Bio-Prospecting of a Few Brown Seaweeds for Their Cytotoxic and Antioxidant Activities

Methanolic extracts (MEs) of seven brown seaweeds occurring in the Indian coastal waters were screened for their cytotoxic and antioxidant properties following various assays. The methanolic extracts of seaweeds in the order of Dictyopteris australis > Spatoglossum variabile > Stoechospermum marginatum > Spatoglossum aspermum showed significant cytotoxic activity. A very high DPPH radical scavenging activity was exhibited by the methanolic extracts prepared from St. marginatum, Padina tetrastromatica, Dictyopteris delicatula and S. aspermum. The total phenolic content of the MEs varied from 13.19 ± 0.32 to 25.29 ± 0.445 gallic acid equivalents (mg g−1 of methanolic extract). The reducing power assay indicated a dose dependency, at concentrations of 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 and 2.0 mg mL−1 of MEs and decreased in the following order: Butylated hydroxy toluene > P. tetrastromatica > D. delicatula > S. aspermum > S. variabile > S. marginatum > D. australis > S. marginatum. Furthermore, D. australis, S. aspermum, S. variabile and S. marginatum demonstrated good metal ion chelating properties. All the above evidences suggest that, the antioxidant compounds found in brown seaweeds scavenge free radicals through effective intervention. This decisively promotes them as a potential source of natural antioxidants

Household Survey on Determinants of Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) and Its Health Hazard Awareness among Women: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: In India, majority of the households still use biomass fuel. It is a major cause of death and disability in India.Aims and objectives: To assess determinants of Indoor air pollution and its health hazard awareness among women in semi-urban Mangalore.Methodology: 200 randomly selected households were recruited in two villages of Mangalore. A standard, structured questionnaire was administered after taking informed consent. Descriptive analysis of household area, cooking fuel usage, smoking status was done.Results: Of the participants, mean age was 45.22 with standard deviation of 11.36 years and mean time spent in kitchen in a day was 3.4 hours with standard deviation of 0.80. 64.2% of the houses lack cross ventilation and 72.5% of houses had tiled roofs. 17.9% were using chullah as cooking media and firewood, sawdust as cooking fuel. Regarding hazards of indoor air pollution, over half (50.9%) of women were unaware of it and among those who were aware, only 37.6% knew that indoor air pollution causes respiratory symptoms. Around 57.3% participants replied that their respiratory complaints increased on exposure to smoke. Of those who complain of respiratory symptoms, 49.0% are women. Almost three-fourth (72.5%) houses were tobacco smoke-free.Conclusion: participants’ residence, pattern and fuel use were the probable determinants of exposure to indoor air pollution. Knowledge regarding ill effects of indoor air pollution (IAP) varied among women. The present study is limited to small sample size. Further studies with a large sample size are required to conclude the above findings

Phospholipase C: underrated players in microbial infections

During bacterial infections, one or more virulence factors are required to support the survival, growth, and colonization of the pathogen within the host, leading to the symptomatic characteristic of the disease. The outcome of bacterial infections is determined by several factors from both host as well as pathogen origin. Proteins and enzymes involved in cellular signaling are important players in determining the outcome of host–pathogen interactions. phospholipase C (PLCs) participate in cellular signaling and regulation by virtue of their ability to hydrolyze membrane phospholipids into di-acyl-glycerol (DAG) and inositol triphosphate (IP3), which further causes the activation of other signaling pathways involved in various processes, including immune response. A total of 13 PLC isoforms are known so far, differing in their structure, regulation, and tissue-specific distribution. Different PLC isoforms have been implicated in various diseases, including cancer and infectious diseases; however, their roles in infectious diseases are not clearly understood. Many studies have suggested the prominent roles of both host and pathogen-derived PLCs during infections. PLCs have also been shown to contribute towards disease pathogenesis and the onset of disease symptoms. In this review, we have discussed the contribution of PLCs as a determinant of the outcome of host-pathogen interaction and pathogenesis during bacterial infections of human importance

MLSys: The New Frontier of Machine Learning Systems

Machine learning (ML) techniques are enjoying rapidly increasing adoption. However, designing and implementing the systems that support ML models in real-world deployments remains a significant obstacle, in large part due to the radically different development and deployment profile of modern ML methods, and the range of practical concerns that come with broader adoption. We propose to foster a new systems machine learning research community at the intersection of the traditional systems and ML communities, focused on topics such as hardware systems for ML, software systems for ML, and ML optimized for metrics beyond predictive accuracy. To do this, we describe a new conference, MLSys, that explicitly targets research at the intersection of systems and machine learning with a program committee split evenly between experts in systems and ML, and an explicit focus on topics at the intersection of the two

Polymorphic Signature of the Anti-inflammatory Activity of 2,2′- {[1,2-Phenylenebis(methylene)]bis(sulfanediyl)}bis(4,6- dimethylnicotinonitrile)

Weak noncovalent interactions are the basic forces in crystal engineering. Polymorphism in flexible molecules is very common, leading to the development of the crystals of same organic compounds with different medicinal and material properties. Crystallization of 2,2′- {[1,2-phenylenebis(methylene)]bis(sulfanediyl)}bis(4,6-dimethylnicotinonitrile) by evaporation at room temperature from ethyl acetate and hexane and from methanol and ethyl acetate gave stable polymorphs 4a and 4b, respectively, while in acetic acid, it gave metastable polymorph 4c. The polymorphic behavior of the compound has been visualized through singlecrystal X-ray and Hirshfeld analysis. These polymorphs are tested for anti-inflammatory activity via the complete Freund’s adjuvant-induced rat paw model, and compounds have exhibited moderate activities. Studies of docking in the catalytic site of cyclooxygenase-2 were used to identify potential anti-inflammatory lead compounds. These results suggest that the supramolecular aggregate structure, which is formed in solution, influences the solid state structure and the biological activity obtained upon crystallization

Erasure Coding for Big-data Systems: Theory and Practice

Big-data systems enable storage and analysis of massive amounts of data, and are fueling the data revolution that is impacting almost all walks of human endeavor today. The foundation of any big-data system is a large-scale, distributed, data storage system. These storage systems are typically built out of inexpensive and unreliable commodity components, which in conjunction with numerous other operational glitches make unavailability events the norm rather than the exception. In order to ensure data durability and service reliability, data needs to be stored redundantly. While the traditional approach towards this objective is to store multiple replicas of the data, today's unprecedented data growth rates mandate more efficient alternatives. Coding theory, and erasure coding in particular, offers a compelling alternative by making optimal use of the storage space. For this reason, many data-center scale distributed storage systems are beginning to deploy erasure coding instead of replication. This paradigm shift has opened up exciting new challenges and opportunities both on the theoretical as well as the system design fronts. Broadly, this thesis addresses some of these challenges and opportunities by contributing in the following two areas:(1) Resource-efficient distributed storage codes and systems: Although traditional erasure codes optimize the usage of storage space, they result in a significant increase in the consumption of other important cluster resources such as the network bandwidth, input-output operations on the storage devices (I/O), and computing resources (CPU). This thesis considers the problem of constructing codes, and designing and building storage systems, that reduce the usage of I/O, network, and CPU resources while not compromising on storage efficiency.(2) New avenues for erasure coding in big-data systems: In big-data systems, the usage of erasure codes has largely been limited to disk-based storage systems, and furthermore, primarily towards achieving space-efficient fault tolerance---in other words, to durably store "cold'' (less-frequently accessed) data. This thesis takes a step forward in exploring new avenues for erasure coding---in particular for "hot'' (more-frequently accessed) data---by showing how erasure coding can be employed to improve load balancing, and to reduce the (median and tail) latencies in data-intensive cluster caches.An overarching goal of this thesis is to bridge theory and practice. Towards this goal, we present new code constructions and techniques that possess attractive theoretical guarantees. We also design and build systems that employ the proposed codes and techniques. These systems exhibit significant benefits over the state-of-the-art in evaluations that we perform in real-world settings, and are also slated to be a part of the next release of Apache Hadoop

Study of oxidative stress in ovarian cancer

Background: Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common form of cancer in the world and is often asymptomatic in its early stages. Development of ovarian cancer-specific biomarkers for the early detection of disease could improve the current dismal survival rate. Evaluation of serum carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and oxidative stress in ovarian carcinoma patients may improve the prognosis of the disease through earlier detection. Aim of the study: The aim of this study was to find the relative risk of ovarian cancer in patients screened for CA125, ALP, Nitric oxide (NO) and Malondialdehyde (MDA) as a marker for lipid peroxidation. Material and methods: 451 subjects with ovarian cancer were screened for serum CA125 levels using a chemiluminescence analyser, out of which 164 showed values above 21 U/ml. 80 subjects with higher values were further analysed for MDA and NO using spectrophotometry and AL P by fully automated chemistry analyser. Results: The selected 80 subjects with CA125 values above 74 U/ml had increased ALP, NO and MDA, also showing positive correlation amongst these parameters. Conclusions: Benefits of CA125 screening vary with age group according to blood CA125 levels. Enzyme ALP levels are elevated with higher values of CA125. MDA and NO indicate oxidative stress and increase as the ovarian marker values increase. Positive correlation amongst the parameters indicates a significant increase in oxidative stress in ovarian cancer. For women with various CA125 levels in different age groups, screening and treatment depends upon individual decision and clinical examination

MANAGEMENT OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: USING HERBAL INFORMATICS TO IDENTIFY THE POTENTIAL NUTRACEUTICALS

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, neurodegenerative disease, which is characterized by selective demyelination of neurons and chronic inflammation in the Central Nervous System (CNS) white matter.  Genetic and environmental factors are the major risk contributors of MS. The factors that mediate the pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis include TNFα, CD8+T cells, CCL11, iNOS, etc. Despite advancement in medicine still, there is a high rising number of MS patients, thus there’s a need for an effective drug for its treatment with no side effects. Due to the unavailability of medicine without side effects, there is an urgent need for alternative medicine. Herbals have potent antioxidant; anti-inflammatory, rejuvenating, and immune-modulatory properties with negligible side effects. Due to all these aspects, herbal-based medicines are becoming more popular and are serving as a better alternative to the pre-existing drugs, proving to be efficient in treating MS. Methods: An in silico approach was utilized for the selection of the herbals for targeting the key factors involved in the pathogenesis of MS. In total, 10 factors and pathways were identified as targets for MS; their % relevance and weightage matrix scores were calculated. The binary matrix analysis of the considered MS factors in herbals was calculated and the herbals with the potential for treating MS were identified. Results: The binary matrix analysis of the considered MS factors of 50 herbals has revealed that 20 herbals are showing an acceptable score. Weightage matrix and the fuzzy set membership analysis of the selected 20 herbals were performed and a database of 17 herbals was obtained. Conclusion: In total, we have identified 17 herbals, which have shown remarkable potential for treating Multiple Sclerosis