Institutional Repository

Scholar@UOC is the primary academic repository of the University of Calicut.

This repository is aimed to collect, preserve and distribute the research output of the members of our University. This is an open access system hosted and managed by the University Library.

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Recent Submissions

Colouring in fuzzy graphs and inverse fuzzy graphs algorithms applications and studies on chess puzzles
(MES Mampad College( Autonomous) Mampad, 2026) Kadeeja Mole K. P.; Sameena Kalathodi
This thesis, titled "Colouring in Fuzzy Graphs and Inverse Fuzzy Graphs: Algorithms, Applications, andStudies on Chess Puzzles," presents a comprehensive study on the application and extension of fuzzygraphs and inverse fuzzy graphs in solving real-world problems, focusing colouring, primarily ondisease transmission path from a set of countries to another set, decision-making in chess puzzles andsimultaneous drug intake analysis. The research includes some novel fuzzy graph operations,innovative colouring techniques, and new theoretical constructs like the chromatic number andchromatic polynomial for inverse fuzzy graphs.Initially, a fuzzy graph-based model is developed to analyse the transmission pathways ofCOVID-19. By clustering a set of countries using a g-distance metric and constructing a fuzzy graph byconsidering clusters of a particular order as vertices, the model identifies the most dangerous minimalpaths between clusters. This approach effectively highlights the nations with high infection rates andreveals the minimal yet most threatening paths of viral spread.The study further extends to operations on fuzzy graphs by constructing new operations such asthe u-product, strong edge product, and k th power. The relationship between the fuzzy chromaticnumber of these resultant graphs and their component graphs is examined using fuzzy colouring.The thesis then goes into a novel application, by modelling a chess puzzle as a fuzzy graph andusing colouring technique of fuzzy graph, determine the number of possible captures within thepuzzle. Later the study extends to identifying better moves in critical chess scenarios.To address the limitations in existing fuzzy graph theory, the researchers introduces a newconcept called the inverse fuzzy graph ( I-fuzzy graph). This study focused on defining colouring in anI-fuzzy graph. Chromatic number of an I-fuzzy graph is defined and analysed under operations like I-fuzzy union, intersection, and restricted union. This Inverse fuzzy graph colouring study shows how itcan be used in real life, such as modelling drug interactions.Finally, the thesis defines the chromatic polynomial of an inverse fuzzy graph using inverse fuzzygraph colouring based on MMV edges. This work identifies the characteristics of the inverse fuzzychromatic polynomial. Through these contributions, the thesis not only enhances the theoreticalfoundations of fuzzy graph colouring but also demonstrates its diverse applications in epidemiology,artificial intelligence, and healthcare decision-making.
Lanthanide III complexes of Aroylhydrazones DNA binding and fluorescence studies
(Govt. College Madapally, 2025) Anjana, T.M.; Sheeja, S.R.
Schiff bases and their derivatives, particularly aroylhydrazones,have emerged as versatile ligands in coordination chemistry due totheir ease of synthesis, structural flexibility, and strong metal-bindingcapabilities. Their multidentate nature and ability to exhibit keto–enoltautomerism enable diverse coordination geometries and significantfunctional applications.This thesis focuses on the synthesis,characterization, fluorescence, and DNA-binding studies of threearoylhydrazones:salicylaldehydebenzoylhydrazone(H2salbh),salicylaldehydenicotinoylhydrazone(H2salnh),indole-3-andcarbaldehyde benzoylhydrazone (Hindbh) and their Ce(III), Dy(III),and Gd(III) complexes, with and without L-histidine as the coligand.The aroylhydrazones were successfully synthesized viacondensation reactions and characterized by elemental analysis, ESI-MS, FT-IR, UV–vis, NMR, and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Thearoylhydrazones H2salbh and H2salnh act as tridentate (ONO) donors,while Hindbh behaves as a bidentate (NO) donor, forming stable, non-electrolytic complexes. The Ce(III), Dy(III), and Gd(III) complexesexhibited characteristic spectral features confirming metal–ligandinteractions, with histidine coordination further stabilizing thecomplexes and modulating their photophysical properties.The luminescence studies revealed significant enhancementupon metal coordination. The Ce(III) complexes displayed efficientd→f transitions with potential applications as blue-emitting materialsin optoelectronic devices.The Dy(III) complexes showed strongfluorescence due to the suppression of photoinduced electron transfer(PET) and activation of chelation-enhanced fluorescence (CHEF)mechanisms, indicating promise for bioimaging and luminescentprobes. The Gd(III) complexes exhibited increased emission intensityand structural rigidity, suggesting their utility in sensing andmultifunctional imaging platforms.DNA-binding studies, investigated by UV–vis absorptionspectroscopy, indicated that both aroylhydrazones and metalcomplexes interact with DNA primarily through external groovebinding. Metal coordination enhanced binding affinity, particularly inHindbh and its complexes (Kb ~105 M-1), due to increased planarityand π-conjugation.These findings highlight the crucial role of ligand design andmetal ion selection in tuning photophysical and biological properties.Overall,thisworkdemonstratesthataroylhydrazone-basedlanthanide(III) complexes possess significant potential for applicationsinluminescentsensing,bioimaging,andtherapeuticdesign,establishing a foundation for future exploration of multifunctionallanthanide-based materials in bioinorganic and photonic chemistry.
Bioactivity screening and phytochemical profiling of selected species of Euphorbia L Euphorbiaceae
(Department of Botany, University of Calicut, 2025) Sameena V.P.; John E. Thoppil
Euphorbia is one of the three groups of flowering plants with the highest species richness. Euphorbia plants have been used in traditional medicine for centuries in various parts of the World, including China, Europe, India, Africa, Iran, and Pakistan. Traditional medicine has utilised various species of Euphorbia to treat a range of ailments. The distribution of phytochemicals and potential biological activities of three Euphorbia species (E. deccanensis, E. rothiana, and E. thymifolia) are the focus of the current study. The phytoconstituents found in the chosen Euphorbia species were identified using GC-MS and HR LC-MS analyses, quantitative estimation of major phytoconstituents, and qualitative phytochemical analyses. It was observed that there were more non-volatile chemicals than volatile ones in all three selected Euphorbia species. In the HRLC-MS analysis, the methanolic extract of E. deccanensis contained the highest concentration of phytoconstituents. The phytochemical profiling revealed the presence of numerous bioactive secondary metabolites with synergistic activity that can have significant therapeutic effects. DPPH, hydroxyl, nitric oxide, ABTS, and superoxide radical scavenging assays were employed to evaluate the ability of the selected Euphorbia species to scavenge free radicals. The E. deccanensis extract demonstrated strong antioxidant activity, according to the IC50 values. The potential of the selected Euphorbia species to reduce inflammation was first assessed using two in vitro biochemical assays, and the most effective plant extract (E. deccanensis) was chosen for further investigation of its activity on the LPS-induced RAW 264.7 macrophage cell line. ELISA was used to measure COX-2, one of the main inflammatory mediators. From the results, the plant extract of E. deccanensis can be considered a good candidate for anti-inflammatory experiments. The methanolic extracts of the three selected Euphorbia plants were tested for cytotoxicity using the Allium cepa root tip assay. The percentage of aberration increased, and the mitotic index decreased as a result of the cytotoxic effects of all three plant extracts in relation to dosage. All three extracts showed both clastogenic and non-clastogenic aberrations. To evaluate the antiproliferative potential of the selected Euphorbia plants, the MCF-7 (human breast cancer) cell line and the normal L929 cell line were chosen. On analysing the cell viability percentages and the LC50 values of all three extracts in both the cell lines through MTT assay, E. deccanensis was found to significantly suppress the proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells. This extract was chosen for further studies. The double staining method revealed that the cause of the antiproliferative effect was due to apoptosis rather than necrosis. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that the stoppage of the cell cycle occurred at the GO/G1 phase of the cell cycle. The upregulation of p53 and downregulation of STAT-3 further confirmed the anticancer effect of E. deccanensis methanolic extract on the breast cancer cells under investigation. Silver nanoparticles were effectively synthesized from the three Euphorbia species under consideration. They are characterised using FTIR, FE-SEM, and UV-visible spectroscopy. Silver nitrate was considerably reduced to silver nanoparticles in every plant extract that was examined. A reddish-brown colour developed when the plant extract and 2 mM silver nitrate solution were mixed, signifying the production of silver nanoparticles. The development of silver nanoparticles was confirmed by UV-visible spectroscopy. FE-SEM analysis was used to determine the morphology of the synthesised nanoparticles, which showed that they were roughly spherical and ranged in size from 23 to 44 nm. FTIR analysis was used to identify the different phytocompounds that contributed to the reduction of the silver nitrate solution to Ag NPs. In antibacterial tests, green-synthesized silver nanoparticles have proven to be effective against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The biofabricated Ag NPs of all three Euphorbia species also demonstrated significant antifungal properties. Thus it is confirmed that all three Euphorbia plant species contain components that inhibit the growth of deadly pathogenic microorganisms.
Handwritten Malayalam word recognition using hybrid deep neural network models
(Sullamussalam Science College, 2026) Anju, A.T.; Binu P. Chacko; Mohamed Basheer K.P.
Handwritten document analysis remains a significant challenge in patternrecognition, particularly for scripts with complex morphology such as Malayalam.Even today, handwritten Malayalam documents are widely used in government,police, and legal settings, yet there are no reliable automated methods for reading orretrieving information from them. The lack of publicly available handwrittenMalayalam word datasets further restricts progress, limiting the use of deep learningmodels. This study addresses these challenges through a comprehensive researcheffort involving the construction of a new handwritten word dataset, thedevelopment of a hybrid deep learning–based handwritten word recognitionframework, and the design of a practical document retrieval system based onrecognized word content.The first component of this work focuses on constructing the MalayalamHandwritten Word Dataset (MHWD). Handwritten material was sourced frompolice First Information Statements (FIS) and further enriched with samplesprovided by writers from different age groups. All document images underwent auniform preprocessing sequence that included input image enhancement,binarization, contour detection, and word-level segmentation using bounding boxes.To define the vocabulary, the most frequently occurring words and domain specificwords in the collected FIS documents were manually shortlisted, yielding 321 wordcategories. The number of samples from real documents was insufficient andimbalanced. So, additional handwritten instances were collected from individualsaged 10 to 65, yielding 150 samples per class. This balanced dataset serves as adependable base for training and evaluating Malayalam handwritten wordrecognition methods.The second component of this research introduces the proposed handwrittenMalayalam word recognition model, termed TrA-MHWR. The model integrates aDeiT-based vision transformer for feature extraction with an Attention-basedFeedforward Neural Network (AFFNN) as the recognition module. The transformerencoder provides a rich, context-aware representation of word images, while theAFFNN enhances the discriminative capability of these features through multi-headattention and residual learning. This combination allows the model to effectivelyhandle handwriting variability and visually similar word forms commonlyencountered in real-world documents.The third contribution of the study is the development of a practical documentretrieval system built upon the outputs of the word recognition model. For thisapplication-oriented stage, a lightweight EfficientNetB0-based recognition modelwas adopted due to its low parameter count. The same preprocessing andsegmentation pipeline was applied to each page of the collected handwrittendocuments. The EfficientNet recognizer was used to identify words belonging to the321-word lexicon, enabling partial textual representation of each document. Therecognized subset of words provides sufficient information for effective retrieval. ATF–IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) representation wasconstructed from the recognized words, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) wasused to model semantic relationships between documents. Each document is rankedaccording to its similarity to the query, and the top-5 documents are returned as theretrieval output.Overall, this thesis presents a complete framework, from dataset construction andrecognition model development to real-world document retrieval. The developedmethodologies provide a foundation for further research on low-resource scripts andopen the way for scalable deployment in government, legal, and administrativecontexts where handwritten records continue to play a significant role.
Impact of single parenthood among adolescents achievement motivation self concept adjustment and mental health
(Prajyothi Nikethan College Pudukkad, 2025) Shiny P. K.; Soumya Starlet C. T.
The family structure plays a critical role in shaping the psychological and academic development of adolescents. In recent years, there has been a noticeable rise in single-parent households in India, driven by factors such as divorce, separation, migration, and the death of a parent. Adolescents from single-parent families may experience unique challenges that influence their achievement motivation, self-concept, adjustment, and mental health. While previous research has examined these variables individually, integrated studies addressing all four variables within the Indian socio-cultural context remain scarce. To address this gap, the present study aimed to investigate differences in these psychological outcomes between adolescents from single-parent and two-parent families and to explore the interrelationships among the variables, including the mediating role of adjustment between self-concept and mental health. Grounded in the positivist research paradigm, the study employed a quantitative cross-sectional research design. The study was descriptive, comparative, correlational, and predictive in nature. Data were collected from 505 adolescents (250 from single-parent households and 255 from two-parent houscholds) aged 13-19 years, selected from four districts of Kerala. Standardized instruments were used to measure achievement motivation, selfconcept, adjustment, and mental health. Phase I involved a pilot study and expert consultation to refine the research tools. Phase 1I constituted the main study, comprising descriptive statistics, group comparisons, analyses of demographic influences, correlational assessments, regression models, and mediation analysis. The results revealed significant differences between adolescents from single-parent and two-parent families in achievement motivation, self-concept, adjustment, and mental health. Adolescents from two-parent families generally obtained higher scores in achievement motivation, self-concept, and mental health, while also demonstrating better adjustment in specific domains. However, both groups largely scored within average or aboveaverage ranges. Within the single-parent group, certain demographic variables such as gender, educational level, sibling status, custodial parent, reason for single parenthood, and family type showed significant differences in selected psychological variables, while some variables showed no significant variation. Correlational analysis indicated significant relationships among achievement motivation, self-concept, adjustment, and mental health. Regression analysis identified self-concept and adjustment as important predictors of mental health. Mediation analysis further revealed that adjustment partially mediated the relationship between self-concept and mental health among adolescents from single-parent families. . The findings provide useful insights for educators, counsellors, and policymakers to support adolescents’ achievement motivation, self-concept, adjustment, and mental health, particularly among those from single-parent families. The study also contributes to future research in adolescent development.