Therapeutic Potential of Traditional Indian Herbal Medicine in COVID-19: A Narrative Review

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global challenge to the health care system. A novel agent to combat this deadly virus is still a matter of research. Herbal molecules have served humanity since the beginning. Objectives: This narrative review aims to study the antiviral properties of medicinal plants, which are already effectively used in the past against various viruses. It derives the importance of exploration of such phytochemicals, which can be complementarily used to treat COVID-19. Methods: Studies related to traditional medicine and treatment for viruses were retrieved from databases including PubMed, Google scholar until December 2020 using the keywords SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Immunological, Phyto-chemicals, Traditional Medicine. The resulting publications were analyzed to develop a narrative review on the traditional Indian phytochemicals that have been shown to effectively treat various viral infections and potentially treat or prevent COVID-19. Results: Many of the researches are showing that Indian herbal compounds have a significant potential against viral diseases. Plants like Azadirachta indica, Withania somnifera, Tinospora cordifolia, Ocimum basilicum, and many more have been shown tremendous antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and immune-modulatory activities. Conclusion: Phytochemicals obtained from the herbs can be helpful in the treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2via various modes such as inhibition of attachment, penetration, uncoating, replication, assembly, and release of respiratory viruses. Further analysis of the potential phytochemicals in treating SARS-CoV-2 in clinical trials is warranted

Production of xylanase under submerged fermentation from Bacillus firmus HS11 isolated from Sikkim Himalayan region

Xylanase producing microorganisms isolated from high altitude soil show activity at broad window of temperature, and can have variety of industrial applications. Here, we explored production of xylanase under submerged fermentation from Bacillus firmus HS11 isolated from Sikkim Himalayan region. We isolated 472 bacterial strains high altitude soil samples (1120-4272 m) from Sikkim and screened for xylanase production. Among them five strains that showed higher xylanase activity were identified by 16s rRNA gene sequence analysis. comparatively, Bacillus firmus HS11 showed highest activity at 10, 37 and 50°C, and was chosen for optimization experiment. B. firmus HS11 showed xylanase activity of 3.35 U/mg of protein at 37°C and retained 32.43% activity at 10°C and had 79.82% higher activity at 50°C. Optimization of nutrient composition for submerged fermentation of B. firmus HS11 was carried out by combination of Plackett-Burman design and response surface methodology. The optimized media component for xylanase production by submerged fermentation by B. firmus HS11 is beechwood xylan 0.8% (w/v), MgSO4 0.04% (w/v), CaCl20.04% (w/v), peptone 0.1% (w/v), NaCl 0.3% (w/v) and yeast extracts 0.01% (w/v), resulting in enhancement of xylanase production by 7.4 folds. Xylanase having activity at broad range of temperature including lower temperature can have application in food industry

Trusted CI: PEARC19 Workshop

The Trusted CI Workshop on Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure provides an opportunity for sharing experiences, recommendations, and available resources for addressing cybersecurity challenges in research computing. Presentations by Trusted CI staff and community members will cover a broad range of cybersecurity topics, including science gateways, transition to practice, cybersecurity program development, workforce development, and community engagement (e.g., via the Trusted CI Fellows program). Visit https://trustedci.org/pearc19 for a listing of all Trusted CI activities at PEARC19. The workshop was held on Tuesday July 30th.NSF #1547272Ope

Data Centric Transfer Functions for High Dynamic Range Volume Data

Creating effective transfer functions for high dynamic range scalar volume data is a challenging task. For data sets with limited information about their content, deriving transfer functions using mathematical properties (gradient, curvature, etc.) is a difficult trial and error process. Traditional methods use linear binning to map data to integer space for creating the transfer functions. In current methods the transfer functions are typically stored in integer look-up tables, which do not work well when the data range is large. We show how a process of opacity guidance with simple user interface can be used as the basis for transfer function design. Our technique which uses opacity weighted histogram equalization lets users derive transfer functions for HDR floating point easily and quickly. We also present how to adopt these techniques for real-time interactive visualization with minimal pre-processing. We compare our techniques with traditional methods and show examples

Visualizing the ground motions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

With advances in computational capabilities and refinement of seismic wavepropagation models in the past decade large three dimensional simulations of earthquake ground motion have become possible. The resulting datasets from these simulations are multivariate, temporal and multi-terabyte in size. Past visual representations of results from seismic studies have been largely confined to static two dimensional maps. New visual representations provide scientists with alternate ways of viewing and interacting with these results potentially leading to new and significant insight into the physical phenomena. Visualizations can also be used for pedagogic and general dissemination purposes. We present a workflow for visual representation of the data from a ground motion simulation of the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. We have employed state of the art animation tools for visualization of the ground motions with a high degree of accuracy and visual realism