Effect of daily consumption of dried ginger in the level of some hormones, cholesterol, and total fat in women's sample

This study was carried out at the General Al-Mohmmodia Hospital/ Al-Mohmmodia district/ Baghdad/Iraq. Ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale) has become a subject of interest due to its bioactive contents such as an antioxidant and androgenic affect in diseases treatment in more countries world-wide. As an antioxidants ginger has an effective role on spermatogenesis and blood biochemical parameters. Thirty women almost of them suffering from high blood lipid profile and cholesterol, some of them had kidney dysfunction were taken. All women were conducted to explore the consumption of about 1gm daily for complete month on the physiological performance, lipid profile, kidney function and testosterone and progesterone hormones. The result of BMI showed significant difference of all ages groups and for all the kind of overweight and obesity. However Hb level showed a significant differences (p<0.05) between different ages, Hb showed no significant differences within the same age before and after consumption the ginger powder (p˃0.05). Blood glucose was not differ significantly between the group ages, but it was significantly (p<0.05) difference before and after the ginger powder consumption. Serum cholesterol, total glyceride. LDL, HDL, and VLDL levels revealed significant (p<0.05) differences between group ages, but within group age 31-40 years were no significant (p˃0.05) differences. On the other hand, result of this study showed a significant (p<0.05) differences in kidney functions (urea, creatinine, and salts) when compared its with normal ranges. However serum testosterone showed a significant (p<0.05) differences with all ages of women, the progesterone showed no significant (p˃0.05) differences. Results revealed that consumption of 1gm daily of ginger powder significantly increased blood Hb, cholesterol, lipid profile, testosterone hormone, and improved kidney functions. So that we can suggest that ginger may be a promising in kidney and fertility function. In addition, its improve the biochemical parameters Keywords: ginger-biochemical parameter-lipid profile- kidney function- hormone

Evaluation of Inhibitory Activity of Cordia Myxa Fruit Extract on Microorganisms that Causes Spoilage of Food and Its Role in the Treatment of Certain Disease States

The study of chemical content and aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Aplomb's  fruit and then detect the chemical components effective it aggregates and also, studying the effectiveness of inhibitory to extracts toward isolates bacterial different: E.coli, Pseudomonas flurscence, Salmonella, Shegilla and Staphylococcus aureus, where the results showed that the fruit Alpmbr containing 63.9% carbohydrate, 8.6% protein, 6.7% ash and 9.9% fat, so that the fruit Alpmbr high content of carbohydrates and fat shows that fat contains a high percentage of saturated fats, such as fatty acid, lauric acid ratio was 48.3% and Myristic acid was 15.8%, as well as that it contains a significant proportion of unsaturated fatty acid such as oleic by 12.4%, which is an important and basic nutrition and health for human. The fruit Alpmbr of mineral content was high proportion of potassium 29 ppm and sodium element was 13 ppm. It was found that either metallic zinc and calcium were accepted by Iraqi Standard. Heavy metals such as Cadmium, chromium and copper were not diagnose which is toxic elements, so it may be considered the fruit of Alpmbr is a safe fruits to-use and useful for health. To test the activity of the functional chemical components, it was found that high content of alkaloids, Saponin, Comarines, and Gums, and a reasonable rates of resins and Steroid, multiple phenols, flavonoids and Glycosides, tannins and oily nitrogeneous materials oily with low content. The pH of the aqueous extracts is 7.0 and alcoholic extract was 6.5 that means the fruits is neutral acidity. As for the inhibition  activity toward the bacterial isolates were higher effective inhibitory concentration 200mg / ml of aqueous extracts a diameter of 26mm against Pseudomonas flurscence and 25 mm for the both of Salmonella and E.coli. While, it decrease significantly to 19mm towards both Shegilla and Staphylococcus aureus. But with alcoholic extract concentration 200mg / ml has decreased significantly to 25 mm diameter towards Staphylococcus aureus and 20mm in E.coli and Shegilla.  Also the same significant decreases towards the Salmonella 19mm and 16mm towards the bacteria Pseudomonas flurscence. The sensitivity of the bacterial isolates for the  antibiotics inhibition diameters was 20 mm, of Erthromycin against Salmonella.  And the diameter of Oxacillin was 17 mm against Staphylococcus aureus, but Optimdex T was a very highly effective against all bacterial isolates. Keywords: Cordia myxa-Chemicals content-Minerals-Bacterial inhibition activet

Synthesis, Characterization, Thermal Analysis and Structural Studies of New Complexes with Tetradentate Ligand

Some new complexes of 4-(5-(1,5-dimethyl-3-oxo-2-phenyl pyrazolidin-4- ylimino)-3,3-dimethyl cyclohexylideneamino) -1,5- dimethyl-2- phenyl -1H- pyrazol -3(2H) –one (L) with Mn(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Pd(II), Re(V) and Pt(IV) were prepared. The ligand and its metal complexes were characterized by phisco- chemical spectroscopic techniques. The spectral data were suggested that the (L) as a neutral tetradentate ligand is coordinated with the metal ions through two nitrogen and two oxygen atoms. These studies revealed Octahedral geometries for all metal complexes, except square planar for Pd(II) complex. Moreover, the thermodynamic activation parameters, such as ?E*, ?H, ?S, ?G and K are calculated from the TGA curves using Coats –Redfern method. Hyper Chem -8 program has been used to predict structural geometries for compounds in gas phase. The heat of formation (?Hf) and bin ding energy (?Eb) at 298 °K for the free ligand and its metal complexes were calculated by PM3 method. The synthesized ligands and their metal complexes were screened for their biological activity against bacterial species, two Gram positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus) and two Gram negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa)

Preparation, spectral characterization, structural study, and evaluation of antibacterial activity of Schiff base complexes for VOII, CrIII, MnII, ZnII,CdII and CeIII

A new series of metal ions complexes of VO(II), Cr(III), Mn(II), Zn(II), Cd(II) and Ce(III) have been synthesized from the Schiff bases (4-chlorobenzylidene)-urea amine (L1) and (4-bromobenzylidene)-urea amine (L2). Structural features were obtained from their elemental microanalyses, magnetic susceptibility, molar conductance, FT-IR, UV–Vis, LC-Mass and 1HNMR spectral studies. The UV–Vis, magnetic susceptibility and molar conductance data of the complexes suggest a tetrahedral geometry around the central metal ion except, VOII complexes that has square pyramidal geometry, but CrIII and CeIII octahedral geometry. The biological activity for the ligand (L1) and its Vanadium and Cadmium complexes were studied. Structural geometries of compounds also were suggested in gas phase by using theoretical treatments, using Hyper Chem-6 program for the molecular mechanics and semi-empirical calculations. The heat of formation (?Hf ?) and binding energy (?Eb) in the temperature of 298K for the free ligand (L1) and their metal complexes were calculated by PM3 and ZINDO/I methods. The electrostatic potential of the free ligands were calculated to investigate the reactive sites of the molecules.Bacteriological evaluation of considerable number of these compounds were maintained using organisms Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus,and they were found to exhibit the high effect of activity. This may be attributed to the impact of both the Schiff bases and the metal present in these complexes

Cold sprayed metal-ceramic coatings using satellited powders

A new ‘satelliting’ preparation method was used to create a feedstock of pure Al powder to which a much finer TiC powder was attached. Cold spray (CS) coatings of pure Al, blended Al/TiC and satellited Al/TiC were applied to Al substrates. A seven-fold increase in TiC area fraction was measured in the satellited coating compared to that in the blended coating. Coating thickness also increased as a result of increased ceramic deposition. Cross-sectional analysis revealed that the cohesion achieved between Al and TiC, during satelliting process, survives the CS process, and is hence an effective method of producing ceramic-metal coatings

Noncovalent Interactions by QMC: Speedup by One-Particle Basis-Set Size Reduction

While it is empirically accepted that the fixed-node diffusion Monte-Carlo (FN-DMC) depends only weakly on the size of the one-particle basis sets used to expand its guiding functions, limits of this observation are not settled yet. Our recent work indicates that under the FN error cancellation conditions, augmented triple zeta basis sets are sufficient to achieve a benchmark level of 0.1 kcal/mol in a number of small noncovalent complexes. Here we report on a possibility of truncation of the one-particle basis sets used in FN-DMC guiding functions that has no visible effect on the accuracy of the production FN-DMC energy differences. The proposed scheme leads to no significant increase in the local energy variance, indicating that the total CPU cost of large-scale benchmark noncovalent interaction energy FN-DMC calculations may be reduced.Comment: ACS book chapter, accepte

Alcohol consumers’ attention to warning labels and brand information on alcohol packaging: Findings from cross-sectional and experimental studies

Background Alcohol warning labels have a limited effect on drinking behavior, potentially because people devote minimal attention to them. We report findings from two studies in which we measured the extent to which alcohol consumers attend to warning labels on alcohol packaging, and aimed to identify if increased attention to warning labels is associated with motivation to change drinking behavior. Methods Study 1 (N = 60) was an exploratory cross-sectional study in which we used eye-tracking to measure visual attention to brand and health information on alcohol and soda containers. In study 2 (N = 120) we manipulated motivation to reduce drinking using an alcohol brief intervention (vs control intervention) and measured heavy drinkers’ attention to branding and warning labels with the same eye-tracking paradigm as in study 1. Then, in a separate task we experimentally manipulated attention by drawing a brightly colored border around health (or brand) information before measuring participants’ self-reported drinking intentions for the subsequent week. Results Study 1 showed that participants paid minimal attention to warning labels (7% of viewing time). Participants who were motivated to reduce drinking paid less attention to alcohol branding and alcohol warning labels. Results from study 2 showed that the alcohol brief intervention decreased attention to branding compared to the control condition, but it did not affect attention to warning labels. Furthermore, the experimental manipulation of attention to health or brand information did not influence drinking intentions for the subsequent week. Conclusions Alcohol consumers allocate minimal attention to warning labels on alcohol packaging and even if their attention is directed to these warning labels, this has no impact on their drinking intentions. The lack of attention to warning labels, even among people who actively want to cut down, suggests that there is room for improvement in the content of health warnings on alcohol packaging

Surface and Temporal Biosignatures

Recent discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets have ignited the prospect of spectroscopic investigations of exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres for signs of life. This chapter provides an overview of potential surface and temporal exoplanet biosignatures, reviewing Earth analogues and proposed applications based on observations and models. The vegetation red-edge (VRE) remains the most well-studied surface biosignature. Extensions of the VRE, spectral "edges" produced in part by photosynthetic or nonphotosynthetic pigments, may likewise present potential evidence of life. Polarization signatures have the capacity to discriminate between biotic and abiotic "edge" features in the face of false positives from band-gap generating material. Temporal biosignatures -- modulations in measurable quantities such as gas abundances (e.g., CO2), surface features, or emission of light (e.g., fluorescence, bioluminescence) that can be directly linked to the actions of a biosphere -- are in general less well studied than surface or gaseous biosignatures. However, remote observations of Earth's biosphere nonetheless provide proofs of concept for these techniques and are reviewed here. Surface and temporal biosignatures provide complementary information to gaseous biosignatures, and while likely more challenging to observe, would contribute information inaccessible from study of the time-averaged atmospheric composition alone.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, review to appear in Handbook of Exoplanets. Fixed figure conversion error

Institutional investors and corporate governance

We provide a comprehensive overview of the role of institutional investors in corporate governance with three main components. First, we establish new stylized facts documenting the evolution and importance of institutional ownership. Second, we provide a detailed characterization of key aspects of the legal and regulatory setting within which institutional investors govern portfolio firms. Third, we synthesize the evolving response of the recent theoretical and empirical academic literature in finance to the emergence of institutional investors in corporate governance. We highlight how the defining aspect of institutional investors – the fact that they are financial intermediaries – differentiates them in their governance role from standard principal blockholders. Further, not all institutional investors are identical, and we pay close attention to heterogeneity amongst institutional investors as blockholders

Developing cancer warning statements for alcoholic beverages

Background: There is growing evidence of the increased cancer risk associated with alcohol consumption, but this is not well understood by the general public. This study investigated the acceptability among drinkers of cancer warning statements for alcoholic beverages. Methods: Six focus groups were conducted with Australian drinkers to develop a series of cancer-related warning statements for alcohol products. Eleven cancer warning statements and one general health warning statement were subsequently tested on 2,168 drinkers via an online survey. The statements varied by message frame (positive vs negative), cancer reference (general vs specific), and the way causality was communicated (‘increases risk of cancer’ vs ‘can cause cancer’). Results: Overall, responses to the cancer statements were neutral to favorable, indicating that they are unlikely to encounter high levels of negative reaction from the community if introduced on alcoholic beverages. Females, younger respondents, and those with higher levels of education generally found the statements to be more believable, convincing, and personally relevant. Positively framed messages, those referring to specific forms of cancer, and those using ‘increases risk of cancer’ performed better than negatively framed messages, those referring to cancer in general, and those using the term ‘can cause cancer’. Conclusion: Cancer warning statements on alcoholic beverages constitute a potential means of increasing awareness about the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer risk