Study of Teratogenic Effects of Chitrak (Plumbago-zeylanica) an Ayurvedic Drug on Developing Mice Embryo

In classical Ayurvedic literature, the root preparation of plant Chitrak (Plumbago-zeylanica) is well documented to be having anti-cancer properties. Away from its use as anti-neoplastic drug, it is also a very common ingredient in so many Ayurvedic formulations which are used as herbal digestive and carminative. Many times they can be prescribed to a pregnant woman also, so the present study is designed to assess the teratogenic effect in mice embryos induced by Chitrak as Ayurvedic medicine. After evaluation of 24 fetuses who have received Chitrakroot powder during their anti-natal life period, it can be said that Chitrak is relatively safe for them; however, only a few fetuses have shown subcutaneous hemorrhages in their necks

Treatment of wastewater from petroleum industry: current practices and perspectives

© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Petroleum industry is one of the fastest growing industries, and it significantly contributes to economic growth in developing countries like India. The wastewater from a petroleum industry consist a wide variety of pollutants like petroleum hydrocarbons, mercaptans, oil and grease, phenol, ammonia, sulfide, and other organic compounds. All these compounds are present as very complex form in discharged water of petroleum industry, which are harmful for environment directly or indirectly. Some of the techniques used to treat oily waste/wastewater are membrane technology, photocatalytic degradation, advanced oxidation process, electrochemical catalysis, etc. In this review paper, we aim to discuss past and present scenario of using various treatment technologies for treatment of petroleum industry waste/wastewater. The treatment of petroleum industry wastewater involves physical, chemical, and biological processes. This review also provides scientific literature on knowledge gaps and future research directions to evaluate the effect(s) of various treatment technologies available

Condition Monitoring of Rotating Elements Using Acoustic Emission: Indian Scenario

The first experimental study in the world on the phenomenon of generation of Acoustic Emission dates back to the 1950’s when Josef Kaiser heard these emissions during metal failure. But unfortunately, the work could not get impetus because of the limited means of sensing high frequency waves and the lack of knowledge dissemination. In the 1970’s, the electronic instrumentation improved resulting in the increased activity centers of AE. At that time, Rao initiated work in this area at the Indian Institute of Science, Banglore for the first time in India. With the pioneering efforts of his group at IISc, new vistas were opened in this field. As a consequence of it, the first paper from India on this phenomenon was published in 1977 by Eshwar, et al. [1], The paper dealt with the study of the form of AE observed on the cracking/breaking of plywood with prepared defects

Seemingly Unrelated Regressions with Spatial Error Components

This paper considers various estimators using panel data seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) with spatial error correlation. The true data generating process is assumed to be SUR with spatial error of the autoregressive or moving average type. Moreover, the remainder term of the spatial process is assumed to follow an error component structure. Both maximum likelihood and generalized moments (GM) methods of estimation are used. Using Monte Carlo experiments, we check the performance of these estimators and their forecasts under misspecification of the spatial error process, various spatial weight matrices, and heterogeneous versus homogeneous panel data models

Working Group Report: Heavy-Ion Physics and Quark-Gluon Plasma

This is the report of Heavy Ion Physics and Quark-Gluon Plasma at WHEPP-09 which was part of Working Group-4. Discussion and work on some aspects of Quark-Gluon Plasma believed to have created in heavy-ion collisions and in early universe are reported.Comment: 20 pages, 6 eps figures, Heavy-ion physics and QGP activity report in "IX Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-09)" held in Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India, during January 3-14, 2006. To be published in PRAMANA - Journal of Physics (Indian Academy of Science

A Novel Role for Aquaporin-5 in Enhancing Microtubule Organization and Stability

Aquaporin-5 (AQP5) is a water-specific channel located on the apical surface of airway epithelial cells. In addition to regulating transcellular water permeability, AQP5 can regulate paracellular permeability, though the mechanisms by which this occurs have not been determined. Microtubules also regulate paracellular permeability. Here, we report that AQP5 promotes microtubule assembly and helps maintain the assembled microtubule steady state levels with slower turnover dynamics in cells. Specifically, reduced levels of AQP5 correlated with lower levels of assembled microtubules and decreased paracellular permeability. In contrast, overexpression of AQP5 increased assembly of microtubules, with evidence of increased MT stability, and promoted the formation of long straight microtubules in the apical domain of the epithelial cells. These findings indicate that AQP5-mediated regulation of microtubule dynamics modulates airway epithelial barrier properties and epithelial function

The Role of Lactic Acid Adsorption by Ion Exchange Chromatography

Background: The polyacrylic resin Amberlite IRA-67 is a promising adsorbent for lactic acid extraction from aqueous solution, but little systematic research has been devoted to the separation efficiency of lactic acid under different operating conditions. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this paper, we investigated the effects of temperature, resin dose and lactic acid loading concentration on the adsorption of lactic acid by Amberlite IRA-67 in batch kinetic experiments. The obtained kinetic data followed the pseudo-second order model well and both the equilibrium and ultimate adsorption slightly decreased with the increase of the temperature at 293–323K and 42.5 g/liter lactic acid loading concentration. The adsorption was a chemically heterogeneous process with a mean free energy value of 12.18 kJ/mol. According to the Boyd _ plot, the lactic acid uptake process was primarily found to be an intraparticle diffusion at a lower concentration (,50 g/liter) but a film diffusion at a higher concentration (.70 g/liter). The values of effective diffusion coefficient D i increased with temperature. By using our Equation (21), the negative values of DGu and DHu revealed that the adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic. Moreover, the negative value of DSu reflected the decrease of solid-liquid interface randomness at the solid-liquid interface when adsorbing lactic acid on IRA-67. Conclusions/Significance: With the weakly basic resin IRA-67, in situ product removal of lactic acid can be accomplishe

Voltage Gated Calcium Channels Negatively Regulate Protective Immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis modulates levels and activity of key intracellular second messengers to evade protective immune responses. Calcium release from voltage gated calcium channels (VGCC) regulates immune responses to pathogens. In this study, we investigated the roles of VGCC in regulating protective immunity to mycobacteria in vitro and in vivo. Inhibiting L-type or R-type VGCC in dendritic cells (DCs) either using antibodies or by siRNA increased calcium influx in an inositol 1,4,5-phosphate and calcium release calcium activated channel dependent mechanism that resulted in increased expression of genes favoring pro-inflammatory responses. Further, VGCC-blocked DCs activated T cells that in turn mediated killing of M. tuberculosis inside macrophages. Likewise, inhibiting VGCC in infected macrophages and PBMCs induced calcium influx, upregulated the expression of pro-inflammatory genes and resulted in enhanced killing of intracellular M. tuberculosis. Importantly, compared to healthy controls, PBMCs of tuberculosis patients expressed higher levels of both VGCC, which were significantly reduced following chemotherapy. Finally, blocking VGCC in vivo in M. tuberculosis infected mice using specific antibodies increased intracellular calcium and significantly reduced bacterial loads. These results indicate that L-type and R-type VGCC play a negative role in M. tuberculosis infection by regulating calcium mobilization in cells that determine protective immunity

Groundwater quality issues and challenges for drinking and irrigation uses in central ganga basin dominated with rice-wheat cropping system

Increased population and increasing demands for food in the Indo-Gangetic plain are likely to exert pressure on fresh water due to rise in demand for drinking and irrigation water. The study focuses on Bhojpur district, Bihar located in the central Ganga basin, to assess the groundwater quality for drinking and irrigation purpose and discuss the issues and challenges. Groundwater is mostly utilized in the study area for drinking and irrigation purposes (major crops sown in the area are rice and wheat). There were around 45 groundwater samples collected across the study region in the pre-monsoon season (year 2019). The chemical analytical results show that Ca2+, Mg2+ and HCO3− ions are present in abundance in groundwater and governing the groundwater chemistry. Further analysis shows that 66%, 69% and 84% of the samples exceeded the acceptable limit of arsenic (As), Fe and Mn respectively and other trace metals (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd) are within the permissible limit of drinking water as prescribed by Bureau of Indian Standard for drinking water. Generally, high as concentration has been found in the aquifer (depth ranges from 20 to 40 m below ground surface) located in proximity of river Ganga. For assessing the irrigation water quality, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) values, residual sodium carbonate (RSC), Na%, permeability index (PI) and calcium alteration index (CAI) were calculated and found that almost all the samples are found to be in good to excellent category for irrigation purposes. The groundwater facie has been classified into Ca-Mg-HCO3 type