Comparative Studies on the Butterfly Diversity and Species Richness in Selected Agricultural Fields in Tamil Nadu

Butterflies are valued components of grassland ecosystems both for their aesthetic nature and they provide as pollinators of the ecosystem services. Loss and fragmentation of native habitats, along with other disturbances associated with intensive agriculture can have dramatic effects on butterfly communities. The close link between butterflies and their natural environment make them good candidates for use as ecological indicators. Hence an attempt has been made to study the diversity and pollination tendencies of butterflies between organic crop fields and pesticide sprayed crop fields. The research was set out to establish whether organic and conventional farming systems support different levels of pest and non-pest butterflies. In the present study maximum insect abundance and total number of individuals were recorded in organic fields. The study also proved that organic farming practices can help in the population build-up of natural enemies and pollinators. However there was remarkable difference in Shannon index and Simpson index of diversity between organic and chemical fields. Phytophagous insect populations were very low in number in organic farms. Hence organic farming practices may encourage natural enemies' diversity and may not be favourable for pests

CyanoPhyChe: A Database for Physico-Chemical Properties, Structure and Biochemical Pathway Information of Cyanobacterial Proteins

CyanoPhyChe is a user friendly database that one can browse through for physico-chemical properties, structure and biochemical pathway information of cyanobacterial proteins. We downloaded all the protein sequences from the cyanobacterial genome database for calculating the physico-chemical properties, such as molecular weight, net charge of protein, isoelectric point, molar extinction coefficient, canonical variable for solubility, grand average hydropathy, aliphatic index, and number of charged residues. Based on the physico-chemical properties, we provide the polarity, structural stability and probability of a protein entering in to an inclusion body (PEPIB). We used the data generated on physico-chemical properties, structure and biochemical pathway information of all cyanobacterial proteins to construct CyanoPhyChe. The data can be used for optimizing methods of expression and characterization of cyanobacterial proteins. Moreover, the ‘Search’ and data export options provided will be useful for proteome analysis. Secondary structure was predicted for all the cyanobacterial proteins using PSIPRED tool and the data generated is made accessible to researchers working on cyanobacteria. In addition, external links are provided to biological databases such as PDB and KEGG for molecular structure and biochemical pathway information, respectively. External links are also provided to different cyanobacterial databases. CyanoPhyChe can be accessed from the following URL: http://bif.uohyd.ac.in/cpc

A study on service quality in higher education institutions with special reference to western Tamilnadu

Service quality is regarded as the managerial efforts in facilitating activities of acquiring, creating, storing, sharing, diffusing, developing, and deploying service by individuals and groups. The Learned people and Higher Educational Institutions are considered as the service society, service hub respectively. Academic sector has significant opportunities to apply Service quality practices to support its education, research and also facilitate the nation in achieving the set of objectives. Service quality in higher educational institutions provides a set of practices for linking people such as students, teachers, researchers, business, and external entities also link with technology. It also focuses on how institutions can promote strategies and practices that help different actors and practitioners to share, manage and apply new service in Service quality encompasses much more, going beyond the intrinsic service industry of colleges and universities. At present educational are striving very hard to improve their standard, quality and adding more and more value to the services in order to attract quality of students and faculty members. This situation has raised the need to implement the service quality practices in the educational institutions in order to achieve their mission, be competitive, remain innovative, and ensuring the satisfaction of stakeholder’s expectation

UNIVERSAL LOGIC GATES USING FEYNMAN GATE REVERSIBLE LOGIC AND QUANTUM COMPUTING

The demand for high speed, low power dissipation and low cost for design of low-power VLSI, is always required .We have proposed a new design technique using Feynman gate .While the power dissipation increases linearly with advanced version processors, the power density also increases exponentially, because of the ever- shrinking size of the integrated circuits.. Richard P. Feynman he introduces the concept of reversible logic. The main aim of the paper is describing the behaviour of reversible universal gates to build more complicated circuits which can be implemented in ALU

TELMISARTAN AND AZELNIDIPINE QUANTIFICATION EMPLOYING HPLC STRATAGEM; STABILITY INVESTIGATION ON TELMISARTAN AND AZELNIDIPINE

Objective: The focus of our research was to create a fairly sensitive HPLC stratagem for determining telmisartan (TLM) and azelnidipine (AEL) in bulk and tablet types. Methods: Analysis of TLM and AEL was performed on a “C18 Kromasil stationary column (5 µm, 250 mm × 4.6 mm)”. The mobile phase was made of 0.1M NaH2PO4 solution (pH 3.5) and methanol at a comparative volume ratio of 50% each. The analysis of TLM and AEL was isocratic, with the flow velocity adjusted at 1.0 ml/min and indeed, the TLM and AEL analysis was done at 256 nm using a PDA device sensor. TLM and AEL were stressed with acid, peroxide, dry heat, alkali, and sunlight-induced settings. Results: The retention/elution periods for the TLM and AEL were observed at 2.225 min and 3.178 min, respectively. The HPLC stratagem developed have a straight-line relation with relative concentrations in the ranges of 20-60 µg/ml for TLM and 4-12 µg/ml for AEL. The LOQ’s for TLM and AEL were 0.2516 μg/ml and 0.0871 μg/ml, respectively. The validation investigational findings done for TLM and AEL with the established sensitive HPLC stratagem were passed out in conformity with the ICH standards. Conclusion: The established sensitive HPLC stratagem was shown as competent for the quality check of bulk samples of TLM and AEL throughout batch release as well as in the course of TLM and AEL stability investigations

Department of Pathology, Thomas Jefferson University, Identification of conserved gene expression features between murine mammary carcinoma models and human breast tumors.

BACKGROUND: Although numerous mouse models of breast carcinomas have been developed, we do not know the extent to which any faithfully represent clinically significant human phenotypes. To address this need, we characterized mammary tumor gene expression profiles from 13 different murine models using DNA microarrays and compared the resulting data to those from human breast tumors. RESULTS: Unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis showed that six models (TgWAP-Myc, TgMMTV-Neu, TgMMTV-PyMT, TgWAP-Int3, TgWAP-Tag, and TgC3(1)-Tag) yielded tumors with distinctive and homogeneous expression patterns within each strain. However, in each of four other models (TgWAP-T121, TgMMTV-Wnt1, Brca1Co/Co;TgMMTV-Cre;p53+/- and DMBA-induced), tumors with a variety of histologies and expression profiles developed. In many models, similarities to human breast tumors were recognized, including proliferation and human breast tumor subtype signatures. Significantly, tumors of several models displayed characteristics of human basal-like breast tumors, including two models with induced Brca1 deficiencies. Tumors of other murine models shared features and trended towards significance of gene enrichment with human luminal tumors; however, these murine tumors lacked expression of estrogen receptor (ER) and ER-regulated genes. TgMMTV-Neu tumors did not have a significant gene overlap with the human HER2+/ER- subtype and were more similar to human luminal tumors. CONCLUSION: Many of the defining characteristics of human subtypes were conserved among the mouse models. Although no single mouse model recapitulated all the expression features of a given human subtype, these shared expression features provide a common framework for an improved integration of murine mammary tumor models with human breast tumors

Microperforate hymen and labial fusion: an unusual case

Genital tract abnormalities are uncommon, occurring in approximately 7% of female population. Among these cases, hymenal abnormalities are the most frequent, with imperforate hymen occurring in 1 in 2000 girls. Imperforate and microperforate hymen is a congenital disorder of hymenal configuration which does not permit normal menstrual flow. We report a case of 26 year old primigravida at 28 weeks gestation with threatened preterm labor and was incidentally found to have fused labia minor and microperforate hymen. Scope examination through the hymen revealed a normal looking vagina and cervix. Urethral meatus was not made out. She was taken up for elective caesarean section at 37 weeks of gestation with hymenectomy. Intraoperatively, urethral orifice was identified after incising the fused labia minora. A uterine angle fibroid was found, myomectomy done. No uterine anomalies were noted