Showing papers by "Jaypee Institute of Information Technology published in 2013"

miRNA–transcription factor interactions: a combinatorial regulation of gene expression

Abstract: Developmental processes require a precise spatio-temporal regulation of gene expression wherein a diverse set of transcription factors control the signalling pathways. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNA molecules have recently drawn attention for their prominent role in development and disease. These tiny sequences are essential for regulation of processes, including cell signalling, cell development, cell death, cell proliferation, patterning and differentiation. The consequence of gene regulation by miRNAs is similar to that by transcription factors (TFs). A regulatory cascade essential for appropriate execution of several biological events is triggered through a combinatorial action of miRNAs and TFs. These two important regulators share similar regulatory logics and bring about a cooperative action in the gene regulatory network, dependent on the binding sites present on the target gene. The review addresses the biogenesis and nomenclature of miRNAs, outlines the mechanism of action and regulation of their expression, and focuses on the combinatorial action of miRNAs and TFs for the expression of genes in various regulatory cascades.

Oral delivery of therapeutic proteins and peptides: a review on recent developments

Abstract: Advent of recombinant technology in protein synthesis has given birth to a new range of biopharmaceuticals. These therapeutic peptides and proteins are now emerging as an imperative part of various treatment protocols especially in the cancer therapeutics. Despite extensive research efforts, oral delivery of therapeutic peptide or protein is still a challenge for pharmaceutical industries and researchers. Number of factors including high proteolytic activity and low pH conditions of gastrointestinal tract act as major barriers in the successful delivery of intact protein/peptide to the targeted site. Low permeability of protein/peptide across the intestinal barrier is also a factor adding to the low bioavailability. Therefore, because of the short circulatory half-life exhibited by peptides in vivo, they need to be administered frequently resulting in increased cost of treatment and low patient compliance. Nano-carrier-based delivery presents an appropriate choice of drug carriers owing to their property to protect proteins from degradation by the low pH conditions in stomach or by the proteolytic enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract. This review focuses on recent aspects and patents on oral delivery of therapeutic proteins and peptides with special emphasis on nano-carrier-based approach.

Bidirectional Controlled Teleportation by Using 5-Qubit States: A Generalized View

Abstract: Recently bidirectional controlled perfect teleportation using 5-qubit states are reported in Int. J. Theor. Phys. (2013), doi: 10.1007/s10773-013-1484-8 and ibid (2012), doi: 10.1007/s10773-012-1208-5 . In this paper we have shown that there exists a class of 5-qubit quantum states that can be used for bidirectional controlled teleportation. Two out of the three reported cases are the special cases of the proposed class of 5-qubit quantum states and one of them is not strictly a case of controlled bidirectional quantum teleportation. Further, we have shown that one can in principle, construct infinitely many 5-qubit quantum states for this purpose. We have also shown that the idea can be extended to bidirectional controlled probabilistic teleportation. Some potential applications of the proposed scheme and its modified versions are also discussed in relation with the implementation of quantum remote control and quantum cryptography.

Sign language recognition using Microsoft Kinect

Abstract: In last decade lot of efforts had been made by research community to create sign language recognition system which provide a medium of communication for differently-abled people and their machine translations help others having trouble in understanding such sign languages. Computer vision and machine learning can be collectively applied to create such systems. In this paper, we present a sign language recognition system which makes use of depth images that were captured using a Microsoft Kinect® camera. Using computer vision algorithms, we develop a characteristic depth and motion profile for each sign language gesture. The feature matrix thus generated was trained using a multi-class SVM classifier and the final results were compared with existing techniques. The dataset used is of sign language gestures for the digits 0-9.

Environmental Pollution and Nanotechnology

Abstract: Nanotechnology is an upcoming technology that can provide solution for combating pollution by controlling shape and size of materials at the nanoscale. This review provides comprehensive information regarding the role of nanotechnology in pollution control at three different steps viz. Source reduction or pollution prevention, remediation or degradation of pollutants and sensing of pollutants. Due to its large surface area and high surface energy, the nanoparticles have the ability to absorb large amount of pollutants or catalyze reactions at a much faster rate, thus reducing energy consumption during degradation or helps in preventing release of contaminants. The nanosize of the particles also make it possible to reach otherwise inaccessible areas and hence promote in-situ remediation rather than ex-situ remediation. The ability of the nanoparticles to be coated with various ligands and control of surface area to volume ratio by changing the shape of the nanoparticles enables the design of sensors with high selectivity, sensitivity and specificity.

Structural, Optical and Multiferroic Properties of BiFeO3 Nanoparticles Synthesized by Soft Chemical Route

Abstract: BiFeO3 nanoparticles were prepared via a soft chemical method using citric acid and tartaric acid routes followed by calcination at low temperature. Structural characterization showed remarkably different conditions for pure phase formation from both routes. The tartaric acid route was effective in obtaining pure phase BiFeO3 nanoparticles while citric acid route required leaching in dilute nitric acid to remove impurity phases. Further optical, magnetic, and dielectric characterizations of pure phase BiFeO3 nanoparticles obtained by tartaric acid route were done. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy confirmed the distorted rhombohedral structure of BiFeO3 nanoparticles. The average crystallite size of BiFeO3 nanoparticles was found to vary in the range 30–50 nm. Fourier Transformed Infrared spectra of BiFeO3 samples calcined at different temperatures were studied in order to analyze various bond formations in the samples. UV-Visible diffuse absorption showed that BFO nanoparticles strongly absorb visible light in the wavelength region of 400–580 nm with absorption cut-off wavelength of 571 nm. The band gap of BiFeO3 nanoparticles was found to be 2.17 eV as calculated from absorption coefficient spectra. Magnetic measurement showed saturated hysteresis loop indicating ferromagnetic behavior of BiFeO3 nanoparticles at room temperature. Temperature dependent dielectric constant showed anomaly well below the antiferromagnetic Neel temperature indicating decrease in antiferromagnetic Neel temperature of BiFeO3 nanoparticles.

Stylometric Analysis for Authorship Attribution on Twitter

Abstract: Authorship Attribution (AA), the science of inferring an author for a given piece of text based on its characteristics is a problem with a long history. In this paper, we study the problem of authorship attribution for forensic purposes and present machine learning techniques and stylometric features of the authors that enable authorship to be determined at rates significantly better than chance for texts of 140 characters or less. This analysis targets the micro-blogging site Twitter, where people share their interests and thoughts in form of short messages called "tweets". Millions of "tweets" are posted daily via this service and the possibility of sharing sensitive and illegitimate text cannot be ruled out. The technique discussed in this paper is a two stage process, where in the first stage, stylometric information is extracted from the collected dataset and in the second stage different classification algorithms are trained to predict authors of unseen text. The effort is towards maximizing the accuracy of predictions with optimum amount of data and users under consideration.

Identification and ranking of critical success factors for BOT projects in India

Abstract: Purpose – The study aims to identify and rank the critical success factors (CSFs) for BOT projects in India. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted based on an extensive literature review and focus group discussions. Through structured questionnaire, a survey was conducted with executives from leading construction, consultancy and government organizations. A total of 150 questionnaires were sent out of which 60 responses were received. Analytical hierarchy process method was used to analyze the data. Findings – Concession agreement, short-construction period, selection procedure of concessionaire, sufficient long-term demand and sufficient net cash inflow emerged as the top five factors critical for the success of the BOT projects in India. Practical implications – The identified CSFs should influence the policy development towards BOT projects and are expected to enhance the success rate of these projects. Originality/value – The study has made much-needed contribution to the extant litera...

Cardioprotective Role of Syzygium cumini Against Glucose-Induced Oxidative Stress in H9C2 Cardiac Myocytes

Abstract: Diabetic patients are known to have an independent risk of cardiomyopathy. Hyperglycemia leads to upregulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that may contribute to diabetic cardiomyopathy. Thus, agents that suppress glucose-induced intracellular ROS levels can have therapeutic potential against diabetic cardiomyopathy. Syzygium cumini is well known for its anti-diabetic potential, but its cardioprotective properties have not been evaluated yet. The aim of the present study is to analyze cardioprotective properties of methanolic seed extract (MSE) of S. cumini in diabetic in vitro conditions. ROS scavenging activity of MSE was studied in glucose-stressed H9C2 cardiac myoblasts after optimizing the safe dose of glucose and MSE by 3-(4,5-dimethyl-thiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide. 2′,7′-dichlorfluorescein diacetate staining and Fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis confirmed the suppression of ROS production by MSE in glucose-induced cells. The intracellular NO and H2O2 radical–scavenging activity of MSE was found to be significantly high in glucose-induced cells. Exposure of glucose-stressed H9C2 cells to MSE showed decline in the activity of catalase and superoxide dismutase enzymes and collagen content. 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole, propidium iodide and 10-N-nonyl-3,6-bis (dimethylamino) acridine staining revealed that MSE protects myocardial cells from glucose-induced stress. Taken together, our findings revealed that the well-known anti-diabetic S. cumini can also protect the cardiac cells from glucose-induced stress.

Structural, vibrational, optical and magnetic properties of sol–gel derived Nd doped ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract: Nd doped ZnO (Zn1-xNdxO, x = 0.0, 0.03, 0.06 and 0.10) nanoparticles were prepared by sol–gel method. Phase identification and effect of Nd ions substitution in ZnO lattice were confirmed by Rietveld analysis of XRD patterns. UV–Visible absorption spectra of pure and Nd doped ZnO nanoparticles showed the variation of the band gap in the range of 3.31–3.26 eV. The FTIR analysis of pure and Nd doped ZnO nanoparticles exhibited similar patterns in Zn/Nd–O bond length as obtained from the Rietveld refinement. Raman analysis confirmed the formation of a wurtzite structure wherein the local structure of ZnO nanoparticles is distorted due to Nd substitution. Magnetization-magnetic field hysteresis curves for pure and Nd doped ZnO nanoparticles revealed diamagnetic and paramagnetic behaviour, respectively. The paramagnetic behaviour of doped ZnO nanoparticles increased with increasing Nd concentration. However, the weak ferromagnetic behaviour of doped ZnO nanoparticles is observed after subtracting paramagnetic components, whereas the ferromagnetic behavior increased up to x = 0.06 samples, which further declined for x = 0.10 sample due to competition between paramagnetic and ferromagnetic ordering. The reduction in the ferromagnetic behavior for x = 0.10 sample indicates that the solubility limit of Nd atoms in ZnO lattice has been reached and paramagnetically coupled Nd atoms increased due to the increasing secondary phases.

Surface plasmon resonance based fiber optic sensor with double resonance dips

Abstract: A surface plasmon resonance based fiber optic sensor with bilayers of ITO–Au coated on the core of the optical fiber is presented and theoretically analyzed. The proposed sensor possesses high sensitivity with two resonance dips, one in the visible and other in the near infrared region of spectrum. With optimized values of thicknesses of ITO and Au layers to be 100 nm and 35 nm respectively, the highly sensitive SPR sensor has been shown to have 1929 nm/RIU and 929 nm/RIU sensitivities for left and right resonance dips respectively.

Entanglement sudden death and birth in qubit---qutrit systems under Dzyaloshinskii---Moriya interaction

Abstract: We study entanglement dynamics of qubit---qutrit pair under Dzyaloshinskii---Moriya (DM) interaction. The qubit---qutrit pair acts as a closed system and one external qubit serve as the environment for the pair. The external qubit interact with qubit of closed system via DM interaction. This interaction frequently kills the entanglement between qubit---qutrit pair, which is also periodically recovered. On the other hand two parameter class of state of qubit---qutrit pair also affected by DM interaction and one parameter class of state remains unaffected. The frequency of occurrence of entanglement sudden death and entanglement sudden birth in two parameter class of state is half than qubit---qutrit pure state. We used our quantification of entanglement as negativity measure.

Optical Character Recognition for Hindi Language Using a Neural-network Approach

Abstract: Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India, with more than 300 million speakers. As there is no separation between the characters of texts written in Hindi as there is in English, the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems developed for the Hindi language carry a very poor recognition rate. In this paper we propose an OCR for printed Hindi text in Devanagari script, using Artificial Neural Network (ANN), which improves its efficiency. One of the major reasons for the poor recognition rate is error in character segmentation. The presence of touching characters in the scanned documents further complicates the segmentation process, creating a major problem when designing an effective character segmentation technique. Preprocessing, character segmentation, feature extraction, and finally, classification and recognition are the major steps which are followed by a general OCR. The preprocessing tasks considered in the paper are conversion of gray scaled images to binary images, image rectification, and segmentation of the documents textual contents into paragraphs, lines, words, and then at the level of basic symbols. The basic symbols, obtained as the fundamental unit from the segmentation process, are recognized by the neural classifier. In this work, three feature extraction techniques-: histogram of projection based on mean distance, histogram of projection based on pixel value, and vertical zero crossing, have been used to improve the rate of recognition. These feature extraction techniques are powerful enough to extract features of even distorted characters/symbols. For development of the neural classifier, a back-propagation neural network with two hidden layers is used. The classifier is trained and tested for printed Hindi texts. A performance of approximately 90% correct recognition rate is achieved.

Strong terahertz radiation generation by beating of extra-ordinary mode lasers in a rippled density magnetized plasma

Abstract: A scheme of terahertz radiation generation is proposed by beating of two extra-ordinary lasers having frequencies and wave numbers and wave number (k1 − k2 + q) with a wave number mismatch factor q which is introduced by the periodicity of plasma density ripples. In this process, the lasers exert a beat ponderomotive force on plasma electrons and impart them an oscillatory velocity with both transverse and longitudinal components in the presence of transverse static magnetic field. The oscillatory velocity couples with density ripples and produces a nonlinear current that resonantly excites the terahertz radiation. Effects of periodicity of density ripples and applied magnetic field are analyzed for strong THz radiation generation. The terahertz radiation generation efficiency is found to be directly proportional to the square of density ripple amplitude and rises with the magnetic field strength. With the optimization of these parameters, the efficiency ~10−3 is achieved in the present scheme. The frequency and power of generated THz radiation can be better tuned with the help of parameters like density ripple amplitude, periodicity and applied magnetic field strength in the present scheme.

Trust and Reliability Based Scheduling Algorithm for Cloud IaaS

Abstract: Trust Models are used to enhance secure and reliable scheduling in Distributed, Grid and Cloud environment. Trust models that are being proposed or implemented in Distributed and Grid environment, does not fully fit in cloud computing environment. Since the parameters that have being taken into consideration in these trust models, does not fit in the cloud Infrastructure As A Service, a suitable trust model is proposed based on the existing model that is suitable for trust value management for the cloud IaaS parameters. Based on the above achieved trust values, a scheduling algorithm is also proposed that may further enhance the QOS of services been provided to the users.

Third-Order Quadrature Oscillator Circuit with Current and Voltage Outputs

Abstract: The paper presents a new quadrature oscillator of third order which can provide four quadrature current outputs and two quadrature voltage outputs. The new circuit employs three differential voltage current conveyors and six passive components, most of which are in grounded form. Circuit operation at high frequencies is verified along with nonideality and parasitic study. The circuit enhancement for generation of four phase clock waveforms is also given. The proposed circuit is a novel addition to the oscillator family.

Non-intrusive speech quality assessment using several combinations of auditory features

Abstract: Quality estimation of speech is essential for monitoring and maintenance of the quality of service at different nodes of modern telecommunication networks. It is also required in the selection of codecs in speech communication systems. There is no requirement of the original clean speech signal as a reference in non-intrusive speech quality evaluation, and thus it is of importance in evaluating the quality of speech at any node of the communication network. In this paper, non-intrusive speech quality assessment of narrowband speech is done by Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) training using several combinations of auditory perception and speech production features, which include principal components of Lyon's auditory model features, MFCC, LSF and their first and second differences. Results are obtained and compared for several combinations of auditory features for three sets of databases. The results are also compared with ITU-T Recommendation P.563 for non-intrusive speech quality assessment. It is found that many combinations of these feature sets outperform the ITU-T P.563 Recommendation under the test conditions.

Nanocomposite blend gel polymer electrolyte for proton battery application

Abstract: A proton-conducting nanocomposite gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) system, [35{(25 poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) + 75 poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVdF-HFP)) + xSiO2} + 65{1 M NH4SCN in ethylene carbonate (EC) + propylene carbonate (PC)}], where x = 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, has been reported. The free standing films of the gel electrolyte are obtained by solution cast technique. Films exhibit an amorphous and porous structure as observed from X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies. Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry (FTIR) studies indicate ion–filler–polymer interactions in the nanocomposite blend GPE. The room temperature ionic conductivity of the gel electrolyte has been measured with different silica concentrations. The maximum ionic conductivity at room temperature has been observed as 4.3 × 10−3 S cm−1 with 2 wt.% of SiO2 dispersion. The temperature dependence of ionic conductivity shows a typical Vogel-Tamman-Fulcher (VTF) behavior. The electrochemical potential window of the nanocomposite GPE film has been observed between −1.6 V and 1.6 V. The optimized composition of the gel electrolyte has been used to fabricate a proton battery with Zn/ZnSO4·7H2O anode and PbO2/V2O5 cathode. The open circuit voltage (OCV) of the battery has been obtained as 1.55 V. The highest energy density of the cell has been obtained as 6.11 Wh kg−1 for low current drain. The battery shows rechargeability up to 3 cycles and thereafter, its discharge capacity fades away substantially.