Publications by authors named "Balasubramaniam T"

Soil salinization is a severe abiotic stress that negatively affects plant growth and development, leading to physiological abnormalities and ultimately threatening global food security. The condition arises from excessive salt accumulation in the soil, primarily due to anthropogenic activities such as irrigation, improper land uses, and overfertilization. The presence of Na⁺, Cl, and other related ions in the soil above normal levels can disrupt plant cellular functions and lead to alterations in essential metabolic processes such as seed germination and photosynthesis, causing severe damage to plant tissues and even plant death in the worst circumstances.

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Social media platforms have become a common place for information exchange among their users. People leave traces of their emotions via text expressions. A systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of social media data across time and space can give insights into local outbreaks, mental health, and social issues.

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The world is witnessing the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Each country responded to contain the spread of the virus in the early stages through diverse response measures. Interpreting these responses and their patterns globally is essential to inform future responses to COVID-19 variants and future pandemics.

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Appropriate descriptions of statistical methods are essential for evaluating research quality and reproducibility. Despite continued efforts to improve reporting in publications, inadequate descriptions of statistical methods persist. At times, reading statistical methods sections can conjure feelings of dèjá vu, with content resembling cut-and-pasted or "boilerplate text" from already published work.

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In this world of information and experience era, microblogging sites have been commonly used to express people feelings including fear, panic, hate and abuse. Monitoring and control of abuse on social media, especially during pandemics such as COVID-19, can help in keeping the public sentiment and morale positive. Developing the fear and hate detection methods based on machine learning requires labelled data.

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Unlabelled: Social media platforms like Twitter have become an easy portal for billions of people to connect and exchange their thoughts. Unfortunately, people commonly use these platforms to share misinformation which can influence other people adversely. The spread of misinformation is unavoidable in an extraordinary situation like Covid-19, and the consequences can be dreadful.

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Objective: This study aimed to evaluate associations between leukopenia or neutropenia at birth and risk of sepsis in very preterm neonates.

Study Design: We conducted a retrospective unmatched cohort study of neonates of <32 weeks' gestation. Those with leukopenia (≤5,000/µL) were compared with a unmatched cohort without leukopenia.

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Introduction: The aim of this study is to evaluate gatifloxacin-loaded sodium alginate hydrogel membranes, supplemented with glycerol (a plasticizer), glutaraldehyde (a cross-linking agent), and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) or hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) polymers, as potential wound dressing materials based on their physicochemical properties and the sustain-release phenomenon.

Materials And Methods: The physicochemical properties of the prepared hydrogel membranes were evaluated by several methods including Fourier transform infrared and differential scanning calorimetry. Different techniques were used to assess the swelling behavior, tensile strength and elongation, % moisture absorption, % moisture loss, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), and microbial penetration for the hydrogel membranes.

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Background: Venoms comprise mixtures of numerous bioactive compounds that have a wide range of pharmacologic actions. Toxins from venomous animals have attracted the attention of researchers because of their affinity for primary sites responsible for lethality and their efficacy at extremely low concentrations. The venoms of marine stingrays have not been extensively studied and limited data is available on them.

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The modern access-to-medicines movement grew largely out of the civil-society reaction to the HIV/AIDS pandemic three decades ago. While the movement was successful with regard to HIV/AIDS medications, the increasingly urgent challenge to address access to medicines for noncommunicable diseases has lagged behind-and, in some cases, has been forgotten. In this article we first ask what causes the access gap with respect to lifesaving essential noncommunicable disease medicines and then what can be done to close the gap.

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Design of a unique, single-platform, integrated, multichannel sensor based on carbon nanotube (CNT)-protein adducts specific to each one of the major analytes of blood, glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, and Hb1AC is presented. The concept underlying the sensor, amperometric detection, is applicable to various disease-monitoring strategies. There is an urgent need to enhance the sensitivity of glucometers to <5% level instead of greater than the present 15% standard in these detectors.

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Stingray envenomation is one of the major problems in the marine and freshwater ecosystem. Accidents in human cause immediate, local and intense pain, erythema, edema, hemorrhage, tissue necrosis and secondary bacterial infection are also common. To determine the effect of two marine stingray species Dasyatis sephen and Aetobatis narinari venom extract on coagulation, fibrin(ogen)olytic, proteolytic activities.

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The aim of this project was to compare dual and tri-colour reagents for lymphocyte immunophenotyping. A total of 37 patient and normal specimens were immunophenotyped concurrently with the following mean values (% dual vs tri-colour): CD3 (69.4 vs 68.

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A cross-sectional study on the expression of 6 lymphocyte markers was carried out on 481 patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and 79 normals after stratification based on absolute CD4 counts. The data were stratified according to the following groups: (I) 1201 to 1600, (II) 801 to 1200, (III) 401 to 800 and (IV) 0 to 400 (x 10(6) CD4 cells per mm3). The mean percentages of the subsets before stratification showed that HIV patients had increased percentages of CD3+ (75.

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The aim of this study was to establish the lymphocyte subset reference ranges in a defined Malaysian population as well as to determine inter-racial differences for these values. Normal blood obtained from 152 subjects (55.9% Malay, 26.

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