• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.151-159
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• 2004

A detailed evaluation of relative toxicity of fluoride to die 5th instar larvae of PM and NB$_4$D$_2$ races of silkworm and the effects of lethal, sublethal and prevailing levels of fluoride in groundwater on the growth, economic characters and fecundity of the silkworm, Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae) were studied. The feeding of mulberry, Morus alba leaves treated with lethal and sublethal doses of fluoride to PM and NB$_4$D$_2$ races of silkworms from the beginning of the 5th instar to the end of the feeding period resulted in significant reduction in growth, single cocoon weight, single shell weight, silk index, average filament length, and fecundity when compared to controls. These manges were more pronounced on exposure to lethal dose than sublethal dose and in general, the changes induced by fluoride were more striking in NB$_4$D$_2$ than PM, indicating the greater resistance of PM to higher fluoride levels. Groundwater quality in sericulturally important villages of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh States has been studied with special reference to the presence of fluoride. On exposure to dose of prevailing levels in the waters of sericulturally important areas, die changes observed on growth, economic characters and fecundity were slightly lower when compared to controls and the decrease was found to be insignificant (P$\geq$0.05). It was concluded that, though minute dose (4.0 ppm) of fluoride did not have any toxic impact, it is toxic at higher concentrations to silkworms.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2004

Bombyx mori densonucleosis virus type 1 (BmDNV1)- a non occluded virus causes flacherie disease in the susceptible stocks of the silkworm, Bombyx mori. However, some stocks are non-susceptible. Non-susceptibility to BmDNV1 in B. mori is a unique case where the virus infection is completely inhibited by a single gene of the host. A survey conducted by this institute in some parts of Karnataka state has revealed that, 43.05% of the total incidence of flacherie disease caused by non-occluded viruses, are due to the synergistic infection of B. mori densonucleosis and infectious flacherie virus. Earlier study indicated that rearing of BmDNV1 resistant silkworm stock is effective in protecting silkworm against BmIFV also. In the present study the response of 78 silkworm stocks which include 42 of non-diapausing and 36 of diapausing groups, to BmDNV1 is investigated. Newly ecdysed third instar larvae were inoculated per-os with 10% inoculum of BmDNV1 extracted from the mid-gut of infected silkworm. One non-diapausing and three diapausing silkworm stocks were found to be resistant to BmDNV1. Eleven silkworm stocks were found to possess moderate resistance whereas rest sixty three were found to be susceptible to BmDNV1. Genetic analysis has shown that the resistance to BmDNV1 is autosomally inherited and controlled by a major dominant or a major recessive gene in different silkworm stocks. These resistant stocks can be utilized as the resource material to develop BmDNV1 resistant commercial hybrids. The selection strategies, depending upon the mode of inheritance of resistance in the resource material chosen, are discussed.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.622-626
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• 2006

Molecular characterization of Hallikar, the native cattle breed of Karnataka, was undertaken using 19 cattle specific, highly polymorphic microsatellite markers recommended by FAO. The genomic DNA was subjected to PCR amplification and alleles were resolved through six per cent denaturing PAGE with a 10 bp DNA ladder followed by silver staining. Genotyping of animals was done based on allele size. The number of alleles ranged from three to nine with allele sizes ranging from 102 bp to 294 bp. These alleles were distributed in the frequency range between 0.0306 and 0.8673 in the population. The mean observed number of alleles was $6.368{\pm}1.4225$. The mean observed and expected heterozygosities were $0.7515{\pm}0.1734$ and $0.7850{\pm}0.1381$, respectively. The high heterozygosity observed implies presence of higher genetic variability within Hallikar breed. The PIC (Polymorphism Information Content) values ranged from 0.2322 (ETH152) to 0.8654 (ETH225). The percentage of polymorphic loci obtained was 100 as all the 19 microsatellite markers were found to be polymorphic. Except for ETH152, all the other loci had high PIC values, indicating that these markers are highly informative for characterization of Hallikar breed. The population was tested for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium at 19 microsatellite loci, and at 74 per cent of the loci the population was found to be in disequilibrium.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.104-109
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• 1998

Methanol extracts from 84 Indian plant samples (50 species in 31 families) and 27 African plant samples (20 species in 12 families) in vitro were tested for their growth-inhibitory activities against Bifidobacterium bifidum, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Clostridium perfringens, and Escherichia coli, using a paper disc agar diffusion method under $O_2-free$ conditions. The responses varied with bacterial strain, plant species and plant part. Extracts from Cymbopogon citratus whole plants, Ocimum basilicum whole plant, Madhuca indica flowers, and Aegle marmelos leaves among Indian plant samples moderately or strongly inhibited the growth of Cl, perfringens whereas moderate growth-inhibitory activity against E. coli was obtained from extract of Indian O. basilicum whole plants. These plant extracts did not affect the growth of the lactic acid forming bacteria tested. These results may be an indication of at least one of the pharmacological actions of these tropical plants.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1671-1674
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• 2014

Background: To study the clinical presentation of cervical carcinoma correlating with histopathological findings in a tertiary hospital situated in the southern part of India catering to rural and semi-urban populations Materials and Methods: 199 cases histopathologically diagnosed as cervical cancer over a period of one year were considered for the study. Clinical details of the patients were noted with the help of semi-structured proforma. The data was analysed by descriptive analysis using SPSS software. Results: Out of 199 patients, 109 had moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma, 51 poorly differentiated and 35 well differentiated. Adenocarcinomas numbered only four. 121 cases were in the age group of 40-59 years, 59 in 60-80 years and 19 in 20-39 years. All four cases of adenocarcinoma were seen between 40-59 years. 95 (47.7%) cases were in women who had 4 or more children, 120 presented with white discharge, 89 with bleeding per vagina and 68 had constitutional symptoms. Most of the patients with adenocarcinoma presented with bleeding per vagina. 151 was in stage IIIB, 29 in stage IIB, 14 in stage IVA and 5 in stage IB. Conclusions: Screening of cervical cancer should be emphasised in women with white discharge especially in rural areas for early detection of dysplastic cells and reduce mortality and morbidity in productive age. In addition health education has to be given to women regarding the awareness of hygiene, risk factors and symptoms of cervical cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.sup2
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• pp.19-24
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• 2016

Quitline activity in Rajasthan, India is a voluntary activity of Rajasthan Cancer Foundation (RCF) since April 2013. To kick-off, it took the benefit of the State Government- PIRAMAL SWASTHYA (PS)1 collaborative 104 Health Information Helpline that existed already in public-private partnership. It is a reactive quitline that helps callers through the counselors and nursing staff trained specifically through the weekly sessions held by the first author, the RCF resource on quitline. Besides structuring of the scripts for primary intervention and follow-ups after 1 week, 1 month, 6 months and a year, he also monitors calls, advices and coordinates with the supervisors to manage and analyze the data base, and reports to the PS lead at the Jaipur Center on overall performance and to plan strategic communication with the State Government on its outcomes. The quitline has limitations of its informal existence through a voluntary effort of RCF, no specific resource allocation, suboptimal data management, minimal awareness in the masses due to poor IEC (Information, Education and Communication; except its efforts made by RCF in last 1 year through the government-run State TV and City Radio) and staff shortage and its attrition due to lack of plan for career advancement. Despite these challenges in the year 2013, the quit line has registered a quit rate (for complete abstinence) of 19.93% amongst 1525 callers. The quit rate were 58.01% (304/ 524) among the responders at the 3rd follow-up at 18 months (in September 2014)2. In view of an increase in quit rate by 5- 9 times over the prevailing quit rate in the former ever daily users [both smokers and the users of smokeless tobacco (SLT)], efforts are being made by RCF in concurrence with PS to have this cost-effective model established formally with optimal resource allocation in collaboration with willing agencies (the State and Central Governments and the International Quitline Agencies) and its replication in 4 more states where PS is collaborating with the respective state governments similarly (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Karnataka).

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.5101-5105
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• 2013

The incidence and mortality of cervical cancer remains high in India even after sixty years of introduction of the Pap smear (cervical cytology) which is an effective means of identifying preinvasive lesions of carcinoma cervix. The morbidity and mortality due to cervical cancer has come down drastically in countries with well established screening programmes at national level. This study aims at screening women for cervical cancer opportunistically during their visit to hospital and to study various types of neoplastic and non-neoplastic lesions of the cervix by cervical smear study (Pap smear study). In the present study, a total of 350 cervical smears were studied. The age of patients ranged from 19 years to 80 years with mean age being 37.5 years. Out of 350 cases, the diagnosis of neoplasia was given in 43 cases and 258 cases were diagnosed as inflammatory smears. Forty-cases were normal and 9 cases were inadequate to evaluate. Forty-three patients who were found to have neoplastic lesions on cytology were referred for further investigations like colposcopy and biopsy to confirm the diagnosis and avail proper treatment. Limitation of the present study was small sample size as all female patients aged between 20 and 60 years visiting hospital were not included in the screening, other screening tests like VIA (visual inspection with acetic acid test) and HPV DNA (human papilloma virus) tests were not done. Until the time centrally organised screening programmes for cervical cancer are established in India, arrangements should be made for hospital based opportunistic screening for all women attending hospital. The cost effectiveness of different screening tests for cervical cancer should be evaluated.

• BioChip Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.332-339
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• 2018

The future neuro-prosthetic devices would be required spikes data monitoring through sub-nanoscale transistors that enables to neuroscientists and clinicals for scalable, wireless and implantable applications. This research investigates the spikes monitoring through integrated CNT front-end amplifier for neuro-prosthetic diagnosis. The proposed carbon nanotube-based architecture consists of front-end amplifier (FEA), integrate fire neuron and pseudo resistor technique that observed high electrical performance through neural activity. A pseudo resistor technique ensures large input impedance for integrated FEA by compensating the input leakage current. While carbon nanotube based FEA provides low-voltage operation with directly impacts on the power consumption and also give detector size that demonstrates fidelity of the neural signals. The observed neural activity shows amplitude of spiking in terms of action potential up to $80{\mu}V$ while local field potentials up to 40 mV by using proposed architecture. This fully integrated architecture is implemented in Analog cadence virtuoso using design kit of CNT process. The fabricated chip consumes less power consumption of $2{\mu}W$ under the supply voltage of 0.7 V. The experimental and simulated results of the integrated FEA achieves $60G{\Omega}$ of input impedance and input referred noise of $8.5nv/{\sqrt{Hz}}$ over the wide bandwidth. Moreover, measured gain of the amplifier achieves 75 dB midband from range of 1 KHz to 35 KHz. The proposed research provides refreshing neural recording data through nanotube integrated circuit and which could be beneficial for the next generation neuroscientists.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.101-112
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• 2024

Telugu language is considered as fourth most used language in India especially in the regions of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka etc. In international recognized countries also, Telugu is widely growing spoken language. This language comprises of different dependent and independent vowels, consonants and digits. In this aspect, the enhancement of Telugu Handwritten Character Recognition (HCR) has not been propagated. HCR is a neural network technique of converting a documented image to edited text one which can be used for many other applications. This reduces time and effort without starting over from the beginning every time. In this work, a Unicode based Handwritten Character Recognition(U-HCR) is developed for translating the handwritten Telugu characters into English language. With the use of Centre of Gravity (CG) in our model we can easily divide a compound character into individual character with the help of Unicode values. For training this model, we have used both online and offline Telugu character datasets. To extract the features in the scanned image we used convolutional neural network along with Machine Learning classifiers like Random Forest and Support Vector Machine. Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD), Root Mean Square Propagation (RMS-P) and Adaptative Moment Estimation (ADAM)optimizers are used in this work to enhance the performance of U-HCR and to reduce the loss function value. This loss value reduction can be possible with optimizers by using CNN. In both online and offline datasets, proposed model showed promising results by maintaining the accuracies with 90.28% for SGD, 96.97% for RMS-P and 93.57% for ADAM respectively.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.19
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• pp.8265-8270
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• 2014

Background: Smoking tobacco is considered as a leading cause of preventable death, mostly in developing countries like India. One of the primary goals of international tobacco control is to educate smokers about the risks associated with tobacco consumption. Tobacco warning labels (TWLs) on cigarette packages are one of the most common statutory means to communicate health risks of smoking to smokers, with the hope that once educated, they will be more likely to quit the habit. Materials and Methods: The present survey was conducted to assess the effectiveness of TWLs in communicating health risks of tobacco usage among 263 adult smokers working as bus drivers in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC), Mangalore, India. Information was collected on demographic details, exposure and response to health warnings on tobacco products, intention to quit and nicotine dependency. Results: The majority (79.5%) of the respondents revealed negative intentions towards quitting smoking. Nearly half of the participants had a 'low' nicotine dependency (47.5%) and 98.1% of the respondents had often noticed warning labels on tobacco packages. These health warnings made 71.5% of the respondents think about quitting smoking. Respondents who noticed advertisement or pictures about dangers of smoking had better knowledge, with respect to lung cancer and impotence as a consequence of tobacco. A higher exposure to warning labels was significantly associated with lower nicotine dependency levels of smokers among the present study population. A significantly higher number of respondents who noticed advertisement or pictures about the dangers of smoking thought about the risks of smoking and were more inclined to think about quitting smoking. As exposure increased, an increase in the knowledge and response of participants was also observed. Conclusions: Exposure to tobacco warning labels helps to educate smokers about health risks of tobacco smoking. It may be possible to promote oral health among bus drivers by developing strategies to educate them about these risk factors.