A Study on Role of Mothers Education for the Psycho-Social and Cognitive Development in Children

The present evaluation of Early Head Start concerns the effects of household income and mother s education on child cognitive development A secondary data analysis is performed on the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study public use file in which cognitive development is measured using the Bayley Mental Development Index and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Household income is measured as a percentage of the federal poverty level with households earning up to 100 percent of the poverty level annually considered low income Mother s education is determined by possession of a high school diploma Results of multiple and simultaneous linear regressions are presented Early Head Start is found to positively affect cognitive development among children whose mothers have earned a high school diploma while its effectiveness for low income households is less significant Implications for early childhood interventions are discussed as well as areas for future researc

Mindful Organizations: a Bibliometric Study to Provide Insights Into the Interplay Between Mindfulness and Psychological Capital in the Workplace

Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to identify the most productive researchers, institutions, and research trends in this area, in order to inform future research and practice.   Theoretical framework: The research on mindfulness and psychological capital has started during 2002 and now playing a crucial role in the organizations. Though there is a consolidated amount of research, no bibliometric analysis has been conducted in this area of research.   Design/methodology/approach: The data was extracted from Scopus database and analyzed using VOS viewer 1.6.17. The purpose of this study is to analyze 1,336 articles through a bibliometric review. The descriptive retrospective study was conducted using science mapping and bibliometric analysis.   Findings:  The results show exponential growth in mindfulness and psychological capital that has been done in the past five years and the authors, countries, journals in the scientific community that contributed to this research area. The research over two decades has been divided into three stages, highlighting the increase in its visibility and productivity in recent years, and analyzed according to the publications, citations, journals, articles, authors, keyword analysis, and geographical distribution of the published works.   Research, Practical & Social implications: This study provides an overview of the research in the area of positive psychology in the organizational context. This helps the researchers to understand the importance of mindfulness and psychological capital in organizations.   Originality/value: The value of the study is that it is the primary and original research in the area of mindfulness and psychological capital to conduct a bibliometric analysis and science mapping in this area of research

Association Rule Mining Technique for Psychometric Personality Testing and Behaviour Prediction

At the heart of personality psychology lies one single fundamental motive and that is to be able to anticipate how an individual will think, behave and feel at any future instant. Quite unfortunately this field has not been very successful in achieving this. Though this field has given us great insights about the working of the mind, cognitive processes and emotions, it has failed to accomplish its central objective i.e., to predict human behaviour. We p r o p o s e i n t h i s p a p e r a n o v e l t e c h n i q u e of predicting human behaviour without the need of any abstraction about the mind or its internal workings. We propose the use of simple and straightforward statistics for this purpose. Applying simple association rule mining on behaviours of thousands of people, association rules having high confidence values can be identified. And based on these rules, strong conclusions can be made in anticipating the behaviour of an individual. An analytical study was conducted on answers provided by 1414 candidates to a 163-question personality survey. The survey was based on the famous questionnaire prepared by Raymond Cattell. This survey was chosen to first try and prove the ambiguity in the current psychological concepts. Following that simple association rule mining was applied on the data to obtain associations between variables. The strongest association obtained with 97.2% confidence was an inter-class association rather than an intra- class association as would be expected from traditional psychology point-of-view.by Hamza Mohd Zubair et al.

Chromatographic finger print analysis of anti–inflammatory active extract fractions of aerial parts of Tribulus terrestris by HPTLC technique

Objective: To develop HPTLC fingerprint profile of anti-inflammatory active extract fractions of Tribulus terrestris (family Zygophyllaceae). Methods: The anti-inflammatory activity was tested for the methanol and its fractions (chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and aqueous) and chloroform extract of Tribulus terrestris (aerial parts) by injecting different groups of rats (6 each) with carrageenan in hind paw and measuring the edema volume before and 1, 2 and 3 h after carrageenan injection. Control group received saline i.p. The extracts treatment was injected i.p. in doses of 200 mg/kg 1 h before carrageenan administration. Indomethacin (30 mg/kg) was used as standard. HPTLC studies were carried out using CAMAG HPTLC system equipped with Linomat IV applicator, TLC scanner 3, Reprostar 3, CAMAG ADC 2 and WIN CATS-4 software for the active fractions of chloroform fraction of methanol extract. Results: The methanol extract showed good antiedematous effect with percentage of inhibition more than 72%, indicating its ability to inhibit the inflammatory mediators. The methanol extract was re-dissolved in 100 mL of distilled water and fractionated with chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol. The four fractions (chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol and aqueous) were subjected to anti-inflammatory activity. Chloroform fraction showed good anti-inflammatory activity at dose of 200 mg/kg. Chloroform fraction was then subjected to normal phase silica gel column chromatography and eluted with petroleum ether-chloroform, chloroform-ethyl acetate mixtures of increasing polarity which produced 15 fractions (F1-F15). Only fractions F1, F2, F4, F5, F7, F9, F11 and F14 were found to be active, hence these were analyzed with HPTLC to develop their finger print profile. These fractions showed different spots with different Rf values. Conclusions: The different chloroform fractions F1, F2, F4, F5, F7, F9, F11 and F14 revealed 4, 7, 7, 8, 9, 7, 7 and 6 major spots, respectively. The results obtained in this experiment strongly support and validate the traditional uses of this Sudanese medicinal plant

Therapeutic efficacy of ethanolic extract of Aerva javanica aerial parts in the amelioration of CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity and oxidative damage in rats

Background: Liver diseases, the fifth most common cause of global death, can be metabolic, toxin-induced, or infective. Though approximately 35 Saudi medicinal plants are traditionally used to treat liver disorders, the hepatoprotective potential of Aerva javanica has not been explored. Objective: To investigate the antioxidative and hepatoprotective effect of Aerva javanica. Design: Total ethanol extract of A. javanica aerial parts was prepared and tested on DCFH-toxicated HepG2 cells ex vivo, and in CCl4-injured Wistar rats in vivo. MTT assay was used to determine cell viability and the serum biochemical markers of liver injury as well as histopathology was performed. In vitro 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl and β-carotene free-radical scavenging assay and phytochemical screening of the extract were done. Furthermore, A. javanica total extract was standardized and validated by high-performance thin layer chromatographic method. Results: MTT assay showed that, while DCFH-injured cells were recovered to ~56.7% by 100 µg/ml of the extract, a 200 µg/ml dose resulted in hepatocytes recovery by ~90.2%. Oral administration of the extract (100 and 200 mg/kg.bw/day) significantly normalized the serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase, serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase, gamma-glutamyl transferase, alkaline phosphatase, bilirubin, cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, very-low-density lipoprotein, triglyceride, and malondialdehyde levels, including tissue nonprotein sulfhydryl and total protein in CCl4-injured rats. In addition, the histopathology of dissected liver also revealed that A. javanica cured the tissue lesion compared to silymarin treatment. In vitro assays revealed strong free-radical scavenging ability of the extract and presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, sterols, and saponins where rutin, a well-known antioxidant flavonoid, was identified. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate the potential of A. javanica in the attenuation of ex vivo and in vivo hepatotoxicity and oxidative damage. This further suggests its therapeutic value in various liver diseases. However, isolations of the active principles, their mechanisms of action, and other therapeutic contributions remain to be addressed

Interspecies Anticancer and Antimicrobial Activities of Genus Solanum and Estimation of Rutin by Validated UPLC-PDA Method

Solanaceae is one of the highly diverse plant families of which Solanum is the largest genera (1700 species) containing several pharmacological properties like anticancer and antimicrobial. This motivated us to explore the anticancer (against HepG2, HEK-293, and MCF-7 cells) and antimicrobial (against S. aureus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and C. albicans) properties of S. schimperianum, S. villosum, S. coagulans, S. glabratum, S. incanum, and S. nigrum along with rutin estimation by UPLC-PDA method. Of the studied Solanum extracts, S. nigrum exhibited significant cytotoxic property against HepG2 (IC50: 20.4 μg/mL) and MCF-7 (IC50: 30.1 μg/mL); S. coagulans showed toxicity against HepG2 (IC50: 28.4 μg/mL) and HEK-293 cells (IC50: 25.7 μg/mL) compared to 5-Fluorouracil (standard). Compared to these, extracts of S. coagulans and S. glabratum exhibited relatively high antimicrobial potency (MIC: 0.4-1.6 mg/mL). Nonetheless, all Solanum extracts significantly reduced the biofilm against PAO1-strain. Rutin was detected in all extracts with the highest content (53.79 μg/mg) in S. coagulans that supported its strong antimicrobial and anticancer properties. Molecular docking analysis showing strong binding of rutin with human DNA and proteins (DNA Topoisomerase IIα and E. coli DNA gyrase B) supported the anticancer and antimicrobial activities of Solanum species

Inter-species comparative antioxidant assay and HPTLC analysis of sakuranetin in the chloroform and ethanol extracts of aerial parts of Rhus retinorrhoea and Rhus tripartita

Context: Extensive research on Rhus (Anacardiaceae) shows their antioxidant potential, which warrants further evaluation of its other species. Objective: To perform a comparative antioxidant assay on extracts of R. retinorrhoea and R. tripartita, including sakuranetin quantification by a validated HPTLC method. Materials and methods: In vitro antioxidant assay was performed on chloroform and ethanol extracts of R. retinorrhoea Steud. ex Oliv. (RRCE and RREE) and R. tripartita (Ucria) Grande (RTCE and RTEE) by DPPH radical scavenging (at 31.25, 62.5, 125, 250 and 500 μg/mL concentrations) and β-carotene-linoleic acid bleaching methods at 500 μg/mL concentration. Densitometric HPTLC method was developed and validated using toluene: ethyl acetate: methanol (8:2:0.2; v/v/v) as mobile phase, executed on glass-backed silica gel F254 plate and scanned at 292 nm. Results: Antioxidant activity of Rhus extracts tested by the two methods (DPPH/BCB) was found in order of RTEE > RREE > RTCE > RRCE with IC50 118.67/256.26, 315.75/82.35, 827.92/380.0 and 443.69/292.75, respectively. Scanning of the HPTLC plate provided an intense peak of sakuranetin at Rf = 0.59. The estimated sakuranetin content in the dry weight of the extracts was highest in RREE (27.95 μg/mg) followed by RRCE (25.22 μg/mg), RTEE (0.487 μg/mg) and RTCE (0.0 μg/mg). Presence of sakuranetin in RREE, RRCE and RTEE supported the highest antioxidant property of the two Rhus species. Nonetheless, low sakuratenin in R. tripartita indicated the presence of other bioactive constituents responsible for synergistic antioxidant activity. Conclusion: The developed HPTLC method therefore guarantees its application in quality control of commercialized herbal drugs and formulations containing sakuranetin