Preliminary Phytochemical and Pharmacognostic Studies of Holoptelea integrifolia Roxb.

Systematic and detailed pharmacognostical studies have been performed on an important medicinal plant, Holoptelea integrifolia Roxb. (Ulmaceae). This species is used traditionally for the treatment of edema, diabetes, leprosy, skin diseases, intestinal disorders and piles. The present investigation deals with the internal structures of the leaf and stem, which have been studied and photographed. Fluorescence characteristics of the leaf and stem powder and the extracts of the leaves in various solvents have been compared along with quantitative values, ash values and extractive values. Preliminary phytochemical screenings of the extracts leaf and stem have also been performed and results are recorded and discussed. In conclusion, the macroscopic and microscopic characters, fluorescence analysis, physico-chemical determination and preliminary phytochemical screening can be used as a diagnostic tool in the correct identification of the plants. The adulterants if any present in these plants can also easily identified by the above studies

Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences Silent Myocardial Infarction in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Prevention Is Prudent Than Diagnosis and Management

ABSTRACT About 21% of diabetic patients develop Silent Myocardial Infarction (SMI). A long term survival rate after SMI is poor over the next 6-7 years. In view of lack of symptoms like chest pain, it is not easy to diagnose SMI. Presence of Q wave in Electro cardio graphy (ECG) alone may suggest a SMI and in many cases Q wave disappears after sometime. ECG is considered as poor investigation technique for diagnosis of SMI. SMI is diagnosed objectively using very expensive investigations such as thallium perfusion imaging. Hence, to prevent the disastrous consequences of SMI it is prudent to assume that all type 2 diabetic patients above the age of 50 years as suffers of Coronary artery disease (CAD) and they should be started with established cardioprotective pharmacological regimen comprising antiplatelet agents, lipid lowering agents and ACE inhibitors. In addition it has been shown that patients with diabetic retinopathy are more prone for CAD and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) offers them better survival rate. Further, oral hypoglycemic drugs such as acarbose and glimepiride which have been shown to have favorable effect on CAD, should be liberally used. In addition, advice to patients on the importance of fiber rich, low glycemic, vegetable protein diet and exercise should be part and parcel of management of diabetes

Drought Stress and Its Impact on Protein in Three Species of Vitex

Drought is one of the most important natural phenomenon which affects on plant growth. When drought stress is imposed different molecular and biochemical responses took place in the plants. The protein profile of three species of Vitex (Vitex trifolia L., Vitex altissima L. and Vitex negundo L.) under normally irrigated condition and severe drought plants was analyzed through SDS-PAGE. Drought stress significantly affects proteins in plants when compared the normal conditioned plants. Several new protein bands were identified in the stressed plants. It seems that Vitex species can be adapted to drought stress conditions. Hence it was concluded that number of new proteins were synthesized in stressed plants for their adaptation in the stressed conditions. These proteins could be used as markers in identifying the stressed plants

Cosmological distance indicators

We review three distance measurement techniques beyond the local universe: (1) gravitational lens time delays, (2) baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and (3) HI intensity mapping. We describe the principles and theory behind each method, the ingredients needed for measuring such distances, the current observational results, and future prospects. Time delays from strongly lensed quasars currently provide constraints on $H_0$ with < 4% uncertainty, and with 1% within reach from ongoing surveys and efforts. Recent exciting discoveries of strongly lensed supernovae hold great promise for time-delay cosmography. BAO features have been detected in redshift surveys up to z <~ 0.8 with galaxies and z ~ 2 with Ly-$\alpha$ forest, providing precise distance measurements and $H_0$ with < 2% uncertainty in flat $\Lambda$CDM. Future BAO surveys will probe the distance scale with percent-level precision. HI intensity mapping has great potential to map BAO distances at z ~ 0.8 and beyond with precisions of a few percent. The next years ahead will be exciting as various cosmological probes reach 1% uncertainty in determining $H_0$, to assess the current tension in $H_0$ measurements that could indicate new physics.Comment: Review article accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews (Springer), 45 pages, 10 figures. Chapter of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Ag

Molecular breeding tools improved drought tolerant groundnut variety for resistance to foliar fungal diseases

A largely rainfed crop in India, drought tolerance, particularly mid- and end-season tolerance, is a key trait in groundnut varieties. A combination of both empirical and trait-based approaches was used in breeding programs of ICAR and ICRISAT, resulting in release of few tolerant varieties that have superior pod yield under drought stress and/or have enhanced water-use-efficiency. There is a need to breed varieties with drought tolerance, disease resistance and quality traits that suit different production ecologies as well as meet the needs of the farmers, consumers and industries. ICRISAT has released an early-maturing (90-95 d) and drought- tolerant variety ICGV 91114 for the drought-prone Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh, India, where about 0.7 m ha area is under groundnut cultivation and has low (300 mm) and erratic (30-40 rainy days) rainfall. On-farm studies conducted with ICGV 91114 during 2008-10 showed 30% reduction in yield variability over the years. Following screening in hot-spots of both rust and LLS disease during 2014 rainy season, a total of 27 introgression lines derived from ICGV 91114 were selected and advanced for evaluation in multi-location trials at six locations in 2015 under rainfed conditions. Based on the pod yield under rainfed conditions and disease resistance, three superior introgression lines (ICGV 14410, ICGV 13189, ICGV 14421) were proposed for the first-ever NILs trial (near-isogenic lines trial) along with eight others conducted under All India Coordinated Research Project on Groundnut (AICRP-G) at national level

from ten well-measured time delay lenses

In this work, we present a homogeneous curve-shifting analysis using the difference-smoothing technique of the publicly available light curves of 24 gravitationally lensed quasars, for which time delays have been reported in the literature. The uncertainty of each measured time delay was estimated using realistic simulated light curves. The recipe for generating such simulated light curves with known time delays in a plausible range around the measured time delay is introduced here. We identified 14 gravitationally lensed quasars that have light curves of sufficiently good quality to enable the measurement of at least one time delay between the images, adjacent to each other in terms of arrival-time order, to a precision of better than 20% (including systematic errors). We modeled the mass distribution of ten of those systems that have known lens redshifts, accurate astrometric data, and sufficiently simple mass distribution, using the publicly available PixeLens code to infer a value of H0 of 68.1 ± 5.9 km s-1 Mpc-1 (1σ uncertainty, 8.7% precision) for a spatially flat universe having Ωm = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7. We note here that the lens modeling approach followed in this work is a relatively simple one and does not account for subtle systematics such as those resulting from line-of-sight effects and hence our H0 estimate should be considered as indicative