Kuvempu University

About: Kuvempu University is a education organization based out in Shimoga, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Cyclic voltammetry & Carbon paste electrode. The organization has 1575 authors who have published 2210 publications receiving 39755 citations. The organization is also known as: KU.

Glutaraldehyde-crosslinked chitosan beads for controlled release of diclofenac sodium

Abstract: An inexpensive and simple method was adopted for the preparation of chitosan beads, crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (GA), for the controlled release of diclofenac sodium (DS). The beads were prepared by varying the experimental conditions such as pH, temperature, and extent of crosslinking. The absence of any chemical interaction among drug, polymer, and the crosslinking agent was confirmed by FTIR and thermal analysis. The beads were characterized by microscopy, which indicated that the particles were in the size range of 500–700 μm and SEM studies revealed smooth surface and spherical shape of beads. The beads produced at higher temperature and extended exposure to GA exhibited lower drug content, whereas increased drug loading resulted in enhanced drug release. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 211–217, 2007

Three dimensional flow of Maxwell fluid with suspended nanoparticles past a bidirectional porous stretching surface with thermal radiation

Abstract: This article concerned with the three-dimensional flow fills the porous space bounded by a bidirectional stretching sheet with non-linear thermal radiation and heat source/sink. Maxwell fluid model is accounted as a working liquid. The imposed conditions for temperature and nanoparticle concentration are convective type. The self-similar forms of equations are obtained by the implementation of similarity variables. The solutions are computed via shooting algorithm with fourth-fifth-order Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg procedure. Comparison of obtained results with the known numerical solution is made and examined an excellent agreement. It is noted that the role of Brownian motion in temperature and heat transfer rate is significant. The results reveal that concentration of nanoparticles and temperature are decreased with an enhancement in Deborah number.

A pathway map of prolactin signaling

Abstract: Prolactin (PRL) is a pleiotropic polypeptide hormone secreted primarily by the lactotrophic cells of anterior pituitary gland in vertebrates (Freeman et al. 2000). This hormone family includes placental lactogen (PL) and growth hormone (GH) (Corbacho et al. 2002). Prolactin plays a major role in lactation and reproduction and has been shown to have a multitude of effects relating to growth, development, metabolism, immunoregulation and protection (Ben-Jonathan et al. 2006). The prolactin signaling pathway is initiated by the binding of prolactin with the prolactin receptor (PRLR), a member of class I cytokine receptor superfamily (Binart et al. 2000), which is expressed in a variety of tissues. The PRLR comprises of an extracellular ligand binding domain, a transmembrane domain and an intracellular domain. The PRLR lacks intrinsic kinase activity and transduces signal through kinases that interact with its cytoplasmic tail. Three constitutively active variants of the receptor have been reported in humans (Goffin et al. 2010). Though the signaling reactions downstream of the longest isoform of prolactin receptor have been well established, little is known about prolactin signaling initiated by six other isoforms (Bouilly et al. 2011). Studies also indicate that binding affinity of the human prolactin receptor to nonhuman prolactin is lower than human prolactin (Utama et al. 2009). The prolactin receptor also binds to hPL and hGH leading to the activation of downstream pathways. However, we have not considered these reactions in the current study. This study reports only those reactions, which occur upon stimulation of prolactin receptor with prolactin, based on the criteria described previously (Nanjappa et al. 2011). Availability of signaling pathway information is useful to the biomedical research community, especially for systems biology approaches. Considering this, we have developed ‘NetPath’ as a resource of ligand-receptor specific signal transduction pathways (Kandasamy et al. 2010). As a part of this, we have carried out manual annotation of available information from the published literature for ligand-receptor signaling pathways (Raju et al. 2011a; Nanjappa et al. 2011; Telikicherla et al. 2011; Goel et al. 2012). Similarly, in this study, we enriched publicly available information pertaining to prolactin-prolactin receptor dependent signaling pathways and also generated a graphic map depicting the prolactin signaling pathway.

Structural, optical and electrical properties of zinc incorporated copper oxide nanoparticles: doping effect of Zn

Abstract: The present paper demonstrates the effect of Zn ion doping on structural, electrical and optical properties of monoclinic CuO nanoparticles prepared via microwave combustion method. The crystal structure, optical and electrical properties of synthesized CuO and Zn-doped CuO samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction study, field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction study, UV–Visible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and photoconductivity technique. The XRD values show that the crystalline size of Zn-doped CuO nanoparticles was varied with Zn concentration and also it depends on the micro-strain and dislocation density of CuO lattice. FE-SEM and TEM images indicated that the synthesized samples are of the cube and rod-like structures in nature. The band gap of CuO nanoparticles has been calculated using Tauc’s plot and the result showed that the incorporation of Zn has decreased the bandgap of CuO. The I–V characterization study was performed to determine the electrical property of CuO and Zn-doped CuO films. From the results, it is observed that the photocurrent of CuO and Zn-doped CuO films is found to be greater in UV-light as compared to dark.