Adaptive significance of the Indian caste system: an ecological perspective

Indian society is an agglomeration of several thousand endogamous groups or castes each with a restricted geographical range and a hereditarily determine mode of subsistence. These reproductively isolated castes may be compared to biological species, and the society thought of as a biological community with each caste having its specific ecological niche. In this paper we examine the ecological-niche relationships of castes which are directly dependent on natural resources. Evidence is presented to show that castes living together in the same region had so organized their pattern of resource use as to avoid excessive intercaste competition for limiting resources. Furthermore, territorial division of the total range of the caste regulated intra-caste competition. Hence, a particular plant or animal resource in a given locality was used almost exclusively by a given lineage within a caste generation after generation. This favoured the cultural evolution of traditions ensuring sustainable use of natural resources. This must have contributed significantly to the stability of Indian caste society over several thousand years. The collapse of the base of natural resources and increasing monetarization of the economy has, however, destroyed the earlier complementarity between the different castes and led to increasing conflicts between them in recent years.

I/O Device Virtualization in the multi-core era, a QoS perspective

In this paper, we propose an extension to the I/O device architecture, as recommended in the PCI-SIG IOV specification, for virtualizing network I/O devices. The aim is to enable fine-grained controls to a virtual machine on the I/O path of a shared device. The architecture allows native access of I/O devices to virtual machines and provides device level QoS hooks for controlling VM specific device usage. For evaluating the architecture we use layered queuing network (LQN) models. We implement the architecture and evaluate it using simulation techniques, on the LQN model, to demonstrate the benefits. With the architecture, the benefit for network I/O is 60% more than what can be expected on the existing architecture. Also, the proposed architecture improves scalability in terms of the number of virtual machines intending to share the I/O device.

Understanding Protein Structure from a Percolation Perspective

Underlying the unique structures and diverse functions of proteins area vast range of amino-acid sequences and a highly limited number of folds taken up by the polypeptide backbone. By investigating the role of noncovalent connections at the backbone level and at the detailed side-chain level, we show that these unique structures emerge from interplay between random and selected features. Primarily, the protein structure network formed by these connections shows simple (bond) and higher order (clique) percolation behavior distinctly reminiscent of random network models. However, the clique percolation specific to the side-chain interaction network bears signatures unique to proteins characterized by a larger degree of connectivity than in random networks. These studies reflect some salient features of the manner in which amino acid sequences select the unique structure of proteins from the pool of a limited number of available folds.

Climate-change and agriculture - an indian perspective

In this paper, we examine the major predictions made so far regarding the nature of climate change and its impacts on our region in the light of the known errors of the set of models and the observations over this century. The major predictions of the climate models about the impact of increased concentration of greenhouse gases ave at variance with the observations over the Indian region during the last century characterized by such increases and global warming. It is important to note that as far as the Indian region is concerned, the impact of year-to-year variation of the monsoon will continue to be dominant over longer period changes even in the presence of global warming. Recent studies have also brought out the uncertainties in the yields simulated by crop models. It is suggested that a deeper understanding of the links between climate and agricultural productivity is essential for generating reliable predictions of impact of climate change. Such an insight is also required for identifying cropping patterns and management practices which are tailored for sustained maximum yield in the face of the vagaries of the monsoon.

Rotavirus nonstructural proteins: a structural perspective

Rotavirus is a major cause of acute infantile diarrhoea worldwide. The virus genome consists of 11 segments of double-stranded RNA that codesfor six structural proteins (VP1-6) and six non-structural proteins(NSP1-6). NSPs are proteins expressed from the virus genome in the infected cell, but are not incorporated into the mature virus article. NSPs play an essential role in virus replication, morphogenesis and pathogenesis, and most of them exhibit multifunctional properties. Structure-function analysis of the NSPs is essential for understanding the molecular mechanisms by which the virus circumvents host innate immune responses, inhibits cellular protein synthesis, hijacks the protein synthetic machinery for its own propagation and manifests the disease process. Because of their essential roles in virus biology, NSPs represent potential targets for the development of antiviral agents. Determination of the three-dimensional structure of NSPs has been hindered due to low-level expression and aggregation. To date, the complete three-dimensional structure of only NSP2 has been determined. The structures of the N- and C-terminal domains of NSP3 and the diarrhoea-inducing domain of NSP4 have also been determined. This review primarily covers the structural and biological functions of the NSPs whose three-dimensional structural aspects have been fully or partially understood, but provides a brief account of other NSPs and the structural features of the mature virion as determined by electron cryomicroscopy.

A systems perspective of host-pathogen interactions: predicting disease outcome in tuberculosis

The complex web of interactions between the host immune system and the pathogen determines the outcome of any infection. A computational model of this interaction network, which encodes complex interplay among host and bacterial components, forms a useful basis for improving the understanding of pathogenesis, in filling knowledge gaps and consequently to identify strategies to counter the disease. We have built an extensive model of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis host-pathogen interactome, consisting of 75 nodes corresponding to host and pathogen molecules, cells, cellular states or processes. Vaccination effects, clearance efficiencies due to drugs and growth rates have also been encoded in the model. The system is modelled as a Boolean network. Virtual deletion experiments, multiple parameter scans and analysis of the system's response to perturbations, indicate that disabling processes such as phagocytosis and phagolysosome fusion or cytokines such as TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma, greatly impaired bacterial clearance, while removing cytokines such as IL-10 alongside bacterial defence proteins such as SapM greatly favour clearance. Simulations indicate a high propensity of the pathogen to persist under different conditions.

A systems perspective of host-pathogen interactions: predicting disease outcome in tuberculosis

The complex web of interactions between the host immune system and the pathogen determines the outcome of any infection. A computational model of this interaction network, which encodes complex interplay among host and bacterial components, forms a useful basis for improving the understanding of pathogenesis, in filling knowledge gaps and consequently to identify strategies to counter the disease. We have built an extensive model of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis host-pathogen interactome, consisting of 75 nodes corresponding to host and pathogen molecules, cells, cellular states or processes. Vaccination effects, clearance efficiencies due to drugs and growth rates have also been encoded in the model. The system is modelled as a Boolean network. Virtual deletion experiments, multiple parameter scans and analysis of the system's response to perturbations, indicate that disabling processes such as phagocytosis and phagolysosome fusion or cytokines such as TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma, greatly impaired bacterial clearance, while removing cytokines such as IL-10 alongside bacterial defence proteins such as SapM greatly favour clearance. Simulations indicate a high propensity of the pathogen to persist under different conditions.

Interannual Variations of Sea Surface Temperature over the Arabian Sea and the Indian Monsoon: A New Perspective

The interannual variation of surface fields over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal are studied using data between 1900 and 1979. It is emphasized that the monthly mean sea surface temperature (SST) over the north Indian Ocean and monsoon rainfall are significantly affected by synoptic systems and other intraseasonal variations. To highlight the interannual signals it is important to remove the large-amplitude high-frequency noise and very low frequency long-term trends, if any. By suitable spatial and temporal averaging of the SST and the rainfall data and by removing the long-term trend from the SST data, we have been able to show that there exists a homogeneous region in the southeastern Arabian Sea over which the March�April (MA) SST anomalies are significantly correlated with the seasonal (June�September) rainfall over India. A potential of this premonsoon signal for predicting the seasonal rainfall over India is indicated. It is shown that the correlation between the SST and the seasonal monsoon rainfall goes through a change of sign from significantly positive with premonsoon SST to very small values with SST during the monsoon season and to significantly negative with SST during the post-monsoon months. For the first time, we have demonstrated that heavy or deficient rainfall years are associated with large-scale coherent changes in the SST (although perhaps of small amplitude) over the north Indian 0cean. We also indicate possible reasons for the apparent lack of persistence of the premonsoon SST anomalies.

A discrete state perspective of manipulator workspaces Vorstellungen von diskreten zuständen von manipulator-arbeitsräumen

The finite resolution of joint drives or sensors imparts a discrete nature to the joints of a manipulator. Because of this an arbitrary point in the workspace cannot be reached without error even in ideal mechanical environment. This paper investigates the effect of this discrete nature of the joints on the accuracy of performance of a manipulator and develops a method to select the joint states to reach a point with least error. It is shown that the configuration leading to least error cannot, in general, be found from configuration space, especially when there is large variation in the link lengths or joint resolutions or both. The anomaly becomes severe when the gross motion of the end-effector approaches the local resolution of the workspace. The paper also shows how to distinguish two workspaces which may be identical so far as the boundary points are concerned, taking the joint resolutions into account. Finally, the concepts have been extended to define continuous space global and local performance indices for general multi degree of freedom manipulators.

Metal-insulator transition: A low temperarture perspective

We discuss briefly some of the basic issues involved in the field of metal-insulator transition. We point out why this area is a profitable area of research. We also suggest certain definite action plan for this area in particular and the area of low temperature solid state physics in general.

Metal-insulator transition: A low temperarture perspective

We discuss briefly some of the basic issues involved in the field of metal-insulator transition. We point out why this area is a profitable area of research. We also suggest certain definite action plan for this area in particular and the area of low temperature solid state physics in general.

Climate change and agricultrue-An Indian perspective

In this paper, we examine the major predictions made so far regarding the nature of climate change and its impacts on our region in the light of the known errors of the set of models and the observations over this century. The major predictions of the climate models about the impact of increased concentration of greenhouse gases ave at variance with the observations over the Indian region during the last century characterized by such increases and global warming. It is important to note that as far as the Indian region is concerned, the impact of year-to-year variation of the monsoon will continue to be dominant over longer period changes even in the presence of global warming. Recent studies have also brought out the uncertainties in the yields simulated by crop models. It is suggested that a deeper understanding of the links between climate and agricultural productivity is essential for generating reliable predictions of impact of climate change. Such an insight is also required for identifying cropping patterns and management practices which are tailored for sustained maximum yield in the face of the vagaries of the monsoon.