Membrane characterization of amastigote-like forms of Leishmania donovani

During in vitro transformation, Leishmania donovani promastigotes converted into amastigote-like forms and underwent several changes in membrane parameters. They exhibited significantly increased microviscosity comparable to true amastigotes. Activities of several functionally important membrane bound enzymes were also altered, thereby indicating a change in their orientation. Peanut agglutinin was found to be specific for agglutination of stationary phase promastigotes whereas wheat-germ agglutinin was specific for the amastigote-like forms as well as for pure amastigotes, implying the presence of specific glycoconjugates on the parasite surface.     

IS1245 restriction fragment length polymorphism typing of Mycobacterium avium isolates: proposal for standardization

Mycobacterium avium has become a major human pathogen, primarily due to the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing, using insertion sequence IS1245 as a probe, provides a powerful tool in the molecular epidemiology of M. avium-related infections and will facilitate well-founded studies into the sources of M. avium infections in animal and environmental reservoirs. The standardization of this technique allows computerization of IS1245 RFLP patterns for comparison on a local level and the establishment of M. avium DNA fingerprint databases for interlaboratory comparison. Moreover, by combining international DNA typing results of M. avium complex isolates from a broad spectrum of sources, long-lasting questions on the epidemiology of this major agent of mycobacterial infections will be answered.     

The Architecture of the Dalí Main-Memory Storage Manager

Performance needs of many database applicationsdictate that the entire database be stored in main memory.The dali system is a main memory storage manager designed toprovide the persistence, availability and safety guarantees one typically expects from a disk-resident database, while at the same time providing very high performance by virtue of being tuned to support in-memory data.User processes map the entire database into their address space andaccess data directly, thus avoiding expensive remote procedure calls andbuffer manager interactionstypical of accesses in disk-resident commercial systems available today.dali recovers the database to a consistent state in the case of system as well as process failures. It alsoprovides unique concurrency control and memory protection features, aswell as ordered and unordered index structures. Both object-oriented and relational database management systems have beenimplemented on top of dali. dali provides access to multiple layers ofapplication programming interface, including its low-level recovery,concurrency control and indexing components as well as its high-levelrelational component. Finally, various features of dali can be tailored tothe needs of an application to achieve high performance–for example,concurrency control and logging can be turned off if not desired, enablingdali to efficiently support applications that requirenon-persistent memory-resident data to be shared by multiple processes.     

Robust Parametric Twin Support Vector Machine for Pattern Classification

In this paper, we propose a robust parametric twin support vector machine (RPTWSVM) classifier based on Parametric-\(\nu \)-Support Vector Machine (Par-\(\nu \)-SVM) and twin support vector machine. In order to capture heteroscedastic noise present in the training data, RPTWSVM finds a pair of parametric margin hyperplanes that automatically adjusts the parametric insensitive margin to incorporate the structural information of data. The proposed model of RPTWSVM is not only useful in controlling the heteroscedastic noise but also has much faster training speed when compared to Par-\(\nu \)-SVM. Experimental results on several machine learning benchmark datasets show the advantages of RPTWSVM both in terms of generalization ability and training speed over other related models.     

An electron-phonon contribution to the stoner enhancement in GaMo4X8 compounds

Using the Stoner-Wohlfarth model of itinerant ferromagnetism for GaMo₄X₈ compounds, we determine the electron-phonon enhancement from their electronic specific heats. These compounds have unstable structures due to strong electron-phonon coupling. The room-temperature structure can be stabilized by doping with nonmagnetic isoelectronic impurities. The Curie temperature is decreased by a factor of three as a consequence of itinerant-electron parallel-spin scattering on nonmagnetic impurities. This property demonstrates that a long-range ferromagnetic interaction contributes to the Stoner enhancement. We speculate that the amplitude of this extra contribution is governed by the electron-phonon coupling, which depends on the mass. We are able to predict the experimental values of and the amplitude of the possible isotope effect.     

Experimentelle und numerische Modellierung der Wirkung von Gas- und Staubexplosionen

Since the intensity of an explosion increases substantially on damming or as a result of turbulence-generating obstacles, gas or dust explosions in industrial plant can cause considrable damage. In connection with various research projects, medium and largescale experimental studies on gas and dust explosions were undertaken in order to gain detailed information about the course and effects of explosions under realistic conditions and to assess possible means of improving safety precautions. Some typical experiments on expansion in dust explosions are presented on the basis of the measured explosive pressures and flame lenghts and compared with the calculated results obtained using the BASSIM CFD code developed by Battelle or by empirical modelling.     

Estimation of wheat leaf area index from IRS LISS-III data using Price model

A satellite sensor image based model suggested by Price was investigated for the estimation of Leaf Area Index (LAI) using data acquired by Linear Imaging Self Scanner-III (LISS-III) onboard Indian Remote Sensing Satellite-1C (IRS-1C) over two wheat growing sites in India (Karnal and Delhi) for crop seasons 1996-97 and 1997-98, respectively. Besides red and near-infrared (NIR) measurements over vegetation canopy, the model only requires a priori crop specific attentuation constants. These constants were computed for wheat using published and field ground reflectance measurements. Application of the model over 36 fields on which ground estimates of LAI were available, indicated a RMSE of 1.28 and 1.07 for the Karnal and Delhi sites, respectively.     

Broadband self-powered photodetection with p-NiO/n-Si heterojunctions enhanced with plasmonic Ag nanoparticles deposited with pulsed laser ablation

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - In this work, we report a comparative study of self-powered broadband photodetection properties of p-NiO/n-Si and p-NiO/silver nanoparticles...     

Naphthoquinone colorants from Arnebia nobilis Rech.f

The roots of Arnebia nobilis have traditionally been used as a colorant in food and cosmetic preparations. The deep red colour obtained is attributed to the presence of shikonin and its isomer alkannin and their derivatives. In this study, five colouring components were extracted from the roots of A. nobilis. These were separated and purified chromatographically and characterised using various spectrophotometric techniques. Three of the five components were identified. The major component was found to be alkannin β, β‐dimethylacrylate [5,8‐dihydroxy‐2‐(1′‐β, β‐dimethylacryloxy‐4′‐methylpent‐3′‐enyl)‐1,4‐naphthoquinone], accounting for nearly 25% of the total colouring matter. Alkannin acetate [2‐(1′‐acetoxy‐4′‐methylpent‐3′‐enyl)‐5,8‐dihydroxy‐1,4‐naphthoquinone] made up ca. 8% and shikonin [(5,8‐dihydroxy‐4′‐methylpent‐3′‐enyl)‐1,4‐naphthoquinone] contributed ca. 6% of the colouring matter. Polyester was dyed pink, nylon was dyed blue and all other substrates acquired a purple hue under similar dyeing conditions. The dyed fabrics showed excellent wash, rub and perspiration fastness; however, light fastness was found to be poor.