Antidepressant screening and flavonoids isolation from Eremostachys laciniata (L) Bunge

Eremostachys laciniata (L) Bunge (Lamiaceae), a rich source of flavonoids, has been investigated for chemical constituents and in vivo antidepressant property using forced swim test (FST) model. Five important compounds were isolated, including luteolin (1), apigenin (2), 5,8-dihydroxy-6,7-dimethoxyflavone (3), 5,7-dihydroxy-6,8-dimethoxyflavone (4) and luteolin 7-O-â-glucoside (5). Compound 3 and 4 were isolated for the first time from the plant. A profound antidepressant action was observed for the crude extract at low doses, followed by a state of depression at higher doses. The initial antidepressant-like property of the plant may be attributed to the presence of apigenin like compounds; where as, an increase in immobility time observed at higher doses of the extract may be due to the sedative and calming effect of luteolin present in the plant. E. laciniata may be a potential source for the isolation of important natural products with antidepressant-like properties.Key words: Eremostachys laciniata, antidepressant, apigenin

New bounds on the neutrino magnetic moment from the plasma induced neutrino chirality flip in a supernova

The neutrino chirality-flip process under the conditions of the supernova core is investigated in detail with the plasma polarization effects in the photon propagator taken into account, in a more consistent way than in earlier publications. It is shown in part that the contribution of the proton fraction of plasma is essential. New upper bounds on the neutrino magnetic moment are obtained: mu_nu < (0.5 - 1.1) 10^{-12} mu_B from the limit on the supernova core luminosity for nu_R emission, and mu_nu < (0.4 - 0.6) 10^{-12} mu_B from the limit on the averaged time of the neutrino spin-flip. The best upper bound on the neutrino magnetic moment from SN1987A is improved by the factor of 3 to 7.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 7 EPS figures, submitted to Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physic

Probing Pseudo-Dirac Neutrino through Detection of Neutrino Induced Muons from GRB Neutrinos

The possibility to verify the pseudo-Dirac nature of neutrinos is investigated here via the detection of ultra high energy neutrinos from distant cosmological objects like GRBs. The very long baseline and the energy range from $\sim$ TeV to $\sim$ EeV for such neutrinos invokes the likelihood to probe very small pseude-Dirac splittings. The expected secondary muons from such neutrinos that can be detected by a kilometer scale detector such as ICECUBE is calculated. The pseudo-Dirac nature, if exists, will show a considerable departure from flavour oscillation scenario in the total yield of the secondary muons induced by such neutrinos.Comment: 11 pages, 3figure

A Study of the Day - Night Effect for the Super - Kamiokande Detector: I. Time Averaged Solar Neutrino Survival Probability

This is the first of two articles aimed at providing comprehensive predictions for the day-night (D-N) effect for the Super-Kamiokande detector in the case of the MSW \nu_e \to \numt transition solution of the solar neutrino problem. The one-year averaged probability of survival of the solar \nue crossing the Earth mantle, the core, the inner 2/3 of the core, and the (core + mantle) is calculated with high precision (better than 1%) using the elliptical orbit approximation (EOA) to describe the Earth motion around the Sun. Results for the survival probability in the indicated cases are obtained for a large set of values of the MSW transition parameters $\Delta m^2$ and $sin^22\theta_{V}$ from the ``conservative'' regions of the MSW solution, derived by taking into account possible relatively large uncertainties in the values of the $^{8}$B and $^{7}$Be neutrino fluxes. Our results show that the one-year averaged D-N asymmetry in the $\nu_e$ survival probability for neutrinos crossing the Earth core can be, in the case of $sin^22 \theta_{V} \leq 0.13$, larger than the asymmetry in the probability for (only mantle crossing + core crossing) neutrinos by a factor of up to six. The enhancement is larger in the case of neutrinos crossing the inner 2/3 of the core. This indicates that the Super-Kamiokande experiment might be able to test the $sin^22\theta_{V} \leq 0.01$ region of the MSW solution of the solar neutrino problem by performing selective D-N asymmetry measurements.Comment: LaTeX2e - 18 Text Pages + 21 figures = 39 Pages. - Figures in PS + text file sk1b14.tex requires two auxiliary files (included

Assessing the Feasibility of Sewage Sludge Applications for the Cultivation of Brassica Juncea L.: Metal Accumulation, Growth, Biochemical and Yield Responses

The present study was conducted to examine the suitability of sewage sludge amendment in soil for mustard (Brassica juncea var. Alankar) by evaluating the heavy metal accumulation, growth, biochemical and yield responses of plants grown at 0, 5, 10, 20, 40, 70 and 100% sewage sludge amendment (SSA) rates. Sewage sludge amendments modified the properties of soil by decreasing pH and increasing organic carbon, total nitrogen and heavy metals in resulting soil-sludge mixtures. Plants showed significant (p < 0.05) increments in root length, shoot length, plant fresh mass and plant dry mass at 10 to 40% SSA rates as compared to unamended soil, but these parameters decreased significantly at SSA rates ≥ 70% at 60 days after sowing (DAS). Biochemical parameters such as photosynthetic pigment content, proline, cysteine, protein and sugar contents in fresh leaves also showed the same trend. Yield of mustard increased by 18.90, 41.80 and 15.42% at 10, 20 and 40% SSA rates, respectively, when compared to those grown in unamended soil. Concentrations of Cd and Pb in mustard shoots were higher than the Indian safe limits of human consumption (for Cd = 1.5 mg kg-1 and for Pb = 2.5 mg kg-1) at all amendment levels. Values of tolerance index (TI) in present study revealed that the selected cultivar is well adapted to tolerate and accumulate high quantities of heavy metals due to increased level of antioxidant cysteine and various other biochemical parameters in leaves when grown in soil amended with 5 to 40% sewage sludge. Therefore, it could be concluded that the selected cultivar if grown on sewage sludge amended soil, may act as important pathway for transfer of metals to primary plant consumers including humans. Further it may be recommended that proper guidelines should be laid for the recommended dosage of agricultural use of sewage sludge in countries which lack such guidelines

Magnetic Response of Hydrothermally Prepared Self-Assembled Co3O4 Nano-platelets

In the present communication, we report a strong ferrimagnetic behavior of self-assembled Co[subscript 3]O[subscript 4] nano-platelets, which most likely originates from the intrinsic spin structure of the unique Co[subscript 3]O[subscript 4] structure. The microsphere-like structures are composed of nano-platelets that are entangled together to form the organized network. These anomalous ferrimagnetic properties can be rationalized by supposing that one of the Co[superscript 3+] and one of the Co[superscript 2+] ions are switched between the octahedral and tetrahedral sites. The powder sample was also characterized by x-ray diffraction and superconducting quantum interface device magnetometry.National Research Foundation of Korea (No. 2013029776 (Mid-career Researcher Program)) Remove selectedResearch Institute for Solar and Sustainable Energies (Core Technology Development Program

Quantum Diffusion in Separable d-Dimensional Quasiperiodic Tilings

We study the electronic transport in quasiperiodic separable tight-binding models in one, two, and three dimensions. First, we investigate a one-dimensional quasiperiodic chain, in which the atoms are coupled by weak and strong bonds aligned according to the Fibonacci chain. The associated d-dimensional quasiperiodic tilings are constructed from the product of d such chains, which yields either the square/cubic Fibonacci tiling or the labyrinth tiling. We study the scaling behavior of the mean square displacement and the return probability of wave packets with respect to time. We also discuss results of renormalization group approaches and lower bounds for the scaling exponent of the width of the wave packet.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, conference proceedings Aperiodic 2012 (Cairns