Abstract

Lighthouses are the road signs of the ocean. They guide sailors through dangerous waters. Each lighthouse design is based on the land it is built on, its purpose, and the technology available. The Geometry of the lighthouses is round, square, octagonal, or conical in shape. These lighthouses need to be in operation 24 × 7 guiding the ships coming towards the coast. However, these lighthouses got affected during past earthquakes. The main objective of this work is to perform the nonlinear time history analysis of Navadra, Kachchigadh and Dwaraka point lighthouses subjected to eight ground motions. Since most of the Gujarat state is under Zone-III, IV and V, the analysis is carried out by normalizing them to respective zone factors as suggested by Bureau of Indian Standards IS 1893 (part-1): 2002. Using energy dissipation approach, damage is quantified at every displacement level. A fragility curve has …

Abstract

Generic text-based compression models are simple and fast but there are two issues that needs to be addressed. They cannot leverage the structure that exists in data to achieve better compression and there is an unnecessary decompression step before the user can actually use the data. To address these issues, we came up with GMZ, a lossless compression model aimed at achieving high compression ratios. The decision to design GMZ (Khandelwal and Rajan, 2017) exclusively for GML's Simple Features Profile (SFP) seems fair because of the high use of SFP in WFS and that it facilitates high optimisation of the compression model. This is an extension of our work on GMZ. In a typical server-client model such as Web Feature Service, the server is the primary creator and provider of GML, and therefore, requires compression and query capabilities. On the other hand, the client is the primary consumer of GML, and therefore, requires decompression and visualisation capabilities. In the first part of our work, we demonstrated compression using a python script that can be plugged in a server architecture, and decompression and visualisation in a web browser using a Firefox addon. The focus of this work is to develop the already existing tools to provide query capability to server. Our model provides the ability to decompress individual features in isolation, which is an essential requirement for realising query in compressed state. We construct an R-Tree index for spatial data and a custom index for non-spatial data and store these in a separate index file to prevent alter - ing the compression model. This facilitates independent use of compressed GMZ file where index can be constructed when required. The focus of this work is the bounding-box or range query commonly used in webGIS with provision for other spatial and non-spatial queries. The decrement in compression ratios due to the new index file is in the range of 1-3 percent which is trivial considering the benefits of querying in compressed state. With around 75% average compression of the original data, query support in compressed state and decompression support in the browser, GMZ can be a good alternative to GML for WFS-like services.

Abstract

In the present situation of building construction around the world, Flat slab is becoming widely popular in the multi-storied buildings due to its advantage and ease of construction over the slabs. However, during past earthquakes, many building with flats have performed poorly. This is mainly due to inadequate resistance for punching shear under the earthquake loading. Many codes that are available for the design are for the analysis of flat slab under gravity loading. Some provisions exist for punching shear resistance, however, they are inadequate. To understand the behavior of building with flat slab subjected lateral loads, a numerical study is performed. A three-dimensional finite element method is used to perform the analysis. A flat slab along with the columns is modelled. Nonlinear constitute equations are used to model material, ie, concrete. Parametric study is performed for understanding the nonlinear behavior of flat slab subjected to lateral loads.

Abstract

Geospatial data visualization systems have been predominantly through applications that are installed and run in a desktop environment. Over the last decade, with the advent of web technologies and its adoption by Geospatial community, the server-client model for data handling, data rendering and visualization respectively has been the most prevalent approach in Web-GIS. While the client devices have become functionally more powerful over the recent years, the above model has largely ignored it and is still in a mode of serverdominant computing paradigm. In this paper, an attempt has been made to develop and demonstrate LSIViewer - a simple, easy-to-use and robust online geospatial data visualisation system for the user’s own data that harness the client’s capabilities for data rendering and user-interactive styling, with a reduced load on the server. The developed system can support multiple geospatial vector formats and can be integrated with other web-based systems like WMS, WFS, etc. The technology stack used to build this system is Node.js on the server side and HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript on the client side. Various tests run on a range of vector datasets, upto 35MB, showed that the time taken to render the vector data using LSIViewer is comparable to a desktop GIS application, QGIS, over an identical system.

Abstract

Geography markup language (GML) is an XML specification for expressing geographical features. Defined by Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), it is widely used for storage and transmission of maps over the Internet. XML schemas provide the convenience to define custom features profiles in GML for specific needs as seen in widely popular cityGML, simple features profile, coverage, etc. Simple features profile (SFP) is a simpler subset of GML profile with support for point, line and polygon geometries. SFP has been constructed to make sure it covers most commonly used GML geometries. Web Feature Service (WFS) serves query results in SFP by default. But it falls short of being an ideal choice due to its high verbosity and size-heavy nature, which provides immense scope for compression. GMZ is a lossless compression model developed to work for SFP compliant GML files. Our experiments indicate GMZ achieves reasonably good compression ratios and can be useful in WebGIS based applications.

Abstract

Lanke et al. (2017) Can J Biotech, Volume 1, Special Issue, Page 96 https://doi.org/10.24870 /cjb.2017-a83 Canadian Journal of Biotechnology ISSN 2560-8304 Poster Presentation … © 2017 Lanke et al.; licensee Canadian Journal of Biotechnology. This is an open access article distributed as per the terms of Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited … Network level analysis of Aging and Alzheimer's … Vinay Lanke, SaiTeja Moolamalla and PK Vinod … Centre for Computational Natural Sciences and Bioinformatics, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad 500032, INDIA … Presenting author: vinay.lanke@research.iiit.ac.in; *Corresponding author: vinod.pk@iiit.ac.in

Abstract

Base pairs involving post-transcriptionally modified nucleobases are believed to play important roles in a wide variety of functional RNAs. Here we present our attempts toward understanding the structural and functional role of naturally occurring modified base pairs using a combination of X-ray crystal structure database analysis, sequence analysis, and advanced quantum chemical methods. Our bioinformatics analysis reveals that despite their presence in all major secondary structural elements, modified base pairs are most prevalent in tRNA crystal structures and most commonly involve guanine or uridine modifications. Further, analysis of tRNA sequences reveals additional examples of modified base pairs at structurally conserved tRNA regions and highlights the conservation patterns of these base pairs in three domains of life. Comparison of structures and binding energies of modified base pairs with their …

Abstract

Post transcriptionally modified nucleotides play an important structural role in RNA by providing additional chemical diversity to the architecture of the constituent nucleotides. To understand the contribution of these modified nucleotides in tertiary interactions that help in RNA folding, we present a systematic investigation of higher order hydrogen bonded structures involving modified nucleotides using bioinformatics based crystal structural database analysis and quantum chemical calculations. Our analysis reveals that 29% of the modified bases that participate in hydrogen-bonding interactions form higher order motifs, which points towards their importance as RNA building blocks. Although greater geometric variations in such motifs are observed in tRNA, they occur most commonly in rRNA, where they may play a role in RNA folding. Characterization of the optimum geometries and binding strengths of the modified …

Abstract

Reverse Watson-Crick G:C basepairs (G:C W:W Trans) occur frequently in different functional RNAs. This is one of the few basepairs whose gas-phase-optimized isolated geometry is inconsistent with the corresponding experimental geometry. Several earlier studies indicate that through post-transcriptional modification, direct protonation, or coordination with Mg2+, accumulation of positive charge near N7 of guanine can stabilize the experimental geometry. Interestingly, recent studies reveal significant variation in the position of putatively bound Mg2+. This, in conjunction with recently raised doubts regarding some of the Mg2+ assignments near the imino nitrogen of guanine, is suggestive of the existence of multiple Mg2+ binding modes for this basepair. Our detailed investigation of Mg2+-bound G:C W:W Trans pairs occurring in high-resolution RNA crystal structures shows that they are found in 14 different …

Abstract

A novel approach to accurately determine residue-specific noncovalent interaction strengths (ξ) of proteins from NMR-measured fast side chain motional parameters (Oaxis2) is presented. By probing the environmental sensitivity of side chain conformational energy surfaces of individual residues of a diverse set of proteins, the microscopic connections between ξ, Oaxis2, conformational entropy (Sconf), conformational barriers, and rotamer stabilities established here are found to be universal among proteins. The results reveal that side chain flexibility and conformational entropy of each residue decrease with increasing ξ and that for each residue type there exists a critical range of ξ, determined primarily by the mean side chain conformational barriers, within which flexibility of any residue can be reversibly tuned from highly flexible (with Oaxis2 ∼ 0) to highly restricted (with Oaxis2 ∼ 1) by increasing ξ by ∼3 kcal …