Bioautomation

Volume 18, Issue 2
Editorial
New Books
Bioinformatics
CGPD: Cancer Genetics and Proteomics Database - A Dataset for Computational Analysis and Online Cancer Diagnostic Centre	67-74
Muhammad Rizwan Riaz, Attia Iram [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
Cancer Genetics and Proteomics Database (CGPD) is a repository for genetics and proteomics data of those Homo sapiens genes which are involved in Cancer. These genes are categorized in the database on the basis of cancer type. 72 genes of 13 types of cancers are considered in this database yet. Primers, promoters and peptides of these genes are also made available. Primers provided for each gene, with their features and conditions given to facilitate the researchers, are useful in PCR amplification, especially in cloning experiments. CGPD also contains Online Cancer Diagnostic Center (OCDC). It also contains transcription and translation tools to assist research work in progressive manner. The database is publicly available at http://www.cgpd.comyr.com.
Computational Modelling of Pisum Sativum L. Superoxide Dismutase and Prediction of Mutational Variations through in silico Methods	75-88
Nathan Vinod Kumar, Lizzy Mathew, Edward Gnanaraj Wesely [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is one of the major enzymes expressed in the oxidative stress pathway in plants. Its expression is also evident in other taxonomic group in oxidative reactions. Pisum sativum a common plant is being studied in the present work where SOD is characterized using computational tools. SOD sequence of P. sativum [CAA42737.1] Ala and Leu rich protein with alkaline pI value was used as query sequence and used to obtain nine similar sequences through BLASTp. Phylogenetic tree was constructed using MEGA 5.0 based on neighbour joining method. Physiochemical parameters and amino acid composition was studied and compared with query sequences and other similar sequences. Secondary structures were predicted to understand the dominant components. Homology modeling of P. sativum SOD was done using SWISS MODEL and quality was evaluated using standard methods. 27 active sites were detected in SOD predicted model which were Lys rich.
Biomedical systems
A Review on Pacemakers: Device Types, Operating Modes and Pacing Pulses. Problems Related to the Pacing Pulses Detection	89-100
Valentin Tsibulko, Ivo Iliev, Irena Jekova [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
A pacemaker is a small battery-operated medical device that delivers electrical impulses to the heart in order to guarantee regular contractions. Depending on the number of active leads the pacemakers are single chamber, dual chamber and bi-ventricular. According to their programming the devices could be with fixed-rate, 'on demand' and rate-responsitive. The operating mode of the pacemaker depends on the paced chamber, the sensed chamber, the response to a sensed electrical signal and the rate modulation. Two types of pacing are recognized - unipolar and bipolar, represented with different pacing artifacts in the ECG signal. The pacing pulse on the skin surface usually have very fast rising edges of the order of 10 µs or less and could be as small as few hundreds µV. The pacing artifacts detection is important since they indicate the presence of a pacemaker and help to evaluate the reaction of the heart. All pertinent medical standards require the pacing artifacts to be captured and indicated on the screen of the device. This paper presents a short review on pacemakers - reasons for implementation, device types, different operation modes and pacing pulses. It reveals some common problems with the detection of pacemaker's artifacts.
An Approach for Experimental Investigation of Muscle Activities of the Upper Limbs (Right versus Left Arm) of Healthy Subjects and Post-stroke Patients - A Preliminary Study	101-110
Rositsa Raikova, Silvija Angelova, Vihren Chakarov, Dimo Krastev [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
The experimental estimation of muscle activities in post-stroke patients with limb motor deficit is often based on surface electromyography signals (EMGs). Besides EMGs processing and interpretation difficulties, the differences in motor control of dominant and non-dominant arm have to be taken into account since the stroke can injure either left or right limb. Different motor tasks (under static conditions - different postures, and dynamic ones, i.e. elbow flexions/extensions in the sagittal and in the horizontal planes) were performed consecutively with the dominant and the non-dominant arm of two healthy volunteers and with the non-affected and the affected arm of two stroke patients. Surface EMGs of seven muscles were recorded using a Noraxon telemetric system. Two custom-made programs written in MATLAB were developed, separately for processing the data from static and dynamic motor tasks. At first the EMG signals were filtered, rectified and smoothed. For static tasks power-frequency analysis was performed, calculating different parameters (mean and median frequency, area under power function, mean values of the smoothed signals, which would be used as coefficients for normalization, etc.). For dynamic tasks one trial of flexion/extension motions was chosen for visual expectation through the saved video records. An analysis of synergistic and antagonistic muscle activities was performed.
Bioecological systems
Analysis of the Terraced Construction Effect on Ecological  Economic Coordinated Development in the Southwest China	111-120
Ping Liang [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
This paper through the correlation analysis and efficiency analysis, studied the differences between slope croplands and terraces on soil, water and fertilizer conservation in Southwest China. Meanwhile, it carried out a quantum chemical calculation of the ecological, economic and social benefits brought to the local Hani residents by terrace construction and concluded that terraced fields can promote the mutual coordination effect of water and fertilizer. Thus, it is beneficial for crop growth and development and increase grain output, to achieve the purpose of efficient water use and stable high yield. The results show that with the improvement of Hani ecological environment and the increase of land utilization, local ecological, economic and social benefits are significantly increased, which has laid a solid foundation for the agricultural industrialization development and implementation of sustainable agricultural development strategy in Hani. And also, it provides guarantee for the ecological, economic and social coordinated development of the county.
Circular Economy Development Mode of Coastal and Marine Areas in China and its Evaluation Index Research - The Example of Qingdao	121-130
Yan Lu [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
Marine circular economy development and marine ecological security construction is the solution of seeking sustainable development when human beings are faced with marine ecological crisis in future period. Marine circular economy and ecological security is the subsystem of ecological, social and economic compound system. These two are mutually conditional and have been in collaborative development. Marine circular economy development is the premise and approach of securely constructing marine ecology. Constructing marine ecological security and building harmonious marine ecological environment is an important goal of developing circular economy. Circular economy is one of the important economic models for managing public resources under the principle of sustainable development, which is the guiding direction of future economic development in China. As important strategic resources, ocean is a crucial component of realizing economic sustainable development, which also needs to take the circular economy concept and basic principles as a guide for development.
Economic Ecology Benefits Research of Combined Circular Agriculture	131-140
Yuhong Xiong [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
Realizing the thrift and cyclic utilization of natural resources, improving agricultural economic benefit and ecological efficiency are the basic requirements of combined circular agriculture, and also the inevitable directions of Chinese agricultural development. This paper based on farmer economic theory, take the farmer fertilizer inputs of the three provinces Shandong, Shanxi, Hubei as examples, through establishing econometric models, through knowing the farmer reduction inputs and its influence factors in combined circular agriculture, to make study to the economic ecology benefits research of combined circular agriculture. The research result shows only under "incremental utilization" and "decremental utilization" these two choices, most farmers tend to the decremental utilization of fertilizer"; in addition, the gender, family agricultural acreage of agricultural production decision makers, the cognition degree, government technical support degree of farmers to combined circular agriculture all have obviously impact on fertilizer application behaviors. To further stimulate farmers reduce using means of production during productive process, it needs to promote paying attention to the guidance of agricultural productive large-scale growers and women, improve the cognition degree of farmers to combined circular agriculture, reinforce government technical support degree, and improve economic ecology benefits of combined circular agriculture.
An Empirical Study on Environmental System Perception of Tourism Island Residents: A Case Study in Hainan Island	141-152
Qiong Sun [ +/- abstract ][ full text ]
Today the development of island tourism has attracted more and more attention from domestic and international tourism researches. Tourism island has become the important scenic spot in coastal cities in China. Through the empirical research of local residents' awareness of environmental system, we can better hold people's perception of the touristic environment. Method can also be drawn to promote public participation more actively in the tourism development of the islands. This paper mainly shows the residents' attitude towards tourism through their feelings of the changes of economy, local social culture and the island environment brought by tourism. The results show that residents' positive perception of tourism is more intense than negative perception, and the perception of economy is stronger than that of culture and environment. On the overall perception, there exists no significant difference while in the tiny level there are still some differences remained.