Nicotinamide in some seaweeds

The food value of marine algae lies mainly in their minerals and vitamins content (Chapman and Chapman, 1980). They are good source of vitamins like A,D,E,B series and C. Pakistan has a rich marine flora, so far more than 200 species of seaweeds have been reported (Shameel and Tanaka, 1992)

Feeding trials of green seaweed Ulva fasciata

For the nutritional evaluation of green seaweed Ulva fasciata, a feeding trial was performed in albino rats. The results indicated that the 20% replacement of seaweed U. fasciata instead of carrot or lettuce in rad diet causes no harmful effects, as evident by a non-significant change in blood constituents and serum enzyme levels. The weight gain observed in rats with U. fasciata diet was same as that of control diet. The true digestibility ratio of U. fasciata was 80.20% with carrot and 83.4% with lettuce. The data suggest that the green seaweed U. fasciata could be used as an alternative dietary component in animal fodder

Physiochemical changes in tissue of edible oyster Crassostrea glomerata at refrigerated temperature

Oysters are bivalve molluscs in the family Osteridae of the order Ostereoida and are found throughout the world. Quality of stored muscle of oyster, Crossostrea glomerata depends on the temperature and storage time. Investigation on factors responsible for spoilage of oyster meat in refrigerator (7±2°C); in term of biochemical indices, indicated that in 1-2 days the following changes will accur: oyster tissue total protein from 7.6±0.44g% to 7.06±0.64g%, salt soluble protein from 3A6±0.52mg% to 2.53±0.14g%.Totallipid from 3.0±0.38g% to 2.5±0.29g%, TMA from 1.1±0.11 mg% to 1.46±0.09 and TVB, from 946±0.29mg% to 19.33±0.06 and on 7th day of storage, total protein to 4.5±0.32g%, salt soluble protein to 1.1±0.21g%, total lipid to 1.4±0.19g%, TMA, to 4.3±0.41 mg% and TVB to 83.3±3.5 changed. Amount of Glycogen in fresh meat was 5.3g% which decreased to 3.2g% during 7 days storage. Water content in fresh tissue was 79.0±0.57g% and increased at 7±2°C gradually with the increase of storage time. After 7 days it reached to the highly significant (p<0.001) value of 89.1±0.54g%.pH in fresh tissue was also noted 6.60±0.17and slightly non significant change was observed during 7 days of storage. On the 7th day it decreased to 6.3±0.05 from its fresh tissue value significantly (p£0.001) with storage time. Results concluded that oyster meat could be preserved for 4 days up to acceptable refrigeration temperature

Integration of digital watermarking technique into medical imaging systems

This paper presents the process of integrating digital watermarking technique into medical imaging workflow to evaluate, validate and verify its applicability and appropriateness to medical domains. This is significant to ensure the ability of the proposed approach to tackle security threats that may face medical images during routine medical practices. This work considers two key objectives within the aim of defining a secure and practical digital medical imaging system: current digital medical workflows are deeply analyzed to define security limitations in Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) of medical imaging; the proposed watermarking approach is then theoretically tested and validated in its ability to operate in a real-world scenario (e.g. PACS). These have been undertaken through identified case studies related to manipulations of medical images within PACS workflow during acquisition, viewing, exchanging and archiving. This work assures the achievement of the identified particular requirements of digital watermarking when applied to digital medical images and also provides robust controls within medical imaging pipelines to detect modifications that may be applied to medical images during viewing, storing and transmitting

Determination of acute toxicity levels of mercury to the fish Tilapia mossambica (Peters)

Toxicity of inorganic mercury to the freshwater fish Tilapia mossambica was demonstrated by static bioassays. Statistical analysis was used for calculating 48 hr median tolerance limit, 95% confidence limits and the slope function (S). No mortality was observed within 48 hr in mercuric chloride concentration of 0.7 mgl-1 although the swimming activity of the fish decreased and the rate of opercular movement increased significantly. Concentrations of 0.9 mgl-1 and higher proved lethal. Symptoms of mercury poisoning and safe concentrations of mercury have been discussed

Use of electrophoresis and immunoelectrophoresis in taxonomic and pollution studies

Studies were conducted on the electrophoresis of blood serum and eye lens proteins of 5 fishes and immunoelectrophoresis of the soluble lens proteins of 10 fishes. The effects of a toxic pollutant (mercury) on the electrophoretic patterns of the serum, haemoglobin and eye lens proteins of a euryhaline fish Tilapia mossambica (Peters) has also been studied. The use of fish blood morphology as a biological index of water quality has been indicated

Finite Element Analysis and Modelling of Perlon - Fiberglass of a Prosthetic socket

Finite element analysis can be a useful tool in investigating the mechanical interaction between the residual limb and its prosthetic socket, and in computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing of prosthetic sockets. The intention of this paper was to analyze prosthetic socket of distinct materials and for different geometry for optimum design solution by finite element analysis. The finite element method (FEM) is a very powerful tool for analysing the behaviour of structures, especially when the geometry and mechanics are too complex to be modelled with analytical methods. A modified three dimensional finite element model of socket was developed in workbench of ANSYS 14.0 to find out the stress distribution and deformation pattern under functionally appropriate loading condition during normal gait cycle.  A variety of materials were used for the analysis of the socket like The optimization technique results showed that the best optimal design of the prosthetic above knee socket is in lay-up 4perlon 2fiber glass 4perlon design under temperature 20 . This study focuses on the analysis of patellar tendon bearing prosthetic sockets with integrated compliant features designed to relieve contact pressure between the residual limb and socket. In this study, the numerical results of stress distribution model of the prosthetic above knee socket showed that the values of maximum stress according to Von-Mises criterion results are increased with the increasing of temperatures. The best designs results of the prosthetic above knee socket are (94.64%) in lamination lay-up 4-2-4 under 20  where it took from pervious study. The procedure developed through this work can be used by future researchers and prosthetic designers in understanding how to better design transfemoral prosthesis. Keywords: Prosthetic; Safety factor; Finite element model; Socke

ROI-based reversible watermarking scheme for ensuring the integrity and authenticity of DICOM MR images

Reversible and imperceptible watermarking is recognized as a robust approach to confirm the integrity and authenticity of medical images and to verify that alterations can be detected and tracked back. In this paper, a novel blind reversible watermarking approach is presented to detect intentional and unintentional changes within brain Magnetic Resonance (MR) images. The scheme segments images into two parts; the Region of Interest (ROI) and the Region of Non Interest (RONI). Watermark data is encoded into the ROI using reversible watermarking based on the Difference Expansion (DE) technique. Experimental results show that the proposed method, whilst fully reversible, can also realize a watermarked image with low degradation for reasonable and controllable embedding capacity. This is fulfilled by concealing the data into ‘smooth’ regions inside the ROI and through the elimination of the large location map required for extracting the watermark and retrieving the original image. Our scheme delivers highly imperceptible watermarked images, at 92.18-99.94dB Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) evaluated through implementing a clinical trial based on relative Visual Grading Analysis (relative VGA). This trial defines the level of modification that can be applied to medical images without perceptual distortion. This compares favorably to outcomes reported under current state-of-art techniques. Integrity and authenticity of medical images are also ensured through detecting subsequent changes enacted on the watermarked images. This enhanced security measure, therefore, enables the detection of image manipulations, by an imperceptible approach, that may establish increased trust in the digital medical workflow