Lipid-Mediated Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in the Pathogenesis of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative movement disorder of unknown etiology. PD is characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, depletion of dopamine in the striatum, abnormal mitochondrial and proteasomal functions, and accumulation of α-synuclein that may be closely associated with pathological and clinical abnormalities. Increasing evidence indicates that both oxidative stress and inflammation may play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of PD. Oxidative stress is characterized by increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) and depletion of glutathione. Lipid mediators for oxidative stress include 4-hydroxynonenal, isoprostanes, isofurans, isoketals, neuroprostanes, and neurofurans. Neuroinflammation is characterized by activated microglial cells that generate proinflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α and IL-1β. Proinflammatory lipid mediators include prostaglandins and platelet activating factor, together with cytokines may play a prominent role in mediating the progressive neurodegeneration in PD

The regional distribution, age dependent variation and species differences of brain arylsulphatases

The relative proportions of arylsulphatase A and B were determined by the method of Baum, Dodgson and Spencer (1959) in brains of various animal species and it was found that there was a considerable variation in the concentration of these two enzymes. Arylsulphatase A and B of various animal species including rat, man, monkey, sheep and chicken were partially separated using zinc acetate fractionation procedure and gel electrophoresis. The chicken brain arylsulphatase A had a similar electrophoretic mobility to that of arylsulphatase B of other species. Further, chicken brain arylsulphatase A precipitated at a zinc acetate concentration of 0005 M, a condition under which arylsulphatase B from the brain of other species precipitated. Kinetic properties such as Km value and inhibitory effect of sulphite and phosphate ions indicated that chicken brain arylsulphatase A was similar to arylsulphatase A of other species. The results on regional distribution of arylsulphatase A and B activities in monkey brain and in developing rat brain suggest a relationship between arylsulphatase A and sulphatides and arylsulphatase B and mucopolysaccharides

Enzymatic desulphation of cerebroside-3-sulphate by chicken brain arylsulphatase A

In earlier work from this laboratory it was shown that arylsulphatase of chicken brain resembles arylsulphatase A of other animal species in several of its properties but exhibits certain characteristics similar to that of arylsulphatase B (Farooqui and Bachhawat, 1971). Recently the arylsulphatase A of chicken brain was purified and it was demonstrated that the purified enzyme could desulphate cerebroside-3-sulphate also (Farooqui and Bachhawat, 1972). In the present report we have made a study of the kinetic properties of this unique arylsulphatase A purified from chicken brain using p-nitrocatechol sulphate and cerebroside-3-sulphate as substrates

Family Types, Authority Structure and Women Workers in Sindh Labor Force: Problems and Prospects

The development of a society is virtually dependent upon the quality of human resources both male and female, the changing pattern of economic and social development of world societies irrespective of their level of development, necessitates and equal advancement of both the social segments. The numerical reality that women constitute about nearly half of the total population of Sindh ideally assigns to them equal participating role in the economic life of the province. However, like other developing countries, women’s role in Sindh as an active worker-producer of goods and services has not been duly recognized by this male dominated society. With the objective of ensuring increased participation of women, clear-cut guidelines about integrating women in the development process and defining their roles are still lacking in Sindh. The present study is a step in the direction of bridging the gap of information about female labor force participation of Sindh in different, activity rates, industry group, occupation group and employment status in 1981 and 1998 population census. The most important conclusion that emerges from this study is that though percentage of women labor force in different, activities, industry group, occupation group and employment status has mostly increased in 1998 as compared to 1981, but being nearly half of the population this increase is still very low.Family, Authority, Problems, Female, Labor Force, Sindh

A metabolism perspective on alternative urban water servicing options using water mass balance

Urban areas will need to pursue new water servicing options to ensure local supply security. Decisions about how best to employ them are not straightforward due to multiple considerations and the potential for problem shifting among them. We hypothesise that urban water metabolism evaluation based a water mass balance can help address this, and explore the utility of this perspective and the new insights it provides about water servicing options. Using a water mass balance evaluation framework, which considers direct urban water flows (both ‘natural’ hydrological and ‘anthropogenic’ flows), as well as water-related energy, we evaluated how the use of alternative water sources (stormwater/rainwater harvesting, wastewater/greywater recycling) at different scales influences the ‘local water metabolism’ of a case study urban development. New indicators were devised to represent the water-related ‘resource efficiency’ and ‘hydrological performance’ of the urban area. The new insights gained were the extent to which alternative water supplies influence the water efficiency and hydrological performance of the urban area, and the potential energy trade-offs. The novel contribution is the development of new indicators of urban water resource performance that bring together considerations of both the ‘anthropogenic’ and ‘natural’ water cycles, and the interactions between them. These are used for the first time to test alternative water servicing scenarios, and to provide a new perspective to complement broader sustainability assessments of urban water

Potentiometric study of atenolol as hypertension drug with Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) transition metal ions in aqueous solution

AbstractBinary and ternary complexes of Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) with atenolol as hypertension drug and glycine have been determined pH metrically at room temperature and 0.01 M ionic strength (NaClO4) in aqueous solution. The formation of various possible species has been evaluated by computer program and discussed in terms of various relative stability parameters

Inertia compensation while scanning screw threads on coordinate-measuring machines

Usage of scanning coordinate-measuring machines for inspection of screw threads has become a common practice nowadays. Compared to touch trigger probing, scanning capabilities allow to speed up measuring process while still maintaining high accuracy. However, in some cases accuracy drasticaly depends on the scanning speed. In this paper a compensation method is proposed allowing to reduce the influence of some dynamic effects while scanning screw threads on coordinate-measuring machines