MOSQUITO OVICIDAL PROPERTIES OF AGERATINA ADENOPHORA (FAMILY: ASTERACEAE) AGAINST FILARIASIS VECTOR, CULEX QUINQUEFASCIATUS (DIPTERA: CULICIDAE)

ABSTRACT Mosquito-borne diseases with an economic impact create loss in commercial and labor outputs, particularly in countries with tropical and subtropical climates. Mosquito control is facing a threat because of the emergence of resistance to synthetic insecticides. Extracts from plants may be alternative sources of mosquito control agents because they constitute a rich source of bioactive compounds that are biodegradable into nontoxic products and potentially suitable for use to control mosquitoes. Insecticides of botanical origin may serve as suitable alternative biocontrol techniques in the future. In view of the recently increased interest in developing plant origin insecticides as an alternative to chemical insecticide, this study was undertaken to assess the ovicidal potential of the crude hexane, benzene, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and methanol solvent extracts from the medicinal plant Ageratina adenophora (A. adenophora) against the filariasis vector, Culex quinquefasciatus (Cx. quinquefasciatus) (Diptera: Culicidae). Ovicidal activity was determined against Cx. quinquefasciatus mosquito to various concentrations ranging from 75-450 mg/L under the laboratory conditions. All the five solvents extracts showed moderate ovicidal activity; however, the methanol extract showed the highest ovicidal activity. One hundred percent mortality was observed at 375 mg/L. These results suggest that the plant extracts have the potential to be used as an ideal eco-friendly approach for the control of mosquitoes. This study provides first report on the mosquito ovicidal activity of A. adenophora plant extracts against filariasis vector, Cx. quinquefasciatus

Pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of COVID-19: The PAN-COVID study

Objective To assess perinatal outcomes for pregnancies affected by suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods Prospective, web-based registry. Pregnant women were invited to participate if they had suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection between 1st January 2020 and 31st March 2021 to assess the impact of infection on maternal and perinatal outcomes including miscarriage, stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, pre-term birth and transmission to the infant. Results Between April 2020 and March 2021, the study recruited 8239 participants who had suspected or confirmed SARs-CoV-2 infection episodes in pregnancy between January 2020 and March 2021. Maternal death affected 14/8197 (0.2%) participants, 176/8187 (2.2%) of participants required ventilatory support. Pre-eclampsia affected 389/8189 (4.8%) participants, eclampsia was reported in 40/ 8024 (0.5%) of all participants. Stillbirth affected 35/8187 (0.4 %) participants. In participants delivering within 2 weeks of delivery 21/2686 (0.8 %) were affected by stillbirth compared with 8/4596 (0.2 %) delivering ≥ 2 weeks after infection (95 % CI 0.3–1.0). SGA affected 744/7696 (9.3 %) of livebirths, FGR affected 360/8175 (4.4 %) of all pregnancies. Pre-term birth occurred in 922/8066 (11.5%), the majority of these were indicated pre-term births, 220/7987 (2.8%) participants experienced spontaneous pre-term births. Early neonatal deaths affected 11/8050 livebirths. Of all neonates, 80/7993 (1.0%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions Infection was associated with indicated pre-term birth, most commonly for fetal compromise. The overall proportions of women affected by SGA and FGR were not higher than expected, however there was the proportion affected by stillbirth in participants delivering within 2 weeks of infection was significantly higher than those delivering ≥ 2 weeks after infection. We suggest that clinicians’ threshold for delivery should be low if there are concerns with fetal movements or fetal heart rate monitoring in the time around infection

DIMENSIONS OF CULTURAL CRISIS IN CONTEMPORARY HINDI POETRY

HindiCUSATDepartrnent of Hindi, Cochin University of Science and Technolog

Hepatoprotective action of ethanolic extracts of <i style="">Melia azedarach</i> Linn. and <i style="">Piper longum</i> Linn and their combination on CCl₄ induced hepatotoxicity in rats

276-281A comparison of analysis in evaluating the hepatoprotective action of ethanolic extract of M. azedarach (MAE) and P. longum (PLE) with their combination biherbal extract (BHE) against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) induced hepatic damage is reported in albino rats. There was a marked elevation of serum marker enzyme levels in CCl4 treated rats, which were restored towards normalization in the drug (MAE and/or PLE:50 mg/kg body weight po, once daily for 14 days) treated animals. The biochemical parameters like total protein, total bilirubin, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and urea were also restored towards normal levels. The combined BHE showed more significant reduction of the enzymes than MAE or PLE against CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity. The results strongly indicate that BHE has more potent hepatoprotective action than MAE or PLE individually against CCl4 induced hepatic damage in rats. Among these extracts, BHE showed similar hepatoprotective action to silymarin, which was the positive control in this study

Anti-Gout arthritic activity of ethanolic and methanolic seed extracts of Pedalium Murex: An in vitro and in silico studies

The present investigation is undertaken to evaluate the comparative anti gout activity of the ethanolic (EEPM) and methanolic (MEPM) seed extracts of Pedalium murex. The Invitro anti gout arthritic activity of the plant extracts was evaluated using xanthine oxidase and protease enzyme inhibition as well as membrane stabilization using well established protocols. In silico anti arthritic activity was studied using molecular docking analysis from 10 GCMS derived compounds with that of the immunuo stimulatory proteins TLR2, TLR4, MMP2 and MMP7 to find out the suitable antagonistic ligand for these proteins. In the present investigation the EEPM extract showed better anti gout activity comparable to the MEPM extract in terms of xanthine oxidase and protease enzyme inhibition as well as membrane stabilization. The anti out arthritic activity of EEPM was comparable to the positive control used in the present study. In the In silico studies among the 10 compounds docked for the proteins TLR2, TLR4, MMP2 and MMP7, three compounds namely 11 -Eicosenoic Acid Methyl ester, Docosanoic Acid, Methyl ester and 1,2Benzendicarboxylic Acid, mono (2-ethylhexyl) ester could inhibit the above mentioned immuno stimulatory proteins and there by suppress the reactions observed in the gouty arthritis

Insecticidal activity of camphene, zerumbone and alpha-humulene from Cheilocostus speciosus rhizome essential oil against the Old-World bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera

The fast-growing resistance development to several synthetic and microbial insecticides currently marketed highlighted the pressing need to develop novel and eco-friendly pesticides. Among the latter, botanical ones are attracting high research interest due to their multiple mechanisms of action and reduced toxicity on non-target vertebrates. Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a key polyphagous insect pest showing insecticide resistance to several synthetic molecules used for its control. Therefore, here we focused on the rhizome essential oil extracted from an overlooked Asian plant species, Cheilocostus speciosus (J. Konig) C. Specht (Costaceae), as a source of compounds showing ingestion toxicity against H. armigera third instar larvae, as well as ovicidal toxicity. In acute larvicidal assays conducted after 24 h, the C. speciosus essential oil achieved a LC50 value of 207.45 µg/ml. GC and GC-MS analyses highlighted the presence of zerumbone (38.6%), α-humulene (14.5%) and camphene (9.3%) as the major compounds of the oil. Ingestion toxicity tests carried out testing these pure molecules showed LC50 values of 10.64, 17.16 and 20.86 µg/ml, for camphene, zerumbone and α-humulene, respectively. Moreover, EC50 values calculated on H. armigera eggs were 35.39, 59.51 and 77.10 µg/ml for camphene, zerumbone and α-humulene, respectively. Overall, this study represents the first report on the toxicity of C. speciosus essential oil against insect pests of agricultural and medical veterinary importance, highlighting that camphene, zerumbone and α-humulene have a promising potential as eco-friendly botanical insecticides

Thigh-length compression stockings and DVT after stroke

Controversy exists as to whether neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves survival in patients with invasive bladder cancer, despite randomised controlled trials of more than 3000 patients. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effect of such treatment on survival in patients with this disease

Single-Shot 3D Incoherent Imaging Using Deterministic and Random Optical Fields with Lucy–Richardson–Rosen Algorithm

Coded aperture 3D imaging techniques have been rapidly evolving in recent years. The two main directions of evolution are in aperture engineering to generate the optimal optical field and in the development of a computational reconstruction method to reconstruct the object’s image from the intensity distribution with minimal noise. The goal is to find the ideal aperture–reconstruction method pair, and if not that, to optimize one to match the other for designing an imaging system with the required 3D imaging characteristics. The Lucy–Richardson–Rosen algorithm (LR2A), a recently developed computational reconstruction method, was found to perform better than its predecessors, such as matched filter, inverse filter, phase-only filter, Lucy–Richardson algorithm, and non-linear reconstruction (NLR), for certain apertures when the point spread function (PSF) is a real and symmetric function. For other cases of PSF, NLR performed better than the rest of the methods. In this tutorial, LR2A has been presented as a generalized approach for any optical field when the PSF is known along with MATLAB codes for reconstruction. The common problems and pitfalls in using LR2A have been discussed. Simulation and experimental studies for common optical fields such as spherical, Bessel, vortex beams, and exotic optical fields such as Airy, scattered, and self-rotating beams have been presented. From this study, it can be seen that it is possible to transfer the 3D imaging characteristics from non-imaging-type exotic fields to indirect imaging systems faithfully using LR2A. The application of LR2A to medical images such as colonoscopy images and cone beam computed tomography images with synthetic PSF has been demonstrated. We believe that the tutorial will provide a deeper understanding of computational reconstruction using LR2A