Survey and scientific evaluation of medicinal plants used by the Pahan and Teli tribal communities of Natore district, Bangladesh

The Pahans and the Telis are two of the smallest indigenous communities in Bangladesh. The Pahans, numbering about 14,000 people are widely scattered in several northern districts of the country, while the Telis are such a small community that nothing has been reported on their numbers and lifestyle. Both tribes are on the verge of disappearance. One each of the Pahan and the Teli community was located after much search in two adjoining villages of Natore district, Bangladesh. Since the tribes were found to still depend on their traditional medicinal practitioners for treatment of ailments, it was the objective of the present study to document their traditional usage of medicinal plants and to evaluate such plants against modern research-based pharmacological activity studies on these plants. Interviews were conducted of the practitioners of the Pahan and Teli community of Natore district with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire and using the guided field-walk method. Plant specimens aspointed out by the practitioners were collected and pressed on the field and identification completed at the Bangladesh National Herbarium. The Pahan tribal practitioners used 13 plants distributed into 9 families for treatment of 14 different ailments. The Teli tribal practitioner used 15 plants divided into 14 families for treatment of 17 different ailments. Eight out of the thirteen plants used by the Pahan tribal practitioner (61.5%) had reported relevant pharmacological activities in the scientific literature, while six out of the fifteen plants used by the Teli tribal practitioners (40%) had such relevant pharmacological activities in accordance with their usage. The medicinal plants used by the Pahans and Telis warrant further scientific studies toward discovery of lead compounds and efficacious drugs and the documentation and protection of the traditional medical knowledge held by these tribes

Prevalence of subclinical cardiac abnormalities in patients with metal-on-metal hip replacements

Background Metal-on-metal (MOM) hip prostheses have a higher failure rate than conventional prostheses and leaching of cobalt and chromium has been linked to cardiomyopathy. We screened MOM subjects to evaluate if cobalt and chromium are related to subclinical cardiac dysfunction. Methods A single centre, non-randomised, observational study using echocardiography in 95 patients who had undergone MOM hip prostheses, and 15 age matched controls with non-MOM hip replacement. Serial plasma cobalt and chromium levels were recorded, and data compared by tertiles of cobalt exposure. Results Indexed left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes (EDVi and ESVi) increased with tertile of cobalt (omnibus p = 0.003 for EDVi and ESVi), as did indexed left atrial (LA) volumes (p = 0.003). MOM subjects had 25% larger EDVi than controls, 32% larger ESVi (40 ml vs. 32 ml, and 15 ml vs. 11 ml, p = 0.003 for both) and 28% larger indexed LA (23 ml vs. 18 ml, p = 0.002). There were no differences in LV systolic or diastolic function, including ejection fraction, tissue velocity and mitral E/e′. Estimated glomerular filtration rate was 18% lower in the highest tertile compared with the lowest (p = 0.01) and correlated inversely with LA volume (r = −0.36, p < 0.001) and LV EDV (r = −0.24, p = 0.02). Conclusions No correlations between sensitive measures of systolic or diastolic cardiac function or serum cobalt/chromium levels were observed in this study. However, there was a relationship between increasing left ventricular and left atrial volumes and declining renal function with high cobalt levels which requires further evaluation in MOM patients

Medicinal plants used for treatment of diabetes by the marakh sect of the Garo tribe living in Mymensingh district, Bangladesh

Diabetes mellitus is an endocrinological disorder arising from insulin deficiency or due to ineffectiveness of the insulin produced by the body. This results in high blood glucose and with time, to neurological, cardiovascular, retinal and renal complications. It is a debilitating disease and affects the population of every country of the world. Around 200 million people of the world suffer from this disease and this figure is projected to rise to 300 million in the coming years. The disease cannot becured with allopathic medicine as the drugs used do not restore normal glucose homeostasis and moreover have side-effects. On the other hand, traditional medicinal practitioners of various countries claim to cure diabetes or at least alleviate the major symptoms and progression of this disease through administration of medicinal plants. The Garos are an indigenous community of Bangladesh, who still follow their traditional medicinal practices. Their traditional medicinal formulations contain a number of plants, which they claim to be active antidiabetic agents. Since observation of indigenous practices have led to discovery of manymodern drugs, it was the objective of the present study to conduct a survey among the Marakh sect of the Garos residing in Mymensingh district of Bangladesh to find out the medicinal plants that they use for treatment of diabetes. It was found that the tribal practitioners of the Marakh sect of the Garos use twelve medicinal plants for treatment of diabetes. These plants were Lannea coromandelica, Alstonia scholaris, Catharanthus roseus, Enhydra fluctuans, Terminalia chebula, Coccinia grandis, Momordica charantia, Cuscuta reflexa, Phyllanthus emblica, Syzygium aqueum, Drynaria quercifolia, and Clerodendrum viscosum. A review of the scientific literature demonstrated that almost all the plants used by the Garo tribal practitioners have reported antidiabetic and/or antioxidant properties and have enormous potential for possible development of new and efficacious antidiabetic drugs

Circular Microstrip Patch Antenna for UHF RFID Reader

This paper presents an analysis of Circular shape patch antenna for Ultra High-Frequency Identification (UHF) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Reader Applications. The fabricated antenna has lightweight, simple structure, low profile and easy for fabrication due to the used of FR-4 materials with loss tangent 0.019, the dielectric constant of 4.7 and thickness of 1.6 mm. It can be operated for UHF RFID system in Malaysia with the frequency assigned from 919 MHz to 923 MHz. The antenna simulation was analysed by using CST Studio Suite 2016. From the results, the antenna has the reflection coefficient (S11) less than -10dB together with the bandwidth of 90 MHz. Other results of antenna parameter such as voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), circular polarized radiation pattern, return loss and gain were also discussed. The complete size of the proposed antenna is 120 mm x 120 mm x 1.6 mm. Thus, it is suitable for RFID portable reader applications

Image Processing Analysis of Prevention for Mold Growth on Bread using Negative Ion Technology

Recently, molds on bread can cause Diarrhoea, allergic reactions and respiratory problems. The molds like Aspergillus, Fusarium and Penicillium can produce "Mycotoxins" which is a poisonous substance that can damage the health qualities. Thus, the prevention of mold growth on bread by using negative ion technology is the best alternatives to break the disease. The effect of negative ions can be classified as the spatial distribution of charge particles, sheath structure and collaboration of ozone and negative air ions to prevent microorganism. In this paper, image processing has been used to analyse the image obtained from the bread after a week. Two experiments have been compared to keep track the effect of negative ions on prevention of mold growth on bread which are bread placed in boxes with direct current (DC) fan or without it. In set one, the mold percentages of bread that exposed to negative ions is 3.47% while the bread that does not expose to negative ions is 14.60%. Moreover, for the set two, the mold percentages of bread that exposed to negative ions is 1.18% while the bread that does not expose to negative ions is 14.18%. Set two have a lower percentage of mold as compare to set one due to the air ventilation of the experiment set up. Each of experiment has been analysed using color filtering processing and the result shows that negative ions were successfully in the prevention of mold growth on bread

Tribal Formulations for Treatment of Pain: A Study of the Bede Community Traditional Medicinal Practitioners of Porabari Village in Dhaka District, Bangladesh

The Bedes form one of the largest tribal or indigenous communities in Bangladesh and are popularly known as the boat people or water gypsies because of their preference for living in boats. They travel almost throughout the whole year by boats on the numerous waterways of Bangladesh and earn their livelihood by selling sundry items, performing jugglery acts, catching snakes, and treating village people by the various riversides with their traditional medicinal formulations. Life is hard for the community, and both men and women toil day long. As a result of their strenuous lifestyle, they suffer from various types of pain, and have developed an assortment of formulations for treatment of pain in different parts of the body. Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in all parts of the world including Bangladesh. Although a number of drugs are available to treat pain, including non-steroidal, steroidal, and narcotic drugs, such drugs usually have side-effects like causing bleeding in the stomach over prolonged use (as in the case of rheumatic pain), or can be addictive. Moreover, pain arising from causes like rheumatism has no proper treatment in allopathic medicine. It was the objective of the present study to document the formulations used by the Bede traditional practitioners for pain treatment, for they claim to have used these formulations over centuries with success. Surveys were conducted among a large Bede community, who reside in boats on the Bangshi River by Porabari village of Savar area in Dhaka district of Bangladesh. Interviews of 30 traditional practitioners were conducted with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire and the guided field-walk method. It was observed that the Bede practitioners used 53 formulations for treatment of various types of pain, the main ingredient of all formulations being medicinal plants. Out of the 53 formulations, 25 were for treatment of rheumatic pain, either exclusively, or along with other types of body pain. A total of 65 plants belonging to 39 families were used in the formulations. The Fabaceae family provided 7 plants followed by the Solanaceae family with 4 plants. 47 out of the 53 formulations were used topically, 5 formulations were orally administered, and 1 formulation had both topical and oral uses. 8 formulations for treatment of rheumatic pain contained Calotropis gigantea, suggesting that the plant has strong potential for further scientific studies leading to discovery of novel efficacious compounds for rheumatic pain treatment

Cloud-Based Routing Resource Allocation in Cognitive Radio Networks

Wi-Fi Direct technology is enabled to support multiple services to be done via Wi-Fi connection. It provides the most efficient method to develop ad-hoc community among mobile devices for connecting quickly with one another without needing an access to the network. It allows communicating at common Wi-Fi rates for various applications including document exchange and online connection. This one-stop WiFi Direct application is able to connect a device to a single device at a time, i.e., only peer to peer communication is allowed within one hop. Hence, multi-device communication within multi-hop distance in a trusty Cognitive Radio (CR) network environment is in demand. This paper presents the development of an Android-based application with optimum cloud routing service to transfer files or chatting via Wi-Fi Direct technology in CR network. A system is developed using smartphones (with developed applications) and nodes with WI-FI connection. An indirect multi-hop routing approach is created if more devices transfer files simultaneously from hop to hop. After login and initializing, a device discovers the neighboring nodes first and then connects those (as necessary) to transfer a file or start chatting. The very moment a connection is established, a log file is generated in internal memory and save a backup copy in cloud containing necessary networking information of the client devices. The aim of these backup log files is for forensic investigation for intrusion detection/prevention and secured communications. Then the chatting or file transfer is carried out between the connected devices either in single or multi-hop routes. Results show that the system’s efficiency is around 92%. It shows that multi-device, multi-hop Wi-Fi Direct services can be implemented using Android devices with Eclipse Java programming in CR networks

Design and analysis of circular shaped patch antenna with slot for UHF RFID reader

This paper presents an analysis of microstrip circular shaped antenna with slot for ultra-high frequency (UHF) portable radio frequency identification (RFID) reader applications. The fabricated antenna is designed to work with UHF RFID system in Malaysia with frequency allocated from 919 to 923 MHz. The antenna design was made with circular patch and rectangular slot that has the dimension of 122 mm × 122 mm. Moreover, the FR-4 material used in this project has thickness of 1.6 mm with dielectric constant of 4.7 and loss tangent of 0.019. Thus, it is easily connected to the portable RFID reader module together with the antenna characteristics of easy fabrication, low profile and simple structure. From the results, the antenna has the reflection coefficient (S11) less than −10 dB along the bandwidth of 3.6% (903–936 MHz) for operating frequency at 921 MHz

Concordance of CSF measures of Alzheimer's pathology with amyloid PET status in a preclinical cohort: A comparison of Lumipulse and established immunoassays

INTRODUCTION: We assessed the concordance of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau measured on the fully automated Lumipulse platform with pre-symptomatic Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology on amyloid positron emission tomography (PET). METHODS: In 72 individuals from the Insight 46 study, CSF Aβ40, Aβ42, total tau (t-tau), and phosphorylated tau at site 181 (p-tau181) were measured using Lumipulse, INNOTEST, and Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) assays and inter-platform Pearson correlations derived. Lumipulse Aβ42 measures were adjusted to incorporate standardization to certified reference materials. Logistic regressions and receiver operating characteristics analysis generated CSF cut-points optimizing concordance with 18F-florbetapir amyloid PET status (n = 63). RESULTS: Measurements of CSF Aβ, p-tau181, and their ratios correlated well across platforms (r 0.84 to 0.94, P < .0001); those of t-tau and t-tau/Aβ42 correlated moderately (r 0.57 to 0.79, P < .0001). The best concordance with amyloid PET (100% sensitivity and 94% specificity) was afforded by cut-points of 0.075 for Lumipulse Aβ42/Aβ40, 0.087 for MSD Aβ42/Aβ40 and 17.3 for Lumipulse Aβ42/p-tau181. DISCUSSION: The Lumipulse platform provides comparable sensitivity and specificity to established CSF immunoassays in identifying pre-symptomatic AD pathology

Cognitive Radio Based Optimal Channel Sensing for Resource Allocation in Communications

Cognitive Radio (CR) is the cutting-edge wireless technology that is used to solve the spectrum saturation problem. In cognitive radio, Secondary Users (SUs) use Primary User’s (PU’s) spectrum (licensed band) during PU’s absence. Cognitive radio provides more flexibility in terms of spectrum utilization but the spectrum sensing efficiency need to be improved to make sure that the PUs are not interrupted while they are active. This paper presents the test-bed development of a CR network using Android-based smartphones for optimal sensing and data transmission. An energy detector based sensing method is proposed and used here since the energy detector does not require the information of the PU. The CR features have been implemented in Android phone using the Eclipse Java programming. The test-bed experimental set up was done using Android-based smartphones and Wi-Fi Access Point (AP). Two spectrum, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth were used to verify the sensing and detection efficiency. Results show that the proposed sensing and detection scheme efficiency is about 83%