Emerging role of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 in the mechanism of action and resistance to anticancer therapies

Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (NRF2), a transcription factor, is a master regulator of an array of genes related to oxidative and electrophilic stress that promote and maintain redox homeostasis. NRF2 function is well studied in in vitro, animal and general physiology models. However, emerging data has uncovered novel functionality of this transcription factor in human diseases such as cancer, autism, anxiety disorders and diabetes. A key finding in these emerging roles has been its constitutive upregulation in multiple cancers promoting pro-survival phenotypes. The survivability pathways in these studies were mostly explained by classical NRF2 activation involving KEAP-1 relief and transcriptional induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) neutralizing and cytoprotective drug-metabolizing enzymes (phase I, II, III and 0). Further, NRF2 status and activation is associated with lowered cancer therapeutic efficacy and the eventual emergence of therapeutic resistance. Interestingly, we and others have provided further evidence of direct NRF2 regulation of anticancer drug targets like receptor tyrosine kinases and DNA damage and repair proteins and kinases with implications for therapy outcome. This novel finding demonstrates a renewed role of NRF2 as a key modulatory factor informing anticancer therapeutic outcomes, which extends beyond its described classical role as a ROS regulator. This review will provide a knowledge base for these emerging roles of NRF2 in anticancer therapies involving feedback and feed forward models and will consolidate and present such findings in a systematic manner. This places NRF2 as a key determinant of action, effectiveness and resistance to anticancer therapy

Genetic Divergence Studies in Bixa Orellana L. Accessions, an Important Natural Food Dye Plant Using Mahalanobis D2 Multivariate Analysis

Twenty accessions of Bixa orellana L.,were assessed for the genetic divergence using Mahalanobis D2 statistics. The clustering pattern indicated that there was no association between geographical distribution of the accessions and genetic divergence. The characters namely capsule length and breadth, number of seeds/ capsule and seed bixin content of the accessions were analyzed. All these characters like capsule length and breadth, number of seeds per capsule and seed bixin content were contributing maximum to the divergence. Therefore, selection of divergent parents based on these characters is recommended for producing good hybrids

Survey Paper on CP-ABE cloud computing

In attribute based encryption (ABE) scheme, attributes plays a very important role. Attribute –based encryption provides privacy protection for the users by a set of attributes. Now a days as cloud is most widely used in mostly all fields so there is need of keeping data more secure and confidential which is outsourced on the cloud. Security of the data in cloud database server is the key area of concern in the acceptance of cloud. It is required very high degree of privacy and authentication. In existing system used hierarchical authorization structure to reduce the burden and risk of a single authority .this paper proposes a hierarchical attribute based encryption which directly provides attribute value by user as well as data stored in different types of media

Vegetable Consumption Pattern and Health Consciousness of Urban Terrace Garden Farmers

A study was conducted to analyse the vegetable consumption pattern and health consciousness of urban households practicing terrace gardening at their homes. The survey was conducted among randomly selected 90 households in Pune city i.e., Pune Municipal Corporation and Pimpri - Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. The study revealed that among the urban wellers doing terrace gardening, everyone showed either moderate or high level of health consciousness and no one showed low level. The amount of vegetables consumed per household per day was taken in to consideration while collecting details regarding general consumption pattern of vegetables. As per the study, it was found that, 70 per cent were consuming moderate amount of vegetables on daily basis

Information needs of farmers on cultivation of salad cucumber Cucumis sativus under polyhouse

The conventional practice of crop production is now giving its way to hi-tech farming practices. Salad cucumber (Cucumis sativus), is a relatively new crop in Kerala and has proven yield benefit under polyhouse conditions. The study intended to assess the information needs of farmers regarding various technical and cultivation aspects of salad cucumber production under polyhouse. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) and mean values were used to identify the information needs. Most of the cultivation aspects fell under either the ‘highly essential’ or ‘moderately needed’ information category. The technical aspects of construction, maintenance and repair of polyhouse were the most critical information need of farmers along with the specifics of fertilizers for polyhouse and fertigation system. Pests, diseases and nutrient deficiency problems were also the main concerns of farmers. Weed management and pollination, with low mean scores were among the least felt information need. Hence, these aspects are also found to be among essential needs. The study elucidated that an efficient information delivery system through appropriate channels is required to boost polyhouse cultivation of vegetables in Kerala

Effectiveness of behavioural modification therapy on nocturnal enuresis among rural children in Madurai.

A true experimental study to assess the efficacy of behavior modification therapy on Nocturnal Enuresis among children residing in selected rural areas in Madurai was carried out to identify the prevalence of Nocturnal Enuresis among children and to evaluate the effectiveness of behavior modification therapy. Sampling Technique: simple random sampling technique. Sample: 100 nocturnal enuretic children in the age of 5 – 10 years from two rural areas of Madurai. Tool: Nocturnal Enuretic rating scale was used to assess the Nocturnal enuresis level. Intervention: Behavior modification therapy was implemented for experimental group including Lifting, Waking, Stop – start training, Good bladder health recommendation, Treatment of nocturnal polyuria, Retention control training and reinforcement therapy which was a 15 minutes session a day over 4 weeks. Statistical analysis: Obtained data analyzed in terms of both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Findings showed that, the overall prevalence of Nocturnal enuresis was 47.75%. In pre test; 36 children (72%) were in moderate level and 1 child (2%) was in severe level of Nocturnal enuresis. Whereas, in post test with none of them were in moderate and severe level of Nocturnal enuresis. All (100%) were in mild level of Nocturnal enuresis. But in control group, Nocturnal enuresis level remain unchanged. The mean post test nocturnal enuretic score 1.14 of experimental group was lower than the mean post test nocturnal enuretic score 5.9 of control group with a ‘t’ value 18.6. There was no association between the nocturnal enuretic score and demographic variables. Conclusions: It can be concluded that behavior modification therapy also can used to reduce the Nocturnal enuresis level in children

A Novel Method for Classification of Wrist Pulse for Health Monitoring using Sparse Classifier

A wrist pulse system has been developed that can detect both normal and abnormal conditions in patients based on wrist pulse diagnosis. Pulse diagnosis are mainly done in three steps they are pulse preprocessing, feature extraction and classification. The acquired wrist pulse signal is passed through consecutive stages of denoising, baseline wander removal and period segmentation. The feature extraction is then done to extract time domain, frequency domain and wavelet features. Classification is then done for finding normal and abnormal conditions using SVM (Support Vector Machine) classifier. It is found that by using the SVM classifier, distributed features cannot be efficiently identified, classification accuracy is low and sub-classification cannot be done for abnormal condition as SVM supports only binary data. So SVM classifier is replaced by sparse classifier which has higher accuracy since it supports highly nonlinear data. T test is used in feature selection so that it needs low memory and less time consumption. Sub-classification has been done for the abnormal cases of Anemia, Arrhythmia, Tuberculosis and Wolff Parkinson White Syndrome

TiO2 nanotubes and mesoporous silica as containers in self-healing epoxy coatings

The potential of inorganic nanomaterials as reservoirs for healing agents is presented here. Mesoporous silica (SBA-15) and TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) were synthesized. Both epoxy-encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes and amine-immobilized mesoporous silica were incorporated into epoxy and subsequently coated on a carbon steel substrate. The encapsulated TiO2 nanotubes was quantitatively estimated using a ‘dead pore ratio’ calculation. The morphology of the composite coating was studied in detail using transmission electron microscopic (TEM) analysis. The self-healing ability of the coating was monitored using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS); the coating recovered 57% of its anticorrosive property in 5 days. The self-healing of the scratch on the coating was monitored using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results confirmed that the epoxy pre-polymer was slowly released into the crack. The released epoxy pre-polymer came into contact with the amine immobilized in mesoporous silica and cross-linked to heal the scratch.This paper was made possible by PDRA grant # PDRA1-1216-13014 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation)

ROLE OF SELENIUM SUPPLEMENTATION ON ANTIOXIDANT CHANGES IN WISTAR ALBINO RATS AFTER CHRONIC RESTRAINT STRESS

Objective: Stress is a non-specific response of the body to any physical or physiological demand. Oxidative stress may occur due to imbalance between pro-oxidants and antioxidants. Restraint stress or immobilization has been used extensively as a stressor for the study of stress-related biological, biochemical, and physiological responses in animals. Nutritional treatment by exogenous supplementation of antioxidants like selenium reactivates which guard against the insult caused ROS during the repeated restraint stress. The objective of the study is to determine the role of selenium on antioxidant changes in Wistar albino rats after chronic restraint stress. Methods: Adult male Wistar albino rats weighing about 180–200 g were taken for the study and were divided into three groups – the control group (n=6) chronic restraint stress group (n=6) and chronic stress treated with selenium (n=6). Restraint stress was given in wire mesh restrainers for 30 days (6 h/day), and the blood from the jugular vein was collected for estimation of antioxidant status (Superoxide dismutase, Glutathione peroxidase, CAT, Vit C, and Vit E) in rats. Results: One-way analysis of variance statistical test was used to analyses the mean and SD among the groups. The rats pre-treated with selenium (p<0.001) showed a significant decrease in lipid peroxidation. In chronic restraint stress, albino rats administered with Selenium showed a significant increase (p<0.001) in enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant activity when compared to controls. Conclusion: The effect of the Selenium acts as a antidote to counteract the effects of restraint stress and has significant therapeutic application in counter acting oxidative damage on Wistar albino rats

Comparative Studies on Antimicrobial and Antifungal Efficacy from Bixa Orellana L., Lantana Camara L., Stachytarpheta Jamaicensis (l.)vahl., Hyptis Suaveolens (l.) Poit.with Triclosan

The aim of the present study was to assess the Antimicrobial and Antifungal activities of the Phenolic leaf extracts of Bixa orellana L., Lantana camara L and Stachytarpheta jamaicensis (L.) Vahl. Hyptis suaveolens (L.) Piot. and the Triclosan, a chlorinated aromatic compound with antibacterial and antifungal properties used in common house hold and personal care products and to compare household and personal care products and to compare their effectiveness against 4 bacterial strains - 2 Gram Positive strains – Staphylococcus aurens and Bacillus substitis and 2 Gram negative strains – Escherischia coli and Pseudomonas fluorescens and 3 Fungi- Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus and Mucor Sp., by Agar well diffusion Assay. The phenolic extracts of all the 4 plants showed Maximum (80-100%), Relative inhibition against Pseudomonas fluorescence, Moderate inhibition (30-70%) against Staphylococcus aurens and Bacillus substilis and least inhibition (30-47%) against Escherischia coli, while, the Antifungal efficacy of all the 4 Phenolic plant extracts were observed to be effective at the concentration ranging from 70-300 µg. The plant phenolic extracts for Antimicrobial and Antifungal properties were compared with Standard Triclosan, a chlorinated compound. Our studies showed that the phenolic components of plant origin for antibacterial activity were equivalent to Triclosan with the same concentration, while for antifungal activity slightly higher concentrations could be a better alternative and hence there could be a substitution for Triclosan by Plant Phenolic Extracts used in house hold and personal care products, in future days to come