Inhibition Planktonic and Bio film Growth of Candida Albicans by Plant Extract Alone and in combination with Fluconazole

This study was to evaluate the efficacy of Methanolic extract of G. superba L in combination with Fluconazole against biofilm development and mature biofilms of C. albicans. Synergism between MEGS and Fluconazole combination against biofilm formation was evident with FICI of 0.187. Combination of MEGS and Fluconazole did not have synergistic potential against mature biofilm growth, evidenced in FICI of 0.916. MIC of standard Fluconazole was found to be 0.5 and >0.5 in biofilm development and mature biofilm respectively

BIOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF THREE MEDICINAL TAXA OF GENUS SESBANIA IN MAHARASHTRA

The genus Sesbania belongs to the family Leguminosae and its subfamily is Papilionoideae.There are four subgenera of which Sesbania and Agati are of agriculture value.  The seasonal variation  of  proteins  and  amino  acids  have  been  investigated  in  leaf , bark  and  wood  of  Sesbania rostrata , Sesbania exaltata and Sesbania sesban are the medicinal  plants in Maharashtra. Comparative  account  of  protein  content  of  leaves  of  three  tree  species  revealed  that  Sesbania exaltata were  rich  in  protein(  range from 3.34 to 3.81 mg / g dry wt .) than  Sesbania rostrata (  range from 3.60 to 3.72 mg / g dry wt .) and Sesbania sesban (  range from  2.31 to 2.55 mg / g dry wt .) . Amino  acids  content  of  leaves  of  three  tree  species  revealed  that  Sesbania exaltata were  rich  in  amino acid (  range from  2.47 to 2.67 mg / g dry wt .)  than  Sesbania rostrata (  range from  2.29 to 2.46 mg / g dry wt .) and Sesbania sesban (  range from  1.74 to 1.89 mg / g dry wt .). Key words: Protein , amino  acid , endangered  medicinal  tax

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Indolyl Bis-chalcones as Anti-Breast Cancer and Antioxidant Agents

A series of novel α-cyano substituted indolyl bis-chalcones (3a−l) has been synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro antitumor activity against the human breast cancer MCF7 (estrogen receptor-positive) and normal Vero cell lines using sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay method. Compounds 3a, 3c and 3d showed potent activity (GI50 = 11.7, 15.3 and 17.9 µM respectively) against the human breast cancer MCF7 cell line, which was almost as good as that of adriamycin (GI50 = < 0.1 µM) whereas, screening against the normal Vero Monkey cell line showed moderate selectivity. Furthermore, all the synthesized compounds screened for their antioxidant potential against DPPH, NO, SOR, and H2O2 radicals. Most of the bis-chalcones exhibited significant DPPH (51.09−12.72 %) and NO (64.11−34.43 %) radical scavenging activity and modest activity against SOR (88.08−43.14 %) and H2O2 (80.13−56.0 %) radicals compared to the reference standard ascorbic acid (40.78 %, 42.63 %, 87.05 %, and 79.42 % respectively). Current study provides impetus for the development of highly potent indolyl bis-chalcone derivatives as anticancer leads. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at z &gt; 5 with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly α forest spectra

We compare a sample of five high-resolution, high S/N Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra of bright $6<z \lesssim 6.5$ QSOs aimed at spectrally resolving the last remaining transmission spikes at $z>5$ with those obtained from mock absorption spectra from the Sherwood and Sherwood-Relics suites of hydrodynamical simulations of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We use a profile fitting procedure for the inverted transmitted flux, $1-F$, similar to the widely used Voigt profile fitting of the transmitted flux $F$ at lower redshifts, to characterise the transmission spikes that probe predominately underdense regions of the IGM. We are able to reproduce the width and height distributions of the transmission spikes, both with optically thin simulations of the post-reionization Universe using a homogeneous UV background and full radiative transfer simulations of a late reionization model. We find that the width of the fitted components of the simulated transmission spikes is very sensitive to the instantaneous temperature of the reionized IGM. The internal structures of the spikes are more prominant in low temeperature models of the IGM. The width distribution of the observed transmission spikes, which require high spectral resolution ($\leq$ 8 km/s) to be resolved, is reproduced for optically thin simulations with a temperature at mean density of $T_0= (11000 \pm 1600,10500\pm 2100,12000 \pm 2200)$ K at $z= (5.4,5.6,5.8)$. This is weakly dependent on the slope of the temperature-density relation, which is favoured to be moderately steeper than isothermal. In the inhomogeneous, late reionization, full radiative transfer simulations where islands of neutral hydrogen persist to $z\sim5.3$, the width distribution of the observed transmission spikes is consistent with the range of $T_0$ caused by spatial fluctuations in the temperature-density relation

Fermentation, Isolation, Structure, and antidiabetic activity of NFAT-133 produced by Streptomyces strain PM0324667

Type-2 diabetes is mediated by defects in either insulin secretion or insulin action. In an effort to identify extracts that may stimulate glucose uptake, similar to insulin, a high throughput-screening assay for measuring glucose uptake in skeletal muscle cells was established. During the screening studies to discover novel antidiabetic compounds from microbial resources a Streptomyces strain PM0324667 (MTCC 5543, the Strain accession number at Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India), an isolate from arid soil was identified which expressed a secondary metabolite that induced glucose uptake in L6 skeletal muscle cells. By employing bioactivity guided fractionation techniques, a tri-substituted simple aromatic compound with anti-diabetic potential was isolated. It was characterized based on MS and 2D NMR spectral data and identified as NFAT-133 which is a known immunosuppressive agent that inhibits NFAT-dependent transcription in vitro. Our investigations revealed the antidiabetic potential of NFAT-133. The compound induced glucose uptake in differentiated L6 myotubes with an EC50 of 6.3 ± 1.8 μM without activating the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ. Further, NFAT-133 was also efficacious in vivo in diabetic animals and reduced systemic glucose levels. Thus it is a potential lead compound which can be considered for development as a therapeutic for the treatment of type-2 diabetes. We have reported herewith the isolation of the producer microbe, fermentation, purification, in vitro, and in vivo antidiabetic activity of the compound

Boomerang: Rebounding the consequences of reputation feedback on crowdsourcing platforms

Paid crowdsourcing platforms suffer from low-quality workand unfair rejections, but paradoxically, most workers and requesters have high reputation scores. These inflated scores, which make high-quality work and workers difficult to find,stem from social pressure to avoid giving negative feedback. We introduce Boomerang, a reputation system for crowdsourcing that elicits more accurate feedback by rebounding the consequences of feedback directly back onto the person who gave it. With Boomerang, requesters find that their highly rated workers gain earliest access to their future tasks, and workers find tasks from their highly-rated requesters at the top of their task feed. Field experiments verify that Boomerang causes both workers and requesters to provide feedback that is more closely aligned with their private opinions. Inspired by a game-theoretic notion of incentive-compatibility, Boomerang opens opportunities for interaction design to incentivize honest reporting over strategic dishonesty

Towards a data publishing framework for primary biodiversity data: challenges and potentials for the biodiversity informatics community

Background: Currently primary scientific data, especially that dealing with biodiversity, is neither easily discoverable nor accessible. Amongst several impediments, one is a lack of professional recognition of scientific data publishing efforts. A possible solution is establishment of a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ which would encourage and recognise investments and efforts by institutions and individuals towards management, and publishing of primary scientific data potentially on a par with recognitions received for scholarly publications. Discussion: This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of primary biodiversity data publishing, and conceptualises a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that would help incentivise efforts and investments by institutions and individuals in facilitating free and open access to biodiversity data. It further postulates the institutionalisation of a ‘Data Usage Index (DUI)’, that would attribute due recognition to multiple players in the data collection/creation, management and publishing cycle. Conclusion: We believe that institutionalisation of such a ‘Data Publishing Framework’ that offers socio-cultural, legal, technical, economic and policy environment conducive for data publishing will facilitate expedited discovery and mobilisation of an exponential increase in quantity of ‘fit-for-use’ primary biodiversity data, much of which is currently invisible