A STUDY ON KANDUGHNA TAILA IN FILARIAL LYMPHANGITIS AND ULCERS

The disease Shlipada is very common in Andhra Pradesh Coastal belts. The chronic filarial patients used to suffer from acute periodic episodes. During these acute periodic episodes majority of the filarial patients develop lymphangitis (inflammation of lymphatic vessel), wounds and ulcers in affected legs. Some of the patients develop oozing blisters and pustules. Patients with these acute symptoms suffer from severe pain and tenderness and un-hygiene may lead to secondary bacterial infections. These periodic episodes often end with fibrosis and permanent swelling (Lymphedema). Many Ayurvedic herbal and herbo-mineral drugs were successfully used internally to reduce chronic filarial swelling (lymphedema), but there is an ultimate need to find an external application to reduce the acute symptoms like lymphangitis, wounds and ulcers. Kandughna taila is a Ayurvedic herbal oil prepared from Kandughna Dashaimani (a group of 10 drugs indicated in Itching) of Caraka samhita. This Kandughna taila was selected to study externally on Filarial patients. As a part of PhD study to find the efficacy of drug this oil alone was used in 28 patients in an open clinical trail. Encouraging results were observed during and after 30 days of treatment. Out of 28 cases, 8 (28.8%) got good response, 15 (53.6%) got fair response, 2 (7.1%) got poor response and 3 (10.7%) cases did not show any response. Overall 63.68% relief was found in all acute clinical parameters. Parameter wise 62% of relief in lymphangitis, 56.1% in pain, 62.5% in tenderness, 77.78% relief in wound/ ulcer were found. In statistical analysis based paired t-test relief on acute symptoms like lymphangitis, pain, tenderness, wound were found highly significant (P<0.0001). Statistically overall effect of treatment on acute symptoms was also found highly significant (P<0.0001)

Crossover from Diffusive to Superfluid Transport in Frustrated Magnets

We investigate the spin transport across the magnetic phase diagram of a frustrated antiferromagnetic insulator and uncover a drastic modification of the transport regime from spin diffusion to spin superfluidity. Adopting a triangular lattice accounting for both nearest neighbor and next-nearest neighbor exchange interactions with easy-plane anisotropy, we perform atomistic spin simulations on a two-terminal configuration across the full magnetic phase diagram. We found that as long as the ground state magnetic moments remain in-plane, irrespective of whether the magnetic configuration is ferromagnetic, collinear or non-collinear antiferromagnetic, the system exhibits spin superfluid behavior with a device output that is independent on the value of the exchange interactions. When the magnetic frustration is large enough to compete with the easy-plane anisotropy and cant the magnetic moments out of the plane, the spin transport progressively evolves towards the diffusive regime. The robustness of spin superfluidity close to magnetic phase boundaries is investigated and we uncover the possibility for {\em proximate} spin superfluidity close to the ferromagnetic transition.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Influence of technological treatments on bacterial communities in tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) as determined by 16S rDNA fingerprinting using polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE)

Food quality and safety are major concern among consumers throughout the world in the context of globalization. Hence, the origin and the history of a food item are of prime interest when food quality is questioned. Precise determination of contamination source relies on the use of efficient and reliable methods. This study was carried out to assess the microbial ecology of fish upon technological treatments using 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) fingerprinting. Samples of tilapia from Montpellier (South-east of France) and Yagoua (far north of Cameroon) were used for this purpose. The technological treatments applied on fillets were marinade, drying, smoking and deep-freezing. When the 16S rDNA profiles were analysed by multivariate analysis, distinct microbial communities were detected. The band profiles of fish bacteria after each treatment were different and specific. Technological treatments applied on fillets from Montpellier did not have an effect on the biological markers present on the fillets. These bands could be used as specific markers for this region. One of the treatments, the marinade applied on the samples of Yagoua induced the disappearance of some bands on the DGGE profile. In spite of treatment applied on samples, it is possible to recover the geographical origin by using DNA of the bacterial community in fish even if it was treated.Keywords: Traceability, tilapia, polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE), bacterial community, technological treatment

Quantum phases of dimerized and frustrated Heisenberg spin chains with s = 1/2, 1 and 3/2: an entanglement entropy and fidelity study

We study here different regions in phase diagrams of the spin-1/2, spin-1 and spin-3/2 one dimensional antiferromagnetic Heisenberg systems with frustration (next-nearest-neighbor interaction $J_2$) and dimerization ($\delta$). In particular, we analyze the behaviors of the bipartite entanglement entropy and fidelity at the gapless to gapped phase transitions and across the lines separating different phases in the $J_2-\delta$ plane. All the calculations in this work are based on numerical exact diagonalizations of finite systems.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures; provided some finite size analysis results, some changes in text accordingly; to appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Potential application of pomegranate seed oil oleogels based on monoglycerides, beeswax and propolis wax as partial substitutes of palm oil in functional chocolate spread

In this research, the effectiveness of pomegranate seed oil oleogel as a partial replacement of fat phase in chocolate spread was studied. Monoglyceride (MG), beeswax (BW) and propolis wax (PW) have been used as structuring agents at 5 g/100 g concentration to gel pomegranate seed oil. The oleogels were then combined with palm oil at 1:1 ratio. Different techniques, including polarized light microscopy, synchrotron XRD, mechanical analyses, and oil binding capacity were used to study the physical and mechanical properties of the palm oil-oleogel systems and chocolate spreads. Results highlighted that MG, BW and PW chemical nature led to the formation of different crystalline network in palm oil-oleogel systems. Chocolate spreads containing palm oil-oleogels showed an increase in the mechanical parameters in the order of PW < BW < MG. This trend might be attributed to the chemical composition of oleogelators and physical bonds formed in the samples. During storage, crystal transformation in MG and structural reorganization in waxes (PW and BW) samples showed a gradual decrease and increase in hardness, respectively. These findings could provide useful information in the application of pomegranate seed oil oleogel for novel confectionery products engineering

Exact Entanglement Studies of Strongly Correlated Systems: Role of Long-Range Interactions and Symmetries of the System

We study the bipartite entanglement of strongly correlated systems using exact diagonalization techniques. In particular, we examine how the entanglement changes in the presence of long-range interactions by studying the Pariser-Parr-Pople model with long-range interactions. We compare the results for this model with those obtained for the Hubbard and Heisenberg models with short-range interactions. This study helps us to understand why the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) technique is so successful even in the presence of long-range interactions. To better understand the behavior of long-range interactions and why the DMRG works well with it, we study the entanglement spectrum of the ground state and a few excited states of finite chains. We also investigate if the symmetry properties of a state vector have any significance in relation to its entanglement. Finally, we make an interesting observation on the entanglement profiles of different states (across the energy spectrum) in comparison with the the corresponding profile of the density of states. We use isotropic chains and a molecule with non-Abelian symmetry for these numerical investigations.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures and 2 table