Anti-proliferative and proteasome inhibitory activity of Murraya koenigii leaf extract in human cancer cell lines

Proteasome inhibition has been demonstrated to be a promising strategy for cancer therapy. The chymotrypsin-like activity of the 20S catalytic unit of the 26S proteasome is known to be critical for cancer cell survival. Inhibition of the proteasomal activity leads to tumor cell death. Murraya koenigii Spreng a medically important herb of Asian origin, is rich in phenolic content, and dietary polyphenols are known to act as proteasome inhibitors. This study was aimed at testing the cytotoxic and proteasomal inhibitory potential of M. koenigii leaf extract in four different human cell lines namely; colon, prostate, liver and cervical cancer. The cytotoxicity of M. koenigii leaf extract was tested by the MTT assay, inhibition of growth by colony formation assay and inhibition of the chymotrypsin-like (Ch-L) activity of the 26S proteasome using a specific fluorogenic substrate by fluorometry. There was a dose-dependent decrease in cell viability/proliferation with M. koenigii leaf extract treatment in all the cell lines tested. In line with the cell viability data there was a dose-dependent decrease in growth as observed by decreased colony formation in the cell lines tested. M. koenigii extract decreased the Ch-L activity of the endogenous proteasome in both intact cells and cell extracts in all the four cancer cell lines. Our results suggest that the proteasome is a target for M. koenigii leaf extract in various cancer cell lines and that inhibition of the proteasome may be one of the mechanisms responsible for its anticancer potential

Role of Self-Trapped Excitons in the Broadband Emission of Lead-Free Perovskite-Inspired Cu2AgBiI6

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The promise of operational stability in pnictogen-based perovskite-inspired solar cells †

Perovskite-inspired materials (PIMs) are gaining increasing attention among emerging photovoltaic absorbers due to their inherent air stability and low-toxicity potential. However, operational stability, the Achilles' heel of all emerging photovoltaics, has been largely overlooked in PIMs research so far, making it difficult to forecast their practical use in real-world applications. In this work, we analyse the operational stability of a promising new PIM composition, CsMAFA-Sb:Bi, generated through the antimony : bismuth co-alloying of a triple cation vacancy-ordered antimony-based PIM. Through an in-depth theoretical and experimental investigation, we demonstrate that the co-alloying induces local structural changes that lead to enhanced microstructure, reduced trap-assisted recombination, and increased solar cell power conversion efficiency (PCE), with the highest value being 3.05%. Accelerated aging tests according to ISOS L-1 and L-2 protocols highlight the crucial role of co-alloying in enhancing stability. Specifically, maximum power point tracking at 85 °C shows a projected T80 lifetime of 275 hours for CsMAFA-Sb:Bi devices, which has never been achieved not only for any other PIM-based device but also for high-efficiency technologies, such as lead halide perovskite solar cells with similar device constituents. This work encourages future studies on PIM-based photovoltaics for their potential operational stability, with the goal of reducing the performance gap with established technologies

Learning audio features for genre classification with deep belief networks

Feature extraction is a crucial part of many music information retrieval(MIR) tasks. In this project, I present an end to end deep neural network that extract the features for a given audio sample, performs genre classification. The feature extraction is based on Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFTs) of the audio. The extracted features are used to train over a Deep Belief Network (DBN). A DBN is built out of multiple layers of Randomized Boltzmann Machines (RBMs), which makes the system a fully connected neural network. The same network is used for testing with a softmax layer at the end which serves as the classifier. This entire task of genre classification has been done with the Tzanetakis dataset and yielded a test accuracy of 74.6%.Graduat

A Study on Site Specific Ground Response Analysis in Bihar

Abstract The influence of local soil conditions on earthquake earthquakes is assessed using seismic site response analysis. Earthquakes are natural phenomena that have claimed the lives and property of millions of people over the centuries. As a result, classifying these strong ground motions, predicting their damage potential, and suggesting mitigation measures become critical. The present study area is Kanti (Muzaffarpur), which is located in north Bihar and covers a geographical area of 3,132 square kilometres and lies between North Latitude 250 54’00”-260 23’00” and East Longitude 84053’00”- 85045’00” which falls in seismic zone IV of IS 1893: 2016. The geotechnical characterization of the site has been investigated using borehole data collected from various locations. The bedrock depth could not be determined due to a lack of deep boreholes, but traces of rock found in the collected data suggest rock outcrops in this region. According to geotechnical characterization, the soil profile in the region is dominated by silty sands, clayey silts, and poorly graded soils. DEEPSOIL software was used to estimate peak ground acceleration. Peak ground acceleration has been estimated using equivalent linear analysis with soil layer depth, bulk density, shear wave velocities, and damping as inputs.</jats:p

Comments on "An Analog 2-D DCT Processor"

In the paper "An analog 2-D DCT processor," authors have presented a row-column method for computing 2-D discrete cosine transform (DCT). They have reported minimum peak signal-to-noise ratios (PSNR) 40.6 dB and 31.4 dB for 4-point and 8-point DCT, respectively. The main objective of this comment letter is to point out that those PSNR values are not correctly calculated. The actual minimum PSNR values are shown to be 24.7 dB and 22.7 dB for 4-point and 8-point DCT, respectively. Similarly, maximum PSNR values are corrected in this letter