CURCUMIN – THE HEALING HERB: PROPERTIES AND FUTURE PROSPECTIVE

Curcumin, the main bioactive compound found in turmeric rhizomes, has a wide variety of applications in the clinical field that is why it attracts researchers from all over the world. While there are various studies on curcumin extraction and quantification, comparison of curcumin content according to the soil profile and cultivation period has not been performed yet in our knowledge. Curcumin to be a genuine natural product having impressive anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, treating a wide range of diseases. Curcumin is a special gift to humans given by mother-nature to help them curing many diseases. Turmeric, the plant containing a significant amount of this molecule, has been used for many centuries as a traditional medicine to cure skin problems, digestive issues, as painkiller, and much more. From the past two centuries, scientists found many applications of this molecule in the clinical field. There are still many properties of this wonder drug that need to be discovered. However, the obstacle in this track is difficulty in extracting the pure and high amounts of curcumin from turmeric rhizomes. For this reason, many researchers have searched about many techniques to extract curcumin from turmeric rhizomes, of which ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry has been found very efficient. The review will assist the researchers to discover and choose the plant to develop adequate medicine for establishing cost-effective treatments

ANTIMICROBIAL POTENTIAL OF HERBAL AND CHEMICAL NEONATAL EYE DROPS

Objective: The present study focuses on exploring the antimicrobial potential of chemical (Tobastar and natamycin) and herbal eye drops (Itone) which are specifically preferred against neonatal eye infections.Methods: Well diffusion method (for testing the antimicrobial potential of selected eye drops against different bacterial and fungal strains), minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) (broth dilution method) for detecting the MIC effective against various strains taken into consideration.Results: The results indicated that Itone and Tobastar are effective against bacterial strains, thus highlighting the importance of these two eye drops against bacterial infections, whereas natamycin is effective against fungal infection.Conclusion: It may be concluded that the herbal eye drop (Itone) and the chemical eye drop (Tobastar) are effective against bacterial infections. The components such as neem, tulsi, kapur, and honey in herbal composition possess good antibacterial activity confirming the great potential of bioactive compounds and are useful for the growth inhibition of the carcinogenic bacterium. The alkaloids, flavonoids and saponins are based on antibiotic principles and are actually the defensive mechanisms of the plant against pathogens and chemical eye drop, that is, natamycin is effective against fungal infections, which may be due to the presence of polyene antifungal agent which works against fungal infections. There is a need to optimize the blending of the different herbal and chemical components to form a single effective antimicrobial formulation (more of herbal component and less chemical components) against neonatal infections

Complete genome sequence of an isolate of leek yellow stripe virus from garlic in India

Not AvailableThe complete genome sequence of leek yellow stripe virus (LYSV) isolate AC-50 from garlic in India was determined and the predicted amino acid (aa) sequence was analyzed. The LYSV RNA genome is 10,131 nucleotides (nt) long excluding the poly(A) tail (KP168261) and has a large open reading frame (ORF) encoding a putative polyprotein of 3152 aa with conserved motifs typical of members of the genus Potyvirus in the family Potyviridae. The pretty interesting Potyviridae ORF (PIPO) coding region was identified in the P3 coding region. LYSV isolate AC-50 shares maximum nt and aa sequence identity of 79.9% and 87.2% with a LYSV isolate from Australia (HQ258895) at the full genome and polyprotein level, respectively, and clusters with clade II isolates from China, Mexico, Australia, Brazil and Spain. The P1 coding region of isolate AC-50 was highly variable with an identity range of 48.9- 70.9% with other LYSV isolates and a deletion of 204 nt compared to Japanese and Australian isolates. The ratio of nonsynonymous (dN) and synonymous (dS) polymorphic sites suggested that purifying selection dominates in the evolution of LYSV and the mean dN/dS ratio was highest for P1, confirming that this coding region is under less evolutionary constraints

Understanding unmet need for family planning

Unmet need represents the gap between women’s reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behavior. There are some 225 million women in the world who want to use safe and effective family planning methods are unable to do so. Control over fertility is very important not only because of its far-reaching implications on prosperity and overall growth of the nation, but also because of its impact on the freedom of young women to lead life of their own choice. Reduction in unmet need for family planning is critical for the overall development of the society. Combination of the mutually reinforcing effects of investments in education, health and family planning programmes is needed

Comparative study of safety and efficacy of pregabalin, gabapentin and amitriptyline in management of neuropathic pain

Background: Neuropathic pain has a significant negative impact on the patients’ quality of life. Now a day’s anticonvulsants and antidepressants drugs are often used as first-line drugs for the treatment of neuropathic pain. The present study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of gabapentin, amitriptyline, and pregabalin in patients of severe neuropathic pain not controlled by simple analgesics.Methods: A total of 360 patients diagnosed with cases of chronic lumbar radiculopathy based on symptoms, clinical examination, X-ray, and magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) scan of the lumbosacral spine, were randomized into three groups. Group A patients received pregabalin 75 mg, Group B patients received gabapentin 300 mg, and Group C patients received amitriptyline 10 mg, respectively. Pain intensity was measured at the baseline, after 1 month and after 2 months with the Numeric pain rating scale (NPRS). Adverse drug reaction reported by the patient or observed by the clinician during the study was reported using the adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting form.Results: At baseline, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 8.42±1.48, in Group B and Group C were 8.53±1.94 and 8.33±1.26 respectively with an F-value of 0.843 and p value of 0.584, which was not statistically significant. At 1 month, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 7.23±1.58, in Group B and Group C were 7.43±2.03 and 7.99±2.10 respectively with F-value of 1.58 and p value of 0.085 which was not statistically significant. At 2 months, the mean±SD of NPRS score in Group A was 4.38±2.72, in Group B and Group C were 4.74±2.86 and 6.32±2.31 respectively with F-value of 5.53 and p value of 0.002 which was statistically significant.Conclusions: Pregabalin has the advantages in terms of the NPRS score over gabapentin and amitriptyline. Gabapentin has fewer reported adverse effects and hence better patient compliance on long term use. Amitriptyline is more cost effective than pregabalin which is an important factor to keep in mind while treating patients

Multi-Object Tracking in Heterogeneous environments (MOTHe) for animal video recordings

Aerial imagery and video recordings of animals are used for many areas of research such as animal behaviour, behavioural neuroscience and field biology. Many automated methods are being developed to extract data from such high-resolution videos. Most of the available tools are developed for videos taken under idealised laboratory conditions. Therefore, the task of animal detection and tracking for videos taken in natural settings remains challenging due to heterogeneous environments. Methods that are useful for field conditions are often difficult to implement and thus remain inaccessible to empirical researchers. To address this gap, we present an open-source package called Multi-Object Tracking in Heterogeneous environments (MOTHe), a Python-based application that uses a basic convolutional neural network for object detection. MOTHe offers a graphical interface to automate the various steps related to animal tracking such as training data generation, animal detection in complex backgrounds and visually tracking animals in the videos. Users can also generate training data and train a new model which can be used for object detection tasks for a completely new dataset. MOTHe doesn’t require any sophisticated infrastructure and can be run on basic desktop computing units. We demonstrate MOTHe on six video clips in varying background conditions. These videos are from two species in their natural habitat—wasp colonies on their nests (up to 12 individuals per colony) and antelope herds in four different habitats (up to 156 individuals in a herd). Using MOTHe, we are able to detect and track individuals in all these videos. MOTHe is available as an open-source GitHub repository with a detailed user guide and demonstrations at: https://github.com/tee-lab/MOTHe-GUI

Examining a theoretical model of eco-anxiety on consumers' intentions towards green products

Given the current levels of pollution and global warming concerns, consumers started to be more and more involved with environmental issues, becoming more anxious regarding the state of natural resource depletion. Thus, this research aims to examine the concept of eco-anxiety among consumers who are aware of the repercussions of the current environmental complexities, analysing how or to what extent it affects them, bearing in mind that individuals may tend to escape from stressful environmental issues. A conceptual model will be tested using data from consumers of two countries representing very different regions and socioeconomic contexts: India and Italy. An online self-administered questionnaire was distributed in India and Italy between February and March 2022. Employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), a sample of 557 individuals was collected (316 from India; 241 from Italy). The study examined the measurement model to assess validity and reliability, as well as the structural model to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that consumers of India and Italy tend to avoid thinking about environmental crises trying to normalise their plight. As observed, eco-anxiety positively influences emotional dissonance, and escapism is positively related to this construct, but intentions to buy green products are found to be insignificant. Practical implications were drawn for policymakers and practitioners, indicating different orientations according to the region