Antimicrobial effects of folk medicinal plants from the North of Iran against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Background: Medicinal plants have been used traditionally in Golestan province (north of Iran), against Mycobacterium tuberculosis or the clinical signs of tuberculosis (TB). Objectives: This study aimed to define the inhibitory effects of ethanolic extracts of six of these medicinal plants against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Materials and Methods: Peganum harmala (seed extract), Punica granatum (peel extract), Digitalis sp. (leaf extract), fruit extract of Citrus lemon, Rosa canina and Berberis vulgaris were extracted in ethanol and their activity against M. tuberculosis isolates were determined by the agar diffusion method. The zone of inhibition (at 200 to 1.6 mg/mL) was measured and the results were compared with isoniazid and rifampin as standard positive controls. Also the concentration of vitamin C of each the extracts was evaluated. Results: The ethanolic extract of Peganum harmala seed and Punica granatum peel exhibited potential activity against all M. tuberculosis isolates with mean inhibitory zone of 18.7 and 18.8 mm, at 200 mg/mL concentration. The mean inhibitory zone around isoniazid and rifampinwere 19.2 and 18.8 mm. Ethanolic extract of Citrus lemon showed moderate inhibitory activity only against sensitive (non MDR; non multi drug resistant) strains of M. tuberculosis, and Digitalis sp. showed inhibitory effects on five isolates. Ascorbic acid content was 43.3 mg/dL in Punica granatum and Digitalis sp. and only 9.1 mg/dL in ethanolic extract of Peganum harmala. Conclusions: The highest content of vitamin C was observed in the extract of Punica granatum, which was observed to be highly active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, while the P. harmala must have contained other phytochemical constituents that contributed to the anti-tuberculosis effects of this plant. Our findings showed that ethanolic extracts of P. granatum and P. harmala had anti-TB effects comparable to isoniazid and rifampin and can be good candidates for novel and safe natural products against tuberculosis. © 2015, Pediatric Infections Research Center

The Australian stock market's reaction to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Summer Bushfires : a sectoral analysis

In this study, we investigated the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on various sectors of the Australian stock market. Market capitalization and equally weighted indices were formed for eleven Australian sectors to examine the influence of the pandemic on them. First, we examined the financial contagion between the Chinese stock market and Australian sector indices through the dynamic conditional correlation fractionally integrated generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (DCC-FIGARCH) model. We found high time-varying correlations between the Chinese stock market and most of the Australian sector indices, with the financial, health care, information technology, and utility sectors displaying a decrease in co-movements during the pandemic. The Modified Iterative Cumulative Sum of Squares (MICSS) analysis results indicated the presence of structural breaks in the volatilities of most of the sector indices around the end of February 2020, but consumer staples, industry, information technology and real estate indices did not display any break. Markov regime-switching regression analysis depicted that the pandemic has mainly affected three sectors: consumer staples, industry, and real estate. When we considered the firm size, we found that smaller companies in the energy sector exhibited gradual deterioration, whereas small firms in the consumer staples sector experienced the largest positive impact from the pandemic

Characterization of an embedded RF-MEMS switch

An RF-MEMS capacitive switch for mm-wave integrated circuits, embedded in the BEOL of 0.25μm BiCMOS process, has been characterized. First, a mechanical model based on Finite-Element-Method (FEM) was developed by taking the residual stress of the thin film membrane into account. The pull-in voltage and the capacitance values obtained with the mechanical model agree very well with the measured values. Moreover, S-parameters were extracted using Electromagnetic (EM) solver. The data observed in this way also agree well with the experimental ones measured up to 110GHz. The developed RF model was applied to a transmit/receive (T/R) antenna switch design. The results proved the feasibility of using the FEM model in circuit simulations for the development of RF-MEMS switch embedded, single-chip multi-band RF ICs

Real-Time Control of Shunt Active Power Filter under Distorted Grid Voltage and Unbalanced Load Condition Using Self Tuning Filter

In this paper, an alternative control method is proposed to improve the harmonic suppression efficiency of the active power filter in a distorted and an unbalanced power system to compensate for the perturbations caused by the unbalanced non-linear loads. The proposed method uses a self-tuning filter (STF) to process the grid voltage in order to provide a uniform reference voltage to obtain the correct angular position of the phase locked loop. Moreover, the required compensation currents are obtained by implementing another STF in the transformed set of currents in order to separate the fundamental and the harmonic currents. This allows the calculation of a precise reference current for the unbalanced, the non-linear and the variable load conditions. The proposed control method gives an adequate compensating current reference even for a non-ideal voltage and unbalanced current conditions. The real-time control of the filter under the distorted and the unbalanced power system is developed in an RT-LAB real-time platform. The results obtained in the software-in-the-loop configuration are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control technique

Colonic Endometriosis Mimicking Colon Cancer on a Virtual Colonoscopy Study: A Potential Pitfall in Diagnosis

Colonic endometriosis has been reported in the literature to mimic colon cancer. Patients can present with symptoms almost identical to colon cancer. We present an exemplary case of a woman who was found to have a mass on conventional colonoscopy. Virtual colonoscopy was instrumental in characterizing the obstructive sigmoid mass. A biopsy of the mass revealed sigmoid endometriosis

Incidence of Deep Vein Thrombosis in Patients Undergoing Right Internal Jugular Vein cannulation for Veno-Venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

Samet, T., Stansbury, N., Misselbeck, T., Wu, J., (2016, July, 29) Incidence of Deep Vein Thrombosis in Patients Undergoing Right Internal Jugular Vein cannulation for Veno-Venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. Poster presented at LVHN Research Scholar Program Session, Lehigh Valley health Network, Allentown, P

Cronkhite-Canada Syndrome: Gastric Involvement Diagnosed by MDCT

Chronkhite-Canada is a rare nonfamilial polyposis syndrome that usually presents as chronic malabsorption in adults. We present a case of a-73-year old woman with chronic gastrointestinal bleeding and malnutrition. On CT imaging she was found to have massive gastric polyps, which on biopsy was most consistent with Cronkhite-Canada syndrome