Alcohol Use Disorders and Diabetes Mellitus

Alcohol use disorder is a chronic relapsing brain disorder and is associated with high mortality and morbidity. Chronic alcohol use worsens diabetes and associated diabetes-related complication. Alcohol use, especially over the long-term, can impact the glycemic control in persons with diabetes mellitus. Heavy consumption of alcohol in people with diabetes can lead to worsening of diabetes-related complications like diabetic ketoacidosis, altered lipid metabolism, peripheral neuropathy, sexual dysfunction and cardiovascular disease. This review aims to describe the association between alcohol use and glucose tolerance, effects of alcohol on the pre-existing diabetes; association between alcohol use, diabetes mellitus and diabetes-related complications and interaction of medicines used to treat diabetes with alcohol

Identifying Traffic Safety Practices and Needs of Local Transportation and Law Enforcement Agencies

As part of the effort to implement the Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), state departments of transportation are looking to reach out to local and law enforcement agencies. This paper presents a study by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to identify the existing safety practices and needs of local transportation agencies and law enforcement offices in Florida. Two comprehensive online surveys targeting local transportation agencies and law enforcement agencies are developed. The survey for local transportation agencies includes 39 questions on topics including standardization of crash analysis methods, training needs, and working with FDOT. For law enforcement agencies, the survey includes 25 questions covering topics on enforcement locations, traffic violations and safety campaigns, use of crash reports, and working with transportation agencies. Results from both surveys and lessons learned are discussed

ANTIOXIDANT POTENTIAL PROFILE OF PAJANELIA LONGIFOLIA (WILLD.) K. SCHUMAN.; POTENTIAL NEW SOURCES OF NATURAL ANTIOXIDANT.

Objectives: The aim of the present work is to screen the antioxidant potentiality of the bark extracts of Pajanelia longifolia (Willd.) K. Schuman, ethnomedicinally prescribed plant as hepatoprotective. Methods: Bark extract was prepared using Soxhlet apparatus. Total phenol, flavonoid, total alkaloid were analyzed using Folin–Ciocalteu assay, aluminum chloride calorimetric assay, atropine standard, respectively. Antioxidant capacity and free radical scavenging potentialities were done by various in vitro methods, viz.; 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity, reducing power assay, metal chelating activity, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) method. Result: Total phenol, flavonoid, and alkaloid were found to be highest in acetone extract of P. longifolia (Willd.) K. Schuman. Acetone extracts of the bark of P. longifolia (Willd.) K. Schuman showed very low inhibitory concentration 50 (IC50) and effective concentration 50 values for DPPH assay and reducing power assay compared to other extracts. In hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity assay, the lowest IC50 value was recorded in acetone extract with 181.78±0.09 μg/ml in P. longifolia. The FRAP assay for P. longifolia acetone extract showed the highest activity at 967±0.69 μg/ml of ascorbic acid equivalent. The ferric reducing capacity and TBA values of the plant extracts confirmed the presence antioxidant principles in the bark of the said plant. Conclusion: These underused plants may be used for mitigating the detrimental effect of oxidative stress and reactive oxygen species-mediated disease and thus justifies its use in folklore medicines.Â

Hormonal profile and haematological parameters of male wistar albino rats treated with methanloic extract of Parthenium hysterophorus L.

Changes in hormonal and haematological level were assessed in male wistar albino rats treated with methanolic extract of Parthenium hysterophorus L. The result showed that methanolic extract treatment caused a significant (p < 0.01) reduction of 20 % and 40% in total RBC count (6.25 ± 0.025 to 5 ± 0.5 x 106/µL) and haemoglobin (17.1 ± 0.1892 to 10.2 ± 0.79 g / dL) respectively in treated rats over control. Unlike haematological parameters, hormonal profile showed a significant increase of 40% (p < 0.05), 200% (p < 0.01), 100% (p < 0.01) and 45.08% (p < 0.001) in follicle stimulating hormone, leutinizing hormone, prolactin and testosterone respectively. The reduction of blood parameters is due to less haemopoiesis or induction of anemia. The increase in hormone level may be a cause of prostate cancer in wistar albino rats

Vermicomposting: A Step towards Sustainability

Agricultural production depends on so many things. Proper nutrient management is one of them. It becomes a trend to apply excess amount of fertilizer for enhancing productivity without considering its effect on soil health. Vermicomposting is a process of scientifically decomposing agricultural, municipality, and industrial wastes into nutrient enriched compost by earthworms. Vermicompost not only balance underground soil environment and makes is a suitable habitat for soil micro biota but also improves above ground environment. Microbes are the fundamental element of ecosystem. Use of vermicompost increases growth and proliferation of microbes that amplify environment’s betterment. Vermicomposting is also affordable for resource poor small and marginal farmers. Therefore, vermicompost use is more economical than synthetic organic fertilizer. So, economic viability, environmental stability, and enhancing livelihood quality are the major causes for its worldwide adoption in food production

Demystifying NFT Promotion and Phishing Scams

The popularity and hype around purchasing digital assets such as art, video, and music in the form of Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has rapidly made them a lucrative investment opportunity, with NFT-based sales surpassing $25B in 2021 alone. However, the volatility and scarcity of NFTs, combined with the general lack of familiarity with the technical aspects of this ecosystem, encourage the spread of several scams. The success of an NFT is majorly impacted by its online virality. There have been sparse reports about scammers emulating this virality by either promoting their fraudulent NFT projects on social media or imitating other popular NFT projects. This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of 439 unique Twitter accounts that consistently promote fraudulent NFT collections through giveaway competitions and 1,028 NFT phishing attacks. Our findings indicate that most accounts interacting with these promotions are bots, which can rapidly increase the popularity of the fraudulent NFT collections by inflating their likes, followers, and retweet counts. This leads to significant engagement from real users, who then proceed to invest in the scams. On the other hand, we identify two novel attack vectors which are utilized by NFT phishing scams to steal funds and digital assets from the victim's wallet. We also identify several gaps in the prevalent anti-phishing ecosystem by evaluating the performance of popular anti-phishing blocklists and security tools against NFT phishing attacks. We utilize our findings to develop a machine learning classifier that can automatically detect NFT phishing scams at scale