Physicochemical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of citrus peel essential oils

Essential oils are produced as secondary metabolites of aromatic plants and can be extracted from leaves, seeds or fruit peel of the plants. Citrus peel is a rich source of limonene which is antimicrobial in nature. The present study aimed to deal with the physicochemical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of citrus peel essential oil from Citrus reticulate (mandarin orange), Citrus limetta (mosambi) and Citrus limon (lemon).  The lemon peel oil had lower peroxide value (1.6 meq/kg of sample), saponification value (112.2 mg KOH/g of oil) and higher iodine value (116 gI2/100g oil) when compared with orange and mosambi peel essential oil. DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) free radical scavenging activity of citrus peel essential oil was measured  and the result indicated that the total antioxidant activity of lemon peel oil was 89.2 % Radical Scavenging activity (RSA). The antifungal activity was assessed by agar dilution method, whereas the antibacterial property was assessed by the agar diffusion method. Lemon peel oil recorded better antimicrobial properties with minimum inhibitory concentration of 0.3% against Aspergillus flavus MTCC 277, 0.2% for Penicillium  MTCC 1995 and Fusarium oxysporum MTCC 284. Likewise, the minimum inhibitory concentration of lemon peel oil against Staphylococcus aureus MTCC 96 was 0.3%; Salmonella enterica MTCC 733 and Erwinia sp MTCC 2760 was 0.5%; Pseudomonas aeruginosa MTCC 1688 and Escherichia coli MTCC 443 was 0.7%. This comparative study showed that lemon peel oil had better physicochemical and antioxidant property. Lemon peel oil can be used as a preservative in the food system as it exhibited antibacterial and antifungal activity

Shelf-life extension of tender endosperm of Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) through retort processing

There is a demand for Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer) tender endosperm (Taal; Nungu) in the off season due to its health benefits. To extend the shelf life of Palmyra palm Tender Fruit Endosperm (PTFE) it was thermally processed. The versatile retort processing technology was used to increase the shelf life. Processed tender endosperm packed in transparent retort pouches (TRP) and nontransparent retort pouches (NTRP) were evaluated for textural, color, microbial, and sensorial properties. Heat penetration tests and F- values were also determined. Processed tender endosperm was compared with fresh endosperm and there was a shelf life of 6 months under ambient storage conditions (30-32°C). The process time to reach lethality in nontransparent pouches (14.03 min) was higher than that in transparent pouches (13.02 min) and the difference may be due to the layer addition of packaging material. Textural profile analysis revealed that hardness, gumminess, and chewiness decreased when the processing and storage time was increased. The sensory score obtained similar results to the textural analysis (Hardness value of TRP:5.063kgfand NTRP: 4.58kgf); succulence and toughness decreased over the prolonged processing time. The tender endosperm in metalized retort pouches scored higher (7.9 as overall acceptability) than that in transparent retort pouches (7.8 as overall acceptability) in terms of sensory analysis. Retorted pouches were microbiologically safe until 6 months with the absence of Clostridium, Staphylococcus and Salmonella spp.The present experiment on shelf life extension of Palmyra tender endosperm (Nungu) helps in preserving the perishable healthy delicacy for more months and also enables to fetch higher income for the farmers with minimal investment

A prospective observational study on prescribing patterns of drugs used in alcoholic liver disease patients at tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: Rational drug prescribing can be defined as appropriate drugs prescribed in the right dose, at correct time intervals and for a sufficient duration. Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD) and its complications are the principle cause for morbidity and mortality rate and accounts for elevated social and economic costs. The drug use will be a challenge for the physicians as there was no specific treatment for ALD, and decisions regarding treatment are critically depends on the symptoms and complications.Methods: A uni-centric prospective (observational) study was conducted for a period of 6months, to evaluate the current prescribing patterns used in treating ALD. All the patients admitted with diagnosis of ALD in General medicine department, both male and female medical wards were included in the study. General medicine outpatient department, special population such as pregnancy and psychiatry, patients below 18years and those who are not willing to sign in informed consent form was excluded from the study.Results: Number of males (98.02%) between age group 31-40years (29.6%) was more prone when compared to females (1.77%). Portal hypertension (30.35%) followed by jaundice (11.30%) and Ascites (10.71%) were frequently observed complications associated co-morbidities with ALD. WHO prescribing indicators showed deviation from there standard reference values. Diuretics (15.73%), antibiotics (13.14%), vitamin supplements (11.11%) and antacids (10.13%) categories were the most commonly prescribed for patients. The drugs prescribed from NLEM-2015 (82.11%) shows deviation from standard values.Conclusions: Futhermore, multi-centered studies should be conducted to draw best results on prescribing patterns of ALD in India

A Review on the Magnetorheological Fluid, Damper and Its Applications for Seismic Mitigation

Magnetorheological (MR) fluids and dampers have wide advances as smart materials because of its unique properties, notably, viscosity increases in the presence when magnetic field applied MR Fluids composed of three key components, including carrier fluid, surfactants and metal particles. The major applications of MR Fluids are in brakes, dampers, journal bearings, fluid clutches, pneumatic artificial muscles, aerospace etc. where electrical energy is converted to mechanical energy (Damping Force) in a controlled manner. Within a few milliseconds the fluid converts from liquid to semi solid state. Over the years, researchers were concerned on the ways to enhance the modelling precision. Though the proposed Dynamic models of MR Dampers represent displacement and force behaviour. In this review paper, the advances of MR Fluids, MR Damper, Damper Models, Energy harvesting and their applications for seismic resistance of structures are briefly discussed in the present study

A RAPID RP-HPLC METHOD DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION FOR THE QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF SOLIFENACIN SUCCINATE IN TABLETS

Objective: To develop an accurate, precise and linear Reverse Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method and validate as per ICH guidelines for the quantitative estimation of Solifenacin succinate (5mg) in tablets. Methods: The optimized method uses a reverse phase column, Enable Make C18G (250 X 4.6 mm; 5μ), a mobile phase of triethylammonium phosphate buffer (pH 3.5): acetonitrile in the proportion of 30:70 v/v, flow rate of 1.0 ml/min and a detection wavelength of 210 nm using a UV detector. Results: The developed method resulted in Solifenacin succinate eluting at 3.5 min. Solifenacin succinate exhibited linearity in the range 10-30μg/ml. The precision is exemplified by relative standard deviation of 0.76%. Percentage Mean recovery was found to be in the range of 98â€102, during accuracy studies. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitiation (LOQ) was found to be 7.65μg/ml and 23.19μg/ml respectively. Conclusion: A rapid, accurate, precise and linear RP-HPLC method was developed and validated for the quantitative estimation of solifenacin succinate in SOLITEN (5mg) tablets as per ICH guidelines and hence it can be used for routine analysis in various pharmaceutical industries

MANET Hidden and Exposed Terminal - Challenges and Survey

Mobile Adhoc Network (MANET)is a self organized wireless Network which was created to communicate among  the nodes without support of the any Infrastructure. While transmission of the packets between the nodes, many challenges the every nodes faces. One of the Major challenges is Hidden and Exposed nodes issues in the MANET. This causes the packet drop or packet failure while the transmitting the packets. Also which  reflects in degrades the throughput of the MANET and performance of the MANET nodes when the heavy traffic ,retransmission of the dropped packets delayed the communication. This article discussed about hidden and Exposed terminal problem and challenges in MANET and also dissimilar survey in MANET

QSAR Analysis of 5-Substituted 2-Benzoylaminobenzoic Acids as PPAR Modulator

Abstract: A quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) study on a series of analogs of 5-aryl thiazolidine-2, 4-diones with activity on PPAR-α and PPAR-γ was made using combination of various thermodynamic, electronic and spatial descriptors. Several statistical regression expressions were obtained using multiple linear regression analysis. The best QSAR model was further validated by leave one out cross validation method. The studied revealed that for dual PPAR-α/γ activity dipole-dipole energy and PMI-Z play significant role and contributed positively for PPAR-γ and PPAR-α activity respectively. Thus, QSAR brings important structural insight to aid the design of dual PPAR-α/γ receptor agonist

Nitric Oxide as a Signal in Inducing Secondary Metabolites During Plant Stress

Secondary metabolites are the major defense elements of plants against biotic and abiotic stress conditions. They are diverse and valuable natural products induced by a variety of environmental and developmental cues. In recent years, NO has been successfully used as elicitor to stimulate secondary metabolite accumulation in plants. Emerging evidence has established the significant role of NO in plant growth and defense responses in plants. Several abiotic and biotic stress factors can induce NO-mediated regulation of the biosynthetic pathways of metabolites that can consequently alter their biological reaction toward the given stress. Moreover, exogenous treatments with NO donors also enhanced the accumulation of secondary metabolites including phenolics, flavonoids, and caffeic acid derivatives in several species suggesting the importance of NO accumulation for the secondary metabolic production. Complete elucidation of its role in the production of such secondary metabolites which are pharmaceutically significant is very essential for improving the large-scale commercial production and enhancing stress resilience in plants. Although several reports suggested the induction of secondary metabolites and NO against a range of stress factors, to establish link between NO and secondary metabolites under stress needs a deeper investigation. This compilation chiefly summarize NO biosynthesis, signaling, and functions under abiotic stress in plants highlighting what is currently known about secondary metabolite induction by NO in plants

Clustering Algorithms for Spatial Big Data

In our time people and devices constantly generate data. User activity generates data about needs and preferences as well as the quality of their experiences in different ways: i. e. streaming a video, looking at the news, searching for a restaurant or a an hotel, playing a game with others, making purchases, driving a car. Even when people put their devices in their pockets, the network is generating location and other data that keeps services running and ready to use. This rapid developments in the availability and access to data and in particular spatially referenced data in a different areas, has induced the need for better analysis techniques to understand the various phenomena. Spatial clustering algorithms, which groups similar spatial objects into classes, can be used for the identification of areas sharing common characteristics. The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance of three different clustering algorithms i.e. the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise algorithm (DBSCAN), the Fast Search by Density Peak (FSDP) algorithm and the classic K-means algorithm (K-Means) as regards the analysis of spatial big data. We propose a modification of the FSDP algorithm in order to improve its efficiency in large databases. The applications concern both synthetic data sets and satellite images

Managing soil fertility constraints in market-led shift to high value agriculture for benefiting smallholders in the semi-arid tropics

Low productivity and cultivation of low value crops in the Indian semi-arid tropics (SAT) is the main cause for poor farm-based livelihoods. Poverty leading to low risktaking ability of farmers and production related constraints like widespread multi-nutrient deficiencies are major stumbling blocks for shifting to high value agriculture. Realizing the need to support povertyentrapped smallholders to connect to markets, the government of Karnataka state in India supported market-led shift to high value agriculture through a consortium of technical institutions and convergence of agricultural schemes. New widespread deficiencies of secondary and micronutrients like sulfur (52% farms), zinc (55%) and boron (62%) along with earlier known deficiencies of nitrogen (52%) and phosphorus (41%) were identified as main constraints for realizing productivity potential and a threat for sustainability. Policy supported initiative during 2011/12 showed more economic returns with diversified high value crops and strengthened 0.23 million smallholders. On-farm evaluations of soil test-based nutrient balancing to tomato, okra, brinjal, chilies, onion, cabbage and beans increased productivity by 5 to 58% over the farmers’ practice of adding macronutrients only. Small additional cost (` 770 to 1520 per ha) of balanced nutrition significantly increased additional benefits (` 5300 to 74,000 per ha) with fairly high cost-benefit ratio (1:4 to 1:82). Substantial returns enhanced risk-taking ability of smallholders to manage productivity constraints in future by themselves. Results showed that initial little investments in science and market-led social assistance programs should be a way forward for mainstreaming poverty-entrapped smallholders in other parts of SAT