<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Considerable evidence suggests that brain damage can lead to impairments in locomotive activity in human beings. However, no study has thoroughly investigated the locomotion and morphological changes in animals after IntelliCage Exposure (IE). Therefore, to elucidate the locomotive activity and morphological changes in striatum of mice models of fluid percussion injury (FPI), we designed a novel strategy and utilised an advanced neurobehavioral monitoring device known as the IE system. We observed locomotive functioning, from the induction of injury until complete recovery. To achieve the objectives, mice were divided into four groups, the (i) sham group (. n=. 8), (ii) FPI group (. n=. 8), and not subjected to acclimatisation in the IE, (iii) sham group (. n=. 11) and (iv) FPI group (. n=. 11), and subjected to acclimatisation in the IE. Locomotive activity was monitored for each group for 5. days. Results suggested that the neuronal damage associated with locomotive impairment could occur in the early hours (3-6. h) post-FPI. The process of recovery started significantly at 24. h and continued. Results showed a complete restoration in locomotive activity by the FPI mice at 72. h post-trauma. Morphological results suggested that FPI mice with IE showed less dead cells as compared to FPI mice without IE. Our data also suggested a new dimension for the factors influencing FPI recovery. We hypothesise that IE to FPI animals may provide the necessary enriched environment, induce motivated voluntary physical exercises, and enhance social interactions to accelerate striatum-derived neurogenesis. These factors could be beneficial in TBI-related therapeutic strategies. © 2012 .

World University root node

Life Sciences

Basal Ganglia

IntelliCage provides voluntary exercise and an enriched environment, improving locomotive activity in mice following fluid percussion injury

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important crop legume plant with high nutritional value. The transcriptomes of desi and wild chickpea have already been sequenced. In this study, we sequenced the transcriptome of kabuli chickpea, C. arietinum (genotype ICCV2), having higher commercial value, using GS-FLX Roche 454 and Illumina technologies. The assemblies of both Roche 454 and Illumina datasets were optimized using various assembly programs and parameters. The final optimized hybrid assembly generated 43,389 transcripts with an average length of 1065 bp and N50 length of 1653 bp representing 46.2 Mb of kabuli chickpea transcriptome. We identified a total of 5409 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in these transcript sequences. Among these, at least 130 and 493 SSRs were polymorphic with desi (ICC4958) and wild (PI489777) chickpea, respectively. In addition, a total of 1986 and 37,954 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were predicted in kabuli/desi and kabuli/wild genotypes, respectively. The SNP frequency was 0.043 SNP per kb for kabuli/desi and 0.821 SNP per kb for kabuli/wild, reflecting very low genetic diversity in chickpea. Further, SSRs and SNPs present in tissue-specific and transcription factor encoding transcripts have been identified. The experimental validation of a selected set of polymorphic SSRs and SNPs exhibited high intra-specific polymorphism potential between desi and kabuli chickpea, suggesting their utility in large-scale genotyping applications. The kabuli chickpea gene index assembled, and SSRs and SNPs identified in this study will serve as useful genomic resource for genetic improvement of chickpea. © 2012 Agarwal et al.

Fulltext

PLoS ONE

Comparative Analysis of Kabuli Chickpea Transcriptome with Desi and Wild Chickpea Provides a Rich Resource for Development of Functional Markers

We have investigated the photoluminescence and electrical properties of a coherently coupled interface consisting of a ZnO layer grown on top of an oriented VO 2 layer on sapphire across the phase transition of VO 2. The band edge and defect luminescence of the ZnO overlayer exhibit hysteresis in opposite directions induced by the phase transition of VO 2. Concomitantly the phase transition of VO 2 was seen to induce defects in the ZnO layer. Such coherently coupled interfaces could be of use in characterizing the stability of a variety of interfaces in situ and also for novel device application. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Physics

Applied Physics Letters

Coherently coupled ZnO and VO 2 interface studied by photoluminescence and electrical transport across a phase transition

The vast amounts of chemical and biological data available through robotic high-throughput assays and micro-array technologies require computational techniques for visualization, analysis, and predictive-modeling. Predictive cheminformatics and bioinformatics employ statistical methods to mine this data for hidden correlations and to retrieve molecules or genes with desirable biological activity from large databases, for the purpose of drug development. While many statistical methods are commonly employed and widely accessible, their proper use involves due consideration to data representation and preprocessing, model validation and domain of applicability estimation, similarity assessment, the nature of the structure-activity landscape, and model interpretation. This chapter seeks to review these considerations in light of the current state of the art in statistical modeling and to summarize the best practices in predictive cheminformatics. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Chemistry

Methods in Molecular Biology

Predictive cheminformatics in drug discovery: Statistical modeling for analysis of micro-array and gene expression data

Imidazole, a subunit of histidine, plays a crucial role in proton-relay processes that are important for various biological activities, such as metal efflux, viral replication and photosynthesis. We show here how an imidazolyl ring incorporated into a rotary switch based on a hydrazone enables a switching cascade that involves proton relay between two different switches. The switching process starts with a single input, zinc(II), that initiates an E/Z isomerization in the hydrazone system through a coordination-coupled proton transfer. The resulting imidazolium ring is unusually acidic and, through proton relay, activates the E/Z isomerization of a non-coordinating pyridine-containing hydrazone switch. We hypothesize that the reduction in the acid dissociation constant of the imidazolium ring results from a combination of electrostatic and conformational effects, the study of which might help elucidate the proton-coupled electron-transfer mechanism in photosynthetic bacteria. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Nature Chemistry

A switching cascade of hydrazone-based rotary switches through coordination-coupled proton relays

31P NMR has been done in the paramagnetic state of SmCoPO. Hisohf, Haxhf are 13.4 and -5.19 kOe/$\mu$B respectively have been estimated which indicates the nature of hybridization between P 2p orbitals with Co 3d orbitals. Anisotropic spin-lattice relaxation rate has been observed. In plane spin-correlations are 2D FM and out of plane spin correlations are AFM type. {\textcopyright} 2012 American Institute of Physics.

AIP Conference Proceedings

Anisotropic spin-fluctuations in SmCoPO: 31P NMR study

Chemical and biological network analysis has recently garnered intense interest from the perspective of drug design and discovery. While graph theoretic concepts have a long history in chemistry - predating quantum mechanics - and graphical measures of chemical structures date back to the 1970s, it is only recently with the advent of public repositories of information and availability of high-throughput assays and computational resources that network analysis of large-scale chemical networks, such as protein-protein interaction networks, has become possible. Drug design and discovery are undergoing a paradigm shift, from the notion of 'one target, one drug' to a much more nuanced view that relies on multiple sources of information: genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and so on. This holistic view of drug design is an incredibly daunting undertaking still very much in its infancy. Here, we focus on current developments in graph- and network-centric approaches in chemical and biological informatics, with particular reference to applications in the fields of SAR modeling and drug design. Key insights from the past suggest a path forward via visualization and fusion of multiple sources of chemical network data. © 2012 Future Science Ltd.

Future Medicinal Chemistry

Graphs and networks in chemical and biological informatics: Past, present and future

A novel solution processable donor-acceptor (D-A) based low band gap polymer semiconductor poly{3,6-difuran-2-yl-2,5-di(2-octyldodecyl)-pyrrolo[3,4- c]pyrrole-1,4-dione-alt-thienylenevinylene} (PDPPF-TVT), was designed and synthesized by a Pd-catalyzed Stille coupling route. An electron deficient furan based diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) block and electron rich thienylenevinylene (TVT) donor moiety were attached alternately in the polymer backbone. The polymer exhibited good solubility, film forming ability and thermal stability. The polymer exhibits wide absorption bands from 400 nm to 950 nm (UV-vis-NIR region) with absorption maximum centered at 782 nm in thin film. The optical band gap (Eoptg) calculated from the polymer film absorption onset is around 1.37 eV. The π-energy band level (ionization potential) calculated by photoelectron spectroscopy in air (PESA) for PDPPF-TVT is around 5.22 eV. AFM and TEM analyses of the polymer reveal nodular terrace morphology with optimized crystallinity after 200 °C thermal annealing. This polymer exhibits p-channel charge transport characteristics when used as the active semiconductor in organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) devices. The highest hole mobility of 0.13 cm 2 V -1 s -1 is achieved in bottom gate and top-contact OTFT devices with on/off ratios in the range of 10 6-10 7. This work reveals that the replacement of thiophene by furan in DPP copolymers exhibits such a high mobility, which makes DPP furan a promising block for making a wide range of promising polymer semiconductors for broad applications in organic electronics. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2012.

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Furan substituted diketopyrrolopyrrole and thienylenevinylene based low band gap copolymer for high mobility organic thin film transistors

The recent up to ~2 fb -1 of data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at 7 TeV put an upper bound on the production cross section of a Higgs-like particle. We translate the results of the H→WW→lνlν and H→γγ as well as the combined analysis by the ATLAS and CMS into an allowed region for the Kaluza-Klein (KK) mass M KK and the Higgs mass M H for all the known Universal Extra Dimension (UED) models in five and six dimensions. Our bound is insensitive to the detailed KK mass splitting and mixing and hence complementary to all other known signatures. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics

A bound on universal extra dimension models from up to 2 fb -1 of LHC data at 7 TeV

The traditional frameworks for fuzzy linear optimization problems are inspired by the max-min model proposed by Zimmermann using the Bellman-Zadeh extension principle. This paper attempts to view fuzzy multiobjective linear programming problem (FMOLPP) from a perspective of preference modeling. The fuzzy constraints are viewed as negative preferences for rejecting what is unacceptable while the objective functions are viewed as positive preferences for depicting satisfaction to what is desired. This bipolar view enable us to handle fuzzy constraints and objectives separately and help to combine them in distinct ways. The optimal solution of FMOLPP is the one which maximizes the disjunctive combination of the weighted positive preferences provided it satisfy the negative preferences combined in conjunctive way. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.