Allelopathic Effect of Ixora coccinea Linn. on Seed Germination and Early Seedling Growth of Paddy (Oryza sativa L.)

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the allelopathic potential of Ixora coccinea aqueous (leaf, flower and leaf-flower) extracts on paddy (Oryza sativa L.) var. ambai-16 seed germination and seedling growth under in vitro condition. The results indicated that the leaf extract of Ixora showed more negative allelopathic (stimulatory) effect on seed germination, seedling growth, biomass production, seedling vigour index and tolerance index of paddy at low concentration as compared to control, while the higher concentrations of leaf extract and all concentrations of flower and leaf-flower extracts showed positive allelopathic (inhibitory) effect on seed germination and seedling growth parameters of paddy recorded

An (S - 1; S) Inventory System with Negative Arrivals and Multiple Vacations

In this paper, we consider a continuous review one-to-one ordering policy inventory system with multiple vacations and negative customers. The maximum storage capacity is S. The customers arrive according to a Poisson process with finite waiting hall. There are two types of customers: ordinary and negative. An ordinary customer, on arrival, joins the queue and the negative customer does not join the queue and takes away any one of the waiting customers. When the waiting hall is full, the arriving primary customer is considered to be lost. The service time and lead time are assumed to have independent exponential distribution. When the inventory becomes empty, the server takes a vacation and the vacation duration is exponentially distributed. The stationary distribution of the number of customers in the waiting hall, the inventory level and the server status for the steady state case. Some system performance measures and numerical illustrations are discussed

GC-MS Determination of Bioactive Compounds of Polygonum glabrum (Wild).

In this study, the bioactive compounds of Polygonum glabrum have been evaluated using GC-MS. The chemical compositions of the whole plant ethanol extract of P. glabrum were investigated using Perkin-Elmer Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, while the mass spectra of the compounds found in the extract was matched with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library. GC-MS analysis of P. glabrum whole plant ethanol extract revealed the existence of the ether compound –Propane 1,1-diethoxy- (64.86%), alkane compound -2-Heptane, 5-ethyl-2,4-dimethyl- (13.51%), sulphur compound –Tiophene-2-Carboxamide, N-(2-furfuryl)- (8.!!%), alcoholic compound -1,14-Tetradecanediol (5.41%), and plasticizer compounds -1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, isodecyloctyl ester (5.41%) and 1,2,3-Benzenetriol (2.79%). The results of this study offer a base of using P. glabrum as herbal alternative for the synthesis of antimicrobial agents

Zero-Sided Communication Challenges in Implementing Time-Based Channels using the MPI/RT Specification

Distributed real-time applications require support from the underlying middleware to meet the strict requirements for jitter, latency, and bandwidth. While most existing middleware standards such as MPI do not support Quality of Service (QoS), the MPI/RT standard supports QoS in addition to striving for high performance. This thesis presents HARE, the first known implementation of a subset of the MPI/RT 1.1 standard with time-driven QoS support. This thesis proves the following hypothesis: It is possible to achieve zero-sided communication (a model of communication characterized by the absence of any explicit per-message transfer calls by any of the participating sides) in a real-time environment using a QoS contract between an application and message-passing middleware. Furthermore, it is shown that the performance and predictability of a time-driven task using zero-sided communication is better than that of a best-effort task. The hypothesis is validated through compact MPI/RT application programs that achieve zero-sided communication

Utilisation of flyash as cement replacement material to produce high performance concrete

Disposal of fly ash, a waste product from thermal power plants, is a major problem in India.Many R&D and academic institutions are actively involved in the effective utilisation of flyash in Civil Engineering applications. The Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC),Chennai has carried out extensive research on utilisation of fly ash in concrete as partial cement replacement material (CRM) since 1975 . Recently, SERC has carried out extensive R&D work on development of High Performance Concrete (HPC) mixes using flyash(FA),ground granulated blast furnace slag(GGBS) and silica fume(SF) as mineral dmixtures,especially to improve the durability characteristics of cement concrete. This paper presents the mechanical and urability properties of different HPC mixes containing fly ash. HPCs using flyash as mineral admixture have been used to evelop precast concrete products such as, non-pressure pipes and heavy duty paver blocks and these developments are eported in this paper

Readability formulas: An analysis into reading index of prose forms

Text comprehension will suffer if the readability level is not accessible to the students. Readability formulas predict text complexity, assisting in appropriate text selection that complements students’ reading abilities to improve their language development. Therefore, the study aims to find out the reading index of the prose forms in the literature component catered to lower secondary school students ages 13 and 14 years old in Form One (seventh grade) and Form Two (eighth grade) classrooms in Malaysia. The reading index is measured by using four readability formulas which are Dale-Chall, Fog, SMOG, and Flesch-Kincaid that focuses on the words, sentences, syllables, and polysyllable words. These formulas are used to predict the level of difficulty of the prose forms. The reading index calculated from these readability formulas reveals the grade level of the prose forms. The grade level indicates the best age for reading and understanding the prose forms. Two prose forms were chosen as samples in the study. A passage is chosen from each prose form to be uploaded using the online tool. The indices obtained from the readability formulas predicted that both of the prose forms were below students’ reading age. The study implicates reading index must be taken into consideration in literary texts selection because it is an indicator of the years of education that an individual requires to comprehend the literary text clearly. Suitable reading material at students’ age level can enhance literature learning and teaching in the ESL classroom

Screening of Fascaplysin for its Efficient Abatement of Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Promiscuous Epitope Mapping of Selected Proteins with Docking Perspectives.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is regarded as one among the deadliest cancers in the world. In particular, aflatoxin induced hepatocellular carcinoma is alarmingly on rise due to food contamination. However, several drugs and synthetic compound are reported to inhibit HCC in humans. Fascaplysin is a marine sponge derived compound has been increasingly considered and proved as a potential inhibitor of CDK2/CDK4 dependent kinase. In the present study, five proteins that are involved in activation of aflatoxin B1 induced hepatocellular carcinogenesis were selected and analyzed for its immunological profiling. Crystal structure of Human Glutathione S-Transferase (GST) A1, Prostaglandin H2 Synthase (PHS), Human Cytochrome p450 3A4, Human Microsomal P450 1A2 and p53 were assessed for their immunogenicity patterns. On the other hand, HLA B27 allele which plays a crucial role in cancer was chosen for T cell and B cell epitope mapping. In this analysis, it shows that SYFPEITHI immunogenic peptides were conserved in all the proteins envisaging the need for a common anti-cancer ligand. However, immunogenic assessment of epitopes and interacting residues revealed that fascaplysin interacts at multiple positions in binding amino acid residues of the selected proteins. This study is purely based on the immunoinformatics approach for the screening of specific compound which could suppress the hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, based on the results it’s clear that fascaplysin is a potential inhibitor and effectively binds to immunogenic peptides and act as a candidate against aflatoxin induced hepatocellular carcinoma based on the Insilco analysis

Hormetic UV-C seed treatments for the control of tomato diseases

© 2019 British Society for Plant Pathology Hormesis is a dose response phenomenon in which low, non-damaging doses of a stressor bring about a positive response in the organism undergoing treatment. Evidence is provided here that hormetic UV-C treatments of tomato seed can control disease caused by Botrytis cinerea, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (FOL) and f. sp. radicis-lycopersici (FORL) on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Treating seeds with a 4kJm−2 dose of UV-C significantly reduced both the disease incidence and progression of B.cinerea, with approximately 10% reductions in both on cv. Shirley. Disease severity assays for FOL and FORL on cv. Moneymaker showed dose-dependent responses: UV-C treatments of 4 and 6kJm−2 significantly reduced the disease severity scores of FOL, whilst only the 6kJm−2 showed significant reductions for FORL. To determine the effects of treatment on germination and seedling growth, UV-C doses of 4, 8 and 12kJm−2 were performed on cv. Shirley. No negative impacts on germination or seedling growth were observed for any of the treatments. However, the 8kJm−2 treatment showed significant biostimulation, with increases in seedling, root and hypocotyl dry weight of 11.4%, 23.1% and 12.0%, respectively, when compared to the control. Furthermore, significant increases in the root-mass fraction (10.6%) and root:shoot ratio (13.1%) along with a decrease in shoot-mass fraction (2.0%) indicates that the 8kJm−2 treatment stimulated root growth to the greatest extent. There was no effect on hypocotyl and primary root length or the number of lateral roots, indicating no adverse effects to basic root architecture or seedling growth

Acute respiratory distress syndrome in Plasmodium vivax malaria. A case-control study of comparison between ARDS and non-ARDS patients in P. Vivax malaria

Background: Plasmodium vivax was conventionally considered to be a benign parasite for centuries but in the recent years have proved to be a virulent parasite causing severe malaria. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is one of such severe complications with a significant morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to find the prevalence of ARDS and identify the associated factors that could potentially lead to ARDS in patients with vivax malaria. Methods: A retrospective case-control study was conducted at a tertiary hospital in New Delhi. 329 patients with an established diagnosis of Plasmodium vivax mono-infection were identified using hospital medical records, the associated factors were evaluated and compared to calculate the odds of developing ARDS. All patients were categorized into ARDS cases and non-ARDS controls. Results: The incidence of ARDS was 7% with a female sex predominance (60.86%). Mean urea (71.5 mg/dl), creatinine (2.7 mg/dl), and AST (97.8 units/l) elevation in addition to decreased hemoglobin (7.7 gm/dl) and platelets count (38,217 cells/µl) proved to be significantly associated with ARDS in our study. Conclusions: Plasmodium vivax is a virulent parasite and can cause severe malaria even in the setting of isolated infection. Cytokine mediated diffuse inflammatory response is a postulated pathophysiology causing ARDS