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A metal-free approach for the synthesis of tetrahydroindolo[2,3-b]carbazoles, tetrahydrothieno[2,3-b]carbazoles and tetrahydrothieno[3,2-b]carbazoles has been developed.

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease in developed countries and now becoming in developing countries also. Central Obesity and sedentary life style is usually associated with NAFLD.There are a lot of study has been done regarding prevalence of NAFLD in diabetes but lesser study available for prediabetes. In different studies reviewed by us, prevalence of NAFLD in diabetic subjects has been reported to range from 26.5% to 86.7%1,2,3. In prediabetic patients this prevalence has been seen to range from 48.24% to 68%4,5,6. OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) in prediabetes and diabetes patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted at SRN Hospital, Prayagraj. A total of 100 prediabetic and 100 diabetic patients were enrolled in the study. Patients on the basis of HbA1c(glycated hemoglobin) are divided in to two groups, prediabetic and diabetic group. Patients with known case of liver disease, taking steroid and regular alcohol intake were excluded from study. Ultrasonography B mode used for detection of fatty liver inltration and their grading. RESULT: Prevalence of NAFLD was 48% in prediabetic and 54% in diabetic group. In prediabetic group, 32% had grade 1, 13% had grade 2 and 3% had grade 3 NAFLD whereas in diabetic group 34% had grade 1, 18% had grade 2 and 2% had grade 3 NAFLD. In the present study, we found that diabetic patients as compared to pre-diabetic patients were signicantly older, had a higher proportion of males and higher BMI(Body mass index). Conclusion: There was no signicant difference between two groups for association of NAFLD and its severity. Higher BMI is associated with higher chances to get NAFLD and diabetes mellitus in future.

A straight-forward approach for the synthesis of a dihydrofuro[2,3-b]benzofuran derivatives has been achieved through a base-mediated Michael addition of 1,3-dicarbonyls to 2-nitrobenzofurans followed by intramolecular cyclization. A variety of 1,3-dicarbonyls, including cyclic as well as trifluoromethylated ones, have been subjected to react with 2-nitrobenzofurans under optimal conditions, and the respective dihydrofuro[2,3-b]benzofurans could be accessed in moderate to excellent yields.

Soil moisture is an important parameter that can be used as a precursor to predict natural disasters such as meteorological drought and flooding, and environmental changes, such as storm and soil erosion. Thus, precise awareness of spatial changes in soil moisture is essential to understand and monitor regular land and water management processes. In this paper retrieval of soil moisture was carried out using TOTRAM (thermal optical trapezoid) model which relies on relationship of land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The relation is based on the fact that soil moisture is associated with both LST and NDVI that impacts vegetation growth, and soil moisture variation can be mapped based on the changes. Validation of soil moisture retrieval was done with the data provided at VEDAS portal. The outcome of the study shows that the model has nearly same accuracy as of the VEDAS portal. We argue on the strong inherent relationship of soil moisture with LST, and NDVI and its usability in the soil moisture retrieval for a large geographical area.

An efficient, green and facile route for the one-pot four-component synthesis of pyranopyrazole derivatives through the condensation of the aromatic aldehydes, ethyl acetoacetate, malononitrile and hydrazine hydrate using baker’s yeast as biocatalyst is presented. The important aspects of the present methodology are the use of an environmentally friendly catalyst, high yield of products and mild reaction conditions, i.e. at neutral pH and ambient temperature.

A miniaturized slotted multiband antenna is presented. The antenna consists of a square Split Ring Resonator-shaped slot in the radiating patch. The split ring resonator structure-based antenna presents operational capability at 2.18, 2.56 and 3.52 GHz, respectively. The achieved return loss at the resonance frequencies are 21.38, 12.00 and 25.46 dB and the bandwidth of the proposed antenna are 2.51, 2.01 and 3.27% for respective frequencies. The standard low-loss cost-effective FR-4 laminates of 1.6 mm thickness substrate were used for the design. The proposed prototype antenna was fabricated and measured; the results show reliable agreement with the simulated results. The antenna possesses adequate gain values at all resonating frequencies. The reflection coefficient, radiation pattern and other antenna parameters are exhibiting quite satisfactory results, fulfilling the requirement for WCDMA and WiMAX applications.

In the last few years, there has been an explosive growth in the area of para-quinone methide (p-QM) chemistry. This boom is actually due to the unique reactivity pattern of p-QMs, and also their remarkable synthetic applications. In fact, p-QMs serve as synthons for unsymmetrical diaryl- and triarylmethanes, and also for the construction of diverse range of carbocycles and heterocycles. In the last few years, a wide range of structurally complex heterocyclic frameworks could be accessed through the synthetic transformations of structurally modified stable p-QMs. Therefore, the main focus of this review article is to cover the recent advancements in the transition-metal, Lewis acid and base-catalyzed/mediated synthetic transformations of the stable p-quinone methides (p-QMs) to oxygen- and nitrogen-containing heterocycles.

Wireless technology is growing rapidly in today’s era. It is very crucial to design and develop smart antenna structure which could resonate for multiple frequency bands. In this paper, the Dielectric Resonator Antenna (DRA) array has been successfully designed for multiband applications. The presented array resonates at 1.85 GHz, 5.13 GHz, 9 GHz and 14.24 GHz frequencies with the peak gain values of 1.20 dBi, 2.66 dBi, 3.91 dBi, 6.6 dBi and 2.05 dBi respectively. The microstrip line feed is utilised as feeding technique where the width of microstrip line is optimised to achieve adequate antenna resonance. The alumina ceramic has been utilised as DRA material having the relative permittivity of 9.3. The FR4 material is used as a substrate above which the dielectric resonator blocks have been formed. The overall size of the antenna is 50 x 40 mm2. There a close match between simulated results and measured results which shows proposed structure potential for GSM 1800 (1.81 GHz), WLAN (5.13 GHz), Radar (9 GHz), Direct Broadcast Satellite (12.5-15 GHz) applications

Retinal vessel segmentation aims to separate the structure of blood vessels from the fundus image background. This retinal vasculature is then used for detection of numerous diseases like retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, coronary heart disease, etc. Deep learning-based semantic segmentation techniques are considered a breakthrough in the field of medical diagnosis using artificial intelligence. Various methods for segmentation with convolutional neural networks have been developed which have become indispensable in tackling more advanced challenges with image segmentation. The limitation is that they all require huge quantities of labeled data which is difficult to collect. To overcome this, U-Net architecture is widely used for segmentation of medical images as it segments the pixels individually and can be trained with a small number of images. In this work, we have implemented U-Net architecture and evaluated it on two public datasets: ‘HRF’ and ‘DRIVE’. An accuracy of 96.64% was obtained on the DRIVE dataset and 94.28% on HRF dataset. To check the model robustness, we tested the model trained on the augmented DRIVE dataset on the HRF dataset and vice versa. The model trained on the augmented HRF training set achieves an accuracy of 95.04% when tested on the DRIVE dataset. Similarly, the model trained on the augmented DRIVE training set achieves an accuracy of 92.17% when tested on the HRF dataset. A progressive web application is also developed as part of this work, since there is no specific easy-to-use interface to perform segmentation of retinal fundus mentioned in the literature, to the best of our knowledge. This application accepts retinal fundus image as input and performs segmentation using trained U-Net model, to provide an output image of the blood vessels which will assist the ophthalmologists in screening retinopathy.

Human interferon-gamma (hIFNG) production is limited by various gene-level bottlenecks including translation, protein folding, and secretion which depends upon the physiological state of the organism. In this study gene-level and substrate-level modulations have been used to control Bacillus subtilis physiology for >15 fold extracellular soluble hIFNG production. Two variants of the native human interferon-gamma gene (hifng) were designed and synthesized, namely, cohifnghis and cohifng having codon adaptation index 25.33 and 26.89% higher than the native gene, respectively. BScoIFNG and BScoIFNGhis with ΔG of −100.0 and −113.7 kcal mol−1 resulted in 30 and 6.5% higher hIFNG compared to the native gene in complex medium. BScoIFNG produced 1.53 fold higher hIFNG using glucose-based defined medium as compared to the complex medium by modulating the physiological parameter growth rate from 0.35 to 0.26 hr−1. Further modulatory effect of various phosphotransferase transport system (PTS) and no-PTS sugars, sugar alcohols, and organic acids was quantified on the physiology of B. subtilis WB800N for extracellular hIFNG production. Sorbitol and glycerol emerged as the best hIFNG producers with lowest growth and substrate consumption rates. BScoIFNG produced maximum 3.15 mg L−1 hIFNG at 50 g L−1 glycerol with highest hIFNG yield (Yp/x = 0.136) and lowest substrate uptake rate (qs = 0.26).

The present study is focused upon improving biomass of Kluyveromyces lactis cells expressing recombinant human interferon gamma (hIFN-γ), with the aim of augmenting hIFN-γ concentration using statistical and artificial intelligence approach. Optimization of medium components viz., lactose, yeast extract, and trace elements were performed with Box-Behnken design (BBD) and artificial neural network linked genetic algorithm (ANN-GA) for maximizing biomass of recombinant K. lactis (objective function). The studies resulted over 1.5-fold improvement in the biomass concentration in a medium composed of 80 g/L lactose, 10.353 g/L yeast extract, and 15 mL/L trace elements as compared with initial biomass value. In the same study hIFN-γ concentration reached 881 µg/L which was 2.28-fold higher as compared with initial hIFN-γ concentration obtained in unoptimized medium. Further the batch fermentation study displayed mixed growth associated kinetics with the maximum hIFN-γ production rate of 1.1 mg/L. BBD and ANN-GA, both optimization techniques predicted a higher lactose concentration was clearly beneficial for augmenting K. lactis biomass which in turn increased hIFN-γ concentration.

Biosimilar/Biotherapeutic production is becoming a major area of focus for a big chunk of Biotechnology Industry. Easy licensing and already approved status for clinical use has given it a boost. In the present study, recombinant human interferon gamma was expressed for the first time in Kluyveromyces Lactis (K. lactis) expression system and its expression was optimized by varying growth parameters and carbon source concentration with the aim of increasing recombinant protein production level. Human Interferon gamma gene (IFNG) was cloned in the genomic DNA of K. lactis by homologous recombination and under un-optimized conditions in shake flask, IFN�� protein was secreted in the fermentation medium at a level of 175 ��g/litre quantified by ELISA assay. After optimization of expression conditions using one variable at a time (OVAT) technique, expression level was enhanced by 2.2 folds. Substrate inhibition studies revealed that up to 80 g/l of lactose is well tolerated by K. lactis cells for its growth but more than 80 g/l of lactose causes remarkable reduction in biomass production.

In the present investigation, we have shown a single step purification of IFN-γ from the fermentation broth of recombinant Kluyveromyces lactis (K. lactis) strain, using cationic surfactant based r...

In the present work, one batch of prealloyed 6061Al powder was mixed with different lead compositions (5, 10, 15 vol.%) and another set with same composition was ball-milled for 5 h at 300 rpm. Microstructural features such as lattice constant, crystallite size, particle size and morphology were studied using XRD, particle size analyzer and SEM. Both the as-mixed as well as ball-milled powders were compacted at 300 MPa and sintered under N2 atmosphere for 1 h in tube furnace at 590 °C. The ball milling of 6061Al alloy powder improved sinter density and densification while lead addition showed negligible influence on these parameters. The microstructure of as-mixed 6061Al–Pb alloys exhibited equiaxial morphology whereas ball-milling resulted in elongated grains with uniform lead distribution. Quasi-static compressive mechanical behavior was investigated for 6061Al–Pb alloys at 1 × 10−3 s−1 strain rate. Results indicated that ultimate compressive and yield strength were sensitive to milling and lead volume fraction.

a bstract A one-pot approach has been developed for the synthesis of 2,3-disubstituted indoles through a base-mediated N-alkylation of 2-(tosylamino)aryl-substitued para-quinone methides with halomethylaryl ketones followed by intramolecular cyclization and tosyl group elimination sequence. This one-pot protocol provides direct access to a wide range of 2,3-disubstituted indoles in moderate to good yields under mild conditions.

The high-resolution crystal structures of apo and peptide-bound XIAP BIR2 are presented and compared with BIR3 structures to understand their selectivity. This crystal system can be used to determine the structures of BIR2–inhibitor complexes., XIAP, a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis family of proteins, is a critical regulator of apoptosis. Inhibition of the BIR domain–caspase interaction is a promising approach towards treating cancer. Previous work has been directed towards inhibiting the BIR3–caspase-9 interaction, which blocks the intrinsic apoptotic pathway; selectively inhibiting the BIR2–caspase-3 interaction would also block the extrinsic pathway. The BIR2 domain of XIAP has successfully been crystallized; peptides and small-molecule inhibitors can be soaked into these crystals, which diffract to high resolution. Here, the BIR2 apo crystal structure and the structures of five BIR2–tetrapeptide complexes are described. The structural flexibility observed on comparing these structures, along with a comparison with XIAP BIR3, affords an understanding of the structural elements that drive selectivity between BIR2 and BIR3 and which can be used to design BIR2-selective inhibitors.

Background: The present study aimed at evaluating the effects of azidothymidine (AZT) on hematologic and biochemical parameters in Charles Foster rats.Methods: Twelve adult healthy Charles Foster rats comprising of six male and six females were selected for study. Test rodents were divided into four groups containing three rodents each. Three males and three females served as control and remaining received AZT drug. Rodents were acclimatized for 10 days and drug was administered for 28 days. After the completion of drug administration, blood samples were collected and analyzed for hematologic parameters, i.e., Hemoglobin (Hb), Packed cell volume (PCV), red blood cell (RBC), Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), total leukocyte count (TLC), Mean corpuscular volume (MCV), Platelet count (Plt) using a Fully Automatic Fully Digital Hematology Cell Counter. In addition, biochemical parameters, were measured to assess the effects of AZT on rodent physiology. In-vivo histopathological studies were also performed on vital organs of rodents to understand the effects of drug at tissue level.Results: When compared with the control group, the data indicated a outstanding decrease in Hb, PCV, RBC, TLC and platelets in all test groups, whereas MCHC did not show any major reduction but MCV data suggested a slight increase. Among biochemical parameters, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP). were found to be remarkably elevated along with elevated bilirubin and reduced albumin, pointing towards a possible liver damage which was later corroborated by liver histopathological study.Conclusions: Above results indicate azidothymidine to be a myelosuppresive and hepatotoxic drug and its usage as an anti-retro viral during highly active anti-retro viral therapy (HAART) regime should be strictly monitored.