Shabir Ahmad Bhat

Diffusion of Internet Technology in the Tourism Sector: An Empirical Study

As a result of information and communication technologies, electronic marketing has become an integral part of the modern tourism industry. The tourism industry relies to a great extent on Internet technology. On the other hand, the tourism sector is the key player of todays economy. The ever-increasing use of Internet technology has tremendously affected the travel and hospitality industry. There is a growing realization of the need to assess the impact of Internet technology on tourism and appropriate models are required to contribute in this field. This study is an attempt to describe a methodology for the adoption and diffusion of Internet technologies in tourism and set criteria for measuring the impact, effectiveness, current status, value addition, and overall impact with the help of qualitative and quantitative methods.

A review on heme oxygenase-1 induction: is it a necessary evil

Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is considered to be the main protein in diseases arising as a result of oxidative and inflammatory insults. Tremendous research has been carried out on HO-1 since years, pertaining its cytoprotective effect against oxidative injury and other cellular stresses. HO-1, by regulating intracellular levels of pro-oxidant heme, or by other benefits of its by-products such as carbon monoxide (CO) and biliverdin (BV) had become an important candidate protein to be up-regulated to combat diverse stressful events. Although the beneficial effects of HO-1 induction have been reported in a number of cells and tissues, a growing body of evidence indicates that this increased HO-1 expression may lead to the progression of several diseases such as neurodegeneration, carcinogenesis. But it is not clear, what accounts for the increased expression of HO-1 in cells and tissues. The observed friendly role of HO-1 in a wide range of stress conditions since times is now doubtful. Therefore, more studies are needed to elucidate the exact role of HO-1 in various stressful events. Being more concise, elucidating the effect of HO-1 up-regulation on critical genes involved in particular diseases such as cancer will help to a larger extent to comprehend the exact role of HO-1. This review will assist in understanding the dual role (protective and detrimental) of HO-1 and the signaling pathway involved and will help in unraveling the doubtful role of HO-1 induction.

Sumdoc: A Unified Approach for Automatic Text Summarization

In this paper, we focus on the task of automatic text summarization. Lot of work has already been carried out on automatic text summarization though most of the work done in this field is on extracted summaries. We have developed a tool that summarizes the given text. We have used several NLP features and machine learning techniques for text summarizing. We have also showed how WordNet can be used to obtain abstractive summarization. We are using an approach that first extracts sentences from the given text by using ranking algorithm, by means of which we rank the sentence on the basis of many features comprising of some classical features as well as some novel ones. Then, after extracting candidate sentences, we investigate some of the words and phrases and transform them into their respective simple substitutes so as to make the final summary a hybrid summarization technique.

Connexin 43 and ATP-sensitive potassium channels crosstalk: a missing link in hypoxia/ischemia stress

Connexin 43 (Cx43) is a gap junction protein expressed in various tissues and organs of vertebrates. Besides functioning as a gap junction, Cx43 also regulates diverse cellular processes like cell growth and differentiation, cell migration, cell survival, etc. Cx43 is critical for normal cardiac functioning and is therefore abundantly expressed in cardiomyocytes. On the other hand, ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channels are metabolic sensors converting metabolic changes into electrical activity. These channels are important in maintaining the neurotransmitter release, smooth muscle relaxation, cardiac action potential repolarization, normal physiology of cellular repolarization, insulin secretion and immune function. Cx43 and KATP channels are part of the same signaling pathway, regulating cell survival during stress conditions and ischemia/hypoxia preconditioning. However, the underlying molecular mechanism for their combined role in ischemia/hypoxia preconditioning is largely unknown. The current review focuses on understanding the molecular mechanism responsible for the coordinated role of Cx43 and KATP channel protein in protecting cardiomyocytes against ischemia/hypoxia stress.

Relaxin protects cardiomyocytes against hypoxia-induced damage in in-vitro conditions: Involvement of Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway

&NA; Relaxin, a peptide hormone has emerged as a cardioprotective agent against the heart failure and has been found to protect cardiac muscle cells against hypoxia/reoxygenation injury under in vitro conditions. The present study was conducted to study its possible role in activating the Nrf2/HO‐1 signaling pathway in cardiomyocytes, as a means to counter hypoxia associated oxidative damage and cell death. H9C2 cell line was induced with chemical hypoxia alone or together with relaxin. Hypoxia associated cellular damage and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was accessed by Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release and DCFDA activity respectively. The anti‐oxidative property of RLXH2 was measures by assessing the activities of different enzymes like Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT) and Glutathione peroxidase (GSX). Expression levels of Nrf2 and HO‐1 was studied by immunoblotting and quantitative real time PCR (qRT‐PCR). Translocation of Nrf2 to nucleus was studied by immunoblotting. Our results found that hypoxia associated lactate dehydrogenase leakage and ROS production is countered by RLXH2 treatment. Similarly, RLXH2 was able to counter hypoxia induced oxidative damage as evident by increased activities of SOD, CAT and GSX. Furthermore, it was found that RLXH2 treatment induces translocation of Nrf2 from cytosol to nucleus and in turn enhances expression level of HO‐1. Our results suggest that RLXH2 exerts cytoprotective action in cardiomyocytes against the hypoxia induced damage and activates Nrf2/HO‐1 signaling pathway.

The Effects of Organisational Cultural Functions and Job Satisfaction on Turnover Intention-A Study of Health Care Industry

Organizational Culture has been defined as per the work of Dr. Talcott Parsons, a sociologist at Harvard “as the functions that every organization must carry in order to survive, grow and stabilize for any substantial length. Organizations must carry out four crucial functions if they are to survive as managing change, achieving goals, coordinating teamwork and customer orientation. The study was conducted on a sample of 759 employees of health care industry to examine the effects of organisational culture and job satisfaction on turnover intention in two categories of employees doctors and paramedics. Statistically significant differences between the two categories were found for Managing Change, coordinated teamwork and turnover intention. It has been found Doctors scoring more on managing change and turnover intention whereas paramedics scoring more on coordinated teamwork. However, differences between the two categories of employees for turnover intention were removed after statistically controlling for organizational culture, job satisfaction and respondents’ demographic characteristics. For the combined samples, Managing Change, coordinated teamwork, and job satisfaction had negative effects on turnover intention, that the effect of coordinated teamwork, managing change and job satisfaction on turnover intention is stronger within doctors than the paramedics. Participants’ qualification level was found to have a negative effect on turnover intention. Organizational culture was found to moderate the effect of respondents’ age and marital status on turnover intention, with the effect being more positive for age with paramedics and marital status with doctors.