Antimicrobial activity of sesquiterpene lactones isolated from traditional medicinal plant, Costus speciosus (Koen ex.Retz.) Sm

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Costus speciosus </it>(Koen ex.Retz.) Sm (Costaceae) is an Indian ornamental plant which has long been used medicinally in traditional systems of medicine. The plant has been found to possess diverse pharmacological activities. Rhizomes are used to treat pneumonia, rheumatism, dropsy, urinary diseases, jaundice, skin diseases and leaves are used<b/>to treat mental disorders.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>Antibacterial and antifungal activities were tested using Disc diffusion method and Minimum Inhibitory <b>Concentration </b>(MIC). Column chromatography was used to isolate compounds from hexane extract. X-ray crystallography technique and GC-MS analysis were used to identify the compounds</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Antibacterial and antifungal activities were observed in hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts. Hexane extract of <it>C.speciosus </it>showed good activity against tested fungi also. Two sesquiterpenoid compounds were isolated (costunolide and eremanthin) from the hexane extract. Both the compounds did not inhibit the growth of tested bacteria. But, both the compounds inhibited the tested fungi. The compound costunolide showed significant antifungal activity. The MIC values of costunolide were; 62.5 μg/ml against <it>Trichophyton mentagrophytes</it>, 62. μg/ml against <it>T. simii</it>, 31.25 μg/ml against <it>T. rubrum </it>296, 62.5 μg/ml against <it>T. rubrum </it>57, 125 μg/ml against <it>Epidermophyton floccosum</it>, 250 μg/ml against <it>Scopulariopsis </it>sp, 250 μg/ml against <it>Aspergillus niger</it>, 125 μg/ml against <it>Curvulari lunata</it>, 250 μg/ml against <it>Magnaporthe grisea</it>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Hexane extract showed promising antibacterial and antifungal activity. The isolated compound costunolide showed good antifungal activity.</p

Hybrid probabilistic-possibilistic mixtures and utility functions

The paper was written during the stay of the second author as visiting professor at University Paul Sabatier, in Toulouse, in June, 1999.International audienceA basic building block in the standard mathematics of decision under uncertainty is the notion of probabilistic mixture. In order to generalize decision theory to non probabilistic uncertainty, one approach is to generalize mixture sets. In the recent past it has been proved that generalized mixtures can be non trivially defined, and they have been instrumental in the development of possibilistic utility theory. This paper characterizes the families of operations involved in generalized mixtures, due to a previous result on the characterization of the pairs of continuous t-norm and t-conorm such that the former is conditionally distributive over the latter. What is obtained is a family of mixtures that combine probabilistic and possibilistic mixtures via a threshold. It is based on a restricted family of t-conorm/ t-norm pairs which are very special ordinal sums. Any practically useful theory of pseudo-additive measures must use such special pairs of operations in order to extend the additivity property, and the notion of probabilistic independence

Understanding and researching wellbeing: Its usage in different disciplines and potential for health research and health promotion

Objectives: To report the findings of a literature review of the concept of wellbeing and consider its operational and heuristic potential within a range of disciplines. Design: A literature review to examine the philosophical roots of wellbeing and the contributions of the main disciplines uncovered by the review; economics, psychology, health studies, sociology, anthropology and biomedicine. Setting: 'Wellbeing' is a concept of increasing interest to those working in health promotion, social and public health medicine and medical sociology. Despite its popularity, wellbeing lacks a clear conceptual base and there is little consensus about how it may be identified, measured and achieved. Method: Although conducted rigorously this was more of a scoping exercise than a systematic review. The reviewer was given a fairly broad exploratory brief including qualitative and quantitative dimensions. The search was restricted to articles in the English Language between the years 1980-2001. Results: Most disciplines tended to be biased towards one or two aspects of the three major aspects of physical, social and psychological Wellbeing, with the main exception of child wellbeing studies. Those working in economics made a significant contribution to understanding conceptual elements of wellbeing. The fields of psychology and biomedicine were more concerned with negative than positive affect. There was a particular lack of consensus and research around social wellbeing. Conclusion: Although wellbeing may indeed be extremely useful as a unifying concept for all those involved in health improvement or health research,at present it is being used unreflectively, thus potentially masking differences