A pharmacological study on Stixis suaveolens (Roxb.) using experimental animal model

The présent study was aimed to screen crude methanol fruit extract of S. suaveolens for biological activity in mice model. The central analgesic activity was assessed using the ‘tail flick’ method. Whereas the peripheral analgesic activity was determined by acetyl salicylic acid induced writhing method. The anti-hyperglycemic potential was evaluated by the ability of the crude extract in reducing blood glucose level after oral glucose administration. The CNS stimulating activity was evaluated by the well-known phenobarbitone induced sleep bioassay. In ‘tail flick’ bioassay, the oral dose of crude extract resulted in 238% delay (P<0.001) in response time, comparable to the effect of standard morphine but its effect lasted till 90 min after administration, whereas morphine had a greater duration of action. The crude extract at 400 mg/kg showed significant (P<0.001) inhibition of writhing similar to the standard diclofenac (50 mg/kg). Maximum reduction of glucose level (39.6%) was observed 120 min after oral intake of the extract while the result was lower compared to the 46.83% reduction by the standard glibenclamide. Significant (p<0.01) reduction in time for onset of sleeping as well as the total sleeping time was recorded in mice receiving the crude extract. The extract resulted in delayed sleeping intervals by 156.4 min (91.6 min in control group) and the duration of sleep was reduced to 83.6 min while 148.4 min was recorded in the control. The in vivo bioassays confirms that the extract from the fruit of S. suaveolens possess significant analgesic (acting both centrally and peripherally), glucose lowering and CNS stimulating ability which has been the reason behind its popularity as a traditional medicine.Â

Climate change trends in some of the rubber growing regions of North-East India

Climate change   analysis has been conducted using daily surface meteorological datasets in   respect of nine parameters from five rubber growing locations in the East and   North-East India. Monthly, seasonal and annual variability in meteorological   parameters showed decreasing trends in relative humidity, sunshine hours and   pan evaporation rates coupled with increasing temperature extremes. Rise in   mean temperature was seen to be highest (0.34 0C per decade) for Dhenkanal   which experiences dry sub-humid type of climate. The data on relative humidity   and temperature also revealed the fact that warm surface temperatures, along   with limited moisture availability, may lead to lower relative humidity in   the future, since all the stations are away from the moist coastal belts.   Decreasing trends in sunshine hours were mainly observed during winter and   post monsoon seasons with decreasing number of days even with the optimum   required daily sunshine hours. The fact that there were no significant   changes in the amount of rainfall or the number of rainy days was in   conformity with several earlier reports in the northeast. Mean monthly   decadal variations have also been tested with earlier and recent sets. With   long term trends in most of the weather parameters, being lesser when   compared to that of the traditional rubber growing regions in India, it is   imperative that for rubber cultivation to thrive in this non-traditional   belt, future policy inputs will have to be based depending on the magnitude   of climate change effects

Social Support, Mental Health Problems, And Rule Infractions: A Study Of Female Inmates

Currently there are few studies that solely focused on female inmates and their mental health problems. There is huge lack of in-depth examination on the impact of social support variables on overall rule infractions. Using a multilevel analysis, this study analyzed the moderation effect of social support variables on rule infractions among female inmates (n=2,930) from the 2004 Survey of Inmates of State Correctional Facilities in the United States. Findings suggest that almost 55% of the sample suffered from mental health problems where female inmates with mental health problems reported significantly higher rates of minor rule infractions (78%). Also, the results found that with high level of stress and unstable social support inmates tend to involve with more substance-related rule infractions. The findings suggest for more research to understand broader implications of social support on mental health conditions of female inmates

The marine pollution control from industrial sources in Bangladesh : a legal study

Marine pollution from industrial sources is a key concern for the government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is not an industrialised country, but the rapid growth of industry has created a serious marine pollution problem in this country. Numerous guidelines and principles on the basis of controlling procedures have been formulated by the government in the long run for addressing the matter. Despite the initiatives, no important progress has been achieved. This study intends to discover the shortcomings of the problem and recommend necessary measures to control the pollution effectively. This thesis discusses different international legal instruments of regional and universal application and regional initiatives to control marine pollution from industrial sources. Further, from the management viewpoint, a useful scheme to control pollution is impossible to establish unless the efforts are cooperatively put in practice. This research study evaluates the prevailing legal systems, studies current institutional arrangements, developing state laws and procedures related to marine pollution in an effort to pinpoint lawful modification that may assist the country to safeguard itself due to marine pollution. This research established that there are too many laws regarding marine pollution control, but no firm law to prevent marine pollution from industrial sources. Thus, a separate and integrated marine pollution prevention law (from land-based sources including industrial sources) and policy are needed to prevent pollution from the said source. To check, decrease and regulate pollution at marine environment, the marine pollution prevention law will be the umbrella for relevant legislation that specify for overall marine environmental protection of Bangladesh. A combined strategy has a part both at the procedure and the preparation levels. stakeholders’ consciousness on a broad strategy helps to manage and coordinate mutual concerns and to reduce the potential of disagreement when policy moves to plan and finally actions. Arrangements for marine pollution from industrial sources should emphasise collaboration among stakeholders local, national and global platforms, because the decisions about marine pollution arrangement would include assistance and procedures that bring various interests and proficiency of lawmakers, professional experts and stakeholders together

Economic valuation of marine protected areas: a review of studies in Southeast Asia

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are key habitats for the conservation of important marine resources. However, most of the MPAs in the world are mismanaged. This paper provides a review of some of the valuation studies on marine protected areas in Southeast Asia. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether economic valuation provides valuable information to policy makers to mitigate the problems in marine protected areas in Southeast Asia. There are 17 studies related to marine protected areas in Southeast Asia that are discussed in this paper in order to determine their implications in policy decisions. Findings from these studies are inferred to maintain sustainable marine resource management in Southeast Asia. Results from this study suggest that more research is needed, as there are limited literatures on this important issue. Moreover, economic valuation is able to provide vital information in policy implications

Challenges of Integrating Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation Policies at the National Level: Bangladesh as a case

Disaster management and climate change adaptation emerges as the greatest long term threats that are challenging overall development efforts of Bangladesh Government of Bangladesh is playing a central role for disaster management and climate change adaptation The Ministry of Food and Disaster Management Mo FDM and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Mo EF are the two key ministries responsible for developing and implementing various programs and policies for disaster management and climate change adaptation respectively This paper discusses the challenges for linking disaster management and climate change adaptation in Bangladesh Structural arrangements policy development process funding arrangement of the Mo FDM and Mo EF have analysed to understand the challenges for integration We find that to some extent Mo FDM and Mo EF are institutionally linked for policy development However there are scopes for further integration between the two ministries especially in the areas of inter-ministerial communi-cation and collaboration A new approach for institutional arrangement is needed which is flexible enough to support continual collaboration of the two ministrie

Vacuum Spacetime With Multipole Moments: The Minimal Size Conjecture, Black Hole Shadow, and Gravitational Wave Observables

In this work, we explicitly construct the vacuum solution of Einstein's equations with prescribed multipole moments. By observing the behavior of the multipole spacetime metric at small distances, we conjecture that for a sufficiently large multipole moment, there is a minimal size below which no object in nature can support such a moment. The examples we have investigated suggest that such minimal size scales as $(M_n)^{1/(n+1)}$ (instead of $(M_n/M)^{1/n}$), where $M$ is the mass and $M_n$ is the $n$th order multipole moment. With the metric of the "multipole spacetime", we analyze the shape of black hole shadow for various multipole moments and discuss the prospects of constraining the moments from shadow observations. In addition, we discuss the shift of gravitational wave phase with respect to those of the Kerr spacetime, for a test particle moving around an object with this set of multipole moments. These phase shifts are required for the program of mapping out the spacetime multipole moments based on gravitational wave observations of extreme mass-ratio inspirals.Comment: 18 pages; 8 figure

Science Potential for Stellar-mass Black Holes as Neighbors of Sgr A*

It has been suggested that there is possibly a class of stellar-mass black holes (BHs) residing near (distance $\le 10^3 M$) the galactic center massive black hole, Sgr A*. Possible formation scenarios include the mass segregation of massive stellar-mass black holes and/or the disk migration if there was an active accretion flow near Sgr A* within $\mathcal{O}(10)$ Myr. In this work, we explore the application of this type of objects as sources of space-borne gravitational wave detectors, such as Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). We find it is possible to probe the spin of Sgr A* based on the precession of the orbital planes of these stellar-mass black holes moving around Sgr A*. We also show that the dynamical friction produced by accumulated cold dark matter near Sgr A* generally produces small measurable phase shift in the gravitational waveform. In the case that there is an axion cloud near Sgr A*, the dynamical friction induced modification to gravitational waveform is measurable only if the mass of the axion field is in a narrow range of the mass spectrum. Gravitational interaction between the axion cloud and the stellar-mass black holes may introduce additional precession around the spin of Sgr A*. This additional precession rate is generally weaker than the spin-induced Lense-Thirring precession rate, but nevertheless may contaminate the spin measurement in a certain parameter regime. At last, we point out that the multi-body gravitational interaction between these stellar-mass black holes generally causes negligible phase shift during the LISA lifetime.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures v2: new Fisher parameter added; threshold SNR changes slightly; v3: matches with the published version

Perancangan Sistem Pendukung Keputusan untuk Memilih Jurusan pada Perguruan Tinggi Negeri

This research aims to design a Decision Support System (DSS) to choose a major in public universities. The system can be used asr consultation tool for prospective students in determining the choice of majors and colleges that match their interests and academic abilities. The input data used are interest test results and academic ability test then the data will be processed using Case Based Reasoning (CBR) to match the psychology and a passing grade score in appropriate department at public universities. This system is designed using  the Unified Modelling Language (UML) design model, the PHP programming language with laravel framework, and MySQL as the database. Results from this study is an application that can be used prospective students or class XII students in SMA / SMK to consult in determining by of majors in higher education