A Triangular-shaped Quarter-mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide based Antenna for WBAN Applications

In this study, a compact quarter-mode substrate integrated waveguide (QMSIW) based dual-band antenna is proposed for wireless body area network applications. A QMSIW resonator is realised by splitting the full-mode substrate integrated waveguide cavity along the perfect magnetic conductor walls. The proposed antenna preserves the fundamental mode TE110 and the third order mode TE220 of the square SIW cavity. The proposed antenna is linearly polarised in the lower band at 2.45 GHz and circularly polarised in the higher frequency band at 5.8 GHz. The on-body performance of the antenna is validated on a piece of pork muscle tissue and it has been found to be stable with respect to surroundings. The proposed antenna covers the ISM bands 44 MHz (2.445 GHz - 2.489 GHz) and 225 MHz (5.730 GHz - 5.955 GHz) at 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The measured gain of the antenna on pork tissue is 1.87 dBi and 5.5 dBi at two bands. In addition, the specific absorption rate is obtained of 0.65 mW/g and 1.51 mW/g at two bands (wext = 2 mm), averaged over 1 g of muscle with 100mW input power. Moreover, the simulated and experimental results demonstrate a good agreement

Therapeutic and pharmacological aspects of photodynamic product chlorophyllin

Medicinal plants have been used for thousands of years to flavor and conserve food, to treat health disorders and to prevent diseases including epidemics. They can provide biologically active molecules and lead structures for development of modified derivatives with enhanced activity or reduced activity.  The isolation and identification of active principles and elucidation of the mechanism of action of a drug is of paramount importance. One such compound is chlorophyllin, a water soluble analogue of the ubiquitous green pigment chlorophyll. It acts as an effective inhibitor of aflatoxin hepatocarcinogenesis in animal models by blocking carcinogen bioavailability. Further anti-cancer effects of chlorophyllin including antioxidant activity, inhibition of enzymatic activity that converts inert procarcinogens into active carcinogens, stimulation of enzymatic activity that promotes the elimination of toxic substances from the body and antitumor activity have likewise been evidenced by controlled studies. Phytotherapy of snails by photodynamic chlorophyllin is a new approach to control the epidemic fasciolosis. Photosensitive chlorophyllin is degraded very fast without the formation of toxic byproducts, therefore, it is environmentally sound and economically safe also. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.263886

Ethnobotanical molluscicides

Molluscan are always responsible for human threat direct or indirect ways. A large number of molluscan serve as intermediate host for fasciolosis and schistosomiasis. These both diseases has great outbreak over exploiting the human health and economy. Their prevalence has been increasing worldwide due in large part to programme of water resource development, and poor hygienic conditions. The freshwater gastropods (snails) are the intermediate host for the larval stages of these two trematodes worms where they completed asexual phases of different development stages. Large numbers of treatment are available to tackle the problem of these two neglected tropical disease (NTDs). One of the easiest methods to break the transmission of these diseases is to de-link the intermediate host from helminths life cycle by the use of molluscicides. Currently there is an increased interest to identified the plant and explore their therapeutic potential as a molluscicides. Since the biomolluscicide are the safest, eco-friendly, fast biodegradability and cost effective method for molluscan control as compared to other synthetic counterparts, that are high imported cost, toxicity in non-target biota’s, and developing resistance in molluscan. This review is generally concerned with the efforts being made to concise the resources based on the ethnobotanical molluscicides to control the pest population and provide the data source of new researcher to explore the most promising candidates of nature i.e. plant molluscicides, as they are very effective tool for integrated vector management programme yet harmless to other non-target aquatic biota’s. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.551562

Therapeutic and pharmacological aspects of photodynamic product chlorophyllin

Medicinal plants have been used for thousands of years to flavor and conserve food, to treat health disorders and to prevent diseases including epidemics. They can provide biologically active molecules and lead structures for development of modified derivatives with enhanced activity or reduced activity.  The isolation and identification of active principles and elucidation of the mechanism of action of a drug is of paramount importance. One such compound is chlorophyllin, a water soluble analogue of the ubiquitous green pigment chlorophyll. It acts as an effective inhibitor of aflatoxin hepatocarcinogenesis in animal models by blocking carcinogen bioavailability. Further anti-cancer effects of chlorophyllin including antioxidant activity, inhibition of enzymatic activity that converts inert procarcinogens into active carcinogens, stimulation of enzymatic activity that promotes the elimination of toxic substances from the body and antitumor activity have likewise been evidenced by controlled studies. Phytotherapy of snails by photodynamic chlorophyllin is a new approach to control the epidemic fasciolosis. Photosensitive chlorophyllin is degraded very fast without the formation of toxic byproducts, therefore, it is environmentally sound and economically safe also. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.263886

Association of ABO blood group and Rh factor in cleft lip and palate patients

Background: One of the most common congenital malformations, with widespread racial and regional variation is an orofacial cleft. The occurrence is attributed to an array of environmental and genetic factors. Blood grouping and Rh factor are genetically determined. Any possible association of clefts with them helps in planning interventional services. Methods: A case control observational study was conducted on 111 samples who were cases presenting with oral clefts in Super speciality hospitals and other 111 samples who came to hospital for their treatment other than for cleft lip or cleft palate, were controls in the study. Cases were evaluated for various phenotypes of clefts. Blood samples of each case and control was collected to elaborate on blood group genotype and Rh typing. SPSS 22.0 version was employed for statistical analysis. Results: The most common blood group noted in cases as well in controls respectively was type ‘B’ in 31.5% and 43.2%, while blood group ‘AB’ was noted the lowest in both cases (14.5%) and controls (7.3%).Rh positive was noted 94.6% in both cases and control population. Clefts were observed more in male population than female counterparts.Cases of cleft lip and palate (CLP) was noted the highest, in 61 (55%) of cases, followed by defects in lip, palate and lastly in soft palate. Conclusions: Though not associated to the biological characteristics of cleft lip and palate in the current study, the functional importance of ABO blood group distribution may be the subject of future research. Identification of any associative traits for clefts assesses individuals with risk so as to help eliminate the chance of occurrence and early identification for better prognosis

Pharmacokinetic interaction potential assessment of cladrin, a potent bioactive constituent of Butea monosperma, and raloxifene, a prescription anti-osteoporotic by in vitro ADME approach

Raloxifene is a well-known modulator of estrogen receptors which is structurally similar to tamoxifen. As flavonoids can interact with the estrogen modulator raloxifene in vitro, we performed an in vitro stability study and in situ permeability assay of raloxifene and cladrin in female Sprague-Dawley rats when administered alone and when co-administered. The in vitro study samples were analyzed by HPLC; raloxifene administered individually and in combination with cladrin was compared. In this study, we investigated the absorption, metabolic stability, plasma stability, determination of permeability and plasma protein binding of both drugs in SD rats using an established in situ single pass intestinal perfusion model. Increase in the bioavailability of raloxifene and cladrin alone or in co-administration also could be because of the activation of P-glycoprotein in the rat intestine. Further the present report concludes on the basis of ATPase assay of both raloxifene and cladrin alone and in combination showed that both drugs are P-gp substrate. In in situ permeability assay showed that the both drugs competitively lower the permeability of each other but still the predicted human permeability value lied in the range of high permeability drug.

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a Yoga-based Cardiac Rehabilitation (Yoga-CaRe) program following acute myocardial infarction: study rationale and design of a multi-centre randomized controlled trial

© 2019 Background: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a standard treatment for secondary prevention of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in high income countries (HICs), but it is inaccessible to most patients in India due to high costs and skills required for multidisciplinary CR teams. We developed a low-cost and scalable CR program based on culturally-acceptable practice of yoga (Yoga-CaRe). In this paper, we report the rationale and design for evaluation of its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Methods: This is a multi-center, single-blind, two-arm parallel-group randomized controlled trial across 22 cardiac care hospitals in India. Four thousand patients aged 18–80 years with AMI will be recruited and randomized 1:1 to receive Yoga-CaRe program (13 sessions supervised by an instructor and encouragement to self-practice daily) or enhanced standard care (3 sessions of health education) delivered over a period of three months. Participants will be followed 3-monthly till the end of the trial. The co-primary outcomes are a) time to occurrence of first cardiovascular event (composite of all-cause mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke and emergency cardiovascular hospitalization), and b) quality of life (Euro-QoL-5L) at 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes include need for revascularization procedures, return to pre-infarct activities, tobacco cessation, medication adherence, and cost-effectiveness of the intervention. Conclusion: This trial will alone contribute >20% participants to existing meta-analyses of randomized trials of CR worldwide. If Yoga-CaRe is found to be effective, it has the potential to save millions of lives and transform care of AMI patients in India and other low and middle income country settings

Atomic Species Associated with the Portevin–Le Chatelier Effect in Superalloy 718 Studied by Mechanical Spectroscopy

In many Ni-based superalloys, dynamic strain aging (DSA) generates an inhomogeneous plastic deformation resulting in jerky flow known as the Portevin--Le Chatelier (PLC) effect. This phenomenon has a deleterious effect on the mechanical properties and, at high temperature, is related to the diffusion of substitutional solute atoms toward the core of dislocations. However, the question about the nature of the atomic species responsible for the PLC effect at high temperature still remains open. The goal of the present work is to answer this important question; to this purpose, three different 718-type and a 625 superalloy were studied through a nonconventional approach by mechanical spectroscopy. The internal friction (IF) spectra of all the studied alloys show a relaxation peak P718 (at 885 K for 0.1 Hz) in the same temperature range, 700 K to 950 K, as the observed PLC effect. The activation parameters of this relaxation peak have been measured, Ea(P718){\thinspace}={\thinspace}2.68{\thinspace}{\textpm}{\thinspace}0.05 eV, $\tau$0{\thinspace}={\thinspace}2{\textperiodcentered}10-15 {\textpm} 1 s as well as its broadening factor $\beta${\thinspace}={\thinspace}1.1. Experiments on different alloys and the dependence of the relaxation strength on the amount of Mo attribute this relaxation to the stress-induced reorientation of Mo-Mo dipoles due to the short distance diffusion of one Mo atom by exchange with a vacancy. Then, it is concluded that Mo is the atomic species responsible for the high-temperature PLC effect in 718 superallo

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects