Ultrasonication: An effective pre-treatment method for extracting lipid from Salvinia molesta for biodiesel production

Biodiesel is considered as one of the promising alternative fuels for diesel engines due its renewability and environment friendly nature. As the process of lipid extraction from the biomass consumes about 90% of the total energy spent for biodiesel production, an efficient and economic method is very important. The amount of lipid extracted from the biomass could be increased if it is pre-treated before the extraction process. This work was an attempt to compare the various pre-treatment methods before extracting lipids from dried Salvinia molesta (aquatic weed), such as autoclaving, microwaving, ultrasonication, sand, and glass grinding. After each pre-treatment method, Bligh and Dyer's method was used to measure the total lipid content in percentage dry weight (% dwt), which was then compared with the untreated S. molesta. It was found experimentally that the lipid yield was 19.97% dwt for ultrasonication > 16.60% dwt for microwaving > 16.46% dwt for glass grinding >16.26% dwt for sand grindin, > 15.72% dwt for autoclaving > 15.36% dwt for untreated. The one-way ANOVA with Tukey's test was then used to validate the experimental results and showed that ultrasonication method of pre-treatment was the most efficient and had resulted in the highest lipid yield among all the methods used which was followed by the microwaving method

Effect of hydroxyl value of acrylic polyol and type of crosslinkers on the properties of Polyurethane coetings

Acrylic polyol base polyurethane coatings were prepared by reacting polyol with hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) base prepolymer. Five different types of acrylic polyol based on their hydroxyl value and two type of HDI prepolymer i.e. HDI biuret and HDI trimer were used as a hardners, for preparation of Polyurethane coating. The effect of hydroxyl value of acrylic polyol on PU coating properties like physical, mechanical and chemical properties were studied. The base and hardners were mixed prior to application of coating in a NCO: OH ratio of 1:1.  It was found that the as hydroxyl value of polyol increases, it forms a hard film due to high cross-linked structure than low hydroxyl value polyol. Also HDI prepolymer with higher functionality gives better coating properties

POLYMERIC PARTICLE BOARD:A SUSTAINABLE SUBSTITUTE TO WOODEN BOARDS

The aim of this paper is to give overview about particleboards and its development.Particle boards are wood composite prepared from wood waste , stalks, wood shaving, etc and polymeric resin.Urea-Formaldehyde(UF) and Phenol Formaldehye (PF) being widely used resin for preparation of particle board.Here we discuss about different types wood and resin used for manufacture of particleboard.The effect of different woods and resin on properties like internal bond strength, thickness swelling, modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity and water absorption.Various chemical additives used to modify the properties of particle board and also fire retardant property of particle board.World is leading towards sustainable development thus use of particle board can help us in achieving a small part of it.

Snake Bite in South Asia: A Review

Snake bite is one of the most neglected public health issues in poor rural communities living in the tropics. Because of serious misreporting, the true worldwide burden of snake bite is not known. South Asia is the world's most heavily affected region, due to its high population density, widespread agricultural activities, numerous venomous snake species and lack of functional snake bite control programs. Despite increasing knowledge of snake venoms' composition and mode of action, good understanding of clinical features of envenoming and sufficient production of antivenom by Indian manufacturers, snake bite management remains unsatisfactory in this region. Field diagnostic tests for snake species identification do not exist and treatment mainly relies on the administration of antivenoms that do not cover all of the important venomous snakes of the region. Care-givers need better training and supervision, and national guidelines should be fed by evidence-based data generated by well-designed research studies. Poorly informed rural populations often apply inappropriate first-aid measures and vital time is lost before the victim is transported to a treatment centre, where cost of treatment can constitute an additional hurdle. The deficiency of snake bite management in South Asia is multi-causal and requires joint collaborative efforts from researchers, antivenom manufacturers, policy makers, public health authorities and international funders

Comparison Between Pap Smear and Via As Screening For Cervical Lesions

Introduction: An important reason for higher cervical cancer incidence in developing countries is lack of effective screening programs like pap smear, aimed at detecting precancerous conditions before they progress to invasive cancer. The potential difficulties in implementing cervical cytology based screening in low-resource settings have prompted the investigation of accuracy of alternative low technology tests such as Visual inspection with acetic acid application [VIA], Visual inspection with acetic acid application with magnification [VIAM], visual inspection on Lugol’s Iodine application [VILI] in early detection of cervical neoplasia .In our study we compared pap smear with VIA to study the accurarcy of VIA as it is simpler and easier technique to be used as screening in low resource settings. Aim: This is a hospital based descriptive, prospective study to evaluate validity of pap smear and VIA techniques as screening tests in identifying cervical lesions. Materials And Methods: After general and systemic examination as a routine,visual local pelvic examination including visualisation of cervix and vagina per speculum and the findings are documented in the proforma .Then VIA and pap smear are done in that order, if any of these tests are positive then cervical biopsy will be taken and further advise to the subject is given. Results: A total of 313 women were involved in the study. The sensitivity of pap smear is 54.5% specificity is 98.9% while that of VIA 95.4% and 97.9%respectively. We found that VIA accuracy was comparatively more than that of pap smear. Conclusion: In low resource settings, usefulness of VIA is more than that of pap smear. We suggest to perform VIA in all the women inspite of having pap smear facility to improve detection rate of cervical lesions and provide better patient councelling and treatment

Myeloperoxidase activity in infection complicated and uninfected diabetic patients

179-183The activity of myeloperoxidase (MPO) in the blood and tissue neutrophils of three groups viz., Group I: patients of diabetes mellitus (DM) without infection and related complications; Group II: patients of DM with infections and related complications, and Group III: non-diabetic normal persons as control subjects was estimated to find out the influence of the MPO status on the occurrence of diabetes and also on the infection and related complications found in some of these patients. Group III category showed the highest blood MPO compared to the two diabetic groups (P<0.001). Group II patients exhibited higher MPO activity than group I (P<0.001). The study revealed that increase in MPO in group II was achieved both by increased production of the enzyme at cellular level and also of leukocytes in the system. Estimation of MPO in infected tissue was performed in group II in relation to the histological features and compared with group III, as an index of neutrophil infiltration to the infected sites. Tissue MPO was found higher in group II than group III subjects. Histological analysis revealed that the elevated MPO in infected cases was due to the increased neutrophil infiltration to the infected site. Blood sugar status, diabetic management measures, wound healing ability etc. of diabetic patients was also studied in relation to MPO. MPO activity was higher in normal subjects having normal sugar. In group II, MPO was low in the uncontrolled sugar group compared to the controlled, and in group I vice versa. Insulin-treated diabetic patients showed higher MPO activity than drug-treated and combined therapy groups. Also, patients with healing impairment showed comparatively high MPO activity