extract images from pdf

I am using Redhat Enterprise Linux. The default pdfimage is used to extract image from pdf.

command is pdfimage -j picturefilename

type in terminal

for eg: pdfimage -j suresh

you will get suresh-001 suresh-002 as image files.

flash.ocx

In windows you may get a frequent error "flash.ocx" file not found like this





You will need to find the flash9.ocx file and copy it as the file flash.ocx. (or download the attached flash.ocx)

To do this:
1. Browse to the C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash folder.
2. Locate the flash9.ocx file and right click it and select copy.
3. Right click in a blank spot of the same folder and select paste.
4. You will then find you have a file called Copy of Flash9.ocx in the folder.
5. Right click the new file and select rename and rename to flash.ocx

Once complete you should notice your screensaver functioning again and the error long gone.


Reference

http://www.techenigma.com/articles/1741/1/Could-not-find-the-file-flashocx/Page1.html

Software for deciding journal for publication

Rather than racking your brain to decide which journal is most likely to publish your work, the computer program – called Journal/Author Name Estimator or Jane –will take a paper’s title or abstract and tell you where to take it.

check it out this blog for further information http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/03/picker_produces_paper_publicat.html

Interview questions - phd or post doc

I have gone through some interesting questions ? check it out.

1. What characteristics distinguish this program from others in the same field ?
2. Tell me abt yourself ? 3. What are your strengths and weakness ? 4. If your are not accepted into graduate school ? What are your plans ?
5. Why did you choose this career ?
6. What do you know about our program ? / Why did you choose to apply to our program ? 7. What do you believe your greatest challenge will be if you are accepted into this program ?
8. In college, what courses did you enjoy the most? The least ? Why?
9. How would your professors describe you?
10. How will you be able to make a contribution to this field?
11. What are your hobbies?
12. Explain a situation in which you had a conflic and how you resolved it. What would you do differently? Why? 13. Describe your greatest accomplishment?
14. Tell me about your experience in this field? What was challenging? What was your contribution?
15. What are your career goals? How will this program help you achieve your goals ? 16. What skills do you bring to the program. How will you help your mentor in his or her research ? / Why should we take you and not someone else? / In what ways have your previous experience prepared you for graduate study in our program ?
17. Are you motivated? Explain and provide examples. 18. What do you plan to specialize in ? 19. What can be determined about an applicant at an interviews?
20. Has anything ever irritated you about people you have worked with?
21. Is there anyone you just could not work with?
22. Would you rather be liked or feared ?
23. What has been the biggest obstacle you have overcome? 24. By what process do you make decisions?
25. What do you do when you are right and others disagree with you? 26. How would you supervise a postgraduate researcher?
27. Who are the key researchers in your field? 28. What are the most important rewards you expect in your career? 29. how do you determine or evaluate success?
28. How do you want to see you in next 10 years?
29. Basic scientific questions in your area?

Prediction of Protein Structure In 1D - Secondary Structure, Membrane Regions, and Solvent Accessibility

A useful chapter which is freely available on "Prediction of Protein Structure In 1D - Secondary Structure, Membrane Regions, and Solvent Accessibility"
Burkhard Rost
Structural Bioinformatics, P Bourne & H Weissig (eds.), Wiley, 2007, in press
http://cubic.bioc.columbia.edu/papers/2008_rev_1dpred/paper.html

Free English/metric conversion software

You can download Carley's English/Metric Conversion Guide software from this site

http://www.aa1car.com/carleyware/convert.htm

Free education online

Number of course video/audio lectures from physics,chemistry, biology and so on. Look at it http://www.learnerstv.com/index.php

Free online MIT Courses

I have recently visited MIT Free online video/audio lectures. This site has number of lecture course on chemistry, physics, biology,humanistic,anthropology and so on. Visit this site, it is valuable one http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/av/index.htm.

Nobel Week

I have gone through the nobelprize.org, it is very much informative.

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award

Why is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded in Oslo and all the other Nobel Prizes in Stockholm?
Alfred Nobel left no explanation as to why the prize for peace was to be awarded by a Norwegian committee while the other four prizes were to be handled by Swedish committees. In the will he wrote:
"The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting."

Why do you use the word Nobel Laureate and not Nobel Prize Winner?
The awarding of the Nobel Prizes is not a competition or lottery, and therefore there are no winners or losers. Nobel Laureates receive the Nobel Prize in recognition of their achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, or peace.

Nobel Prize amount
10000000(sweden kronor) = 6,71,54,875 (Indian rupees) [in 2007]

Nobel Laureates Facts (2007)

807 Nobel Laureates!
787 individuals and 20 organizations have been awarded the Nobel Prize. Some Laureates and organizations have been awarded more than once.

Only 35 women!
35 Nobel Laureates have been women, and the remaining 752 were men.

The youngest Nobel Laureate
To date, the youngest Laureate is Lawrence Bragg, who was just 25 years old when he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his father in 1915.

The oldest Nobel Laureate
The oldest Laureate to date is Leonid Hurwicz, 2007 Economics Laureate, who is 90 years old.

Which person or organization has received the Nobel Prize more than once?

Marie Curie received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry;
John Bardeen received the 1956 and the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics;
Frederick Sanger received the 1958 and the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry;
Comité International de la Croix Rouge received the 1917, 1944 and 1963 Nobel Peace Prize;
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees received the 1954 and the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize;
Linus Pauling received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.

Who is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes?

Linus Pauling was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2008

"for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international
conflicts"

Name : Martti Ahtisaari
Country: Finland

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2008

Name : Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
Country : France

"author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization"

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008

"for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"

"for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus"

Harald zur Hausen	Françoise Barré-Sinoussi	Luc Montagnier
1/2 of the prize	1/4 of the prize	1/4 of the prize
Germany	France	France
German Cancer Research Centre Heidelberg, Germany	Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology Department, Institut Pasteur Paris, France	World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention Paris, France

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008

"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP"

Osamu Shimomura	Martin Chalfie	Roger Y. Tsien
1/3 of the prize	1/3 of the prize	1/3 of the prize
USA	USA	USA
Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Woods Hole, MA, USA	Columbia University New York, NY, USA	University of California San Diego, CA, USA

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2008

"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"

"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature"

Yoichiro Nambu	Makoto Kobayashi	Toshihide Maskawa
1/2 of the prize	1/4 of the prize	1/4 of the prize
USA	Japan	Japan
Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago Chicago, IL, USA	High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Tsukuba, Japan	Kyoto Sangyo University; Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University Kyoto, Japan

Nobel prize in Economics 2008

"for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity"

Paul Krugman
Princeton University USA

Reference : http://nobelprize.org/index.html

Profile of Janet M. Thornton

check it out profile of Janet M. Thronton in pnas

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/35/12296.full

Proteopedia

Proteopedia is a collaborative wiki 3D encyclopedia of proteins and other molecules. Proteopedia contains a page for every entry in the Protein Data Bank (>50,000 pages), as well as pages that are more descriptive of protein structures in general, e.g. Proteopedia. This is really useful site for protein structure visualization www.proteopedia.org

Web link reference manager

Free online reference management (web links ..).
Useful one check it out this http://www.connotea.org/ and sign up (similar to mail sign up) and make use of it.

Vadlo - Search engine for research scholar

check it out this search engine http://www.vadlo.com/ . Cartoons are nice check it out the recent one http://www.vadlo.com/Daily_Research_Cartoon.html.

Indian local search engine

check it out this site quite interesting http://www.guruji.com/

Protein crystallography

Hi ,
Check it out this site, if you are interested in protein crystallography http://proteincrystallography.org/

AIGore Nobel Lecture

Read this Nobel Lecture
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html

The softer side of science

Mastering soft skills helps master one's career.

Success in science is about more than mastering lab techniques. It also depends on 'soft' skills such as motivation, personality, research strategy and communication. It is not always easy for well-trained objective truth-seekers to consider soft skills, which are subjective. But they may help you boost your productivity and communicate your science better.

Scientists should shield themselves from discouraging events and develop a 'frustration tolerance' for paper and grant rejections, criticism by well-meaning colleagues and the depressing tedium of data collection. Then there's hypermotivation. To avoid burn-out, try relaxation (sports, yoga, meditation) and a healthy social life. Just as learning requires a quiet consolidation phase to store material in long-term memory, success in science needs intermittent silence.

Personality traits cannot usually be changed, but there are ways to improve one's disposition in the lab. Perfection, for example, can only be expected in pure mathematics or fairy tales. Beware of the 80–20 rule: for perfection, the last 20% of a task may take 80% of the effort — not a wise choice if you want to be productive. Worse, perfectionism is a sure path to leaving projects or papers incomplete.

A related trap is failure to bring a project to publication. A finished experiment may satisfy your curiosity, but data are only of value to your CV and the rest of the world if published. The drive to completion is healthy, if you wish to succeed in science. Many of us have papers that are 90% finished but never submitted. Consider the time you have already invested, how little is left to do and how much effort it would take to get to the same point with another project.

Writer's block can be a major challenge: sitting in front of a blank page, lacking the wherewithal to start writing. This may be linked to the perfectionist trap ("I do not write unless my text is perfect"), but it could also be the result of a lack of ideas, of writing ability or of self-confidence. It is usually the first 10 minutes of writing that are hardest. Try to start writing without worrying about the presentation or structure.

Scientific leadership qualities — exhibiting responsibility, flexibility and trust — are also essential in all aspects of science.

These seemingly simple tasks can be taxing. But improving soft skills is a critical element of science success.

From Nature magazine http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2008/080529/full/nj7195-694b.html#top

retracted paper from india

I have gone through this paper recently which is retracted from India

RETRACTED: A computational docking study for prediction of binding mode of diospyrin and derivatives: Inhibitors of human and leishmanial DNA topoisomerase-I
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Volume 17, Issue 18, 15 September 2007, Page 5281
Sandeep Chhabra, Pooja Sharma, Nanda Ghoshal.

Reason: This is due to use and publication of data by another group that was neither acknowledged nor credited, and was used against the wishes of the co-workers.

Reference : Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters

Gromacs-tutorial

Useful tutorial on Gromacs - Molecular Dynamics suite

http://md.chem.rug.nl/education/mdcourse/MDpract.html

Research article with reviewers comment in Biologydirect

I have seen few papers in Biology direct with reviewers comment and authors response. I am surprised to see this. For example, have a look at this article

Various hypotheses on MHC evolution suggested by the concerted evolution of CD94L and MHC class Ia molecules. Biology Direct 2006, 1:3doi:10.1186/1745-6150-1-3

Profiles in science

This is a interesting webpage in NCBI (Many do not know even i). Recently i have read a book on Molecular Modelling, in that book the author has provided this site http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/

This is the biographies of some scientist. It is interesting. Have a look at it.

How to setup a default application for a file(like word with Microsoft word)

How to setup a default application for a file a particular file type?
text files with gedit or nedit
pdf files with acroread or xpdf
xml files with gedit or nedit

For example

I want all "xml" file types to openwith gedit (text editor).


Right click the file and select "Open with" "other application" you will get window like this (shown below). If you want to choose different editor choose the file types available.


Select the file type you want. I have selected gedit (text editor)


Now i can open all the "xml"(any application) files with gedit text editor

How to submit sequence in genbank (NCBI)

1)

2)


3)

4)



5)


1) Open the NCBI home page (click genbank submission hyperlink)
2) You will get genbank overview(click submit to genbank)
3) You will get submit to genbank (clikc the right side BankIt)
4) You will get BankIt submission form (enter sequence length)
5)You can fill the BankIt sequence submission form

INSTALl-postgresql in linux

This is a quick guide to installing PostgreSQL on a Linux based system. We need to get this up and running before we can write PHP scripts to talk to the database. We need to install PostgreSQL before we can install PHP (since we need the PostgreSQL header files).

This is a little more complicated than installing Apache.

The best bet is to install from packages since this will make things easier, both now and for upgrades.

If you decide to install from source code, you'll need to create a user and compile the source.

Create a PostgreSQL user (you'll need root access). This is who owns the system. I use the "postgres" user and group, you can use something different but it's best to keep it related to the package.

See your system documentation on how to do this (hint - man useradd). Give the user a home directory of /usr/local/pgsql as this is where PostgreSQL defaults to when it installs.

Once all that is done, untar the source:

$ tar -zxf postgresql-.tar.gz (if you got the gzipp'ed version);
or
$ tar -xjf postgresql-.tar.bz2

Jump into the directory:

$ cd postgresql-

(replace with the version you downloaded from the website).

Again, configure has a lot of help:

$ ./configure --help

We'll just install into /usr/local/pgsql and leave the rest as-is:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pgsql

Next we have to make it (this will take a while, it takes longer than Apache):

$ make

You will get a line:
All of PostgreSQL successfully made. Ready to install.

when everything is finished.

You'll need to log in as root to do the rest:

$ su -

Go back to the postgresql directory and do:

# make install

PostgreSQL doesn't allow root to start up the server for security reasons, so next you'll have to change the owner of the files:

# chown -R postgres:postgres /usr/local/pgsql

Change to the postgres user:

# su - postgres

Then, change to /usr/local/pgsql:

$ cd /usr/local/pgsql

We need to initialize a database cluster:

$ bin/initdb -D ./data

This will create a /usr/local/pgsql/data directory and initialize it ready for startup and use.

As usual, you can view options by using the --help switch:

$ bin/initdb --help

Then you can start:

$ bin/pg_ctl -D ./data -l data/logfile start

Now that postgresql is started, we need to create a database and another user before we go any further.

You should use a separate database for each of our projects, it's not essential though - it just makes things a little cleaner and easier to understand.

You should also use separate users for each database. This keeps everything separate and 'project a' won't be able to modify any of 'project b's data.

To create a new user in postgresql, it's pretty simple:

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createuser

and follow the prompts - pretty simple :)

The new user should not be able to create new databases or create new users.


To create a database, it's a little different.

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb --owner=username databasename

We have to set the owner of the database when we create it, otherwise the 'postgres' user owns it and then we have to grant access to allow our new user to access it.


Now that that's all done, log out of the postgres user, so we're back as root. In the postgres directory, the contrib/start-scripts/ directory has a few system start up scripts

Useful installation instruction from http://www.designmagick.com/article/2/Starting-Out/Installing-PostgreSQL

This is a quick guide to installing PostgreSQL on a Linux based system. We need to get this up and running before we can write PHP scripts to talk to the database. We need to install PostgreSQL before we can install PHP (since we need the PostgreSQL header files).

This is a little more complicated than installing Apache.

The best bet is to install from packages since this will make things easier, both now and for upgrades.

If you decide to install from source code, you'll need to create a user and compile the source.

Create a PostgreSQL user (you'll need root access). This is who owns the system. I use the "postgres" user and group, you can use something different but it's best to keep it related to the package.

See your system documentation on how to do this (hint - man useradd). Give the user a home directory of /usr/local/pgsql as this is where PostgreSQL defaults to when it installs.

Once all that is done, untar the source:

$ tar -zxf postgresql-.tar.gz (if you got the gzipp'ed version);
or
$ tar -xjf postgresql-.tar.bz2

Jump into the directory:

$ cd postgresql-

(replace with the version you downloaded from the website).

Again, configure has a lot of help:

$ ./configure --help

We'll just install into /usr/local/pgsql and leave the rest as-is:

$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/pgsql

Next we have to make it (this will take a while, it takes longer than Apache):

$ make

You will get a line:
All of PostgreSQL successfully made. Ready to install.

when everything is finished.

You'll need to log in as root to do the rest:

$ su -

Go back to the postgresql directory and do:

# make install

PostgreSQL doesn't allow root to start up the server for security reasons, so next you'll have to change the owner of the files:

# chown -R postgres:postgres /usr/local/pgsql

Change to the postgres user:

# su - postgres

Then, change to /usr/local/pgsql:

$ cd /usr/local/pgsql

We need to initialize a database cluster:

$ bin/initdb -D ./data

This will create a /usr/local/pgsql/data directory and initialize it ready for startup and use.

As usual, you can view options by using the --help switch:

$ bin/initdb --help

Then you can start:

$ bin/pg_ctl -D ./data -l data/logfile start

Now that postgresql is started, we need to create a database and another user before we go any further.

You should use a separate database for each of our projects, it's not essential though - it just makes things a little cleaner and easier to understand.

You should also use separate users for each database. This keeps everything separate and 'project a' won't be able to modify any of 'project b's data.

To create a new user in postgresql, it's pretty simple:

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createuser

and follow the prompts - pretty simple :)

The new user should not be able to create new databases or create new users.


To create a database, it's a little different.

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb --owner=username databasename

We have to set the owner of the database when we create it, otherwise the 'postgres' user owns it and then we have to grant access to allow our new user to access it.


Now that that's all done, log out of the postgres user, so we're back as root. In the postgres directory, the contrib/start-scripts/ directory has a few system start up scripts

Useful installation instruction from http://www.designmagick.com/article/2/Starting-Out/Installing-PostgreSQL

NCBI Resource Locator

What is this thing?

The NCBI Resource Locator provides stable, uniform addressing for NCBI content, making it easy to link to individual records. Some NCBI resources also provide services (like search) through these URLs.
How does it work?

Each URL has the form

http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov///

Where:

* is an NCBI resource (e.g., pubmed, gene, nucleotide, etc.)
* is the action to perform (e.g., search, get, etc.). If is missing, the default verb "get" is used.
* is data used by the action to perform the request

Some examples:

* http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12345

Show the PubMed record with pmid 12345
* http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/search/cancer

Search PubMed for "cancer"
* http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/search/human+p53

Search PubMed for "human p53"
* http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/homologene/search/dystrophin

Search Homologene for "dystrophin"


Reference http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

unzip file(bz2,tar) files

use the command "bunzip2 filename.bz2" for unzip the bz2 files
use the command "tar -cvf filename.tar" for unzip the tar files
use the command "tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz for unzip the tar.gz files

How to transfer files using SCP in linux

Use the command to transfer file using SCP in linux

scp filename username@hostname(or ip address):/home/user/ (path)

for eg, in my homology machine i use

scp filename suresh@homology:/home/suresh/