Amity University Gurugram

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily members have a key role as nutrient importers and exporters in bacteria. However, their role as drug exporters in eukaryotes brought this superfamily member to even greater prominence. The capacity of ABC transporters to efflux a broad spectrum of xenobiotics represents one of the major mechanisms of clinical multidrug resistance in pathogenic fungi including Candida species. Candida auris, a newly emerged multidrug-resistant fungal pathogen of humans that has been responsible for multiple outbreaks of drug-resistant infections in hospitals around the globe. Our study has analyzed the entire complement of ABC superfamily transporters to assess whether these play a major role in drug resistance mechanisms of C. auris. Our bioinformatics analyses identified 28 putative ABC proteins encoded in the genome of the C. auris type-strain CBS 10913T; 20 of which contain transmembrane domains. Quantitative real-time PCR confirmed the expression of all 20 transmembrane domain transporters, underlining their potential in contributing to the C. auris drug resistant phenotype. Changes in transcript levels after short-term exposure of drugs and in drug-resistant C. auris isolates suggested their importance in the drug resistance phenotype of this pathogen. CAUR_02725 orthologous to CDR1, a major multidrug exporter in other yeasts, showed consistently higher expression in multidrug-resistant strains of C. auris. Homologs of other ABC transporter genes, such as CDR4, CDR6 and SNQ2, also displayed raised expression in a sub-set of clinical isolates. Together, our analysis supports the involvement of these transporters in multidrug resistance in C. auris.

Deep learning has achieved remarkable success in various machine learning and computer vision applications. The learning allows multiple processing layers to learn features by themselves opposite to conventional machine learning approaches which were not able to process the data in their natural form. Deep convolution networks have shown great performance in processing images and videos, whereas recurrent nets have shown great success for sequential data. This paper reviews all the aspects and researches done till now in this area along with their future possibilities.

Graphene-based materials have gained a lot of scientific interest in the research era of modern technology, which can be quite flexible. Graphene has become popular as a potential material for the manufacture of a wide range of technologies due to its remarkable electrical, mechanical, and optical traits. Due to these excellent characteristics, the derivatives of graphene can be functionalized in various applications including environmental, medical, electronic, defence applications, and many more. In this review paper, we discussed the different synthesis methods for the extraction of graphene and its derivatives. The different traits of graphene and its derivatives such as structural, mechanical, and optical were also discussed. An extensive literature review on the application of graphene-based composites is presented in this work. We also outlined graphene’s potential in the realm of environmental purification through different techniques such as filtration, adsorption, and photocatalysis. Lastly, the challenges and opportunities of graphene and its derivatives for advanced environmental applications were reported.

Purpose The aim of this research is to investigate the factors influencing the adoption of digital payments by the semi-rural women in India. Design/methodology/approach The study extended the factors of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology UTAUT-2, with perceived credibility and self-determination theory to understand the use behaviour of the rural Indian women. The study checked the mediating role of some constructs besides testing the direct relationship. The study was conducted in the rural parts of the adjoining areas of Delhi, where the women from different states, education and financial background live. The research model was empirically tested on 568 respondents using structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. Findings The research model was able to explain 72.6% variance in the user behaviour variable. Effort expectancy, habit, facilitating conditions as well as perceived competence emerged out to be significant determinants of use behaviour. Besides these direct relationships, two constructs, habit as well as facilitating conditions were found to partially mediate the relationship between behavioural intention and behaviour. Originality/value This study provides some very critical clues for the companies providing digital payment services, by highlighting the significant factors explaining the technology adoption by semi-rural women. The companies must devise suitable marketing strategies to inculcate trust in mind of perspective customers towards their companies as well as the service provided by them. The role of simple digital platform, that is easy to learn and use, is also an important element in determining the technology adoption.

Zinc oxide nanoparticle (ZNP) has been synthesized by microwave-assisted technique with the aid of a buffer solution. ZNP inhibited the growth of bacterial system Escherichia coli , even its multidrug-resistant counterpart as well. Systematic evaluation reveals that bioavailable crystalline ZNP damages the lipopolysaccharide layer from outer membrane (OM) of E. coli , subsequently damages the OM followed by inner membrane, enters within the cell and generates extensive reactive oxygen species-mediated damage. A series of biochemical, biophysical and molecular techniques have been used to reach the conclusion. We believe this work is expected to enlighten the detailed mode of action study in bacterial system.

Harnessing green electricity by hydroelectric cell from water molecule splitting based on uniquely processed ferrites, multiferroic, composites and metal oxides has astonished the world. The specially processed oxygen deficient Nano porous ferrite/metal oxide attached with two dissimilar electrodes known as hydroelectric cell to generate electricity using a few drops of water for the first time it was invented in 2016. It is a primary source of energy that operates on the principle of spontaneous water molecule dissociation (OH− and H3O+) by oxygen deficient and Nano porous materials such as Mg0.8Li0.2Fe2O4, SiO2, SnO2, MgO, Fe2O3, Fe3O4, and TiO2. The electrodes attached on oxide pellets are the Zn sheet anode and inert cathode Ag paste fabricated as hydroelectric cell. Chemi-dissociation of water molecule on the pellet surface followed by physi-dissociation results into H3O+ ion hopping and that ultimately leads to hopping of H+ ions into nanopores. This phenomenon generates enough electric potential that spontaneously dissociates physisorbed water molecules on the pellet surface, thus sustaining current in the cell. Redox reactions of OH− and H3O+ at Zn and Ag electrodes, respectively, generate cell potential, which allows the flow of electric current in the external circuit of the cell. A pellet of size 1 in. square of Mg0.8Li0.2Fe2O4, SnO2, and Fe3O4 etc. is able to deliver current of 8, 22, and 50 mA with a voltage of 0.98, 0.78, and 0.83 V, respectively. Hydroelectric cell working in different functional mode is able to produce high purity hydrogen gas and zinc hydroxide nanoparticles also. This review compiled the detailed working mechanism of recently invented hydroelectric cell, with studies done on different oxide materials in order to understand their water splitting properties, its advantages and limitation along with future prospect for complementing other sources for power generation. Hydroelectric cell has brought a big revolution recently in green energy sector by opening a new field in energy materials based on water splitting by non-photocatalytic process and is progressing rapidly its development, therefore there is a need of concise and comprehensive article to introduce its working to advance this new green energy device knowledge to young researchers globally. Conduciveeconomics, ubiquitous resources, user friendly technology with no disposal issue make hydroelectric cell a future potential green energy source as a better low cost alternative to solar and fuel cell.

<b>Objectives:</b> The aim of this study was: (i) to formulate pit and fissure sealants (PFS) containing nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAP) filler; nHAP filler and silica co-filler; nHAP and nano-Amorphous Calcium Phosphate (nACP) co-filler, (ii) to evaluate physical properties; degree of conversion (DOC), curing depth (CD) and mechanical properties; microshear bond strength (MBS) of fortified PFS, and (iii) to assess remineralization potential and release of Ca²⁼ and PO₄ ions from newly synthesized sealants.<br><b>Materials and Methods:</b> Four PFS were prepared using monomers with mixture of 35.5 wt % BisGMA, 35.5 wt % triethylene glycol dimethacrylate and 28 wt % hydroxyethyl methacrylate. Bioactive nanofillers (nHAP and n-ACP) were added in various concentrations (0%–30%). Three commercial sealants were used as follows: unfilled (Clinpro; 3M ESPE), Fluoride releasing (Delton FS plus, Dentsply), ACP filled (Aegis, Bosworth). The samples (<i>n</i> = 35.5/gp) were tested for MBS, DOC, and CD. Remineralization potential was assessed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The concentrations of Ca²⁼ and PO₄ released from the sealant specimens were analyzed with Ultraviolet-visible Spectrophotometer. Data obtained was statistically analyzed (one-way analysis of variance, Tukey's test, <i>P</i> < 0.05).<br><b>Results:</b> 10% hydroxyapatite (HAP) =20% ACP sealant showed significantly higher DOC. A remineralized region on the surface between fissure sealant and tooth enamel was observed by SEM in all three HAP filled bioactive sealants. Decreasing the solution pH significantly increased ion release from sealant filled with 10% nHAP = 20% nACP (<i>P</i> ≤ 0.001).<br><b>Conclusion:</b> Results suggested that admixture of nHAP and nACP to PFS showed remineralizing capability, without declining their mechanical and physical properties.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the potential of “homestays” and also observe the trends related to this emerging concept in India. This paper also discusses various challenges faced by the owners of homestays. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on an exploratory study that sought to collect factual data about the present scenario and the emerging trends related to homestays. A qualitative case study method was used to analyse the actual practices followed by stakeholders. This paper expresses the viewpoint of the authors on the augmented demand for homestay supported by secondary data published in several academic papers and reports published by various government departments. The author interviewed a number of homestay owners to obtain a first-hand perspective. Findings This paper brings to light the rising trend toward homestays, the benefits of homestay tourism from the perspective of homestay stakeholders (both tourists and owners) and the impact on economic, social and cultural life, as a result of growth in the homestay concept. Originality/value The current level of discussion about homestays is limited, as there are relatively few prior studies reported in the literature.

Homozygosity is highly desirable in transgenic plants research to ensure the stable integration and inheritance of transgene(s). Simple, reliable and high-throughput techniques to detect the zygosity of transgenic events in plants are invaluable tools for biotechnology and plant breeding companies. Currently, a number of basic techniques are being used to determine the zygosity of transgenic plants in T1&amp;nbsp;generation. For successful application of any technique, precision and simplicity of approach combined with the power of resolution are important parameters. On the basis of simplicity, resolution and cost involved, the available techniques have been classified into three major classes which are conventional methods, current methods and next generation methods. Conventional methods include antibiotic marker-based selection and the highly labour intensive Southern blot analysis. In contrast, methods such as real time PCR, TAIL PCR and competitive PCR are not only cost effective but rapid as well. Moreover, methods such as NGS, Digital PCR and Loop-mediated isothermal amplification also provide cost effective, fast and not so labour-intensive provide substitute of current methods. In this review we have attempted to compare and contrast all the available efficient methods to distinguish the homozygous plant in progeny of transgenics. This review also provides plenty of information regarding the various techniques available for determining zygosity in plants so as to permit the scientists to make informed choices of techniques that best suit their analyses. More importantly, detection and subsequent selection of homozygous individuals is central for facilitating the movement of transgenic plant from the laboratory to the field.

Purpose This paper aims to introduce the theme issue and strategic question: What should Indian tourism and hospitality managers focus on to stay competitive in the coming decade? It also presents an overview of recent developments in the tourism and hospitality industry and presents some statistics and trends relating to prospects for the tourism and hospitality industry in India. Design/methodology/approach Emerging trends emanate from various official reports and expert views. The paper also highlights key issues and areas for investigation by the theme issue contributors. Findings Strong growth is predicted for the tourism and hospitality industry and some of the underpinning issues that will influence competitiveness are the role of social media, business model innovations, risk management, talent management, valuation models, the influence of information technology, employee loyalty and design thinking in hospitality higher education. Practical implications Given the expansion occurring in the domestic market in India and the involvement of international operators in the Indian environment, this paper will be of interest to practitioners with an interest in the emerging opportunities and challenging issues related in this dynamic marketplace. Originality/value This introductory paper captures the essence of the prevailing trends in the tourism and hospitality industry as a starting point for this theme issue.

Abstract The present study was designed to investigate the potency of hydroxychavicol on selected cutaneous human pathogenic fungi by the use of in vitro and in vivo assays and mechanistic characterization along with toxicological effects. Hydroxychavicol consistently displayed a fungicidal effect against all fungal species tested. Inoculum concentrations over the range of 10 4 to 10 7 CFU/ml did not significantly alter its antifungal potential and time–kill curve results revealed concentration–dependent killing. It also inhibited the growth of biofilm generated by Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Candida parapsilosis and reduced the preformed biofilms. Hydroxychavicol was highly effective in the treatment, and mycological eradication of an experimentally induced topical infection model of dermatophytosis (tinea corporis) and cutaneous candidiasis in guinea pigs, respectively. The mode of action of hydroxychavicol appears to originate from the disruption of cell membrane integrity. Administration of hydroxychavicol in mice at 500 mg per kg of body weight by orally produced no overt toxicity. The retention capacity of hydroxychavicol in vitro , in the presence of keratin has attributed to its in vivo effectiveness in the guinea pig model of topical infections. Furthermore, it is suggestive of its potential use as phytochemical for topical use in cutaneous fungal infections.

Aberrant misfolding and aggregation of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) and its fragments have been implicated in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases. Within the protein, the second RNA recognition motif (RRM2) has recently been demonstrated to be a major contributor towards aggregation and the resultant toxicity. However, the physicochemical mechanism of its misfolding from the functional folded state is poorly understood. In the present work, we have used a cumulative ∼2µs of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to study the structural and thermodynamic characteristics of different unfolded intermediates of RRM2 domain of TDP-43. In 6 M GdmCl at 400 K, at RMSD around 1.5 nm, part of the secondary structure i.e. helix still does not melt without significant change in solvent accessibility and intra-protein hydrogen bonds. However, hydrophobic contacts disrupt significantly suggesting that unfolding proceeds through disruption of hydrophobic core of the protein.The temperature dependent free-energy landscapes (FELs) reveal the presence of multiple metastable intermediate states stabilized by hydrophobic (ILV) contacts and hydrogen bonds. These conformational states have all the native helices intact with significant loss of β-sheets. These partially unfolded states are quite compact and characterized by the exposure of aggregation-prone β-sheets, suggesting the increased aggregation propensity of the partially unfolded states. Our results will thus serve to uncover the structural properties of partially unfolded intermediate states that drive TDP-43 misfolding and aggregation. Elucidating the structural characterization of the misfolding and aggregation prone intermediate states of TDP-43 are important to understand its role in ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Purpose Due to the increasing demand of customer and competitive market pressure, manufacturing organizations should be modernized in strategies, production operations, processes and its procedures to remain competitive. So, a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) was adopted by the manufacturing system to fight with competitive pressure. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the performance of manufacturing system, with a focus on its factors. Design/methodology/approach In this research, the ranking of the performance factor of FMSs is done by using multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) methods as multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis (MOORA) and preference selection index (PSI). Weights of attributes are defined by the AHP method. Findings Ranking of performance factor is done on the basis of six variables which affect three elements of performance of FMS, i.e. productivity, flexibility and quality. MOORA is applied in three ways such as the ratio-based, reference point and full multiplicative method. In the MOORA method, ranking was done considering weights of attributes and also without it. A PSI method is used to find the best factor among the factors. The results of these methodologies, i.e. MOORA and PSI, are same, i.e. productivity is the primary factor in the manufacturing system. The ranking is validated by the result of different methodology used in this research. Practical implications This research has evaluated the important factors and performance variables which can enhance the performance of manufacturing organizations. So, the manufacturing persons can focus on these to enhance its performance. Originality/value Combined MADM methods, i.e. MOORA and PSI methodologies, are used in this paper to deal with the ranking of performance factors of the FMS considering qualitative characteristics. These approaches show the conversion of a qualitative attribute to quantitative attributes by using fuzzy logic.

Research on the classification of the different categories of small peptides is becoming a challenge for bioinformatics domain. However, machine learning models have shown their potential to tackle such applications. We propose a multi-class random forest (MCRF) classifier to classify small peptides which is compared with state-of-art classifiers including, support vector machine with RBF kernel (SVM+RBF), naïve Bayes (NB), Decision Tree (C5.0), Random Forest (RF). Small peptides sequences are selected from ARA-PEPs repository (Hazarika, et al., 2017) where 13748 small peptides are listed with six categories (i.e., secreted, sORF, stress-induced peptides (SIP), secreted-sORF, sORF-SIP, SIP-secreted). Total 27 features are fetched for each small peptides sequence to prepare data. Comparison is done using metrics i.e., F-Value, Sensitivity, Specificity, ROC, and FP rate with some statistical validation i.e., Kappa Statistics and Wilcoxon sign ranked test. Results of this study show that the proposed classifier has potential to accurately classify multi-level imbalanced data.

Genome sequence matching is vital for health analytics and treatment in healthcare 4.0. It focuses on finding whether a given sequence resembles other sequences that can help identify disease outbreaks faster. The healthcare 4.0 primarily require more efficient systems that can easily connect and interact with big data. The Internet of things (IoT) can potentially realize smart devices that can perform this role in the health sector. This research presents an IoT-enabled hybrid model for Genome sequence analysis of patients in healthcare 4.0. The proposed model utilizes an improved pattern-matching technique that uses Hadoop's ideas, OpenCL, and APAR (API). The primary local alignment search tool (BLAST) is the core algorithm extensively used to compare and find preliminary biological sequence information and calculate the matches' statistical importance. BLAST enables many strings to be distributed in the form of blocks; after that, an instance of the Mapper is mapped to process it after the output of all the mappers combined through the reducer. This mapper and reducer process has inter-node parallelism to speed up the process and efficiently utilize the shared resources. In this work, fine-grained parallelism has been introduced in Hadoop-based BLAST. The proposed work also provided inter-node and intra-node parallelism. The Mapper and reducer accelerated the conventional BLAST algorithm. The proposed model achieved better results than other traditional algorithms for different datasets in all cases.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate a set of wavelets for image compression. Image compression using wavelet transforms results in an improved compression ratio. Wavelet transformation is the technique that provides both spatial and frequency domain information. These properties of wavelet transform greatly help in identification and selection of significant and non-significant coefficients amongst the wavelet coefficients. DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform) represents image as a sum of wavelet function (wavelets) on different resolution levels. So, the basis of wavelet transform can be composed of function that satisfies requirements of multiresolution analysis. The choice of wavelet function for image compression depends on the image application and the content of image. A review of the fundamentals of image compression based on wavelet is given here. This study also discussed important features of wavelet transform in compression of images. In this study we have evaluated and compared three different wavelet families i.e. Daubechies, Coiflets, Biorthogonal. Image quality is measured, objectively using peak signal-to-noise ratio, Compression Ratio and subjectively using visual image quality.

Abstract Dielectric reflectors are the passive components that have their potential demands for various purposes, such as back-end reflector in solar cells, the band pass filters in optical instruments, thermal reflector and so on. Though well-established techniques for manufacturing such reflectors are available, the demand for their low-cost production with a minimum number of coatings has attracted the attention of the scientific community. In this framework, this paper addresses the process optimization for the low-cost and rapid fabrication of dielectric TiO 2 /SiO 2 reflectors with 100% reflectance. Numerous studies are carried out to explore the structural, morphological, and optical characteristics of reflectors. We summarize that the desired reflection band of a selective-wavelength range can be realized by varying the precursor and catalyst concentrations, annealing cycle, and the spin rate. With this, we noticed the shifting of reflection window from the visible (Vis) to near-infrared (NIR) wavelength region using reflectors of merely 2.5 stacks of TiO 2 /SiO 2 films. We also performed the thermal response of the reflector by radiating an infrared light source and observed an exceptional performance indicating its thermal shielding application.

Software Defined Network (SDN) is a revolutionary networking paradigm which provides the flexibility of programming the network interface as per the need and demand of the user. Software Defined Network (SDN) is independent of vendor specific hardware or protocols and offers the easy extensions in the networking. A customized network as per on user demand facilitates communication control via a single entity i.e. SDN controller. Due to this SDN Controller has become more vulnerable to SDN security attacks and more specifically a single point of failure. It is worth noticing that vulnerabilities were identified because of customized applications which are semi-independent of underlying network infrastructure. No doubt, SDN has provided numerous benefits like breaking vendor lock-ins, reducing overhead cost, easy innovations, increasing programmability among devices, introducing new features and so on. But security of SDN cannot be neglected and it has become a major topic of debate. The communication channel used in SDN is OpenFlow which has made TLS implementation an optional approach in SDN. TLS adoption is important and still vulnerable. This paper focuses on making SDN OpenFlow communication more secure by following extended TLS support and defensive algorithm.

Zinc sulfide (ZnS) doped with transition metal has been used as phosphor for various optoelectronic applications. In the present report, ZnS:Mn doped and ZnS:Mn,Ni co-doped were prepared using chemical co-precipitation method using polyvinyl pyrolidone as a surfactant. The structural studies were carried out using an X-ray diffraction technique; optical studies have been performed using ultraviolet-visible light absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The presences of functional groups were confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction study and Reitveld analysis confirms the formation of cubic phase with crystalline size 2-3 nm for undoped and doped ZnS nanoparticles. A novel and enhanced luminescence characteristic have been observed in PL spectra. The luminescence intensity of Mn,Ni co-doped ZnS in the blue region is much higher of that of ZnS. The PL results indicate that the doping of Ni creates shallow trap states or luminescence centres in the forbidden energy gap, which quenches the Mn states emission. Concentration quenching has been observed in Mn-doped ZnS nanoparticles. From CIE coordinates, it is seen that the yellow and blue light emission of ZnS:Mn,Ni co-doped nanophosphor may be a promising candidate for display devices and phosphor converted light-emitting diode applications.

Wastewater remediation is of paramount importance for the water-stressed modern civilization from the perspective of sustainable development and the management of limited freshwater resources. Contaminants such as heavy metal and metalloid ions, toxic dyes, and pathogenic microbes present in the aquatic ecosystem have adverse effects not only on the environment but also on human health. Traditional wastewater remediation processes are costly, energy-consuming, and have less efficiency in removing pollutants from wastewater. Multi-phasic nanomaterials or nanocomposites have enormous potential for removing contaminants from water bodies. These materials have an enormous tunable surface area for interacting with the target toxicants and are extremely stable in the aquatic system, but they readily agglomerate. Many research groups have exploited biosorption, bioleaching, and bioprecipitation capacities of fungal hyphae for wastewater remediation. Recently, researchers have attempted to explore the synergistic effect of the bionanocomposite of fungal hyphae and nanomaterials for removing pollutants from wastewater. This bionanocomposite has already shown promise as a superior material for wastewater treatment and can easily be separated from the polluted water for reuse over several cycles. The bionanocomposite-mediated decontamination of water can lead to a total paradigm shift in wastewater management strategies.