Quantum dots (3–4 nm) of Zn1− x Cd x S (both free of Mn2+ and with Mn2+ incorporated) were synthesized through a novel solvothermal-microwave irradiation technique. Detailed structural analysis of the Zn1− x Cd x S and Zn1− x Cd x S:Mn2+ (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1) materials was carried out using powder X-ray diffraction technique. For all the compositions, the crystallite size was controlled to less than 1.5 nm. The optical energy gap for Zn1− x Cd (...) x S was found to vary from 3.878 to 2.519 eV and for Zn1−x Cd x S:Mn2+ it varies from 3.830 to 2.442 eV when x is increased from 0 to 1. Overall, the optical energy gap could be tuned from a minimum of 2.442 eV to a maximum of 3.878 eV. DC conductivity analysis (from 40°C to 150°C) and electrical energy gap analysis for all the compositions were also performed. The dc conductivity for Zn1− x Cd x S solid solutions varies from 0.3840 × 10−10 to 8.7782 × 10−10 mho/m at 150°C and for Zn1− x Cd x S:Mn2+ it varies from 0.5751 × 10−10 to 9.8078 × 10−10 mho /m at 150°C (for x = 0 to x = 1). The method of synthesis and the results observed in this investigation may assist in the fabrication of optical devices when the required operational performance falls under the range observed in the study. (shrink)

This article examines the ways in which ideologies of aspiration, inclusion, and women’s empowerment associated with India’s globalizing knowledge economy are re-framed by young women workers in a small-town business-process outsourcing center two hours outside of Bangalore. Drawing on forty in-depth interviews, I show that, in contrast to their managers’ expectations of individualized work aspirations, women workers draw on both individualistic and domestically embedded articulations of the future in a formulation I call “flexible aspirations.” In articulating flexible aspirations, they draw (...) both on the gendered language of neoliberal self-improvement for the global economy and on the nationalist ideal of rural middle-class feminine domesticity. While insisting that the future is uncertain, young women use flexible aspirations as a symbolic resource to distinguish themselves from both old-fashioned village housewives and promiscuous urban call center girls. I briefly compare these flexible aspirations to young men workers’ strategic articulations of aspiration, which, rather than relinquishing hopes to an unpredictable future, adjust plans to fit known social limitations. This article, drawing on feminist interpretations of Bourdieu, extends the literature on the Indian middle classes by analyzing young women’s aspirations in non-elite social locations. It builds on this feminist scholarship by highlighting ways in which young women use articulations of flexible aspiration as a mode of gendered class distinction. (shrink)

The socio-ethical concerns regarding exploitation in commercial surrogacy are premised on asymmetric vulnerability and the commercialization of women’s reproductive capacity to suit individualistic motives. In examining the exploitation argument, this article reviews the social contract theory that describes an individual as an ‘economic man’ with moral and/or political motivations to satisfy individual desires. This study considers the critique by feminists, who argue that patriarchal and medical control prevails in the surrogacy contracts. It also explores the exploitative dynamics amongst actors in (...) the light of Baier’s conceptualization of trust and human relationship, within which both justice and exploitation thrive, and Foucault’s concept of bio-power. Drawing on these concepts, this paper aims to investigate the manifestations of exploitation in commercial surrogacy in the context of trust, power and experiences of actors, using a case study of one clinic in India. The actors’ experiences are evaluated at different stages of the surrogacy process: recruitment, medical procedures, living in the surrogate home, bonding with the child and amongst actors, financial dealings, relinquishment and post-relinquishment. (shrink)

A variety of legal documents are increasingly being made available in electronic format. Automatic Information Search and Retrieval algorithms play a key role in enabling efficient access to such digitized documents. Although keyword-based search is the traditional method used for text retrieval, they perform poorly when literal term matching is done for query processing, due to synonymy and ambivalence of words. To overcome these drawbacks, an ontological framework to enhance the user’s query for retrieval of truly relevant legal judgments has (...) been proposed in this paper. Ontologies ensure efficient retrieval by enabling inferences based on domain knowledge, which is gathered during the construction of the knowledge base. Empirical results demonstrate that ontology-based searches generate significantly better results than traditional search methods. (shrink)

Legal judgments are complex in nature and hence a brief summary of the judgment, known as a headnote , is generated by experts to enable quick perusal. Headnote generation is a time consuming process and there have been attempts made at automating the process. The difficulty in interpreting such automatically generated summaries is that they are not coherent and do not convey the relative relevance of the various components of the judgment. A legal judgment can be segmented into coherent chunks (...) based on the rhetorical roles played by the sentences. In this paper, a comprehensive system is proposed for labeling sentences with their rhetorical roles and extracting structured head notes automatically from legal judgments. An annotated data set was created with the help of legal experts and used as training data. A machine learning technique, Conditional Random Field, is applied to perform document segmentation by identifying the rhetorical roles. The present work also describes the application of probabilistic models for the extraction of key sentences and composing the relevant chunks in the form of a headnote. The understanding of basic structures and distinct segments is shown to improve the final presentation of the summary. Moreover, by adding simple additional features the system can be extended to other legal sub-domains. The proposed system has been empirically evaluated and found to be highly effective on both the segmentation and summarization tasks. The final summary generated with underlying rhetorical roles improves the readability and efficiency of the system. (shrink)

Inequalities, ineffective governance, unclear surrogacy regulations and unethical practices make India an ideal environment for global injustice in the process of commercial surrogacy. This article aims to apply the ‘capabilities approach’ to find possibilities of global justice through human fellowship in the context of commercial surrogacy. I draw primarily on my research findings supplemented by other relevant empirical research and documentary films on surrogacy. The paper reveals inequalities and inadequate basic entitlements among surrogate mothers as a consequence of which they (...) are engaged in unjust contracts. Their limited entitlements also limit their opportunities to engage in enriching goals. It is the role of the state to provide all its citizens with basic entitlements and protect their basic human rights. Individuals in India evading their basic duty also contribute to the existing inequalities. Individual responsibilities of the medical practitioners and the intended parents are in question here as they are more inclined towards self-interest rather than commitment towards human fellowship. At the global level, the injustice in transnational commercial surrogacy practices in developing countries calls for an international declaration of women and child rights in third party reproduction with a normative vision of mutual fellowship and human dignity. (shrink)

Megastable chaotic systems are somehow the newest in the family of special chaotic systems. In this paper, a new megastable two-dimensional system is proposed. In this system, coexisting attractors are in some islands, interestingly covered by megalimit cycles. The introduced two-dimensional system has no defined equilibrium point. However, it seems that the origin plays the role of an unstable equilibrium point. Therefore, the attractors are determined as hidden attractors. Adding a forcing term to the system, we can obtain chaotic solutions (...) and coexisting strange attractors. Moreover, the effect of three different values of the forcing term’s amplitude is studied. The dynamical properties of the designed system are investigated using attractor plots, bifurcation diagrams, and Lyapunov Exponents diagram. Phase portraits of the novel megastable oscillator are presented by FPGA design. Xilinx system generator block diagrams of the proposed system and trigonometric functions are also presented. (shrink)

The problem of finite-time stability of switched genetic regulatory networks with time-varying delays via Wirtinger’s integral inequality is addressed in this study. A novel Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional is proposed to capture the dynamical characteristic of GRNs. Using Wirtinger’s integral inequality, reciprocally convex combination technique and the average dwell time method conditions in the form of linear matrix inequalities are established for finite-time stability of switched GRNs. The applicability of the developed finite-time stability conditions is validated by numerical results.

Our access to computer-generated worlds changes the way we feel, how we think, and how we solve problems. In this review, we explore the utility of different types of virtual reality, immersive or non-immersive, for providing controllable, safe environments that enable individual training, neurorehabilitation, or even replacement of lost functions. The neurobiological effects of virtual reality on neuronal plasticity have been shown to result in increased cortical gray matter volumes, higher concentration of electroencephalographic beta-waves, and enhanced cognitive performance. Clinical application (...) of virtual reality is aided by innovative brain-computer interfaces, which allow direct tapping into the electric activity generated by different brain cortical areas for precise voluntary control of connected robotic devices. Virtual reality is also valuable to healthy individuals as a narrative medium for redesigning their individual stories in an integrative process of self-improvement and personal development. Future upgrades of virtual reality-based technologies promise to help humans transcend the limitations of their biological bodies and augment their capacity to mold physical reality to better meet the needs of a globalized world. (shrink)

Brain tumor classification plays a niche role in medical prognosis and effective treatment process. We have proposed a combined feature and image-based classifier for brain tumor image classification in this study. Carious deep neural network and deep convolutional neural networks -based architectures are proposed for image classification, namely, actual image feature-based classifier, segmented image feature-based classifier, actual and segmented image feature-based classifier, actual image-based classifier, segmented image-based classifier, actual and segmented image-based classifier, and finally, CFIC. The Kaggle Brain Tumor Detection (...) 2020 dataset has been used to train and test the proposed classifiers. Among the various classifiers proposed, the CFIC performs better than all other proposed methods. The proposed CFIC method gives significantly better results in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy with 98.86, 97.14, and 98.97%, respectively, compared with the existing classification methods. (shrink)

Review of Sheela Saravanan's 2018 book .

In this study a combination of computer tools for coupling and virtual screening is detailed, in 108 active molecules and 3620 decoys to find stabilizers for G quadruplex. To have more precise results, combinations of coupling programs with fifteen energy scoring functions were applied. The validation and evaluation of the metrics was done with the CompScore genetic algorithm. The results showed an increase in BEDROC and EF of 50% compared to other strategies, as well as reflecting early recognition of active (...) molecules. From these results it is possible to work with the molecules that showed a good early recognition and evaluate their effect as G4 stabilizers. This ensures more efficient and accurate results in the preclinical stage for the development of anticancer drugs. Keywords: Enrichment metrics; telomere; G quadruplex ; CompScore. References [1]M. Porru, P. Zizza, M. Franceschin, C. Leonetti and A. Biroccio. «EMICORON: A multi-targeting G4 ligand with a promising preclinical profile» 2017. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - General Subjects, 1861, 1362–1370. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-018-0836-6. [2]K. Tomita. «How long does telomerase extend telomeres? Regulation of telomerase release and telomere length homeostasis». Current Genetics, 64, 1177–1181. 2018. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbagen. 2016.11.010. [3]M. Jafri, S. Ansari, M. Alqahtani and J. Shay. «Roles of telomeres and telomerase in cancer, and advances in telomerase-targeted therapies. Genome Medicine., 2016. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19020482. [4]J. Huppert and S. Balasubramanian. «G-quadruplexes in promoters throughout the human genome». 35, 406–413. 2007. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbapap.2017.06.012. [5]S. Joy, Vijayakumar, S. Choi and H. Sunhye. «Role of computer-aided drug design in modern drug discovery». Archives of Pharmacal Research. 2015. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12272-015-0640-5. [6]S. Asamitsu, S. Obata, Z. Yu, T. Bando and H. Sugiyama. «Recent Progress of Targeted G-Quadruplex-Preferred Ligands Toward Cancer Therapy». Molecules, 24, 429. 2019. [En línea]. Available: https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24030429. [7]R. Monsen and J. Trent. «Biochimie G-quadruplex virtual drug screening : A review». Biochimie, 152, 134–148. 2018. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1039/c9cc06748e. [8]J. Beauvarlet, P. Bensadoun, E. Darbo, G. Labrunie, E. Richard, I. Draskovic and M. Djavaheri-mergny. «Modulation of the ATM / autophagy pathway by a G-quadruplex ligand tips the balance between senescence and apoptosis in cancer cells». 1–18. 2019. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz095. [9].Z. Crees, J. Girard, Z. Rios, G. Botting, K. Harrington and C. Shearrow. « Oligonucleotides and G-quadruplex stabilizers: targeting telomeres and telomerase in cancer therapy».2014. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.2174/1381612820666140630100702. [10].M. Meier, A. Moya-torres, N. Krahn, M. Mcdougall, L. Orriss, E. Mcrae and T. Patel. «Structure and hydrodynamics of a DNA Gquadruplex with a cytosine bulge»., 1–13. 2018. [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky307. (shrink)