), hygroscopicity, loose bed porosity (ɛL), tapped bed porosity (ɛT) and mean particle diameter (p

Three types of honeys viz. Robinia pseudoacacia (RSA), Plectranthus rugosus (PR) and multifloral honey (MF) from Kashmir Himalayas of India were characterized on the basis of physicochemical, antioxidant and FTIR-ATR spectroscopic features. The physicochemical parameters indicated that ash content, electrical conductivity, redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) were higher in MF honey, moisture content, Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and lightness (L*) in PR honey and Water activity (a(w)) and proline content in RSA honey (P ≤ 0.05). Significantly higher values of total sugar, total reducing sugar and sucrose content was observed in MF honey (P ≤ 0.05). The total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoids, ferric reducing antioxidant power and 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazy-IC(50) (DPPH- IC(50)) free radical scavenging activity showed that MF honey had significantly higher antioxidant activity (P ≤ 0.05). ATR-FTIR analysis demonstrated that the absence of peaks at broad band around 1653.454–1637.656 cm(−1) in MF honey, 1185.989–1153.072 cm(−1) and 918.570–916.544 cm(−1) wavenumbers in PR honey thus clearly discriminating different types of honeys. The results revealed that physico-chemical, antioxidant and spectroscopic characteristics of honey types vary with geographic origin and their floral sources and MF honey have a high therapeutic potential.

Image segmentation is one of the pivotal steps in image processing. Actually, it deals with the partitioning of the image into different classes based on pixel intensities. In this work, a new image segmentation method has been introduced based on the constriction coefficient-based particle swarm optimization and gravitational search algorithm (CPSOGSA). The random samples of the image histogram act as searcher agents of the CPSOGSA. Besides, the optimal number of thresholds is determined using Kapur’s entropy method. The effectiveness and applicability of CPSOGSA have been accomplished by applying it to four standard images from the USC-SIPI image database including airplane, cameraman, clock, and truck. Various performance metrics have been employed to investigate the simulation outcomes including optimal thresholds, standard deviation, mean, run-time analysis, PSNR (peak signal-to-noise ratio), best fitness value calculation, convergence maps, and box plot analysis. In addition, the experimental results of CPSOGSA are compared with standard PSO and GSA. The simulation results clearly indicate that hybrid CPSOGSA takes less computational time in finding the best threshold values of the benchmark images.

A fundamental principle of proteins is to act as enzymes-biocatalysts working as highly efficient machines at the molecular level by accelerating the conversion of substrates into products. Although RNAs are also capable of catalyzing some biochemical reactions, but most are catalyzed by proteins. A variety of experimental and computational techniques continue to reveal that proteins are dynamically active machines. Due to the growing complexity and inconsistency in the naming of enzymes, the nomenclature committee of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB) has assigned an EC number a four level hierarchical description to enzyme proteins. In the past, enzymes function has been explained on the basis of direct structural interactions between the enzyme and the substrate. The structural characterization of enzymes can be elucidating by various techniques such as spectroscopic methods, x-ray crystallography and more recently, multidimensional NMR methods. This chapter covers the basic principles of enzymes such as proteinaceous nature and substrate binding, classification, and structural characterization.

A novel amalgamation strategy, namely, chaotic gravitational search algorithm (CGSA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), has been employed for training multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network. It is called CGSAPSO. In CGSAPSO, exploration is carried out by CGSA, and exploitation is performed using PSO. The sigmoid activation function is utilized for training MLP. Besides, a matrix encoding strategy has been used for providing a synergy between neural biases, weights, and CGSAPSO searcher agents. To validate the effectiveness of the hybrid framework, CGSAPSO is applied to three different classification datasets, namely, XOR, Iris, and Balloon. The investigation of results is carried out through various performance metrics like average, standard deviation, median, convergence speed, execution time, and classification rate analysis. Besides, a pair-wise non-parametric signed Wilcoxon rank-sum test has also been conducted for statistical verification of simulation results. In addition, the numerical outcomes of CGSAPSO are also compared with standard GSA, PSO, and hybrid PSOGSA. The experimental results indicate that CGSAPSO provides better results in the form of recognition accuracy and global optima as compared to competing algorithms.

Alginates are most favored, which are natural hydrophilic polysaccharide biopolymers extracted from marine brown algae (Phaeophyceae sp.) and produced as an extracellular matrix by some bacterial species. Traditionally, alginates have been used as thickeners, emulsifiers, and stabilizing agents in a number of food applications. A number of new food applications are emerging for alginates, based on their unique biochemical and biophysical properties. These applications are discussed within this review, as are the nutritional properties of dietary alginates, and their physiological actions in humans. They have good film-forming property and help to retain moisture, reduce shrinkage, and improve the sensory characteristics of food products. Alginate coatings can reduce microbial counts and retard oxidative off-flavors; it can enhance sensory acceptance and minimize cooking losses. This chapter presents the application of alginates in food packaging, highlighting recent advancements in research and commercialization.

This study investigated physicochemical, glycemic index, pasting and microstructural properties of low glycemic index rice flour (LGIRF) stored in two different packaging materials (low density polyethylene-LDPE and metalized polyester-Met-PE) under accelerated storage conditions (38 ± 2 °C and 90-92% RH) for three months. The different properties were evaluated after every one month. Protein, fat, fibre and carbohydrate content decreased slightly while, water activity, moisture and ash of both control and LGIRF increased significantly with storage (P 0.05). Total starch, in vitro glycemic index and glycemic load were higher in control and decreased during storage (P 0.05). However, resistant starch, total sugars, reducing sugars and degree of sweetness in LGIRF exhibited higher, although non-significant variation relative to control during storage. Pasting properties revealed that peak and breakdown viscosities decreased while final and setback viscosities increased during storage (P 0.05) however holding viscosity and pasting temperature exhibited non-significant variation (P 0.05). Further, all pasting properties were significantly higher in control except pasting temperature (P 0.05). All farinographic properties exhibited non-significant difference during storage and were significantly higher in control. Overall, while comparing LDPE and MeT-PE samples non-significant variation was observed in all properties. Microstructural studies showed that integrity of starch granules in LGIRF samples were least altered during storage.

This study evaluated the impact of xanthan gum (XG), canning and storage on fatty acids (FAs) contents and formation of cholesterol oxidation products (COPs) in low-fat meat product (goshtaba) of Jammu and Kashmir (JK), India. The FAs composition i.e. saturated FAs, monounsaturated FAs, polyunsaturated FAs and trans FAs during processing and storage showed non-significant difference in all goshtaba products (P 0.05). The cholesterol content decreased significantly after canning in all products (P 0.05) while, maximum reduction was observed in high-fat goshtaba (HFC). During storage all products exhibited significant decrease in cholesterol upto 6th month, thereafter showed non-significant variation. The COPs determined were 7-β-OH-ch, 5-ch-3β-ol-7-one and 25-OH-ch. After canning two COPs (7-β-OH-ch, 5-ch-3β-ol-7-one) were produced in all products. But during storage there was formation of 25-OH-ch, increase in 7-β-OH-ch and decrease in 5-ch-3β-ol-7-one and lower COPs were observed in low-fat goshtaba containing 1.5% XG. The results concluded that fat replacer (XG), processing and storage had no significant effect on the FAs compositions of all goshtaba products including HFC. However, cholesterol content exhibited significant variation and minimum reduction in cholesterol and formation of lower COPs were observed in low-fat goshtaba formulated with 1.5% XG.

The umpteen varieties of traditionally fermented foods of Jammu and Kashmir (JK standardize and industrialize them, where possible; and preserve them for future generations.

In recent years, various heuristic algorithms based on natural phenomena and swarm behaviors were introduced to solve innumerable optimization problems. These optimization algorithms show better performance than conventional algorithms. Recently, the gravitational search algorithm (GSA) is proposed for optimization which is based on Newton's law of universal gravitation and laws of motion. Within a few years, GSA became popular among the research community and has been applied to various fields such as electrical science, power systems, computer science, civil and mechanical engineering, etc. This chapter shows the importance of GSA, its hybridization, and applications in solving clustering and classification problems. In clustering, GSA is hybridized with other optimization algorithms to overcome the drawbacks such as curse of dimensionality, trapping in local optima, and limited search space of conventional data clustering algorithms. GSA is also applied to classification problems for pattern recognition, feature extraction, and increasing classification accuracy.

Gravitational search algorithm is a physics-based optimization algorithm inspired by Newton's law of gravitation and laws of motion. Both clustering and classification are two important steps in machine learning and getting expertise in them is the need of today's artificial intelligence era. Inventing new methods for mastering clustering and classification for reducing the complexity of the data is always welcome. This paper presents a review of applications of gravitational search algorithm and its variants for clustering and classification problems. In clustering, the GSA is used with various traditional clustering algorithms to find the interesting patterns in data and to divide the data set into different clusters. For solving classification problems, the GSA is hybridized with other swarm optimization algorithms to increase the classification accuracy and finding optimal classification rules.

The present study was conducted to evaluate the combined effect of low-dose γ-irradiation (1.0 kGy), antioxidants (rosemary and BHT) and antimicrobials (nisin and sodium nitrate) on physicochemical, oxidative and microbial quality of mutton meat emulsions. Irradiated samples treated with rosemary extract and BHT exhibited significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher emulsion stability, cooking yield and penetration force and displayed non-significant variation in protein and moisture content. Results revealed that peroxide value, TBARS value, carbonyl content and loss of sulphydryls of irradiated samples treated with rosemary extract was comparable to that of BHT indicating protective effect of natural antioxidant against irradiation induced oxidation. Redness (a*) was increased in all treated samples than non-irradiated samples. Irradiation and nisin treatment significantly reduced bacterial growth as compared to irradiated sodium nitrate treatments. Therefore, the application of low-dose γ-irradiation in combination with rosemary extract and nisin could be employed for better quality retention of meat emulsions.

Rice cake (RC) was prepared from rice flour subjected to starch hydrolyzing enzymes and studied for in vitro digestibility, glycemic response, morphological characteristics and storage stability. Moisture, water activity, carbohydrate, starch, glycemic index, glycemic load and energy values were significantly lower while, crude protein, fat, fiber, ash, resistant starch and dietary fiber were higher in RC than control (p 0.05). Chewiness increased significantly after 0 day (p 0.05).Thus RC has lower energy, starch, glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) and higher resistant starch content and better storage stability than control.