Chemical composition and antimicrobial activities of leaves of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) herb

Background: Leaves and flowering parts of Ocimum basilicum are believed to be rich of different phytochemicals and are traditionally used as antispasmodic, aromatic, carminative, digestive, galactogogue, stomachic, and tonic agents. Hence, the study was designed to evaluate the phytochemical constituents and antimicrobial activities of the leaves of sweet basil (O. basilicum) herb.Methods: The leaf extract was used for screening of phytochemicals. A small amount of the powdered leaves of the plant was subjected to hydrodistillation to extract the essential oil, and the components of the essential oil were evaluated by gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy instrument. The extract was tested in vitro for its antibacterial activity against two bacteria; Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and antifungal activity against two fungi; Aspergillus niger and Rhizoctonia bataticola by paper disc diffusion method.Results: Results revealed the presence of many phytochemicals such as alkaloids, tannins, flavonoids, cholesterol, terpernoids, glycosides, phenols, cardiac glycosides, carbohydrates, and phlobatannins. The essential oil extracted from the leaves of O. basilicum was found to have estragole (38.22%) as a major constituent followed by 1-isopropyl-4-methylenecyclohex-1-ene (11.10%). Tests of antimicrobial activity showed that the hydrodistilled oil was effective against all the tested bacterial and fungal strains. However, the crude extract was found not to have antimicrobial activity toward the tested bacteria and fungi.Conclusion: So, the study has showed that the observed antimicrobial effect of O. basilicum essential oil on the bacterial and fungal isolate, though in vitro appear interesting and promising. So, emphasize have to made on the antimicrobial activities of the plant during the time of drug extraction

Timing of the accreting millisecond pulsar IGR~J17511--3057

{Timing analysis of Accretion-powered Millisecond Pulsars (AMPs) is a powerful tool to probe the physics of compact objects. The recently discovered \newigrj is the 12 discovered out of the 13 AMPs known. The Rossi XTE satellite provided an extensive coverage of the 25 days-long observation of the source outburst.} {Our goal is to investigate the complex interaction between the neutron star magnetic field and the accretion disk, determining the angular momentum exchange between them. The presence of a millisecond coherent flux modulation allows us to investigate such interaction from the study of pulse arrival times. In order to separate the neutron star proper spin frequency variations from other effects, a precise set of orbital ephemeris is mandatory.} {Using timing techniques, we analysed the pulse phase delays fitting differential corrections to the orbital parameters. To remove the effects of pulse phase fluctuations we applied the timing technique already successfully applied to the case of an another AMP, XTE J1807-294.} {We report a precise set of orbital ephemeris. We demonstrate that the companion star is a main sequence star. We find pulse phase delays fluctuations on the first harmonic with a characteristic amplitude of about 0.05, similar to what also observed in the case of the AMP XTE J1814-338. For the second time an AMP shows a third harmonic detected during the entire outburst. The first harmonic phase delays show a puzzling behaviour, while the second harmonic phase delays show a clear spin-up. Also the third harmonic shows a spin-up, although not highly significant (3$\sigma$ c.l.). The presence of a fourth harmonic is also reported. In the hypothesis that the second harmonic is a good tracer of the spin frequency of the neutron star, we find a mean spin frequency derivative for this source of \np{1.65(18)}{-13} Hz s$^{-1}$.} (continue ...)Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, A&A accepted on 23/10/201

MHD Simulations of Magnetospheric Accretion, Ejection and Plasma-field Interaction

We review recent axisymmetric and three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulations of magnetospheric accretion, plasma-field interaction and outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, conference proceedings: "Physics at the Magnetospheric Boundary", Geneva, Switzerland, 25-28 June, 201

Arabic gum, a new strategy for microbiological control in the dairy industry

The nutritional quality loss of food, usually is caused by microbial growth during different stages of production. Particularly in raw milk, the initial microbial content will affect the quality, shelf life and safety of processed milk and its derivatives. Traditionally, one of the strategies most used for reducing the risk of microbial contamination of raw milk, is storage under refrigeration immediately after to milking. However, this selectively favor the development of psychrotrophic microorganisms that can produce heat stable extracellular enzymes, causing alterations in the chemical composition and nutritional value of milk. In the last decade, the demand for minimally processed, easily prepared, and ready-to-eat fresh food products has grown globally, prompting the development of new methodologies as alternatives to thermal treatment. A growing trend is the addition of preservatives of natural sources, as a safe and healthy alternative to synthetics preservatives. The Arabic Gum (AG) is an edible biopolymer obtained as exudates of trees of Acacia, which is being widely used as a stabilizer, a thickener, and an emulsifier. However, to date, no antimicrobial activities studies have been conducted against psychrotrophics microorganisms. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of the addition of AG over the psychrotrophics bacterial growth, and viability. Several bacteria isolated from raw milk (Enterobacter spp.) were cultivated with different concentration of AG (0, 10, 20, 75, 100, 200, 400 M) during a period of 7 days at 4ºC and analyzed each 24 h. The bacterial growth in different conditions was evaluated by CFU counts, viability assays was performed using the LIVE/DEAD BacLight Bacterial Viability Kit (FACS), and metabolic activity was determined by colorimetric assay using tetrazolium salt (MTT). We observed that the addition of 200 and 400 M AG controlled proliferation of bacterial growth in more than a 50%, respect to the control condition and these effects were dose-dependent. In another hand, AG did not show significantly effect on the bacterial viability evaluated by the incorporation of propidium iodure. However using the tetrazolium salt as MTT we could determine that 75, 100, 200 and 400 M of AG were able to inhibit the metabolic activity of psychrotrophics bacterial growth significantly in all the assayed times. These data shown that AG had an important effect in the initial proliferation over psychrotrophic bacterial milk, which was maintained during analyzed times. Is important to hightlight that, for dairy factory the initial times are determinants to conserve the milk quality up to industrial processing, improving nutritional value in the final product. In base of these results, we can suggest that AG provides an additional beneficial effect to their usually technological use in food industry.Fil: Boiero, María Laura. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Villa María. Departamento de Ingeniería Química; Argentina.Fil: Gonzalez Estevez, Virginia. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Villa María. Departamento de Ingeniería Química; Argentina.Fil: Bachetti, R. Universidad Nacional de Villa María. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Villa María; Argentina.Fil: Morgante, C. Universidad Nacional de Villa María. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Villa María; Argentina.Fil: Porporatto, C. Universidad Nacional de Villa María. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Villa María; Argentina.Fil: Montenegto, Mariana. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Villa María. Departamento de Ingeniería Química; Argentina.Peer Reviewe

Structural and functional differences in PHOX2B frameshift mutations underlie isolated or syndromic congenital central hypoventilation syndrome

Heterozygous mutations in the PHOX2B gene are causative of congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), a neurocristopathy characterized by defective autonomic control of breathing due to the impaired differentiation of neural crest cells. Among PHOX2B mutations, polyalanine (polyAla) expansions are almost exclusively associated with isolated CCHS, whereas frameshift variants, although less frequent, are often more severe than polyAla expansions and identified in syndromic CCHS. This article provides a complete review of all the frameshift mutations identified in cases of isolated and syndromic CCHS reported in the literature as well as those identified by us and not yet published. These were considered in terms of both their structure, whether the underlying indels induced frameshifts of either 1 or 2 steps (\u201cframe 2\u201d and \u201cframe 3\u201d mutations respectively), and clinical associations. Furthermore, we evaluated the structural and functional effects of one \u201cframe 3\u201d mutation identified in a patient with isolated CCHS, and one \u201cframe 2\u201d mutation identified in a patient with syndromic CCHS, also affected with Hirschsprung's disease and neuroblastoma. The data thus obtained confirm that the type of translational frame affects the severity of the transcriptional dysfunction and the predisposition to isolated or syndromic CCH

Imaging of SNR IC443 and W44 with the Sardinia Radio Telescope at 1.5 GHz and 7 GHz

Observations of supernova remnants (SNRs) are a powerful tool for investigating the later stages of stellar evolution, the properties of the ambient interstellar medium, and the physics of particle acceleration and shocks. For a fraction of SNRs, multi-wavelength coverage from radio to ultra high-energies has been provided, constraining their contributions to the production of Galactic cosmic rays. Although radio emission is the most common identifier of SNRs and a prime probe for refining models, high-resolution images at frequencies above 5 GHz are surprisingly lacking, even for bright and well-known SNRs such as IC443 and W44. In the frameworks of the Astronomical Validation and Early Science Program with the 64-m single-dish Sardinia Radio Telescope, we provided, for the first time, single-dish deep imaging at 7 GHz of the IC443 and W44 complexes coupled with spatially-resolved spectra in the 1.5-7 GHz frequency range. Our images were obtained through on-the-fly mapping techniques, providing antenna beam oversampling and resulting in accurate continuum flux density measurements. The integrated flux densities associated with IC443 are S_1.5GHz = 134 +/- 4 Jy and S_7GHz = 67 +/- 3 Jy. For W44, we measured total flux densities of S_1.5GHz = 214 +/- 6 Jy and S_7GHz = 94 +/- 4 Jy. Spectral index maps provide evidence of a wide physical parameter scatter among different SNR regions: a flat spectrum is observed from the brightest SNR regions at the shock, while steeper spectral indices (up to 0.7) are observed in fainter cooling regions, disentangling in this way different populations and spectra of radio/gamma-ray-emitting electrons in these SNRs.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication to MNRAS on 18 May 201

Sardinia Radio Telescope wide-band spectral-polarimetric observations of the galaxy cluster 3C 129

We present new observations of the galaxy cluster 3C 129 obtained with the Sardinia Radio Telescope in the frequency range 6000-7200 MHz, with the aim to image the large-angular-scale emission at high-frequency of the radio sources located in this cluster of galaxies. The data were acquired using the recently-commissioned ROACH2-based backend to produce full-Stokes image cubes of an area of 1 deg x 1 deg centered on the radio source 3C 129. We modeled and deconvolved the telescope beam pattern from the data. We also measured the instrumental polarization beam patterns to correct the polarization images for off-axis instrumental polarization. Total intensity images at an angular resolution of 2.9 arcmin were obtained for the tailed radio galaxy 3C 129 and for 13 more sources in the field, including 3C 129.1 at the galaxy cluster center. These data were used, in combination with literature data at lower frequencies, to derive the variation of the synchrotron spectrum of 3C 129 along the tail of the radio source. If the magnetic field is at the equipartition value, we showed that the lifetimes of radiating electrons result in a radiative age for 3C 129 of t_syn = 267 +/- 26 Myrs. Assuming a linear projected length of 488 kpc for the tail, we deduced that 3C 129 is moving supersonically with a Mach number of M=v_gal/c_s=1.47. Linearly polarized emission was clearly detected for both 3C 129 and 3C 129.1. The linear polarization measured for 3C 129 reaches levels as high as 70% in the faintest region of the source where the magnetic field is aligned with the direction of the tail.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA