A study to evaluate the analgesic activity of Origanum vulgare in mice using tail flick method

Background: Pain is a complex experience consisting of physiological and psychological response to a noxious stimulus. Analgesics like opiates and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are commonly used for relieving pain but are associated with various unwanted side effects; therefore this study was conducted by using Origanum vulgare for their analgesic efficacy.Methods: In vivo model used was tail flick method. Origanum vulgare (84 mg/kg p.o) was administered in mice. The analgesic activity was studied by recording the reaction time after administration of the drug at frequent intervals up to 3 hours. The results were analysed by ANOVA and Tukey’s test. P-value <0.05 was considered as significant. Pentazocine showed statistically prolongation in the reaction time after 30 min as compared to Origanum vulgare.Results: In tail flick method, pentazocine showed statistically significant increase in the reaction time after 30 min of administration as compared to control group. However, Origanum vulgare in a dose of 84 mg/kg showed significant increase in the reaction time after 30 min of administration as compared to control group. On comparing pentazocine and Origanum vulgare, pentazocine showed highly significant increase in the reaction time after 30 min as compared to Origanum vulgare at 84 mg/kg dose.Conclusions: From the present study, it was concluded that extract of Origanum vulgare exerted analgesic activity in both the models. However, it was less potent than pentazocine. Thus, Origanum vulgare can be used in mild to moderate painful conditions

Determination and uncertainty analysis of inorganic arsenic in rice by UHPLC-ICPMS

The present study arose from the need of to determine inorganic arsenic (iAs) at low levels in rice. Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ICPMS) using Kinetic Energy Discrimination (KED) mode to eliminate spectral interferences was used for analysis of iAs. Sample preparation involves extraction of inorganic arsenic (sum of As3+ and As5+) with water by heating at 90 °C for 5 min in water bath. Separation is accomplished with a reversed-phase ion pack column using a gradient chromatographic method followed by ICPMS analysis within 5 min. The method was validated in accordance with Commission Regulation (EU) No 836/2011 and performance characteristics were verifi ed. Acceptable values were obtained for specifi city, repeatability (HorRatr < 0.6), within-lab reproducibility (HorRatR < 0.3) with recovery 80-90%, limit of quantifi cation (0.02 mg/ kg), fi tness-for-purpose and trueness (using CRM); thus, the method can be considered for offi cial control purposes

Graphene oxide dielectric permittivity at GHz and its applications for wireless humidity sensing

Graphene oxide relative dielectric permittivity, both its real and imaginary parts, have been measured under various humidity conditions at GHz. It is demonstrated that the relative dielectric permittivity increases with increasing humidity due to water uptake. This electrical property of graphene oxide was used to create a battery-free wireless radio-frequency identification (RFID) humidity sensor by coating printed graphene antenna with the graphene oxide layer. The resonance frequency as well as the backscattering phase of such graphene oxide/graphene antenna become sensitive to the surrounding humidity and can be detected by the RFID reader. This enables batteryless wireless monitoring of the local humidity with digital identification attached to any location or item and paves the way for low-cost efficient sensors for Internet of Things applications

Effects of occurrence data density on conservation prioritization strategies

Place-prioritization analyses are a means by which researchers can translate information on the geographic distributions of species into quantitative prioritizations of areas for biodiversity conservation action. Although several robust algorithms are now available to support this sort of analysis, their vulnerability to biases deriving from incomplete and imbalanced distributional information is not well understood. In this contribution, we took a well-sampled group (i.e., Icteridae or New World blackbirds) in an intensively sampled region (the contiguous continental United States), and developed a set of pseudo-experimental manipulations of occurrence data density—in effect, we created situations in which data density was reduced 10- or 100-fold, and situations in which data density varied 100-fold from region to region. The effects were marked: priority areas for conservation shifted, appeared, and disappeared as a function of our manipulations. That is, differences in density of data can affect the position and complexity of areas of high conservation priority that are identified using distributional areas of species derived from ecological niche modeling. The effects of data density on prioritizations become more diffuse when considerations of existing protected areas and costs related to human intervention are taken into account, but changes are still manifested. Appropriate considerations of sampling density when constructing ecological niche models to identify distributional areas of species are key to preventing artifactual biases from entering into and affecting results of analyses of conservation priority

Lagrangian Neural Style Transfer for Fluids

Artistically controlling the shape, motion and appearance of fluid simulations pose major challenges in visual effects production. In this paper, we present a neural style transfer approach from images to 3D fluids formulated in a Lagrangian viewpoint. Using particles for style transfer has unique benefits compared to grid-based techniques. Attributes are stored on the particles and hence are trivially transported by the particle motion. This intrinsically ensures temporal consistency of the optimized stylized structure and notably improves the resulting quality. Simultaneously, the expensive, recursive alignment of stylization velocity fields of grid approaches is unnecessary, reducing the computation time to less than an hour and rendering neural flow stylization practical in production settings. Moreover, the Lagrangian representation improves artistic control as it allows for multi-fluid stylization and consistent color transfer from images, and the generality of the method enables stylization of smoke and liquids likewise.Comment: ACM Transaction on Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2020), additional materials: http://www.byungsoo.me/project/lnst/index.htm

SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion

Abstract: The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in the state of Maharashtra in late 2020 and spread throughout India, outcompeting pre-existing lineages including B.1.617.1 (Kappa) and B.1.1.7 (Alpha)1. In vitro, B.1.617.2 is sixfold less sensitive to serum neutralizing antibodies from recovered individuals, and eightfold less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies, compared with wild-type Wuhan-1 bearing D614G. Serum neutralizing titres against B.1.617.2 were lower in ChAdOx1 vaccinees than in BNT162b2 vaccinees. B.1.617.2 spike pseudotyped viruses exhibited compromised sensitivity to monoclonal antibodies to the receptor-binding domain and the amino-terminal domain. B.1.617.2 demonstrated higher replication efficiency than B.1.1.7 in both airway organoid and human airway epithelial systems, associated with B.1.617.2 spike being in a predominantly cleaved state compared with B.1.1.7 spike. The B.1.617.2 spike protein was able to mediate highly efficient syncytium formation that was less sensitive to inhibition by neutralizing antibody, compared with that of wild-type spike. We also observed that B.1.617.2 had higher replication and spike-mediated entry than B.1.617.1, potentially explaining the B.1.617.2 dominance. In an analysis of more than 130 SARS-CoV-2-infected health care workers across three centres in India during a period of mixed lineage circulation, we observed reduced ChAdOx1 vaccine effectiveness against B.1.617.2 relative to non-B.1.617.2, with the caveat of possible residual confounding. Compromised vaccine efficacy against the highly fit and immune-evasive B.1.617.2 Delta variant warrants continued infection control measures in the post-vaccination era

Atomic structure and properties of graphene and novel graphene derivatives

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