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Now a days web application plays a vital role from ordering food from a restaurant, ordering any electronic stuff or anything from web apps, watching movies, book a seat for a movie theatre, for study, download pictures from the internet, etc. and MERN stack is one of the most popular JavaScript stacks used for easier and faster deployment of full-stack web application comprising backend, frontend and database components. Travel enthusiasts have always desired for traveling fascinating places and archiving their memorable experiences. Currently, there are a wide range of travel based web applications. This paper aims at exploring features that could be integrated with travel applications for offering customizable user experience. Further, the paper discusses the prevailing drawbacks of the existing travel applications and looks forward for embracing modern features to make travel applications accessible. Currently there’s no simple standalone platform where people can share their travel experiences, receive suggestions for places to travel and recommend travel places to their dear ones. So we came up with an idea to build a full stack web application where folks can share their journey through images and location. That way it won’t be a tedious process anymore to surf the web and head on to travel. Keywords: Augmented Reality, Chatbot, MERN Stack, Web Application

In the last decade, perovskite semiconductors have triggered a revolution in solar cell research. However, critical issues remain concerning the stability of metal-halide perovskites, which need to be overcome to enable a large scale commercialisation of perovskite photovoltaics (PV). While the rather poor environmental stability of these perovskites is usually attributed to their ionic nature rendering them sensitive to moisture and oxygen, the actual contribution of mobile ions to the total degradation loss under different environmental conditions is poorly understood. In this work, we reveal that the initial degradation of perovskite semiconductors is largely the result of mobile ion-induced internal field screening - a phenomenon that has not been previously discussed in relation to the degradation of perovskite solar cells. The increased field screening leads to a decrease in the steady-state power conversion efficiency mainly due to a large reduction in current density, while the efficiency at high scan speeds (>1000 V/s) where the ions are immobilized is much less affected. We also show that interfacial recombination does not increase upon ageing, yet the open-circuit voltage (VOC) decreases as the result of an increase in the mobile ion density upon ageing. Furthermore, similar ionic losses appear under different external stressors, in particular when there are free charges present in the absorber layer. This work reveals a key degradation mechanism, providing new insights into initial device degradation before chemical or extrinsic mechanical device degradation effects manifest, and it highlights the critical role mobile ions play therein.

This work demonstrates a Continuous-Time (CT) Ladder filter using transconductance amplifiers as an approximate delay stage implemented on a large-scale Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) and characterized on an SoC FPAA. We experimentally demonstrate a reprogrammable CT Analog linear-phase filter by utilizing the ladder filter delay element and Vector-Matrix Multiplication (VMM) both compiled on the SoC FPAA. Using the Ladder Filter as a programmable CT delay operation enables a traditionally difficult analog signal operation. This effort extensively models and characterizes the ladder filter delay stage in terms of its transfer function, delay tunability, power requirements, distortion, and SNR. The theoretical development is compared to experimental measurements on an SoC FPAA with programmable ladder filter delay of $2.9\mu \text{s}$ and $4.2\mu \text{s}$ for multiple input frequencies (e.g. 5kHz, 20kHz). In addition, we show that VMMs can compensate the non-idealities found in the ladder filter delay-line operation.

Inverted perovskite solar cells still suffer from significant non-radiative recombination losses at the perovskite surface and across the perovskite/C

Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) replacement therapy could restore vision in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies. We developed a rapid protocol for directly induced RGC (iRGC) differentiation from human stem cells, leveraging overexpression of NGN2. Neuronal morphology and neurite growth were observed within 1 week of induction; characteristic RGC-specific gene expression confirmed identity. Calcium imaging demonstrated γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-induced excitation characteristic of immature RGCs. Single-cell RNA sequencing showed more similarities between iRGCs and early-stage fetal human RGCs than retinal organoid-derived RGCs. Intravitreally transplanted iRGCs survived and migrated into host retinas independent of prior optic nerve trauma, but iRGCs protected host RGCs from neurodegeneration. These data demonstrate rapid iRGC generation in vitro into an immature cell with high similarity to human fetal RGCs and capacity for retinal integration after transplantation and neuroprotective function after optic nerve injury. The simplicity of this system may benefit translational studies on human RGCs.

Funder: Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100005156, Perovskite semiconductors are an attractive option to overcome the limitations of established silicon based photovoltaic (PV) technologies due to their exceptional opto‐electronic properties and their successful integration into multijunction cells. However, the performance of single‐ and multijunction cells is largely limited by significant nonradiative recombination at the perovskite/organic electron transport layer junctions. In this work, the cause of interfacial recombination at the perovskite/C60 interface is revealed via a combination of photoluminescence, photoelectron spectroscopy, and first‐principle numerical simulations. It is found that the most significant contribution to the total C60‐induced recombination loss occurs within the first monolayer of C60, rather than in the bulk of C60 or at the perovskite surface. The experiments show that the C60 molecules act as deep trap states when in direct contact with the perovskite. It is further demonstrated that by reducing the surface coverage of C60, the radiative efficiency of the bare perovskite layer can be retained. The findings of this work pave the way toward overcoming one of the most critical remaining performance losses in perovskite solar cells.

Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated genetic targeting of microglia remains a challenge. Overcoming this hurdle is essential for gene editing in the central nervous system (CNS). Here, we characterized the minimal/native promoter of the

Adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated genetic targeting of microglia remains challenging. Overcoming this hurdle is essential for gene editing in the central nervous system (CNS). Here, we characterized the minimal/native promoter of the HexB gene, which is known to be specifically and stably expressed in the microglia during homeostatic and pathological conditions. Dual reporter and serial deletion assays identified the critical role of the natural 5’ untranslated region (−97 bp related to the first ATG) in driving transcriptional activity of the mouse HexB gene. The native promoter region of mouse, human and monkey HexB located at -135, -134 and -170 bp to the first ATG, respectively. These promoters were highly active and specific in microglia with strong cross-species transcriptional activities, but had no activities in primary astrocytes. In addition, we identified a 135 bp promoter of CD68 gene was also highly active in microglia but not in astrocytes. Considering that HexB is specifically expressed in microglia, not in monocytes/macrophages or other neuronal cells, these data suggest that the newly characterized 134 bp microglia-specific HexB promoter can be an ideal candidate for microglia-targeting AAV gene therapy, which could be developed for HIV eradication in the brain wherein microglia harbor the main HIV reservoirs in the CNS.SummaryIt is hard to overstate the importance of gene therapy that can remove viral genes from human cells. A cure for HIV would mean a lifetime free of treatment for patients who now must maintain a strict regimen of ART indefinitely. In order to develop a cure using AAV delivery, payload DNA must meet the AAV vector size limitations, and the payload genes must be expressed appropriately. Previous studies have identified microglia-specific HexB gene that shows stable expression during neural homeostasis and pathogenesis. Our study identified the essential HexB gene promoter (134 bp) as a strong candidate for AAV gene therapy to specifically target the brain microglia, the main cellular reservoirs of HIV in the central nervous system. Our studies continue to move us closer to identifying target-specific gene therapy for NeuroAIDS.

Background: Polypharmacy and inappropriate prescribing are risk factors for adverse drug reactions, which commonly cause complications in older people. The STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons’ Prescriptions)/START (Screening Tool to Alert Doctors to Right Treatment) criteria are screening tools, which aim to improve prescribing in the elderly. Objectives: The aim was to improve prescribing, using the STOPP/START criteria, for patients aged 65 and above, who were admitted to the Clinical Decisions Unit at University Hospital Lewisham. We focused on the most common prescribing errors in clinical decision unit, an emergency medicine department. Methods: We reviewed all patients aged 65 and above admitted to the Clinical Decisions Unit in September. Data was collected from clinical documentation and archived drug charts. This pilot study of 114 patients revealed the most common prescribing errors, of which 8 were STOPP and 11 were START criteria. A plan–do–study–act methodology was implemented over 1 month, involving presentations, emails and posters. Prescribing patterns were then reviewed over 4 weeks in December in 111 patients. Results: Focusing on the 8 STOPP and 11 START criteria, there was a significant reduction in the proportion of patients with at least one STOPP error (17.5% to 9%, p = 0.04). However, the decrease in the percentage of patients with at least one START error was insignificant (24.6% to 20.7%, p = 0.24). Conclusion: By identifying problematic areas of prescribing and using targeted interventions, the proportion of STOPP errors made in clinical decision unit reduced significantly. This study highlights the prevalence of prescription errors in the clinical decision unit and the impact of using screening tools to reduce incorrect prescribing.

In recent years, programming has witnessed a shift towards using standard libraries as a black box. However, there has not been a synchronous development of tools that can help demonstrate the working of such libraries in general programs, which poses an impediment to improved learning outcomes and makes debugging exasperating. We introduce Eye, an interactive pedagogical tool that visualizes a program's execution as it runs. It demonstrates properties and usage of data structures in a general environment, thereby helping in learning, logical debugging, and code comprehension. Eye provides a comprehensive overview at each stage during run time including the execution stack and the state of data structures. The modular implementation allows for extension to other languages and modification of the graphics as desired. Eye opens up a gateway for CS2 students to more easily understand myriads of programs that are available on online programming websites, lowering the barrier towards self-learning of coding. It expands the scope of visualizing data structures from standard algorithms to general cases, benefiting both teachers as well as programmers who face issues in debugging. Line by line interpreting allows Eye to describe the execution and not only the current state. We also conduct experiments to evaluate the efficacy of Eye for debugging and comprehending a new piece of code. Our findings show that it becomes faster and less frustrating to debug certain problems using this tool, and also makes understanding new code a much more pleasant experience.

Policy Iteration (PI) is a classical family of algorithms to compute an optimal policy for any given Markov Decision Problem (MDP). The basic idea in PI is to begin with some initial policy and to repeatedly update the policy to one from an improving set, until an optimal policy is reached. Different variants of PI result from the (switching) rule used for improvement. An important theoretical question is how many iterations a specified PI variant will take to terminate as a function of the number of states $n$ and the number of actions $k$ in the input MDP. While there has been considerable progress towards upper-bounding this number, there are fewer results on lower bounds. In particular, existing lower bounds primarily focus on the special case of $k = 2$ actions. We devise lower bounds for $k \geq 3$. Our main result is that a particular variant of PI can take $\Omega(k^{n/2})$ iterations to terminate. We also generalise existing constructions on $2$-action MDPs to scale lower bounds by a factor of $k$ for some common deterministic variants of PI, and by $\log(k)$ for corresponding randomised variants., Comment: 8 pages, 3 diagrams, 2 tables. Paper in IEEE CDC 2020

A 27 years old non diabetic, normotensive, female had undergone lower segment caesarean section (LSCS) with tubular ligation. She complained discharge at left side of stitch line after about 5 weeks of operation, and was treated with broad spectrum antibiotics. As she did not improve, first and second debridement was done in January and February 2017 and pyogenic cultures sent were sterile. Later she was advised for Multiple detector computed tomography (MDCT) in March 2017, which revealed accumulations in pre-peritoneal space of urinary bladder posteriorly and reached to anterior wall of uterus. This pus was from multiple sinuses and were sent for mycobacterial cultures which showed growth of MOTT- M.mageritense further identified by MALDI-TOF and supported by molecular technologies. After identification of this Non-tuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM). She was treated for the same and recovered completely after seven months of anti-NTM treatment. This is the first reported case of M. mageritense in skin and soft tissue in India. Literature also reports a few cases around the globe.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a treasure trove of information regarding the location, type and stage of cancer and are being pursued as both a diagnostic target and a means of guiding personalized treatment. Most isolation technologies utilize properties of the CTCs themselves such as surface antigens (e.g., epithelial cell adhesion molecule or EpCAM) or size to separate them from blood cell populations. We present an automated monolithic chip with 128 multiplexed deterministic lateral displacement devices containing ~1.5 million microfabricated features (12 µm–50 µm) used to first deplete red blood cells and platelets. The outputs from these devices are serially integrated with an inertial focusing system to line up all nucleated cells for multi-stage magnetophoresis to remove magnetically-labeled white blood cells. The monolithic CTC-iChip enables debulking of blood samples at 15–20 million cells per second while yielding an output of highly purified CTCs. We quantified the size and EpCAM expression of over 2,500 CTCs from 38 patient samples obtained from breast, prostate, lung cancers, and melanoma. The results show significant heterogeneity between and within single patients. Unbiased, rapid, and automated isolation of CTCs using monolithic CTC-iChip will enable the detailed measurement of their physicochemical and biological properties and their role in metastasis.

This paper presents a low-power built-in self-test system to compensate for mismatch and variations in CMOS IC. The system is designed and compiled on a low-power field programmable analog array (FPAA) fabricated on a 350-nm CMOS process. A second-order bandpass filter is used as a device under test. A set of 12 parallel filter banks are compiled on three different FPAA chips and compensated for local mismatch and variations in the bias current, and mismatch in parasitic and routing capacitances. The bandpass filters are biased in subthreshold regime and the system of 12 parallel filter banks consumes a power of $7.072~\mu \text{W}$ . The proposed tuning algorithm reduces variation in center frequency to 5.07% compared with a variation of 10.16% when they are not tuned, variation in quality factor to 8.52% from 13.86%, and variation in the gain at the center frequency to 3.83% from 21.04%. These values are deviation of the parameters from its mean for the data taken from three different FPAA chips fabricated on the same wafer.

Loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in optic neuropathies results in permanent partial or complete blindness. Myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) transcription factors have been shown to play a pivotal role in neuronal systems, and in particular MEF2A knockout was shown to enhance RGC survival after optic nerve crush injury. Here we expanded these prior data to study bi-allelic, tri-allelic and heterozygous allele deletion. We observed that deletion of all MEF2A, MEF2C, and MEF2D alleles had no effect on RGC survival during development. Our extended experiments suggest that the majority of the neuroprotective effect was conferred by complete deletion of MEF2A but that MEF2D knockout, although not sufficient to increase RGC survival on its own, increased the positive effect of MEF2A knockout. Conversely, MEF2A over-expression in wildtype mice worsened RGC survival after optic nerve crush. Interestingly, MEF2 transcription factors are regulated by post-translational modification, including by calcineurin-catalyzed dephosphorylation of MEF2A Ser-408 known to increase MEF2A-dependent transactivation in neurons. However, neither phospho-mimetic nor phospho-ablative mutation of MEF2A Ser-408 affected the ability of MEF2A to promote RGC deathin vivoafter optic nerve injury. Together these findings demonstrate that MEF2 gene expression opposes RGC survival following axon injury in a complex hierarchy, and further support the hypothesis that loss of or interference with MEF2A expression might be beneficial for RGC neuroprotection in diseases such as glaucoma and other optic neuropathies.

State-of-the-art NLP inference uses enormous neural architectures and models trained for GPU-months, well beyond the reach of most consumers of NLP. This has led to one-size-fits-all public API-based NLP service models by major AI companies, serving large numbers of clients. Neither (hardware deficient) clients nor (heavily subscribed) servers can afford traditional fine tuning. Many clients own little or no labeled data. We initiate a study of adaptation of centralized NLP services to clients, and present one practical and lightweight approach. Each client uses an unsupervised, corpus-based sketch to register to the service. The server uses an auxiliary network to map the sketch to an abstract vector representation, which then informs the main labeling network. When a new client registers with its sketch, it gets immediate accuracy benefits. We demonstrate the success of the proposed architecture using sentiment labeling, NER, and predictive language modeling, Comment: Accepted to Findings of EMNLP, 2020

cAMP signaling is known to be critical in neuronal survival and axon growth. Increasingly the subcellular compartmentation of cAMP signaling has been appreciated, but outside of dendritic synaptic regulation, few cAMP compartments have been defined in terms of molecular composition or function in neurons. Specificity in cAMP signaling is conferred in large part by A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) that localize protein kinase A and other signaling enzymes to discrete intracellular compartments. We now reveal that cAMP signaling within a perinuclear neuronal compartment organized by the large multivalent scaffold protein mAKAPα promotes neuronal survival and axon growth. mAKAPα signalosome function is explored using new molecular tools designed to specifically alter local cAMP levels as studied by live-cell FRET imaging. In addition, enhancement of mAKAPα-associated cAMP signaling by isoform-specific displacement of bound phosphodiesterase is demonstrated to increase retinal ganglion cell survival in vivo in mice of both sexes following optic nerve crush injury. These findings define a novel neuronal compartment that confers cAMP regulation of neuroprotection and axon growth and that may be therapeutically targeted in disease. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT cAMP is a second messenger responsible for the regulation of diverse cellular processes including neuronal neurite extension and survival following injury. Signal transduction by cAMP is highly compartmentalized in large part because of the formation of discrete, localized multimolecular signaling complexes by A-kinase anchoring proteins. Although the concept of cAMP compartmentation is well established, the function and identity of these compartments remain poorly understood in neurons. In this study, we provide evidence for a neuronal perinuclear cAMP compartment organized by the scaffold protein mAKAPα that is necessary and sufficient for the induction of neurite outgrowth in vitro and for the survival of retinal ganglion cells in vivo following optic nerve injury.

Mitochondria coordinate diverse functions within neurites, including signaling events for axonal maintenance, and degeneration. However, less is known about the role of mitochondria in axon development and maturation. Here we find that in maturing retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) in vivo, axonal mitochondria increase in size, number, and total area throughout development. We demonstrate through multiple approaches in vivo that the mechanism underlying these mitochondrial changes are dependent on eye opening and associated neuronal activity, which can be mimicked by brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). We report downstream gene and protein expression changes consistent with mitochondrial biogenesis and energetics pathways, and present evidence that the associated transcripts are localized and translated at mitochondria within axons in an activity-dependent manner. Together these data support a novel model for mitochondrial-localized translation in support of intra-axonal mitochondrial dynamics and axonal maturation.

Retinal ganglion cells and other central nervous system neurons fail to regenerate after injury. Understanding the obstacles to survival and regeneration, and overcoming them, is key to preserving and restoring function. While comparisons in the cellular changes seen in these non-regenerative cells with those that do have intrinsic regenerative ability has yielded many candidate genes for regenerative therapies, complete visual recovery has not yet been achieved. Insights gained from neurodegenerative diseases, like glaucoma, underscore the importance of axonal transport of organelles, mRNA, and effector proteins in injury and disease. Targeting molecular motor networks, and their cargoes, may be necessary for realizing complete axonal regeneration and vision restoration.

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Two stage fusion model comprising three machine learning techniques is used.Emphasis is on adequacy of information given to prediction models.First stage provides future value of statistical parameters helping the later stage.Two stage fusion model helps in decreasing overall prediction error. The paper focuses on the task of predicting future values of stock market index. Two indices namely CNX Nifty and S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex from Indian stock markets are selected for experimental evaluation. Experiments are based on 10years of historical data of these two indices. The predictions are made for 1-10, 15 and 30days in advance. The paper proposes two stage fusion approach involving Support Vector Regression (SVR) in the first stage. The second stage of the fusion approach uses Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Random Forest (RF) and SVR resulting into SVR-ANN, SVR-RF and SVR-SVR fusion prediction models. The prediction performance of these hybrid models is compared with the single stage scenarios where ANN, RF and SVR are used single-handedly. Ten technical indicators are selected as the inputs to each of the prediction models.

Four machine learning algorithms are used for prediction in stock markets.Focus is on data pre-processing to improve the prediction accuracy.Technical indicators are discretised by exploiting the inherent opinion.Prediction accuracy of algorithms increases when discrete data is used. This paper addresses problem of predicting direction of movement of stock and stock price index for Indian stock markets. The study compares four prediction models, Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), random forest and naive-Bayes with two approaches for input to these models. The first approach for input data involves computation of ten technical parameters using stock trading data (open, high, low & close prices) while the second approach focuses on representing these technical parameters as trend deterministic data. Accuracy of each of the prediction models for each of the two input approaches is evaluated. Evaluation is carried out on 10years of historical data from 2003 to 2012 of two stocks namely Reliance Industries and Infosys Ltd. and two stock price indices CNX Nifty and S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex. The experimental results suggest that for the first approach of input data where ten technical parameters are represented as continuous values, random forest outperforms other three prediction models on overall performance. Experimental results also show that the performance of all the prediction models improve when these technical parameters are represented as trend deterministic data.

Date of Conference: 16-19 February 2017 Conference Name: IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical & Health Informatics, BHI 2017 We present a mixed-signal system for extracting hemodynamic parameters in real-time from noisy electrical bioimpedance (EBI) measurements in an energy-efficient manner. The proof-of-concept system consists of floating-gate-based analog signal processing (ASP) electronics implemented on a field programmable analog array (FPAA) chip interfaced with an on-chip low-power microcontroller. Physiological features important for calculating hemodynamic parameters (e.g., heart rate, blood volume, and blood flow) are extracted using the custom signal processing circuitry, which consumes a total power of 209 nW. Testing of the signal processing circuitry has been performed using ∼580 sec of an impedance plethysmography dataset collected from the knee of a subject using a custom analog EBI front-end. Results show the similarities of variations in heart rate, blood volume, and blood flow calculated using features extracted by the ASP circuitry implemented on an FPAA and a MATLAB digital signal processing algorithm.

In this paper we describe the process of mapping researcher information from the Dutch National Academic Research and Collaborations Information System (NARCIS) to the VIVO ontology. Our goal is to use the VIVO ontology to accurately represent these researchers and their organizations, while remaining true to the native language and structure of the Dutch university. To achieve this, we first created an extension ontology to account for differences in the Dutch naming structure and differences in university position description and alignment. Secondly, through the use of language attribute tags, we recorded data in both English and Dutch to achieve better access by both the native Dutch population and the larger English based research community. Finally, we leveraged the SKOS ontology to take advantage of a classification structure, already created by NARCIS, to describe researcher expertise uniformly across the system.

Background Resistance to recommended medications has been an issue in dealing with a number of psychiatric ailments, and it is showing up as an ongoing challenge for contemporary mental health experts. Resistant psychiatric disorders not only increase the morbidity of patients suffering from such severe conditions but also intensify the problems of their caretakers. This has vigorously started to cause the costs to increase for healthcare services. Thanks to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), we now have an effective method that is proving to be a fruitful final course of action in this micro-epidemic of resistant psychiatric diseases. However, the medical literature of case reports or studies in this niche is scarce. Also, no such comprehensive study has been carried out in the Southeast Asian region to date for the assessment of the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in patients with medication-resistant psychiatric disorders. Aim To assess the effectiveness of ECT in medication-resistant psychiatric patients at the post-ECT course, three-month follow-up, and six-month follow-up. Materials and methods The study was a prospective and interventional study (without controls) conducted in the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS), Srinagar, India. Fifty-six patients with pharmacotherapy-resistant psychiatric disorders were included in the study. The patients were assessed at the end of the ECT course, at the three-month follow-up, and at the six-month follow-up by the Clinical Global Impression (CGI), Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), Young Manic Rating Scale (YMRS) and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS). Improvement was defined with the help of the CGI subscale by comparing the position of the patient at admission to the projected condition with ECT. Statistical analysis Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used for analysis of the quantitative data. For the pair-wise comparison of the groups, the post hoc tests were used. Pearson’s chi-square test was used for analysis of qualitative data. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant, and all the data analysis was done using SPSS Version 20.0. Results The CGI scale revealed that statistically significant improvement occurred in patients at the end of ECT course, at the three-month follow-up as well as at the six-month follow-up. Conclusion ECT should be used for the treatment of pharmacotherapy-resistant psychiatric patients and the benefits can be seen even six months after an ECT course completion. Further work in this field should focus on educating the general public about the usefulness of ECT in the treatment of resistant mental illnesses. The myths related to the so-called psychiatric assault from ECT should be removed.

Background The progress that man has made in all domains of life, during all these years of reign over the earth, is utterly remarkable. However, it always came at a price. Each epoch of progress has seen human beings inflicted with trauma and cynical consequences. During the last two decades, Kashmiri (Indian) people have experienced continuous violence, a reign of terror, and political turmoil. Each of these disastrous events has contributed to the increase in psychiatric disorders in this part of the world, especially major depressive disorders. We can observe that besides the environmental influences, gene polymorphism also plays a crucial role in the development of depressive disorders. The role of Tryptophan Hydroxylase 1 (TPH1) gene is implicated in various psychiatric disorders, including depression. However, no study has investigated TPH1 A779C gene polymorphism in depressive disorders in a distressed society like Kashmir (India). Aims To study TPH1 A779C single nucleotide polymorphism in depressive disorders in Kashmiri (Indian) population. Materials and Methods Two hundred and forty patients diagnosed with depressive disorder, and 160 unrelated healthy volunteers (control), were studied in a case-control study design. Polymorphism was determined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and agarose gel electrophoresis, after digestion with HAP II enzyme. Genotypes and allele frequencies were compared using Chi-square tests, Fisher’s exact test, odds ratio, 95% confidence interval (C.I.) and a p-value of

Background A gradual increase in the longevity due to advancement of treatment modalities and a subsequent surge in elderly population in India have led to a growing curiosity in the geriatric age group with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) represent epiphenomena of AD. However, no comprehensive study has been carried out in South East Asia (Kashmir, India), to assess the behavioral and psychological symptoms in subtypes of AD. Objectives The purpose of this study was to assess BPSD in early-onset Alzheimer’s disease (EOAD) and late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD). Material and Methods The study was conducted in the Memory clinic of the postgraduate department of psychiatry, Government Medical College, Kashmir, India from January 2012 to March 2014. The diagnosis of AD patients was done according to NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. A total of 80 patients of AD were screened (40 with age of onset less than 65, and 40 with age of onset greater than 64). Neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) was the instrument used for evaluating symptoms of BPSD. The data was analyzed using paired t-test. Results The mean age of presentation of EOAD and LOAD was 63.10 years and 84.28 years, respectively, and the difference between the two was found to be statistically significant. The LOAD group had significantly higher symptom severity for delusions, agitation, anxiety, disinhibition, and nighttime behavioral disturbances (NBD) than the EOAD group (p ≤.0001). Conclusion The behavioral and psychological symptoms are significantly severe in late onset subtype compared to the early onset subtype of Alzheimer’s disease in the Kashmiri (Indian) population.

SUMMARY The brain processes information and generates cognitive and motor outputs through functions of spatially organized proteins in different types of neurons. More complete knowledge of proteins and their distributions within neuronal compartments in intact circuits would help in the understanding of brain function. We used unbiased in vivo protein labeling with intravitreal NHS-biotin for discovery and analysis of endogenous axonally transported proteins in the visual system using tandem mass spectrometric proteomics, biochemistry, and both light and electron microscopy. Purification and proteomic analysis of biotinylated peptides identified ~1,000 proteins transported from retinal ganglion cells into the optic nerve and ~575 biotinylated proteins recovered from presynaptic compartments of lateral geniculate nucleus and superior colliculus. Approximately 360 biotinylated proteins were differentially detected in the two retinal targets. This study characterizes axonally transported proteins in the healthy adult visual system by analyzing proteomes from multiple compartments of retinal ganglion cell projections in the intact brain., In Brief Axonal protein transport is essential for circuit function. Schiapparelli et al. use unbiased in vivo protein labeling and mass spectrometry to identify ~1,000 proteins in the “RGC axonal transportome.” About 350 retinal proteins are differentially transported to the lateral geniculate nucleus or the superior colliculus, indicating target-specific diversity in presynaptic protein content., Graphical Abstract

Axons from the nucleus magnocellularis form a presynaptic map of interaural time differences (ITDs) in the nucleus laminaris (NL). These inputs generate a field potential that varies systematically with recording position and can be used to measure the map of ITDs. In the barn owl, the representation of best ITD shifts with mediolateral position in NL, so as to form continuous, smoothly overlapping maps of ITD with iso-ITD contours that are not parallel to the NL border. Frontal space (0°) is, however, represented throughout and thus overrepresented with respect to the periphery. Measurements of presynaptic conduction delay, combined with a model of delay line conduction velocity, reveal that conduction delays can account for the mediolateral shifts in the map of ITD.

Inputs from the two sides of the brain interact to create maps of interaural time difference (ITD) in the nucleus laminaris of birds. How inputs from each side are matched with high temporal precision in ITD-sensitive circuits is unknown, given the differences in input path lengths from each side. To understand this problem in birds, we modeled the geometry of the input axons and their corresponding conduction velocities and latencies. Consistent with existing physiological data, we assumed a common latency up to the border of nucleus laminaris. We analyzed two biological implementations of the model, the single ITD map in chickens and the multiple maps of ITD in barn owls. For binaural inputs, since ipsi- and contralateral initial common latencies were very similar, we could restrict adaptive regulation of conduction velocity to within the nucleus. Other model applications include the simultaneous derivation of multiple conduction velocities from one set of measurements and the demonstration that contours with the same ITD cannot be parallel to the border of nucleus laminaris in the owl. Physiological tests of the predictions of the model demonstrate its validity and robustness. This model may have relevance not only for auditory processing but also for other computational tasks that require adaptive regulation of conduction velocity.

Corneoscleral cysts are a rare entity. We report a case of spontaneous corneoscleral hematic cyst, which was treated by cyst excision and lamellar corneal patch graft. No recurrence of cyst was noticed during the 6 years of followup.

In this poster we describe the process of mapping researcher information from the Dutch National Academic Research and Collaborations Information System (NARCIS) to the VIVO ontology. Our goal is to use the VIVO ontology to accurately represent these researchers and their organizations, while remaining true to the native language and structure of the Dutch university. To achieve this, we first created an extension ontology to account for differences in the Dutch naming structure and differences in university position description and alignment. Secondly, through the use of language attribute tags, we recorded data in both English and Dutch to achieve better access by both the native Dutch population and the larger English based research community. Finally, we leveraged the SKOS ontology to take advantage of a classification structure, already created by NARCIS, to describe researcher expertise uniformly across the system. Presented at ASIST 2013, Nov 1-6, Montreal, Canada

Axons from the nucleus magnocellularis (NM) and their targets in nucleus laminaris (NL) form the circuit responsible for encoding interaural time differences (ITDs). In barn owls, NL receives bilateral inputs from NM such that axons from the ipsilateral NM enter NL dorsally, while contralateral axons enter from the ventral side. These afferents and their synapses on NL neurons generate a tone-induced local field potential, or neurophonic, that varies systematically with position in NL. From dorsal to ventral within the nucleus, the best interaural time difference (ITD) of the neurophonic shifts from contralateral space to best ITDs around 0 µs. Earlier recordings suggested that in NL, iso-delay contours ran parallel to the dorsal and ventral borders of NL (Sullivan WE, Konishi M. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 83:8400–8404, 1986). This axis is orthogonal to that seen in chicken NL, where a single map of ITD runs from around 0 µs ITD medially to contralateral space laterally (Koppl C, Carr CE. Biol Cyber 98:541–559, 2008). Yet the trajectories of the NM axons are similar in owl and chicken (Seidl AH, Rubel EW, Harris DM, J Neurosci 30:70–80, 2010). We therefore used clicks to measure conduction time in NL and made lesions to mark the 0 µs iso-delay contour in multiple penetrations along an isofrequency slab. Iso-delay contours were not parallel to the dorsal and ventral borders of NL; instead the 0 µs iso-delay contour shifted systematically from a dorsal position in medial NL to a ventral position in lateral NL. Could different conduction delays account for the mediolateral shift in the representation of 0 µs ITD? We measured conduction delays using the neurophonic potential and developed a simple linear model of the delay-line conduction velocity. We then raised young owls with time-delaying earplugs in one ear (Gold JI, Knudsen EI, J Neurophysiol 82:2197–2209, 1999) to examine map plasticity.

We present a novel remote test system, an integrated remote testing system requiring minimal technology support overhead, enabled by configurable analog–digital Integrated Circuits (IC) to create a simple interface for a wide range of experiments. Our remote test system requires no additional setup, resulting both from using highly configurable devices, as well as from the advancement of straight-forward digital interfaces (i.e., USB) for the resulting experimental system. The system overhead requirements require simple email handling, available over almost all network systems with no additional requirements. The system is empowered through large-scale Field Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) devices and Baseline Tool Framework (BTF), where we present a range of experimentally measured examples illustrating the range of user interfacing available for the remote user.