ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIULCER POTENTIAL OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF BARK OF MYRICA ESCULENTA IN PYLORIC LIGATION ULCER MODEL

Objective: To evaluate the antiulcer and antioxidant potential of ethanolic extract of bark of Myrica esculenta in pyloric ligated ulcer model in albino rats.Methods: The rats were subjected to pyloric ligation ulcer model and the ethanolic extract of bark of Myrica esculenta were compared with the induced and standard drug Ranitidine. The activity of antioxidant parameters was analysed in the homogenate of stomachs.Results: The levels of gastric volume, total acidity, free acidity, lipid peroxidation and glutathione (GSH) were reduced significantly and antioxidant, parameters like catalase, nitrite and myeloperoxidase (MPO) were increased significantly in the ethanloic extract of bark of Myrica esculenta. Conclusion: The present study revealed that the ethanolic extract of bark of Myrica esculenta improved the anti ulcer and antioxidant potential. Â

Novel phytosynthesis of nanoparticles using Indigeneous Australian Plants

Nanoparticles are considered to be the building blocks of nanotechnology. Biosynthesis of nanoparticles using plant material is an exciting and relatively new developing research area in nanobiotechnology. In the present study, Eucalyptus leaves were collected from Olive pink botanical garden, Alice Springs, Australia and were used to synthesize silver nanoparticles. Cubical structured and well monodispersed silver nanoparticles were formed with an average size of 50nm. The formed silver nanoparticles are found to have promising applications in medicine as good antimicrobial agents. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report on exploiting indigeneous Australian plant sources for the synthesis of metallic nanoparticles

Finite element modelling of natural vibration problems

Finite element models of Modified Rayleigh-Ritz, Galerkin, Least Square, Hybrid (Pian's) and Collocation methods are presented for natural vibration problems. A comparative assessment is made of these methods with Rayleigh-Ritz finite element models. This study brings out that the Galerkin model is relatively superior. A method of improving the accuracy in the estimation of eigenvalues is also included

Model simulation of tide-induced currents in Gauthami-Godavari estuary

Predictive spatial distribution of flow field has been simulated from the time series data on currents and tides during dry season (11-19, February, 2009) in the Gauthami-Godavari Estuary utilizing TIDAL model. A 2D-Tidal Estuarine model has been considered (instead of 3D model) due to well-mixed type system and its circulation is dominated by tides during the observational period. The model forcing functions consist of wind and tidal elevations along the open boundaries and no fresh water inflow from the main stream and no land flood in river system. The bathymetry data of the river basin has been collected and supplemented to the model as one of the rigid boundary conditions to evaluate integration. The bottom roughness length (K) was adjusted to achieve model calibration and verification in model simulations of flow field. The model simulation results are in qualitative agreement with the observational data with calibrated bottom roughness length which is about 0.085 m. Model results reveal that the majority of flow was found to be along the channel axis (i.e. high iso-bath contour). During flood time, flow is south-west direction and it is changed to northeast direction during ebb period which is indicating that the model results resemble flow in the real eastern system

Quantitative assessment of the potential fishery resources of the Indian Ocean and adjoining seas

Even -though oceanic fisheries have bccome a major contributing factor in the world production of marine fish, for countries bordering the Indian Ocean which do not have large mechanized fishing fleet capable of operating far away from their ports, the fisheries of shallow-water areas are of primary interes

Oxidation mechanism in metal nanoclusters: Zn nanoclusters to ZnO hollow nanoclusters

Zn nanoclusters (NCs) are deposited by Low-energy cluster beam deposition technique. The mechanism of oxidation is studied by analysing their compositional and morphological evolution over a long span of time (three years) due to exposure to ambient atmosphere. It is concluded that the mechanism proceeds in two steps. In the first step, the shell of ZnO forms over Zn NCs rapidly up to certain limiting thickness: with in few days -- depending upon the size -- Zn NCs are converted to Zn-ZnO (core-shell), Zn-void-ZnO, or hollow ZnO type NCs. Bigger than ~15 nm become Zn-ZnO (core-shell) type: among them, NCs above ~25 nm could able to retain their initial geometrical shapes (namely triangular, hexagonal, rectangular and rhombohedral), but ~25 to 15 nm size NCs become irregular or distorted geometrical shapes. NCs between ~15 to 5 nm become Zn-void-ZnO type, and smaller than ~5 nm become ZnO hollow sphere type i.e. ZnO hollow NCs. In the second step, all Zn-void-ZnO and Zn-ZnO (core-shell) structures are converted to hollow ZnO NCs in a slow and gradual process, and the mechanism of conversion proceeds through expansion in size by incorporating ZnO monomers inside the shell. The observed oxidation behaviour of NCs is compared with theory of Cabrera - Mott on low-temperature oxidation of metal.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Experimental Study and Optimization of Machining Parameters in Turning of AISI 1040 Steel with Micro-grooved WC Cutting Tools

In dry turning, control over chip formation and the need for the automated machining lead to an advancement in cutting tools. Such concern towards chip breakability is necessary in reducing tool wear, tool tip temperatures and surface roughness of workpiece material. The present study proposes a new development in the traditionally available cutting tools, which acts like a chip breaker. A series of micro-grooves are machined on the rake face of Tungsten carbide (WC) cutting tools using sinker Electric Discharge Machine (EDM). These micro-grooved tools are used to dissolve long continuous chips and heat from the cutting zone in the dry machining of AISI 1040 steel. The results of micro-grooved cutting tools have shown improvement in reducing the tool tip temperatures and surface roughness compared to the conventional cutting tools. The consolidated chip flow phenomenon of plain WC tools is used to decide the location of micro-grooves on the tool rake face. A Taguchi orthogonal array is used to design an experimental layout with minimum number of repetitions in the experiments. Signal-to-noise  ratios and ANOVA is used to understand and identify the significant factors & their level among the input variables on responses.From the results, it is identified that the cutting speed is the most influencing parameter for tool tip temperature at level 1 (i.e. 112 m/min) and surface roughness at level 5 (i.e. 720 m/min)

Inclusion of Deaf Students in Computer Science Classes using Real-time Speech Transcription

Promoting equity, equal opportunities to all and social inclusion of people with disabilities is a concern of modern societies at  large and a key topic in the agenda of European Higher Education. Despite all the progress, we cannot ignore the fact that the conditions provided by the society for the deaf are still far from being perfect. The communication with deaf by means of written text is not as efficient as it might seem at first. In fact, there is a very deep gap between sign language and spoken/written  language. The vocabulary, the sentence construction and the grammatical rules are quite different among these two worlds. These facts bring significant difficulties in reading and understanding the meaning of text for deaf people and, on the other hand, make   it quite difficult for people with no hearing disabilities to understand sign language. The deployment of tools to assist the daily communication, in schools, in public services, in museums and other, between deaf people and the rest may be a significant contribution to the social inclusion of the deaf community. The work described in this paper addresses the development of a bidirectional translator between Portuguese Sign Language and Portuguese text. The translator from sign language to text resorts  to two devices, namely the Microsoft Kinect and 5DT Sensor Gloves in order to gather data about the motion and shape of the hands. The hands configurations are classified using Support Vector Machines. The classification of the movement  and  orientation of the hands are achieved through the use of Dynamic Time Warping algorithm. The translator exhibits a precision higher than 90%. In the other direction, the translation of Portuguese text to Portuguese Sign Language is supported by a 3D avatar which interprets the entered text and performs the corresponding animation

Chemical Constituents during the Main and Off-Season in Mango (Mangifera indica L.) Cv. Royal Special

Evaluation and quantification of fruit quality parameters like carbohydrates, phenolics, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, titrable acidity, Total Soluble Solids (TSS), carotenoids and lycopene content was done in fruits of mango cv. Royal Special, at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, India, during the off-season (October, 2012) and main-season (June, 2013), respectively. 'Royal Special' is a typical off-season bearing cultivar, often characterized by multiple flushing and flowering under South Indian conditions. Major phytonutrients such as total sugars, reducing sugars, starch, total carotenoids, lycopene, total phenols, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, TSS, titrable acidity and average fruit yield per plant, were recorded during the off- and main- seasons. Results indicated that fruits from off-season were higher in the major chemical constituents studied compared to the main-season crop, except for fruit yield per plant. This may be attributed to poor competition for nutrients among the developing fruits which act as a sink, besides fluctuating environmental conditions during the off-season, compared to the main-season