Studies on Phytochemical Analysis, Antioxidant, Antibacterial and Larvicidal Properties of the Acacia nilotica Fruit Extracts

In the present study fruit of Acacia nilotica was chosen to evaluate its antioxidant, larvicidal and antibacterial properties. Phytochemical screening of aqueous and alcohol extracts of the plant fruits affirmed the presence of carbohydrates, reducing sugar, phenol, flavonoid, terpenoid, saponin and steroid. The antioxidant properties of the aqueous and alcohol fruit extracts were noted as 10.11±0.035 and 9.75±0.023 mM of FeSO4 for Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) assay respectively. The potency of antimicrobial activity of the aqueous and alcohol extract of A. nilotica fruit were tested against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillussubtilis, and Escherichiacoli. The alcohol extract against E. coli, exhibited the highest antimicrobial activity. Aqueous extracts of A. nilotica fruit showed potential toxicity against Aedes albopictus larvae with LC50 value of 142.074 mg L-1. Present findings clearly indicated that A. nilotica fruit extracts could be most effectively used as a natural antioxidant, antibacterial and larvicidal agent

Synthesis and Characterization of Host Guest Inclusion Complexes of Cyclodextrin Molecules with Theophylline by Diverse Methodologies

Steady host–guest inclusion complexes have been produced with medicinally important guest molecule theophylline within aqueous α-Cyclodextrin and HP-β-Cyclodextrin. α-and HP-β-Cyclodextrins have been established with favorable structural features for inclusion with Theophylline which include diversified applications in modern science such as controlled delivery in the field of pharmaceuticals, food processing, pesticides, foodstuffs etc. Theophylline is one of the most widely accepted drugs for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) worldwide, even if it has been used clinically for many years. With both α and HP-β-Cyclodextrins it is found that 1:1 hosts-guest inclusion complexes are formed with the guest molecule theophylline. The construction and quality of the inclusion complexes have been characterized by using conductivity measurement, surface tension study, and Job’s method. The inclusion phenomenon has been confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy, proton NMR study. Association constants and thermodynamic parameters have been evaluated for the created inclusion complexes by ultraviolet spectroscopy

CrysXPP: An explainable property predictor for crystalline materials

We present a deep-learning framework, CrysXPP, to allow rapid and accurate prediction of electronic, magnetic, and elastic properties of a wide range of materials. CrysXPP lowers the need for large property tagged datasets by intelligently designing an autoencoder, CrysAE. The important structural and chemical properties captured by CrysAE from a large amount of available crystal graphs data helped in achieving low prediction errors. Moreover, we design a feature selector that helps to interpret the model’s prediction. Most notably, when given a small amount of experimental data, CrysXPP is consistently able to outperform conventional DFT. A detailed ablation study establishes the importance of different design steps. We release the large pre-trained model CrysAE. We believe by fine-tuning the model with a small amount of property-tagged data, researchers can achieve superior performance on various applications with a restricted data source

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the management of acute uncomplicated diverticulitis:time to change traditional practice

Background: To evaluate comparative outcomes of outpatient (OP) versus inpatient (IP) treatment and antibiotics (ABX) versus no antibiotics (NABX) approach in the treatment of uncomplicated (Hinchey grade 1a) acute diverticulitis. Methods: A systematic online search was conducted using electronic databases. Comparative studies of OP versus IP treatment and ABX versus NABX approach in the treatment of Hinchey grade 1a acute diverticulitis were included. Primary outcome was recurrence of diverticulitis. Emergency and elective surgical resections, development of complicated diverticulitis, mortality rate, and length of hospital stay were the other evaluated secondary outcome parameters. Results: The literature search identified twelve studies (n = 3,875) comparing NABX (n = 2,008) versus ABX (n = 1,867). The NABX group showed a lower disease recurrence rate and shorter length of hospital stay compared with the ABX group (P = 0.01) and (P = 0.004). No significant difference was observed in emergency resections (P = 0.33), elective resections (P = 0.73), development of complicated diverticulitis (P = 0.65), hospital re-admissions (P = 0.65) and 30-day mortality rate (P = 0.91). Twelve studies (n = 2,286) compared OP (n = 1,021) versus IP (n = 1,265) management of uncomplicated acute diverticulitis. The two groups were comparable for the following outcomes: treatment failure (P = 0.10), emergency surgical resection (P = 0.40), elective resection (P = 0.30), disease recurrence (P = 0.22), and mortality rate (P = 0.61). Conclusion: Observation-only treatment is feasible and safe in selected clinically stable patients with uncomplicated acute diverticulitis (Hinchey 1a classification). It may provide better outcomes including decreased length of hospital stay. Moreover, the OP approach in treating patients with Hinchey 1a acute diverticulitis is comparable to IP management. Future high-quality randomised controlled studies are needed to understand the outcomes of the NABX approach used in an OP setting in managing patients with uncomplicated acute diverticulitis

Observation of cardiac profile among the adult population of Sreemangal

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The prevalence and risk factors of CVDs vary across different populations and regions. This study aimed to observe the cardiac profile among the adult population of Sreemangal, Bangladesh, to identify the prevalence and risk factors of CVDs in this population. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted over a six-month period at a public health camp in Sreemangal, Bangladesh. A total of 137 adult participants were purposively selected. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and physical examination, including measurements of blood pressure and laboratory analysis of blood samples. Results: The study found that 44.53% of participants had elevated blood pressure, and 21.90% had stage 1 hypertension. Interestingly, 36.50% of participants were unaware of their hypertension status. Furthermore, 26.28% of participants had a known history of diabetes, but blood glucose level analysis revealed an additional 14.85% of participants were prediabetic, and 6.93% were diabetic based on fasting blood glucose levels. A statistically significant association was found between increasing age and the stage of hypertension (p<0.001), and between fasting and normal blood glucose levels and the stage of hypertension (p<0.005 and p<0.05, respectively). Conclusions: The findings of this study underscore the need for targeted interventions to prevent and manage CVDs in the adult population of Sreemangal, Bangladesh. These interventions should include regular screening for CVD risk factors, health education to increase awareness of these risk factors, and strategies to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors

Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species’ viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species’ recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard

Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard

Community based Search on Power Law Networks

Abstract—In this paper, we have presented a novel algorithm for searching Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks which forms power law topology. It is completely decentralized in nature and hence is implemented independently by each individual peer participating in the network. Instead of flooding mechanisms, it uses random walk and proliferation techniques to search for peers having similar interests. Besides the search, it is also equipped to change the neighborhoods of the peers based upon their proximity with the queried item. This topology evolution coupled with search proliferation helps the P2P network to form interest-based communities, as a result of which the search efficiency of the network improves, as more and more individual peers perform decentralized search. Keywords- community structure, power law, semi-structured P2P I

Case-Based Learning and its Application as a Teaching Tool for Medical Graduates in Competency-Based Medical Education in Clinical Microbiology

Background: Microbiology is taught using traditional methods, and its practical application is scarce among medical practitioners. As a result, “active learning” is essential to aid pupil learning. One such strategy is case-based learning (CBL), which helps to improve understanding as well as therapeutic applications of microbiology in everyday practice. Aim: CBL was first used as a teaching and learning method in clinical microbiology for medical students. Methodology: At IQ City Medical College and Hospital in Durgapur, an educational intervention study was undertaken for the 2nd phase MBBS students. A total of 82 people took part in the study, and two groups were formed. After sensitizing the faculty using CBL, the project was carried out. The first group was given a CBL, whereas the second group was given a didactic talk with crossover. A pre- and post-test was done, and student and instructor perceptions were recorded and assessed. Results: CBL was warmly received by both students and teachers. Students and teachers’ perceptions were rated on a Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. In comparison to Didactic Lecture, around 76.8% of students believe that in CBL, we interact more with teachers, followed by 65.9% who believe that CBL has helped me retain the material and its clinical application, and 62.2% who believe that CBL has stimulated self-study. Conclusion: CBL in microbiology is an effective technique for improving and changing students’ attitudes toward microbiology’s applicability in clinical practice. It also helps students gain a better understanding of microbiology