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An Analysis of the Density and Patterns of the Solutions of Diophantine Equations of the Third Power

Grewal et al. | Oct 05, 2020

An Analysis of the Density and Patterns of the Solutions of Diophantine Equations of the Third Power

In this study, the authors sought to find out how many mathematical solutions there were to the Indian mathematician Ramanujan's formula, which is a3 + b3 + c3 = d3, and also quantify the densities its solutions. They wrote their own computer program to do so and kept values of a, b, and c less than 10,000. While conducting the analysis, they were also looking for perfect power taxicab numbers and their frequency. They were able to find solutions and densities for the equation. Additionally, while they found that most perfect cube taxicab numbers had a frequency of 2 or 3, they also found on number with a frequency of 42!

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Characterization of a UPEC DegS Mutant in vitro and in vivo

Bradley et al. | Mar 16, 2015

Characterization of a UPEC <em>DegS</em> Mutant <em>in vitro</em> and <em>in vivo</em>

DegS is an integral inner membrane protein in E. coli that helps break down misfolded proteins. When it is mutated, there is a large increase in the production of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), which are thought to play a role in pathogenesis. This study used mutant strains of uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) to characterize the role of DegS and OMVs on UPEC virulence.

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Interleukin family (IL-2 and IL-1β) as predictive biomarkers in Indian cancer patients: A proof of concept study

Parthasarathy et al. | Apr 03, 2023

Interleukin family (IL-2 and IL-1β) as predictive biomarkers in Indian cancer patients: A proof of concept study
Image credit: National Cancer Institute

Here, recognizing that the immune response to cancer results in biomarkers that can be used to assess the immune status of cancer patients, the authors investigated the concentrations of key cytokines (TH1 and TH2 cytokines) in healthy controls and cancer patients. They identified significant changes in resting and activated cytokine profiles, suggesting that data of biomarkers such as these could serve as a starting point for further treatment with regard to a patient's specific immune profile.

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Potential Multifunctional Agents for Dual Therapy of Age-Related and Associated Diseases: Alzheimer’s Disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Kumar et al. | Nov 13, 2019

Potential Multifunctional Agents for Dual Therapy of Age-Related and Associated Diseases: Alzheimer’s Disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Studies show an age-related link between Alzheimer’s Disease and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus with oxidative stress a characteristic of both. Here, methanolic fractionations and extracts of four Ayurvedic plants were assessed for their protective abilities using a number of in vitro assays. Extracts inhibited oxidative stress and reduced activity of key enzymes involved in the pathogenesis of both diseases in neuroblastoma cells.

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Optimizing data augmentation to improve machine learning accuracy on endemic frog calls

Anand et al. | Mar 09, 2025

Optimizing data augmentation to improve machine learning accuracy on endemic frog calls
Image credit: Anand and Sampath 2025

The mountain chain of the Western Ghats on the Indian peninsula, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is home to about 200 frog species, 89 of which are endemic. Distinctive to each frog species, their vocalizations can be used for species recognition. Manually surveying frogs at night during the rain in elephant and big cat forests is difficult, so being able to autonomously record ambient soundscapes and identify species is essential. An effective machine learning (ML) species classifier requires substantial training data from this area. The goal of this study was to assess data augmentation techniques on a dataset of frog vocalizations from this region, which has a minimal number of audio recordings per species. Consequently, enhancing an ML model’s performance with limited data is necessary. We analyzed the effects of four data augmentation techniques (Time Shifting, Noise Injection, Spectral Augmentation, and Test-Time Augmentation) individually and their combined effect on the frog vocalization data and the public environmental sounds dataset (ESC-50). The effect of combined data augmentation techniques improved the model's relative accuracy as the size of the dataset decreased. The combination of all four techniques improved the ML model’s classification accuracy on the frog calls dataset by 94%. This study established a data augmentation approach to maximize the classification accuracy with sparse data of frog call recordings, thereby creating a possibility to build a real-world automated field frog species identifier system. Such a system can significantly help in the conservation of frog species in this vital biodiversity hotspot.

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Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image

Kumar et al. | Oct 04, 2021

Reimagize – a digital card-based roleplaying game to improve adolescent girls’ body image

Reimagize, a role-playing with decision-making, was conjured, implementing social psychological concepts like counter-stereotyping and perspective-taking. As the game works implicitly to influence body image, it even counters image issues beyond personal body dissatisfaction. This study explored whether a digital role-playing card game, incorporating some of the most common prejudices of body image (like size prejudice, prejudices from the media, etc.) as identified by a digital survey/questionnaire completed by Indian girls aged 11-21, could counter these issues and reduce personal body dissatisfaction.

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