The effect of Asthapada Panchaloha Shalaka Agnikarma in the pain management of Gridhrasi w.s.r. to Sciatica

Gridhrasi is a disease explained by Brihatrayees in the context of Vatavyadhi Adhyaya. The earliest reference about the details of Gridhrasi is available from Sushruta Samhita (1500 BC). Gridhrasi is included in Vatajna Natmaja Vyadhi and also considered as Mahagada by Acharya Charaka. In all Ayurvedic literature, there is no direct reference regarding Nidana, but it is included in Vataja Nanatmaja Vyadhi, general Vata Prakopaka Hetus are to be considered. On the basis of symptoms, Gridhrasi can be correlated with the disease Sciatica in the modern parlance, which occurs because of spinal nerve irritation and characterized by its distinct nature of pain in distribution of sciatic nerve and often it is associated with lumbago. The Gridhrasi is commonly seen in society as a major problem which incapacitates patient to perform his daily routine activities because of severe pain from Kati Pradesha to Padanguli. In modern medicine in reference to sciatica treatment, there is no definite curative treatment other than symptomatic management. Objectives of the study was to evaluate the effect of Asthapada Panchaloha Shalaka Agnikarma in the pain management of Gridhrasi w.s.r. to Sciatica and to compare the effect of Bindu Panchaloha Shalaka Agnikarma in the pain management of Gridhrasi. In present study 40 patients with confirmed clinical diagnosis of Gridhrasi/Sciatica were selected randomly and divided into two groups of each 20 patients. Group A patients were treated with Asthapada Panchaloha Shalaka Agnikarma and Group B patients were treated with Bindu Panchaloha Shalaka Agnikarma. After the treatment it was observed that there was statistically significant results in the main signs and symptoms i.e. pain in lumbar region, numbness, SLR test. The study shows that the treatment is statistically significant in Group A when compared to Group B. Group A overall result is 87.29% and Group B overall result is 84.64%

Role of Apamarga Yavakshara in the management of Mutrashmari - A Conceptual Study

Mutrashmari is one of the most common disorders of the Mutravaha Srotas. It is one of the Astamahagada and considered as "Yama” because sometimes it causes acute excruciating pain.[1] In contemporary medical science it is correlated with urolithiasis. Symptoms in general include radiating pain from loin to groin, hematuria, burning micturition, malaise. Prevalence of Urolithiasis varies according to geographical distribution, sex and age. The treatment modalities of urolithiasis in conventional science are conservative medications and surgical procedures which are expensive, involve invasive treatments, needs hospitalization and in most of the cases recurrence rate is high. Ayurveda explains variety of Yogas for the management of Mutrashmari. A combination of Apamarga and Yava Kshara is indicated in Mutrashmari as per Rasatarangini.[2] So this study is taken up, to explore the combined effect of Apamarga and Yava Kshara in Mutrashmari keeping in view the shortcomings of different modern medical treatments

Forming of simple components of silicon carbide, Silicon nitride and silicon by slip casting methods

The slip casting studies on well optimised slips of Sic, Si3N 4 and silicon have been applied to fabricate some components with complicated shapes eg. after burner catalytic ignitor housings, super charger stator rings etc. The green densities of slip cast bodies of Sic, Si3N4 and silicon slips ranges from 50 to 60 of theoretical value, indicating that good compacts can be obtained by the slip casting procedure by using these optimised slips

Thermoelectric properties of co-doped (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3 / reduced graphene oxide composites prepared by solid-state reaction

The thermoelectric properties of co-doped (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3/reduced graphene oxide composites between 10 - 325 K are presented. X-ray diffraction confirms that the composites adopt a rhombohedral structure with space group R3¯m. Field emission scanning electron microscopy reveals an interface structure of reduced graphene oxide (rGO). N-type conducting behaviour is observed for all the samples, as ascertained by Hall effect and Seebeck coefficient measurements, with a carrier concentration of 1025/m3. The thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity of (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3/0.02 wt% reduced graphene oxide composite is found to decrease by 1.6 and 10 times respectively in comparison with that of (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3. The power factor is enhanced by 7 times for (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3/0.01 wt% rGO compared to that of (Bi0.98In0.02)2Te2.7Se0.3

Transgenic Strategies for Improved Drought Tolerance in Legumes of Semi-Arid Tropics

Water deficit is the most prominent abiotic stress that severely limits crop yields, thereby reducing opportunities to improve livelihoods of poor farmers in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) where most of the legumes, including groundnut and chickpea, are grown. Sustained long-term efforts in developing these legume crops with better drought tolerance through conventional breeding have been met with only limited success mainly because of an insufficient understanding of the underlying physiological mechanisms and lack of sufficient polymorphism for drought tolerance-related traits. Exhaustive efforts are being made at the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to improve crop productivity of the SAT crops by comprehensively addressing the constraints caused by water limitations. The transgenic approach has been used to speed up the process of molecular introgression of putatively beneficial genes for rapidly developing stress-tolerant legumes. Nevertheless, the task of generating transgenic cultivars requires success in the transformation process and proper incorporation of stress tolerance into plants. Hence, evaluation of the transgenic plants under stress conditions and understanding the physiological effect of the inserted genes at the whole plant level is critical. This review focuses on the recent progress achieved in using transgenic technology to improve drought tolerance, which includes evaluation of drought-stress response and protocols developed for testing transgenic plants under near-field conditions. A trait-based approach was considered, in which yield was dissected into components

Better root:shoot ratio conferred enhanced harvest index in transgenic groundnut overexpressing the rd29A:DREB1A gene under intermittent drought stress in an outdoor lysimetric dry-down trial

An outdoor confined trial was conducted during the postrainy season of 2009 for physiological evaluation of induced drought tolerance in transgenic plants of groundnut variety JL 24 overexpressing a transcription factor, DREB1A driven by the stress-inducible promoter of the rd29A gene, both from Arabidopsis thaliana. Lysimetric system was used for growing the plants, where intermittent drought stress was imposed at mid-flowering and peak pod-filling stages of the crop, by subjecting plants to a cycle of drying and re-watering. The lysimetric system facilitated complete recovery of roots, thereby, facilitating studies on variations in the root:shoot ratio induced across the genotypes under controlled wellwatered (WW) and imposed drought stress (DS) conditions. Under DS the root:shoot ratio showed a significant (P <0.005) positive correlation with pod yield and harvest index (HI), reflecting clearly the better performance of two transgenic events GNRD11 and GNRD33 than the untransformed variety JL 24. The transgenic event GNRD11, in particular, showed enhanced HI along with significantly higher (P <0.05) seed yield that was 22% and 25% higher than JL 24 and the elite breeding groundnut cultivar ICGV 86031, respectively. Better HI in these transgenic events, when compared to the untransformed control, was mainly due to the effective partitioning of the accumulated biomass, more towards roots and pods while relatively less towards shoot biomass, leading to higher root:shoot ratio and better yield, also suggesting better water use efficiency in the former compared to the latter

Photonic system for real-time detection, discrimination, and quantification of microbes in air

We report the results of the non-invasive photonic system AUM for remote detection and characterization of different pathogenic bacterial strains and mixtures. AUM applies the concepts of elastic light scattering, statistical mechanics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to identify, classify and quantify various microbes in the scattering volume in real-time and, therefore, can become a potential tool in controlling and managing diseases caused by pathogenic microbes