Chlorella vulgaris modulates hydrogen peroxide-induced dna damage and telomere shortening of human fibroblasts derived from different aged individuals

The objective of this study was to investigate the modulatory effect of Chlorella vulgaris on cultured fibroblast cells derived from young and old aged individuals focusing on DNA damage, telomere length and telomerase activity. Dose-response test of the algal extract on cells in both age groups revealed that optimum viability was observed at a concentration of 50 μg/ml. Results obtained showed that Chlorella vulgaris exhibited protective effects against H2O2-induced oxidative stress as shown by the reduction in damaged DNA caused by H2O2 treatment (

Synthesis and Antibacterial Activity of Thiophenes

2-[Bis(methylthio)methylene]propanedinitrile 1a reacted in one-pot successively with piperidine, sodium sulfide, chloroacetonitrile, and potassium carbonate to afford 3-amino-5-(1-piperidinyl)-2,4-thiophenedicarbonitrile 2a. Similar reaction using the last three reagents with ethyl 2-cyano-3,3-bis(methylthio)acrylate 1b produced ethyl 4-amino-5-cyano-2-(methylthio)thiophene-3-carboxylate 2b. The synthesized compounds were characterized by using FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, and mass spectral data. Antibacterial activities of the synthesized compounds are also reported

Half-linear cavity multiwavelength Brillouin-erbium fiber laser

Multiwavelength half-linear cavity Brillouin erbium fiber laser (BEFL) has been demonstrated. The half-linear cavity BEFL is formed by utilizing only two circulators: one circulator acts as input and output ports and the other circulator is used to form a physical mirror. This design exhibits low peak power difference between the adjacent channels, which is about 0.8 dB. At Brillouin pump (BP) power of 5 dBm and erbium doped fiber (EDF) pump power of 90 mW, up to 19 channels over a wide range of 40 nm (1529 nm to 1569 nm) have been obtained. These channels are free from self lasing cavity modes and for the first twelve Stokes lines, the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) is approximately higher than 20 dB

Synthesis, antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity of new fused pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine and pyrazolo[5,1-c][1,2,4]triazine derivatives from new 5-aminopyrazoles

New 5-aminopyrazoles 2a–c were prepared in high yields from the reaction of known α,α-dicyanoketene-N,S-acetals 1a–c with hydrazine hydrate under reflux in ethanol. These compounds were utilized as intermediates to synthesize pyrazolo[1,5-a]-pyrimidines 3a–c, 4a–d, 5a–c, and 6a–c, as well as pyrazolo[5,1-c][1,2,4]triazines 7a–c and 8a–c, by the reaction of 2-[bis(methylthio)methylene]malononitrile, α,α-dicyanoketene-N,S-acetals 1a–b, acetylacetone, acetoacetanilide as well as acetylacetone, and malononitrile, respectively. Furthermore, cyclization of 2a–c with pentan-2,5-dione yielded the corresponding 5-pyrrolylpyrazoles 9a–c. Moreover, fusion of 2a–c with acetic anhydride resulted in the corresponding 1-acetyl-1H-pyrazoles 10a–c. The antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity against Vero cells of several selected compounds are also reported

Essential oil of three air-dried parts of Etlingera brevilabrum

Essential oil from the air-dried rhizomes, stems and leaves of Etlingera brevilabrum were hydrodistilled using a Clevenger-type apparatus and identified by GC and GC-MS. Monoterpene hydrocarbons dominated the oils from the stems and leaves (66.8 and 89.8 % respectively) whereas oxygenated monoterpenes were dominant in the rhizomes (40.2 %). Eucalyptol (27.6 %), β-pinene (13.4 %), caryophyllene oxide (10.5 %) and α-thujene (10.1 %) were the major compounds in the rhizomes oil; limonene (28.6 %), β-pinene (21.6 %), α-thujene (13.9 %) and caryophyllene oxide (4.6 %) in the stems; and β-pinene (52.6 %), α-thujene (28.6 %) and o-cymene (7.8 %) in the leaves

A guideline for decision-making on business intelligence and customer relationship management among clinics

Business intelligence offers the capability to gain insights and perform better in decision-making by using a particular set of technologies and tools. A company's success to a certain extent depends on customers. The complementary of business intelligence and customer relationship management will improve the efficiency of organizations, hence increase productivity and revenue. Most research works on implementation of business intelligence and customer relationship management in organizations commonly concentrate on architecture, framework, and maturity model. The process on how to implement business intelligence and customer relationship management in an organization, especially in smaller domains has not yet been clarified which make some organizations unclear on how to implement business intelligence and customer relationship management. Thus, this study investigates the process involved in the implementation of business intelligence and customer relationship management among clinics. An infographic guideline was developed based on the six process of data mining which is known as Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining. Four elements of business intelligence decision-making process which were gather, store, access, and analyze were also included in the process of developing the guideline. Findings from an expert's review show that the increase of Content Validity Index was 0.7, from 0.3 during the first iteration to 1.0 in the second iteration. Therefore, this result is acceptable. The guideline appears to be a useful instrument for practitioners to implement business intelligence and customer relationship management in their clinics, however the process involved in developing the guideline could be improvised from time to time

3-Oxo-5-(piperidin-1-yl)-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazole-4-carbonitrile

In the title compound, C9H12N4O, the piperidine ring adopts a chair conformation and makes a dihedral angle of 42.49 (11)° with the approximately planar pyrazole moiety [maximum deviation = 0.038 (2) Å]. In the crystal, N—H⋯O and N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds and a weak C—H⋯O inter­action link the mol­ecules into sheets lying parallel to (110)

Lipopolysaccharide-induced memory impairment in rats: a model of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a primary cause of dementia in the middle-aged and elderly worldwide. Animal models for AD are widely used to study the disease mechanisms as well as to test potential therapeutic agents for disease modification. Among the non-genetically manipulated neuroinflammation models for AD, lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced animal model is commonly used. This review paper aims to discuss the possible factors that influence rats’ response following LPS injection. Factors such as dose of LPS, route of administration, nature and duration of exposure as well as age and gender of animal used should be taken into account when designing a study using LPS-induced memory impairment as model for AD

Habitat filtering across tree life stages in tropical forest communities

Tropical tree communities are shaped by local-scale habitat heterogeneity in the form of topographic and edaphic variation, but the life-history stage at which habitat associations develop remains poorly understood. This is due, in part, to the fact that previous studies have not accounted for the widely disparate sample sizes number of stems that result when trees are divided into size classes. We demonstrate that the observed habitat structuring of a community is directly related to the number of individuals in the community. We then compare the relative importance of habitat heterogeneity to tree community structure for saplings, juveniles and adult trees within seven large 24-50 ha tropical forest dynamics plots while controlling for sample size. Changes in habitat structuring through tree life stages were small and inconsistent among life stages and study sites. Where found, these differences were an order of magnitude smaller than the findings of previous studies that did not control for sample size. Moreover, community structure and composition were very similar among tree sub-communities of different life stages. We conclude that the structure of these tropical tree communities is established by the time trees are large enough to be included in the census 1 cm diameter at breast height, which indicates that habitat filtering occurs during earlier life stages. © 2013 The Authors Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved

Phylogenetic turnover along local environmental gradients in tropical forest communities

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. While the importance of local-scale habitat niches in shaping tree species turnover along environmental gradients in tropical forests is well appreciated, relatively little is known about the influence of phylogenetic signal in species’ habitat niches in shaping local community structure. We used detailed maps of the soil resource and topographic variation within eight 24–50 ha tropical forest plots combined with species phylogenies created from the APG III phylogeny to examine how phylogenetic beta diversity (indicating the degree of phylogenetic similarity of two communities) was related to environmental gradients within tropical tree communities. Using distance-based redundancy analysis we found that phylogenetic beta diversity, expressed as either nearest neighbor distance or mean pairwise distance, was significantly related to both soil and topographic variation in all study sites. In general, more phylogenetic beta diversity within a forest plot was explained by environmental variables this was expressed as nearest neighbor distance versus mean pairwise distance (3.0–10.3 % and 0.4–8.8 % of variation explained among plots, respectively), and more variation was explained by soil resource variables than topographic variables using either phylogenetic beta diversity metric. We also found that patterns of phylogenetic beta diversity expressed as nearest neighbor distance were consistent with previously observed patterns of niche similarity among congeneric species pairs in these plots. These results indicate the importance of phylogenetic signal in local habitat niches in shaping the phylogenetic structure of tropical tree communities, especially at the level of close phylogenetic neighbors, where similarity in habitat niches is most strongly preserved