Antioxidant and antihyperglycemic potential of methanolic extract of bark of mimusops elengi l. In mice

Ayurveda refers Mimusops elengi L. for the treatment of the diabetes. Considering the traditional claim of M. elengi in management of diabetes and the possible involvement of oxidative stress in pathogenesis of diabetes, the present study was aimed to evaluate the in vitro antioxidant and in vivo antihyperglycemic property of methanolic extract of bark of M. elengi (MEMeOH). In vitro antioxidant activity of MEMeOH was evaluated using reducing power assay, DPPH and hydroxyl radical scavenging assay. MEMeOH offered significant in vitro reducing power capacity and radical scavenging activity. In acute study in alloxan induced diabetes, MEMeOH exhibited significant (p< 0.001) antihyperglycemic effect. The onset of antihyperglycemic effect was observed at 2nd hr; peak activity was demonstrated at 6th hr. The antihyperglycemic effect of MEMeOH 400mg/kg, p.o. was persistent up to 24th hr after drug administration. MEMeOH produced significant (p < 0.01) reduction in elevated glucose levels in glucose loaded non diabetic animals. The onset of action in non diabetic oral glucose tolerance test was found to be at 60th min and peak activity was observed at 120th min after oral glucose load. MEMeOH demonstrated significant (p < 0.01) reduction in elevated glucose levels 2hr before glucose administration and 6 hr after glucose load in oral glucose tolerance test in diabetic animals. MEMeOH has demonstrated antihyperglycemic activity in diabetic as well as non diabetic glucose loaded mice. MEMeOH should be further explored against diabetes and related complications.Keywords: Mimusops elengi; antihyperglycemic, antioxidant, DPPH, diabetic OGT

A novel blood-based biomarker for detection of autism spectrum disorders

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are classified as neurological developmental disorders. Several studies have been carried out to find a candidate biomarker linked to the development of these disorders, but up to date no reliable biomarker is available. Mass spectrometry techniques have been used for protein profiling of blood plasma of children with such disorders in order to identify proteins/peptides that may be used as biomarkers for detection of the disorders. Three differentially expressed peptides with mass–charge (m/z) values of 2020±1, 1864±1 and 1978±1 Da in the heparin plasma of children with ASD that were significantly changed as compared with the peptide pattern of the non-ASD control group are reported here. This novel set of biomarkers allows for a reliable blood-based diagnostic tool that may be used in diagnosis and potentially, in prognosis of ASD

The burden of invasive infections in critically ill indigenous children in Australia

10.5694/mja16.00595Medical Journal of Australia206278-84MJAU

The burden of invasive infections in critically ill Indigenous children in Australia

Objectives: To describe the incidence and mortality of invasive infections in Indigenous children admitted to paediatric and general intensive care units (ICUs) in Australia. Design: Retrospective multi-centre cohort study of Australian and New Zealand Paediatric Intensive Care Registry data. Participants: All children under 16 years of age admitted to an ICU in Australia, 1 January 2002 e 31 December 2013. Indigenous children were defined as those identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in a mandatory admissions dataset. Main outcomes: Population-based ICU mortality and admission rates. Results: Invasive infections accounted for 23.0% of non-elective ICU admissions of Indigenous children (726 of 3150), resulting in an admission rate of 47.6 per 100 000 children per year. Staphylococcus aureus was the leading pathogen identified in children with sepsis/septic shock (incidence, 4.42 per 100 000 Indigenous children per year; 0.57 per 100 000 non-Indigenous children per year; incidence rate ratio 7.7; 95% CI, 5.8e10.1; P < 0.001). While crude and risk-adjusted ICU mortality related to invasive infections was not significantly different for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children (odds ratio, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.53e1.07; P ¼ 0.12), the estimated population-based age-standardised mortality rate for invasive infections was significantly higher for Indigenous children (2.67 per 100 000 per year v 1.04 per 100 000 per year; crude incidence rate ratio, 2.65; 95% CI, 1.88e3.64; P < 0.001). Conclusions: The ICU admission rate for severe infections was several times higher for Indigenous than for non-Indigenous children, particularly for S. aureus infections. While ICU case fatality rates were similar, the population-based mortality was more than twice as high for Indigenous children. Our study highlights an important area of inequality in health care for Indigenous children in a high income country that needs urgent attention.Justyna A Ostrowski, Graeme MacLaren, Janet Alexander, Penny Stewart, Sheena Gune, Joshua R Francis, Subodh Ganu, Marino Festa, Simon J Erickson, Lahn Straney, Luregn J Schlapbac

Eatery - A multi-aspect restaurant rating system

This paper presents Eatery, a multi-aspect restaurant rating system that identifies rating values for different aspects of a restaurant by means of aspect-level sentiment analysis. Eatery uses a hierarchical taxonomy that represents relationships between various aspects of the restaurant domain that enables finding the sentiment score of an aspect as a composite sentiment score of its sub-aspects. The system consists of a word co-occurrence based technique to identify multiple implicit aspects appearing in a sentence of a review. An improved version of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to obtain weights specific to a restaurant by utilizing the relationships between aspects, which allows finding the composite sentiment score for each aspect in the taxonomy. The system also has the ability to rate individual food items and food categories. An improved version of Single Pass Partition Method (SPPM) is used to categorise food names to obtain food categories.</p