Tribological property evaluation, optimization and performance of waste sunflower oil based green cutting fluid with silicon dioxide nanoparticles as additive

Mineral oil-based cutting fluids are hazardous and non-biodegradable, and their widespread usage has had a terrible effect on the environment and living things. The creation of a novel, ecologically sustainable cutting fluid technology is essential to avoid the above crisis. Commercial mineral oil alternatives are considered to possess identical lubricating properties as vegetable oils. Most vegetable oils are edible, so waste-cooking sunflower oil (WSO) is selected from this group to serve as the base stock for the green cutting fluid. The green cutting fluid is created using silicon dioxide nanoparticles as an additive and food-grade emulsifiers like Tween 80 and Span 80. According to the experimental findings, 0.05 weight percent silicon dioxide nanoparticles in the green cutting fluid performed better on a pin-on-disc tribometer

Decentralized document version control using ethereum blockchain and IPFS

In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution and framework for document sharing and version control to facilitate multi-user collaboration and track changes in a trusted, secure, and decentralized manner, with no involvement of a centralized trusted entity or third party. This solution is based on utilizing Ethereum smart contracts to govern and regulate the document version control functions among the creators and developers of the document and its validators. Moreover, our solution leverages the benefits of IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) to store documents on a decentralized file system. The proposed solution automates necessary interactions among multiple actors comprising developers and approvers. Smart contracts have been developed using Solidity language, and their functionalities were tested using the Remix IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The paper demonstrates that our smart contract code is free of commonly known security vulnerabilities and attacks. The code has been made publically available at Github

DESIGNING OF COUMARIN DERIVATIVES AS SQUALENE SYNTHASE INHIBITORS

Objective: The importance of this research work is to design a library of novel coumarin derivatives by docking evaluation of the designed coumarin derivatives as squalene synthase inhibitor.Methods: The three-dimensional structure of designed molecules of squalene synthase inhibitors was collected from Protein Data Bank. The designed molecules were docked onto the enzymes that are squalene synthase inhibitor - 3WCM, 3WCJ, and 3Q2Z protein using SYBYL-X 2.1. Using a standard protocol, the protein was subjected to minimization and protomol generation.Results: By this method, we visualized the possible binding and also estimated the protein interactions with our intended coumarin library, using SYBYL-X 2.1 software. Into the active site of the selected enzymes, all the 20 coumarins were docked and then the docking scores revealed that the compounds possess high affinity toward the selected enzymes.Conclusion: With the help of virtual evaluation, we have elaborated a fast synthetically accessible coumarin-based compounds, and it is an advanced and original scaffold in the area of probable human squalene synthase inhibitors. Some of the developed compounds show better binding property than ligand, and in 3q2Z, the compound 5d shows better binding property than the protein. Furthermore, 6g and 6c have good binding property. In 3 WCM, the compound 6f has better property. In 3 WCJ, the compounds 6g and 6f show better binding property than the protein

Bio-informatic analysis of a vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter (AlaNHX) from the salt resistant grass Aeluropus lagopoides

Sodium-hydrogen antiporter (NHX) protein regulates the trans-membrane transport of Na+ in higher plants. Vacuolar- NHX is a type of NHX protein located on tonoplast and minimizes the accumulation of Na+ in cytoplasm by compartmentalizing into vacuole especially in salt tolerant plants. In Aeluropus lagopoides, AlaNHX [NCBI: GU199336, Vacuolar-NHX] plays a vital role for efficient Na+ sequestration into the vacuole and helps in plant survival in saline areas. Therefore, sequence analysis, structural analysis and modeling of AlaNHX were performed through bioinformatics tools. Homology of AlaNHX was 99% similar with the Na+/H+ antiporter of Aeluropus littoralis. Sequence of AlaNHX consisted of 2353 bp including 337 bp of un-translated regions (UTR) at 5΄ and 393 at 3΄ end. In addition, AlaNHX have an “open reading frame” (ORF) of 1623 bp which translated into 59.4 KDa protein containing 540 amino acids (Leucine+ Serine contributed in 22% of peptide chain). AlaNHX protein consists of 10 transmembrane domains (TMD; 3 primary and 7 secondary protein structural type) and a long (95 amino acids) carboxyl terminal end in cytoplasmic region. In addition, 3, 5, 7 and 8 TMD regions of AlaNHX were highly conserved. Different glycosylation, phosphorylation and myristoylation sites were also found in AlaNHX protein. Three-dimensional (3D) structure analysis revealed that this protein may be classified as stable and of hydrophobic nature containing a significant proportion of alpha helices. In this study, a three-dimensional structure of AlaNHX protein was predicted by using in-silico3D homology modeling technique. This study provides baseline information for understanding the importance of NHX protein structure in salinity resistance of grasses. This information could help in improving salinity tolerance in salt sensitive grasses through genetic engineering.Scopu

Impact of Bacille Calmette-Guerin Vaccination on Neuroradiological Manifestations of Pediatric Tuberculous Meningitis

The authors conducted this study to identify whether bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination leads to an altered spectrum of neuroimaging findings outcome in pediatric Patients with tuberculous meningitis. This retrospective study was conducted through chart review and review of computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of Patients with confirmed central nervous system tuberculosis from the year 1992 to 2005, at a large tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. A total of 108 pediatric Patients with tuberculous meningitis were included in the analysis. Of the 108 Patients, 63 (58.3%) were male and 45 (41.7%) had received bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination. There was no difference in terms of severity of clinical presentation and outcome between vaccinated and unvaccinated group. There were no significant differences in CT or MRI findings between the 2 groups except for tuberculomas on MRI, which were significantly higher in the non-bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccinated group (52.2% vs 22.7%, P = .042). Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccination appears to translate into less tuberculoma formation on MRI

Latent activity of curcumin against leishmaniasis in vitro

In this study the anti-proliferative effect of curcumin (curcuma longa) that is the active ingredient of ground dried rhizome has been studied against three local and three reference leishmanial strains, Leishmania major, Leishmania tropica and Leishmania infantum (Pakistani isolate). Curcumin has shown an average IC50 of 5.3mM against promastigotes of various leishmanial strains which is much lower as compared with pentamidine that is one of the basic treatments against leishmaniasis. The main draw back attributed to these assays performed on promastigotes is the heterogeneity of results compared with those obtained with intracellular amastigotes or with in vivo effect. We also tested activity of curcumin against axenic amastigote like cells (AALC) of L. major strain (MHOM/PK/88/DESTO). Curcumin proves to be far more potent then pentamidine against AALC which further strengthens the fact about its leishmaniacidal activity

Harmful and beneficial aspects of Parthenium hysterophorus: an update

Parthenium hysterophorus is a noxious weed in America, Asia, Africa and Australia. This weed is considered to be a cause of allergic respiratory problems, contact dermatitis, mutagenicity in human and livestock. Crop production is drastically reduced owing to its allelopathy. Also aggressive dominance of this weed threatens biodiversity. Eradication of P. hysterophorus by burning, chemical herbicides, eucalyptus oil and biological control by leaf-feeding beetle, stem-galling moth, stem-boring weevil and fungi have been carried out with variable degrees of success. Recently many innovative uses of this hitherto notorious plant have been discovered. Parthenium hysterophorus confers many health benefits, viz remedy for skin inflammation, rheumatic pain, diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, dysentery, malaria and neuralgia. Its prospect as nano-medicine is being carried out with some preliminary success so far. Removal of heavy metals and dye from the environment, eradication of aquatic weeds, use as substrate for commercial enzyme production, additives in cattle manure for biogas production, as biopesticide, as green manure and compost are to name a few of some other potentials. The active compounds responsible for hazardous properties have been summarized. The aim of this review article is to explore the problem P. hysterophorus poses as a weed, the effective control measures that can be implemented as well as to unravel the latent beneficial prospects of this weed

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Evolution through segmental duplications and losses : A Super-Reconciliation approach

The classical gene and species tree reconciliation, used to infer the history of gene gain and loss explaining the evolution of gene families, assumes an independent evolution for each family. While this assumption is reasonable for genes that are far apart in the genome, it is not appropriate for genes grouped into syntenic blocks, which are more plausibly the result of a concerted evolution. Here, we introduce the Super-Reconciliation problem which consists in inferring a history of segmental duplication and loss events (involving a set of neighboring genes) leading to a set of present-day syntenies from a single ancestral one. In other words, we extend the traditional Duplication-Loss reconciliation problem of a single gene tree, to a set of trees, accounting for segmental duplications and losses. Existency of a Super-Reconciliation depends on individual gene tree consistency. In addition, ignoring rearrangements implies that existency also depends on gene order consistency. We first show that the problem of reconstructing a most parsimonious Super-Reconciliation, if any, is NP-hard and give an exact exponential-time algorithm to solve it. Alternatively, we show that accounting for rearrangements in the evolutionary model, but still only minimizing segmental duplication and loss events, leads to an exact polynomial-time algorithm. We finally assess time efficiency of the former exponential time algorithm for the Duplication-Loss model on simulated datasets, and give a proof of concept on the opioid receptor genes