A study on organic matter and nitrogen dynamics in wetland paddy soils of Bangladesh

The present study was aimed to evaluate the effects of different sources organic matter along with various level nitrogen fertilizations on nutrient dynamics and physicochemical variation of soil at different incubation periods in the research field of department of soil science, BSMRAU. RS, VC, RHB, CD and PM were used @ 2 t C ha-1 along with N rates 0, 100 and 150 kg ha-1 in a factorial randomized complete block design. Combined application of VC and RHB with N100 dose significantly reduces soil bulk density. PM-treated plot resulted the highest amount of TN at 90 DAT, while RHB treated plot at 45 DAT. N fertilized plot showed maxi-mum TN content at 75 DAT with N150 treatment. Significant interaction effects of OM and N on TN content of soil were exhibited at the incubation period 15, 30 and 45 DAT. Different organic amendment showed a dissimilar nutrient release pattern. Significantly higher phosphorus content was detected in VC treated soil while the S content was in the CD-treated soil. The RHB treated plots provide a significantly higher exchangeable K content in post-harvest soil. The available P, S and exchangeable K contents in post-harvest soil increased positively in all treatments as compared to initial soils. Organic manures and N fertilization had no significant effect on different chemical properties like soil pH, TN, available S and exchangeable K. Significant P enrichment was occurred in organic and N treated soil. Thus, organic and inorganic fertilization had a significant positive influence on the enrichment of physiochemical properties of wetland paddy soil

Levocarnitine Improves AlCl3-Induced Spatial Working Memory Impairment in Swiss albino Mice

Background: Aluminum, a neurotoxic substance, causes oxidative stress induced-neurodegenerative diseases. Several lines of evidence suggest that levocarnitine has an antioxidant effect and also plays an important role in beta-oxidation of fatty acids. However, the role of levocarnitine in aluminum-induced neurotoxicity has not been well documented. Here we aimed to investigate the effect of levocarnitine on aluminum chloride (AlCl3)-induced oxidative stress and memory dysfunction.Methods: Male Swiss albino mice (n = 30) were treated with either control (saline) or AlCl3 or AlCl3 plus levocarnitine or levocarnitine or astaxanthin plus AlCl3 or astaxanthin alone. The spatial working memory was determined by radial arm maze (RAM). In addition, we measured the lipid peroxidation (MDA), glutathione (GSH), advanced oxidation of protein products (AOPP), nitric oxide (NO) and activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) in the various brain regions including prefrontal cortex (PFC), striatum (ST), parietal cortex (PC), hippocampus (HIP) hypothalamus (HT) and cerebellum (CB). We used astaxanthin as a standard antioxidant to compare the antioxidant activity of levocarnitine.Results: The RAM data showed that AlCl3 treatment (50 mg/kg) for 2 weeks resulted in a significant deficit in spatial learning in mice. Moreover, aluminum exposure significantly (p < 0.05) increased the level of oxidative stress markers such as MDA, GSH, AOPP and NO in the various brain regions compared to the controls. In addition, combined administration of levocarnitine and AlCl3 significantly (p < 0.05) lowered the MDA, AOPP, GSH and NO levels in mice.Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that levocarnitine could serve as a potential therapeutic agent in the treatment of oxidative stress associated diseases as well as in memory impairment

Compiling parallel applications to coarse-grained reconfigurable architectures

Reconfigurable computing has been an active field of research for the past two decades. Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures (CGRAs) are gaining interest for embedded systems and multimedia applications, which demand a flexible but highly efficient platform. A CGRA comprises a network of simple programmable processing elements (PEs). CG RAs exploit the inherent parallelism and repetitive computations found in these applications and can adapt themselves to diverse computations by dynamically changing configurations. Although CGRAs have the potential to exploit both hardware like efficiency and software like extensibility, the absence of proper compilation approaches is an obstacle to their widespread use. -- In this thesis a novel approach for compiling parallel applications to a target CGRA will be presented. The application will be written in HARPO/L, a parallel object oriented language suitable for hardware. HARPO/L is first compiled to a Data Flow Graph (DFG) representation. The remaining compilation steps are a combination of three tasks: scheduling, placement and routing. For compiling cyclic portions of the application, we have adapted a modulo scheduling algorithm: modulo scheduling with integrated register spilling, which incorporates register spilling with instruction scheduling. For scheduling, the nodes of the DFG are ordered using the hypernode reduction modulo scheduling (HRMS) method. The placement and routing is done using the neighborhood relations of the PEs

New results on secure message transmission

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Endurance exercise in a rat model of metabolic syndrome

We have measured the responses to endurance exercise training on body composition and glucose regulation, as well as cardiovascular and liver structure and function in rats fed a high carbohydrate and high fat (HCHF) diet as a model of human metabolic syndrome. Male Wistar rats (9-10 weeks old) were randomly allocated into corn starch (CS) or HCHF diet groups for 16 weeks; half of each group were exercised on a treadmill for 20, 25, and then 30 min/day, 5 days/week, during the last 8 weeks of the protocol. Metabolic, cardiovascular, and liver parameters were monitored. The HCHF diet induced symptoms of metabolic syndrome, including obesity, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose tolerance, and increased systolic blood pressure associated with the development of cardiovascular remodeling and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Exercise in HCHF rats decreased body mass, abdominal fat pads and circumference, blood glucose concentrations, plasma lipid profiles, systolic blood pressure, left ventricular diastolic stiffness, collagen deposition and inflammatory cell infiltration in the left ventricle, improved aortic contractile and relaxation responses, and decreased liver mass and hepatic fat accumulation. This study demonstrates that endurance exercise is effective in this rat model of diet-induced metabolic syndrome in improving body composition and glucose regulation, as well as cardiovascular and liver structure and function