Elephantopus Species: Traditional Uses, Pharmacological Actions and Chemical Composition.

This review paper is a comprehensive summary of the traditional uses, phytochemical composition, pharmacological activity and compounds isolated from different specie of Elephantopus, family (asteraceae). The plant is a genus of about twelve plants out of which majority are natives of south east USA. It is used in traditional folk medicine for the treatment of nephritis, oedema, dampness, pain in the chest, fever, scabies, arthralgia due to wound and cough of Pneumonia. It is also used as a tonic, febrifuge, and diaphoretic against cough, bronchitis, and asthma. Phytochemicals identified in this plant, includes flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins, tannins, carbohydrates and proteins. Previous studies on the plant revealed various pharmacological activities, which are attributed to its phytochemical content.These activities include analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antiasthmatic, antimicrobial and wound healing properties. Compounds isolated from different solvent fractions of the plant includes elephantopin, triterpenes, stigmasterol epifriedelinol and lupeol.Other compounds are copaene isopropyl  dimethyl hexahydronaphthalene, cyclosativene and  Zingiberene from the essential oils of Elephantopus scaber In conclusion, Elephantopus sp has wide traditional and pharmacological uses in various disease conditions. Therefore, further research is advocated on this plant. Key words: Elephantopus specie, traditional medicine, pharmacological actions, phytochemical constituents and compounds isolated

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Antioxidant and Toxicity Studies of 50% Methanolic Extract of Orthosiphon stamineus Benth

The present study evaluated the antioxidant activity and potential toxicity of 50% methanolic extract of Orthosiphon stamineus (Lamiaceae) leaves (MEOS) after acute and subchronic administration in rats. Superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, and ferrous ion chelating methods were used to evaluate the antioxidant properties of the extract. In acute toxicity study, single dose of MEOS, 5000mg/kg, was administered to rats by oral gavage, and the treated rats were monitored for 14 days. While in the subchronic toxicity study, MEOS was administered orally, at doses of 1250, 2500, and 5000mg/kg/day for 28 days. From the results, MEOS showed good superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, ferrous ion chelating, and antilipid peroxidation activities. There was no mortality detected or any signs of toxicity in acute and subchronic toxicity studies. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in bodyweight, relative organ weight, and haematological and biochemical parameters between bothmale and female treated rats in any doses tested.No abnormality of internal organs was observed between treatment and control groups.Theoral lethal dose determined wasmore than 5000mg/kg and the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of MEOS for both male and female rats is considered to be 5000mg/kg per day

Antioxidant and toxicity studies of 50% methanolic extract of Orthosiphon stamineus benth.

The present study evaluated the antioxidant activity and potential toxicity of 50% methanolic extract of Orthosiphon stamineus (Lamiaceae) leaves (MEOS) after acute and subchronic administration in rats. Superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, and ferrous ion chelating methods were used to evaluate the antioxidant properties of the extract. In acute toxicity study, single dose of MEOS, 5000 mg/kg, was administered to rats by oral gavage, and the treated rats were monitored for 14 days. While in the subchronic toxicity study, MEOS was administered orally, at doses of 1250, 2500, and 5000 mg/kg/day for 28 days. From the results, MEOS showed good superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, ferrous ion chelating, and antilipid peroxidation activities. There was no mortality detected or any signs of toxicity in acute and subchronic toxicity studies. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in bodyweight, relative organ weight, and haematological and biochemical parameters between both male and female treated rats in any doses tested. No abnormality of internal organs was observed between treatment and control groups. The oral lethal dose determined was more than 5000 mg/kg and the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of MEOS for both male and female rats is considered to be 5000 mg/kg per day

Antioxidant and Toxicity Studies of 50% Methanolic Extract of Orthosiphon stamineus Benth

The present study evaluated the antioxidant activity and potential toxicity of 50% methanolic extract of Orthosiphon stamineus (Lamiaceae) leaves (MEOS) after acute and subchronic administration in rats. Superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, and ferrous ion chelating methods were used to evaluate the antioxidant properties of the extract. In acute toxicity study, single dose of MEOS, 5000 mg/kg, was administered to rats by oral gavage, and the treated rats were monitored for 14 days. While in the subchronic toxicity study, MEOS was administered orally, at doses of 1250, 2500, and 5000 mg/kg/day for 28 days. From the results, MEOS showed good superoxide radical scavenging, hydroxyl radical scavenging, ferrous ion chelating, and antilipid peroxidation activities. There was no mortality detected or any signs of toxicity in acute and subchronic toxicity studies. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in bodyweight, relative organ weight, and haematological and biochemical parameters between both male and female treated rats in any doses tested. No abnormality of internal organs was observed between treatment and control groups. The oral lethal dose determined was more than 5000 mg/kg and the no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of MEOS for both male and female rats is considered to be 5000 mg/kg per day

Development of a Stepping Force Analgesic Meter for a Rat Arthritic Model

Behavioural assessment of experimental pain is an essential method for analysing and measuring pain levels. Rodent models, which are widely used in behavioural tests, are often subject to external forces and stressful manipulations that cause variability of the parameters measured during the experiment. Therefore, these parameters may be inappropriate as indicators of pain. In this article, a stepping-force analgesimeter was designed to investigate the variations in the stepping force of rats in response to pain induction. The proposed apparatus incorporates new features, namely an infrared charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and a data acquisition system. The camera was able to capture the locomotion of the rats and synchronise the stepping force concurrently so that each step could be identified. Inter-day and intra-day precision and accuracy of each channel (there were a total of eight channels in the analgesimeter and each channel was connected to one load cell and one amplifier) were studied using different standard load weights. The validation studies for each channel also showed convincing results whereby intra-day and inter-day precision were less than 1% and accuracy was 99.36–100.36%. Consequently, an in vivo test was carried out using 16 rats (eight females and eight males). The rats were allowed to randomly walk across the sensor tunnel (the area that contained eight channels) and the stepping force and locomotion were recorded. A non-expert, but from a related research domain, was asked to differentiate the peaks of the front and hind paw, respectively. The results showed that of the total movement generated by the rats, 50.27 ± 3.90% in the case of the male rats and 62.20 ± 6.12% in that of the female rats had more than two peaks, a finding which does not substantiate the assumptions made in previous studies. This study also showed that there was a need to use the video display frame to distinguish between the front and hind paws in the case of 48.80 ± 4.01% of the male rats and 66.76 ± 5.35% of the female rats. Evidently the assumption held by current researchers regarding stepping force measurement is not realistic in terms of application, and as this study has shown, the use of a video display frame is essential for the identification of the front and hind paws through the peak signals

Mitigation of shoulder-surfing attack on picture-based passwords using falsifying authentication methods / Por Lip Yee

Over the years, various picture-based password systems were proposed to exploit the utility of pictures for user authentication. However, there are problems associated with these picture-based password authentication systems such as: vulnerability to security threats, and users’ memorability of the passwords. This research was undertaken to develop methods to mitigate shoulder-surfing attack. Two falsifying authentication methods using: (i) penup event and neighbouring connectivity manipulation; and (ii) partial password selection and metaheuristic randomisation algorithm methods, were proposed. The first and second proposed methods were incorporated into the proposed Background Pass-Go (BPG) system and Visual Identification Protocol Professional (VIP Pro) system respectively. To improve the users’ memorability, the upload background picture function and cued colour scheme were proposed for the BPG system; the grid line scaling function and the loose authentication method were proposed for the enhanced BPG system; and the chronological story-based cued recall technique was proposed for the VIP Pro system. Prototypes, simulations, observations and interviews were used as the data gathering methods. An offline FOA Java simulation was carried out to evaluate the capability of the MRA method in preventing FOA attack. Case studies were conducted to evaluate the capability of the proposed methods in mitigating shoulder-surfing attack. Kruskal Wallis test and calculation of the success rate in attacking were used to evaluate the capability of the proposed methods in mitigating shoulder-surfing attack. In general, the result of the case studies show that the two proposed falsifying authentication methods are able to mitigate shoulder-surfing attack regardless of the gender and competency levels of the shoulder-surfing attackers. Besides, the proposed MRA is effective in preventing FOA attack. A majority of the survey participants also stated that the proposed cued recall methods can aid users in memorising their password

Using multi-attribute decision-making approaches in the selection of a hospital management system

The most appropriate organizational software is always a real challenge for managers, especially, the IT directors. The illustration of the term "enterprise software selection", is to purchase, create, or order a software that; first, is best adapted to require of the organization; and second, has suitable price and technical support. Specifying selection criteria and ranking them, is the primary prerequisite for this action. This article provides a method to evaluate, rank, and compare the available enterprise software for choosing the apt one. The prior mentioned method is constituted of three-stage processes. First, the method identifies the organizational requires and assesses them. Second, it selects the best method throughout three possibilities; indoor-production, buying software, and ordering special software for the native use. Third, the method evaluates, compares and ranks the alternative software. The third process uses different methods of multi attribute decision making (MADM), and compares the consequent results. Based on different characteristics of the problem; several methods had been tested, namely, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality (ELECTURE), and easy weight method. After all, we propose the most practical method for same problems

UniSpaCh: A text-based data hiding method using Unicode space characters

This paper proposes a text-based data hiding method to insert external information into Microsoft Word document. First, the drawback of low embedding efficiency in the existing text-based data hiding methods is addressed, and a simple attack, DASH, is proposed to reveal the information inserted by the existing text-based data hiding methods. Then, a new data hiding method, UniSpaCh, is proposed to counter DASH. The characteristics of Unicode space characters with respect to embedding efficiency and DASH are analyzed, and the selected Unicode space characters are inserted into inter-sentence, inter-word, end-of-line and inter-paragraph spacings to encode external information while improving embedding efficiency and imperceptivity of the embedded information. UniSpaCh is also reversible where the embedded information can be removed to completely reconstruct the original Microsoft Word document. Experiments were carried out to verify the performance of UniSpaCh as well as comparing it to the existing space-manipulating data hiding methods. Results suggest that UniSpaCh offers higher embedding efficiency while exhibiting higher imperceptivity of white space manipulation when compared to the existing methods considered. In the best case scenario. UniSpaCh produces output document of size almost 9 times smaller than that of the existing method. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved