Antimicrobial Activity of Medicinal Compounds Produced by Fungal Degradation of Soybean Oil Using Lignocellulose Biomass as Surface

Methyl esters were produced by fungal degradation of soybean oil using banana leaves as surface. Analysis of the products also revealed medicinal compounds (Benzyl Benzoate obtained from the banana leaves used as surface for the fungal degradation of the soybean oil and 1, 2-Benzene dicarboxylic acid dioctyl ester obtained from the soybean oil impurities). Microorganism activity test was carried out on the medicinal compounds to confirm their antibacterial and antifungal activity. The result showed that both had antibacterial and antifungal activity as shown by the zones of inhibition and as a result can find useful applications in food processing and preservation as well as agriculture as pest/disease control agents

Perspectives on Transdermal Electroporation

Transdermal drug delivery offers several advantages, including avoidance of erratic absorption, absence of gastric irritation, painlessness, noninvasiveness, as well as improvement in patient compliance. With this mode of drug administration, there is no pre-systemic metabolism and it is possible to increase drug bioavailability and half-life. However, only a few molecules can be delivered across the skin in therapeutic quantities. This is because of the hindrance provided by the stratum corneum. Several techniques have been developed and used over the last few decades for transdermal drug delivery enhancement. These include sonophoresis, iontophoresis, microneedles, and electroporation. Electroporation, which refers to the temporary perturbation of the skin following the application of high voltage electric pulses, has been used to increase transcutaneous flux values by several research groups. In this review, transdermal electroporation is discussed and the use of the technique for percutaneous transport of low and high molecular weight compounds described. This review also examines our current knowledge regarding the mechanisms of electroporation and safety concerns arising from the use of this transdermal drug delivery technique. Safety considerations are especially important because electroporation utilizes high voltage pulses which may have deleterious effects in some cases

Transdermal Delivery of Drugs with Microneedles—Potential and Challenges

Transdermal drug delivery offers a number of advantages including improved patient compliance, sustained release, avoidance of gastric irritation, as well as elimination of pre-systemic first-pass effect. However, only few medications can be delivered through the transdermal route in therapeutic amounts. Microneedles can be used to enhance transdermal drug delivery. In this review, different types of microneedles are described and their methods of fabrication highlighted. Microneedles can be fabricated in different forms: hollow, solid, and dissolving. There are also hydrogel-forming microneedles. A special attention is paid to hydrogel-forming microneedles. These are innovative microneedles which do not contain drugs but imbibe interstitial fluid to form continuous conduits between dermal microcirculation and an attached patch-type reservoir. Several microneedles approved by regulatory authorities for clinical use are also examined. The last part of this review discusses concerns and challenges regarding microneedle use

Planar Two-Loop Five-Parton Amplitudes from Numerical Unitarity

We compute a complete set of independent leading-color two-loop five-parton amplitudes in QCD. These constitute a fundamental ingredient for the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to three-jet production at hadron colliders. We show how to consistently consider helicity amplitudes with external fermions in dimensional regularization, allowing the application of a numerical variant of the unitarity approach. Amplitudes are computed by exploiting a decomposition of the integrand into master and surface terms that is independent of the parton type. Master integral coefficients are numerically computed in either finite-field or floating-point arithmetic and combined with known analytic master integrals. We recompute two-loop leading-color four-parton amplitudes as a check of our implementation. Results are presented for all independent four- and five-parton processes including contributions with massless closed fermion loops.Comment: v3: corrected wrong signs for five-gluon $N_f^2$ amplitudes with vanishing tree

Penerapan Sistem Informasi Manajemen Pada Usaha Kecil Menengah Di Provinsi Lampung

Management information system is an economic device companies as the supporting of busniness wheel. This system is a support that ease companies to receive information flow where the information flows come from both internal and external company can be absorbed and presented in a place that is easy to understand, quick and on target includes the current financial information, human resources (HR), marketing and sales strategies that will be built by the company to the issues that will influence business wheel in the company. The aim of this research is to determine the influence of human resource management, electronic systems, and the distribution system in moderation system information for competitive advantage of UKM in Lampung Province. The method uses descriptive and associative. The research result shows that human resource management positively and significantly influences competitive advantage with moderation organization information system, electronic system does not significantly influence the competitive advantage with moderation organization information systems, and distribution system significantly influences the competitive advantage with moderation organizational information systems

Medicinal Plants Used in Traditional Medicine by Rural Communities in Cross River State, Nigeria

Information on medicinal plants and the activities of the traditional healers in Iko Ekperem/Owai, Etara/Eyeyeng and Biajua communities in Akamkpa, Ikom and Boki Local Government Areas of Cross River State respectively were investigated. The study shows that 60 different medicinal plants were used in traditional medicine in these communities with Piper guinensis, Alstonia boonei,Spondia mombin,and Okoubaka aubrevillei having frequencies of 8, 8, 7 and 6 respectively. A total of 35 different ailments were treated using 52 medicinal plants with stomach pain having the highest number (11) of medicinal plants, followed by cough with 9 medicinal plants. The various plant parts used in traditional medicine include bark with the highest frequency of 55 followed by leaves with 44. Other plant parts used include stems (14), roots (21), fruits (9), seeds (36) and exudates/latex (8). The processing of traditional medicine involves grinding, pounding, chewing, boiling and roasting of the medicinal plants which are administered orally, topical, or by incision, excision and through enema. The study revealed that some conservation measures were adopted by the traditional herbalists to ensure the availability of these plant species at all times. Such measures include planting these plant species in home gardens which has the highest frequency of 10 followed by creation of sacred grooves with frequency of 7 and the lowest frequency of 4 were obtained for planting in the farmlands. Traditional medicine is deeply rooted in magic, superstition and dogma. It thrives under mystery and secrecy to the extent that herbalists hardly disclosed the knowledge of herbal cures to even their children talk- less of the outsiders. Keywords: Herbalists, traditional medicine, traditional healers, ailments, medicinal plant

Synthesis, Characterisation and pH-Responsive Controlled Release Studies of 5- Fluorouracil Drug from Silica CoatedLao.1Sro.3Mn03Magnetic Nanoparticles

One of the drawbacks of some drug delivery system (DDS) is their inability to release their payloads after reaching the desired site of action. Hence, many DDSs are being evaluated that are able to release their payloads upon action of an external stimulus. La0.7SrO.JMn03 MNPs were synthesized by solution combustion synthesis and the optimised MNPs were coated with silica. The synthesized MNPs were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), energy dispersive absorption spectroscopy (EDAX), fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR), vibrating scanning magnetometer (VSM), zeta potential measurements and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). The anticancer drug delivery capability of La0.7SrO.JMn03 MNPs was carried out. Silica coatings with were utilised for the loading of 5-Fluoro uracil (5-FU)- a well-known anti-cancer drug. The silica surface was functionalised with amino propyl (LSMO-Si02-NH2) to achieve charge reversal of the designed system from negative to positive as pH varied from 7.4 to 5 which was used for the effective release of the cargo at endosomal pH 5. The high 5-FU drug loading and its pH-sensitive release from LSMO-Si02-NH2 suggest that it is a promising material for targeted drug delivery application