The phytochemical, antibacterial and antioxidant activity of five medicinal plants against the wound infecting bacteria

Leaf extracts of Senna italica, Ricinus communis, Lantana camara, Lippia javanica and Ziziphus  mucronata were screened for biological activity against bacteria which infect wounds. The leaves were extracted using different solvents of varying polarity (hexane, dichloromethane, acetone and methanol). Phytochemical analyses of the extracts were performed using thin layer chromatography (TLC). The extracts were loaded on TLC plates and developed in three solvent systems that is benzene/ethanol /ammonium solution (BEA), chloroform/ethyl acetate/formic acid (CEF) and ethyl acetate/methanol /water (EMW). Antibacterial activity of the plants was evaluated using micro-dilution and bioautography methods. The test organisms used were Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis. Acetone extracts were chosen for antioxidant activity. Methanol was the best extractant, followed by acetone and dichloromethane (DCM). In the phytochemical analysis,  more compounds were observed on BEA, followed by EMW and CEF plates. Lantana camara had no  activity against any of the bacteria used. P. aeruginosa was the most resistant bacterium with only two plants active against it. E. faecalis and E. coli were sensitive to the extracts. More antibacterial  compounds were observed on BEA plates against all the test bacteria in bioautographic method. The Rf  values calculated from bioautography indicated that the selected plants have different active compounds. The most active compounds were from S. italica and Z. mucronata. BEA and EMW plates had good  antioxidant activity. No antioxidant activity was observed on the CEF plate. Most extracts were active against wound pathogens; their application on the wound area may prevent infection. Further studies are required to identify the active compounds in the plant extracts which showed significant anti-bacterial activities.Key words: Thin layer chromatography (TLC), plant extract, bacteria

Does seasonal variation influence the phytochemical and antibacterial properties of Carpobrotus edulis?

Carpobrotus edulis L. (family Aizoaceae) has been used by locals over the years to treat microbial infections. Extracts of varying polarities were prepared from the leaf debris and filtrate of a spring andan autumn harvest of C. edulis. Thin layer chromatography was used to analyze the phytocompounds of the extracts as well as to assay the plant for antioxidant compounds. The spring harvest showedequal distribution of the phytochemicals within the leaf debris and the filtrate, but there was a high prevalence of phytocompounds within the leaf debris extracts of the autumn sample. An antioxidantcompound was intensely pronounced in the autumn extracts of intermediate polarity and in the polar extract. The plant was evaluated for antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Enterococcusfaecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus by using a two-fold serial microdilution method as well as bioautography. The spring extracts were more potent against all test organisms,having MIC values that were lower than the autumn extracts. When taking the total activity of each extract into account, the autumn extracts showed higher efficacy than the extracts from the springsample. The antibacterial activity observed in the extracts of both seasons somewhat validated the ethnomedicinal use of C. edulis

In vitro evaluation of the antifungal activity of Sclerocarya birrea extracts against pathogenic yeasts

The antifungal activity of Sclerocarya birrea which is used in South African traditional medicine for the treatment of skin diseases was evaluated against three yeasts; Candida parapsilosis, Cryptococcusalbidus and Rhodoturula mucilaginosa. Barks of S. birrea were extracted with hexane, dichloromethane (DCM), chloroform, ethyl acetate, acetone, methanol and ethanol and tested against these three yeasts.The antifungal assay was performed by the microdilution technique and bioautography. Thin layer chromatography was used to analyze the phytocompounds of the extracts as well as to assay the plantfor antioxidant compounds. More compounds with antioxidant activity were observed in polar separation system, ethyl  cetate:methanol:water (EMW). All test organisms were resistant against all non-polar extracts. Acetone, ethanol and methanol S. birrea extracts had average MIC values of 0.39, 0.22 and 0.27 mg/ml, respectively. C. albidus was the most sensitive organism with an average MIC value of 0.17 mg/ml. Average total activity was highest for methanol (387 ml/g) followed by ethanol (363 ml/g) and acetone (299 ml/g) bark extracts. Acetone and methanolic bark extracts were more active in EMW system at Rf values of 0.07, 0.32 and 0.70 against C. parapsilosis. The results showed that the plant could be further explored for possible antifungal agents and provides preliminary scientific validation of the traditional medicinal use of this plant

Determinants of Bone and Blood Lead Levels among Minorities Living in the Boston Area

We measured blood and bone lead levels among minority individuals who live in some of Boston’s neighborhoods with high minority representation. Compared with samples of predominantly white subjects we had studied before, the 84 volunteers in this study (33:67 male:female ratio; 31–72 years of age) had similar educational, occupational, and smoking profiles and mean blood, tibia, and patella lead levels (3 μg/dL, 11.9 μg/g, and 14.2 μg/g, respectively) that were also similar. The slopes of the univariate regressions of blood, tibia, and patella lead versus age were 0.10 μg/dL/year (p < 0.001), 0.45 μg/g/year (p < 0.001), and 0.73 μg/g/year (p < 0.001), respectively. Analyses of smoothing curves and regression lines for tibia and patella lead suggested an inflection point at 55 years of age, with slopes for subjects ≥ 55 years of age that were not only steeper than those of younger subjects but also substantially steeper than those observed for individuals > 55 years of age in studies of predominantly white participants. This apparent racial disparity at older ages may be related to differences in historic occupational and/or environmental exposures, or possibly the lower rates of bone turnover that are known to occur in postmenopausal black women. The higher levels of lead accumulation seen in this age group are of concern because such levels have been shown in other studies to predict elevated risks of chronic disease such as hypertension and cognitive dysfunction. Additional research on bone lead levels in minorities and their socioeconomic and racial determinants is needed

Local Operations and Completely Positive Maps in Algebraic Quantum Field Theory

Einstein introduced the locality principle which states that all physical effect in some finite space-time region does not influence its space-like separated finite region. Recently, in algebraic quantum field theory, R\'{e}dei captured the idea of the locality principle by the notion of operational separability. The operation in operational separability is performed in some finite space-time region, and leaves unchanged the state in its space-like separated finite space-time region. This operation is defined with a completely positive map. In the present paper, we justify using a completely positive map as a local operation in algebraic quantum field theory, and show that this local operation can be approximately written with Kraus operators under the funnel property

Sexuality and Affection among Elderly German Men and Women in Long-Term Relationships: Results of a Prospective Population-Based Study

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The study was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (AZ 314-1722-102/16; AZ 301-1720-295/2), the Ministry for Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg, and the University of Rostock (FORUN 989020; 889048)

Computing Equilibria of Prediction Markets via Persuasion

We study the computation of equilibria in prediction markets in perhaps the most fundamental special case with two players and three trading opportunities. To do so, we show equivalence of prediction market equilibria with those of a simpler signaling game with commitment introduced by Kong and Schoenebeck (2018). We then extend their results by giving computationally efficient algorithms for additional parameter regimes. Our approach leverages a new connection between prediction markets and Bayesian persuasion, which also reveals interesting conceptual insights

Evaluation of a Fotonovela to Increase Depression Knowledge and Reduce Stigma Among Hispanic Adults

Fotonovelas—small booklets that portray a dramatic story using photographs and captions— represent a powerful health education tool for low-literacy and ethnic minority audiences. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a depression fotonovela in increasing depression knowledge, decreasing stigma, increasing self-efficacy to recognize depression, and increasing intentions to seek treatment, relative to a text pamphlet. Hispanic adults attending a community adult school (N = 157, 47.5 % female, mean age = 35.8 years, 84 % immigrants, 63 % with less than high school education) were randomly assigned to read the fotonovela or a low-literacy text pamphlet about depression. They completed surveys before reading the material, immediately after reading the material, and 1 month later. The fotonovela and text pamphlet both produced significant improvements in depression knowledge and self-efficacy to identify depression, but the fotonovela produced significantly larger reductions in antidepressant stigma and mental health care stigma. The fotonovela also was more likely to be passed on to family or friends after the study, potentially increasing its reach throughout the community. Results indicate that fotonovelas can be useful for improving health literacy among underserved populations, which could reduce health disparities

Eikonal methods applied to gravitational scattering amplitudes

We apply factorization and eikonal methods from gauge theories to scattering amplitudes in gravity. We hypothesize that these amplitudes factor into an IR-divergent soft function and an IR-finite hard function, with the former given by the expectation value of a product of gravitational Wilson line operators. Using this approach, we show that the IR-divergent part of the n-graviton scattering amplitude is given by the exponential of the one-loop IR divergence, as originally discovered by Weinberg, with no additional subleading IR-divergent contributions in dimensional regularization.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures; v2: title change and minor rewording (published version); v3: typos corrected in eqs.(3.2),(4.1

A novel multi-tissue RNA diagnostic of healthy ageing relates to cognitive health status

Open Access ArticleBACKGROUND: Diagnostics of the human ageing process may help predict future healthcare needs or guide preventative measures for tackling diseases of older age. We take a transcriptomics approach to build the first reproducible multi-tissue RNA expression signature by gene-chip profiling tissue from sedentary normal subjects who reached 65 years of age in good health. RESULTS: One hundred and fifty probe-sets form an accurate classifier of young versus older muscle tissue and this healthy ageing RNA classifier performed consistently in independent cohorts of human muscle, skin and brain tissue (n = 594, AUC = 0.83-0.96) and thus represents a biomarker for biological age. Using the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men birth-cohort (n = 108) we demonstrate that the RNA classifier is insensitive to confounding lifestyle biomarkers, while greater gene score at age 70 years is independently associated with better renal function at age 82 years and longevity. The gene score is 'up-regulated' in healthy human hippocampus with age, and when applied to blood RNA profiles from two large independent age-matched dementia case-control data sets (n = 717) the healthy controls have significantly greater gene scores than those with cognitive impairment. Alone, or when combined with our previously described prototype Alzheimer disease (AD) RNA 'disease signature', the healthy ageing RNA classifier is diagnostic for AD. CONCLUSIONS: We identify a novel and statistically robust multi-tissue RNA signature of human healthy ageing that can act as a diagnostic of future health, using only a peripheral blood sample. This RNA signature has great potential to assist research aimed at finding treatments for and/or management of AD and other ageing-related conditions.European CommissionAlzheimer’s Research UKJohn and Lucille van Geest FoundationNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR)European Medical Information Framework (EMIF)Medical Research Council (MRC)Wallenberg FoundationKarolinska InstitutetSwedish Medical Research CouncilSwedish Society for Medical Research (SSMF