Evaluation of Antiproliferative Activity of Red Sorghum Bran Anthocyanin on a Human Breast Cancer Cell Line (MCF-7)

Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women worldwide both in the developed and developing countries. Thus effective treatment of breast cancer with potential antitumour drugs is important. In this paper, human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 has been employed to evaluate the antiproliferative activity of red sorghum bran anthocyanin. The present investigation showed that red sorghum bran anthocyanin induced growth inhibition of MCF-7 cells at significant level. The growth inhibition is dose dependent and irreversible in nature. When MCF-7 cells were treated with red sorghum bran anthocyanins due to activity of anthocyanin morphological changes were observed. The morphological changes were identified through the formation of apoptopic bodies. The fragmentation by these anthocyanins on DNA to oligonuleosomal-sized fragments, is a characteristic of apoptosis, and it was observed as concentration-dependent. Thus, this paper clearly demonstrates that human breast cancer cell MCF-7 is highly responsive by red sorghum bran anthocyanins result from the induction of apoptosis in MCF-7 cells

ON THE ABSORPTION SPECTRUM AND THE GROUND STATE OF THE Ce IV ION

In this paper ultra-violet absorption spectra of different solutions of CeCl3 have been studied.@IAC

Fluorescence studies on the interaction of some ligands with carcinoscorpin, the sialic acid specific lectin, from the horseshoe crab, Carcinoscorpius rotundacauda

The binding affinities of some ligands towards the sialic acid-specific lectin carcinoscorpin, from hemolymph of the horseshoe crab Carcinoscorpius rotundacauda have been determined by protein fluorescence quenching in presence of ligands. Among the ligands studied, the disaccharide O-(N-acetylneuraminyl)-(2→6)-2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-galactitol has the highest Ka (l.15 × 106 M−1) for carcinoscorpin. Studies on the effect of pH on Ka values of disaccharide suggests the possible involvement of amino acid residues having pKa values around 6.0 and 9.0 in the binding activity of carcinoscorpin. There were distinct changes in the accessibility of the fluorescent tryptophan residues of carcinoscorpin by ligand-binding as checked through potassium iodide quenching

Microwave Acid Leaching of Beneficiated Ilmenite for the Production of Synthetic Rutile

Beneficiated ilmenite is an intermediate product formed by the aqueous rusting of metallised ilmenite and separation of iron oxide. This product enriched with TiO2 by the removal of metallic iron can further be upgraded by subs-equent removal of residual iron by acid leaching for the production of synthetic rutile which is a preferred tita-nium feedstock for the preparation of TiO2 pigment

Alteration in peripheral muscle strength among overweight and obese individuals: A systematic review

© Journal of Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences University. Peripheral muscle dysfunction in Overweight (OW) and Obesity (OB) leads to fatigue and activity limitations. However, there are contradictory views regarding the exact level with regard to hand grip and quadriceps muscle strength in OW and OB. The main objective of the present systematic review was to synthesize the literature for the strength part of the hand grip and quadriceps muscle strength among OW and OB. Literature search of Scopus, EBSCO and PubMed databases from 01.01.2004 to 30.06.2016, was performed. We set our search strategy using the terms “overweight OR obesity” AND “muscle strength” AND “grip OR quadriceps”. Two reviewers administered established eligible criteria and extracted the data. Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) was used to assess the risk of bias. Sixteen articles which were included identified Handgrip Strength (HGS), shoulder flexor, elbow flexor and knee extensor were found to be altered. There were consistent results with an increase in quadriceps muscle strength, whereas differed results were found in hand grip to increase and decrease in muscle strength in the presence of OW and OB. It is concluded that HGS appeared to be diversified with findings of increased and decrease strength, whereas regarding the quadriceps muscles, the findings were homogeneous

Toeplitz Inverse Covariance-Based Clustering of Multivariate Time Series Data

Subsequence clustering of multivariate time series is a useful tool for discovering repeated patterns in temporal data. Once these patterns have been discovered, seemingly complicated datasets can be interpreted as a temporal sequence of only a small number of states, or clusters. For example, raw sensor data from a fitness-tracking application can be expressed as a timeline of a select few actions (i.e., walking, sitting, running). However, discovering these patterns is challenging because it requires simultaneous segmentation and clustering of the time series. Furthermore, interpreting the resulting clusters is difficult, especially when the data is high-dimensional. Here we propose a new method of model-based clustering, which we call Toeplitz Inverse Covariance-based Clustering (TICC). Each cluster in the TICC method is defined by a correlation network, or Markov random field (MRF), characterizing the interdependencies between different observations in a typical subsequence of that cluster. Based on this graphical representation, TICC simultaneously segments and clusters the time series data. We solve the TICC problem through alternating minimization, using a variation of the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. We derive closed-form solutions to efficiently solve the two resulting subproblems in a scalable way, through dynamic programming and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), respectively. We validate our approach by comparing TICC to several state-of-the-art baselines in a series of synthetic experiments, and we then demonstrate on an automobile sensor dataset how TICC can be used to learn interpretable clusters in real-world scenarios.Comment: This revised version fixes two small typos in the published versio

Natural windbreaks sustain bird diversity in a tea-dominated landscape

Windbreaks often form networks of forest habitats that improve connectivity and thus conserve biodiversity, but little is known of such effects in the tropics. We determined bird species richness and community composition in windbreaks composed of remnant native vegetation amongst tea plantations (natural windbreaks), and compared it with the surrounding primary forests. Fifty-one, ten-minute point counts were conducted in each habitat type over three days. Despite the limited sampling period, our bird inventories in both natural windbreaks and primary forests were nearly complete, as indicated by bootstrap true richness estimator. Bird species richness and abundance between primary forests and windbreaks were similar, however a difference in bird community composition was observed. Abundances of important functional groups such as frugivores and insectivores did not vary between habitat types but nectarivores were more abundant in windbreaks, potentially as a result of the use of windbreaks as traveling routes, foraging and nesting sites. This preliminary study suggests that natural windbreaks may be important habitats for the persistence of bird species in a production landscape. However, a better understanding of the required physical and compositional characteristics for windbreaks to sustain bird communities is needed for effective conservation management.Rachakonda Sreekar, Anand Mohan, Sandeep Das, Prerna Agarwal, Ramachandran Vive

Convective thundercloud development over the western ghats mountain slope in Kerala

Studies were carried out on the data from Braemore mountain observatory (lat. 8°45'N, long. 77°5'E) using a single-lens ceilometer (LIDAR), an electric field mill and a portable automatic weather station throughout the year 2010. The simultaneous data collected using the above instruments indicate the existence of strong updrafts followed by the formation of thunderclouds, a characteristic of the mountain slopes, during the thunderstorm months. Changes in atmosphere related to condensation and formation of water droplets during updraft events on the mountain slope could be detected from the ceilometer scattering data. Results of the study point to the cause of relatively more thunderstorm activity in that zone. This seems to be due to excessive updraft, which is strongly related to lightning activity in the region