COMPARATIVE PHARMACOGNOSTIC STUDIES OF ROOTS OF ASHWAGANDHA (WILD, NAGORI AND POSHITHA VAR)

Background: Ashwagandha is a very well-known herb in Ayurveda. It is widely used in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, agricultural, food industries, and is a constituent of over 200 Ayurvedic formulations. The annual demand of Ashwagandha is 7000 tons but its actual availability is just 1500 tons, this demand is not met by using the wildly grown Ashwagandha. To meet this demand, it has been brought under cultivation many centuries ago, in India. Numerous cultivated varieties of Ashwagandha are developed for high yield and better quality roots. Amongst them, Nagori Ashwagandha is a popular variety, cultivated for its demand. Poshitha Ashwagandha is a high yielding and improved variety released by CSIR-CIMAPS. The current study aims at comparing the roots of wildly grown Ashwagandha, Nagori Ashwagandha and Poshitha Ashwagandha, pharmacognostically. Methodology: The study deals with macroscopic parameters, microscopic study of transverse sections physicochemical, phytochemical analysis and powder microscopy of roots of the three varieties of Ashwagandha. Results: Significant macroscopic differences were noted between the wild and the two cultivated varieties of Ashwagandha roots, there was no much variation in the physico-chemical and phyto-chemical parameters amongst the three, also there was no much difference found between the two cultivated varieties- morphologically and phyto-chemically

Is the energy density a reliable parameter for materials synthesis by selective laser melting?

The effective fabrication of materials using selective laser melting depends on the process parameters. Here, we analyse the suitability of the energy density to represent the energy transferred to the powder bed, which is effectively used to melt the particles and to produce the bulk specimens. By properly varying laser power and speed in order to process the powder at constant energy density, we show that the equation currently used to calculate the energy density gives only an approximate estimation and that hatch parameters and material properties should be considered to correctly evaluate the energy density

On the precipitation hardening of selective laser melted AlSi10Mg

Precipitation hardening of selective laser melted AlSi10Mg was investigated in terms of solution heat treatment and aging duration. The influence on the microstructure and hardness was established, as was the effect on the size and density of Si particles. Although the hardness changes according to the treatment duration, the maximum hardening effect falls short of the hardness of the as-built parts with their characteristic fine microstructure. This is due to the difference in strengthening mechanisms

Production, Kinetic Study and Properties of Fe Based Glass and Its Composites

Fe-based glassy powders with four different compositions of varying copper content were produced by mechanical alloying of elemental powder mixtures. The thermal stability as well as the crystallization kinetics was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry in both isochronal and isothermal modes. The isochronal and isothermal activation energies have a similar value (~560-570 kJ/mol). In addition, the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) analysis shows that the transformation is diffusion controlled three-dimensional process, and the crystallization proceeds with increasing nucleation rate. Metal matrix composites were synthesized through powder metallurgy methods by uniaxial hot pressing and subsequent extrusion of commercially pure Fe powders, blended with Fe-glass reinforcement. The resultant properties of the composites strongly depend on the composition of the glassy reinforcement

A Meticulous Review of Clinical Utility of Madhura Rasa as Expounded in Charaka Samhitha

Ayurveda, the science of life, is one of the oldest medical sciences in the world. One among the Great Trio of Ayurveda is Charaka Samhitha by Agnivesha. It is constituted of 120 chapters spread across 8 Sthaanas (sections). The review of references of Madhura across Charaka Samhitha was started by thorough screening using E–Samhitha where Madhura or its synonyms were searched for. The references obtained were tabulated with brief context, application and usage. The literature search of Charaka Samhitha proffered 104 references pertaining to clinical utility of Madhura Rasa were Madhura /its synonyms were directly mentioned. From the 104 references of Madhura Rasa, 14 contexts pointed it out as Nidana – causative factor, 31 contexts as Lakshana – Signs/symptoms/properties and 59 contexts highlighted it as a Chikitsa – treatment/essential regimen. Of these 104 references, 93 were for internal usage and 11 for external utility. Further work towards use of appropriate drugs from Madhura Skandha is essential for beneficial and effective use of Madhura Rasa in clinical practice

Selective laser melting of a novel 13Ni400 maraging steel: Material characterization and process optimization

Selective laser melting (SLM) has attracted recent attention in building parts with improved functionality and properties. Accordingly, the present work attempts to fabricate a novel 13Ni400 maraging steel parts with maximum theoretical density by SLM. A Box Behnken Design response surface methodology (RSM) approach is used to evaluate the influence of critical process parameters (laser power, laser scan speed, layer thickness, and hatch spacing) on the relative density, micro hardness, surface roughness, and tensile strength. Both the powder and the fabricated parts were characterized for the structural and microstructural features using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The influences of energy density and other process variables are explored through careful parametric studies and 3-D surface plots. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is carried out, which reveals that the laser power and layer thickness are the most dominant process parameters impacting the performance of the SLM process. A revolutionary preference ranking organization technique for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) is adopted to convert the multiple responses into an equivalent net outranking flow and rank the alternatives. The PROMETHEE-based outcomes are further improved by using a cuckoo search (CS) algorithm. A confirmatory test is conducted on the optimum build conditions obtained by the hybrid methodology (combination of PROMETHEE and Cuckoo Search) to validate the proposed work. It is seen that the value of net outranking flow is enriched by ∼5 %. This work is proficient in producing defect-free parts, with maximum densification and with improved mechanical properties for a newly developed 13Ni-400 maraging steel

Exploring structurally similar protein sequence motifs using relative-distance measures

Protein sequence motifs are short conserved subsequences common to related protein sequences. Information about motifs is extremely important to the study of biologically significant conserved regions in protein families. These conserved regions can determine the functions and conformation of proteins. Conventionally, recurring patterns of proteins are explored using short protein segments and classification based on similarity measures between the segments. Two protein sequences are classified into the same class if they have high homology in terms of feature patterns extracted through sequence alignment algorithms. Such methodology focuses on finding position specific motifs only. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm to explore protein sequences by studying subsequences with relative-positioning of amino acids followed by K-Means clustering of fixed-sized segments. The dataset used for our work is most updated among studies for sequence motifs. The various biochemical tests that are found in literature are used to test the significance of motifs and these tests show that motifs generated are of both structural and functional interest. The results suggest that this method may also be applied to closely-related area of finding DNA motifs. ©2006 IEEE