INFLUENCE OF EXTRACTION METHODS ON THE HEPATOTOXICITY OF AZADIRACHTA INDICA BARK EXTRACT ON ALBINO RATS

The influence of extraction methods: Cold aqueous (CA) hot aqueous (HA) and alcoholic extraction (AE) methods on the hepatotoxic effect of Azadirachta indica bark extract (ABC) was investigated using albino rats. A total of forty eight rats were divided into three groups of sixteen rats equally for the extraction methods. Each group was subdivided into four rats to represent control, low, medium and high doses of the extract. The control group received no extract while the other groups were administered the various concentrations (doses) intraperitoneally twice daily for seven (7) days before they were all sacrificed under light chloroform and used for the analysis. Parameters determined include glucose, cholesterol and triglycerol. Also alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Aspartate amino transferase (AST) and alanine amino transferase (ALP) activities were determined. The result shows that glucose levels decreased from 85.75+2.85 to 65.00+12.05 in high concentration of C.A. Similar decreases were obtained from HA and AE extraction methods. Cholesterol levels also decreased from 111,63+1.02 to 53.75+0.90 in the high concentration CA, and similarly decreased in HA and AE extraction methods. Also triglycerol levels decreased from 66.49+0.95 to 21.02+0.30 in the high concentration of CA, and also decreased respectively in both HA and AE extraction methods. Similarly, the activities of the enzymes decreased in all the extraction methods, and for the different concentrations over the control except for the activities of ALP which increased generally in CA method. This implies that ABE using HA and AE methods in non hepatotoxic while there is possibility of hepatotoxicity of the obstructive type if CA extraction method is used

Sir John Adams: his legacy to the world of particle accelerators

John Adams acquired an unrivalled reputation for his leading part in designing and constructing the Proton Synchrotron (PS) in CERN's early days. In 1968, and after several years heading a fusion laboratory in the UK, he came back to Geneva to pilot the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) project to approval and then to direct its construction. By the time of his early death in 1984 he had built the two flagship proton accelerators at CERN and, during the second of his terms as Director-General, he laid the groundwork for the proton-antiproton collider which led to the discovery of the intermediate vector boson. How did someone without any formal academic qualification achieve this? What was the magic behind his leadership? The speaker, who worked many years alongside him, will discuss these questions and speculate on how Sir John Adams might have viewed today's CERN.Comment: 29 pages, John Adams Memorial Lecture 2009, published with high-resolution figures as CERN Yellow Report http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/133152

Theory of Feshbach molecule formation in a dilute gas during a magnetic field ramp

Starting with coupled atom-molecule Boltzmann equations, we develop a simplified model to understand molecule formation observed in recent experiments. Our theory predicts several key features: (1) the effective adiabatic rate constant is proportional to density; (2) in an adiabatic ramp, the dependence of molecular fraction on magnetic field resembles an error function whose width and centroid are related to the temperature; (3) the molecular production efficiency is a universal function of the initial phase space density, the specific form of which we derive for a classical gas. Our predictions show qualitative agreement with the data from [Hodby et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf{94}}, 120402 (2005)] without the use of adjustable parameters

Dark Energy as an off-shell Tachyon Background in four-dimensional Strings

We consider a time-dependent bosonic string in graviton, dilaton and tachyon backgrounds, for which it was already shown that conformal invariance is respected to all orders in alpha' and in any space-time dimension. Assuming that the tachyon is off-shell, we show in this note that the specific time-homogeneity of the corresponding space time effective action leads to a power-law expanding Universe, that can be accelerating or decelerating, depending on the range of parameter space considered. We interpret this result as dark energy. We arrive at this result without requiring the knowledge of the structure of the string effective action, which is not known to all orders in alpha'. Moreover, in our approach, the background configurations are consistent in a four-dimensional space time, without any need for extra dimensions.Comment: 10 pages, typos correcte

Optimization of structures on the basis of fracture mechanics and reliability criteria

Systematic summary of factors which are involved in optimization of given structural configuration is part of report resulting from study of analysis of objective function. Predicted reliability of performance of finished structure is sharply dependent upon results of coupon tests. Optimization analysis developed by study also involves expected cost of proof testing