Acute effect of gibberellic acid on serum enzymes and blood markers in male albino rats

This study was designed to evaluate the influence of a phytohormone, gibberellic acid (GA3) on marker enzymes and biomarkers of serum, and blood hemoglobin and its blood cells counts of rat. In order to evaluate the positive/negative effects, the rats were administered 75μg, 150μg and 300μg of GA3/kg body weight as a single dose. GA3 treatments produced differential effects on the different parameters at dose dependent manner after 4 hours.The down regulation in specific activities of ALT, ALP, GGT and amylase were noted against the control with significant up regulation of AST activity. GA3 also produced dose dependent effect on biomarkers. There is a substantial reduction in the quantity of glucose, urea, creatinine, calcium, phosphorus, sodium and potassium was recorded against the control. On the other hand, the insignificant increase in content of total protein, albumin and uric acid was observed at all dose of GA3 treatment against the control. GA3 increased the RBC, WBC and neutrophil by decreasing the lymphocyte total numbers. Platelets, monocytes and oesinophils count were not altered by any dose of GA3.In conclusion, GA3 produced dose dependent effect on different parameters of rat blood serum.Keywords: phytohormone; gibberellic acid; creatinine; neutrophi

Short term effect of 28-homobrassinolide on serum, liver and kidney marker enzymes and other biochemical parameters of male albino rats

Brassinosterols (BS) are ubiquitous pluripotent growth regulator present in plants. They exist in isoforms of epi and homobrassinolides (HB).  BS act as potent stimulators of root and shoot elongation, cell division, DNA and RNA polymerase activity, ethylene production and of stress tolerance to temperature, water scarcity and salinity in plants. It is also used to increase the yield of crop and to protect the plants against pesticides. Consumption of plant material as diet and used as growth regulator in animals, and application of BS in agriculture would increases its availability to the host tissues. In the present study, the effect of 28-HB, an isomer of brassinosterol on serum, liver and kidney marker enzymes, lipid peroxidation, tissue histology and the blood parameters of rat were investigated. The rats were given the compound by intradermal mode at the concentration of 75µg, 150µg and 300µg as single dose and the effects were observed after 4 hr to study the immediate response of the animal. The treatment of rats with 28-HB, caused different effects on the serum, liver and kidney parameters of this study. In conclusion, the present study showed that 28-HB affects the structure and function of rat tissues in a dose dependent manner.Keywords: Brassinosterols; homobrassinolides; 28-HB; lipid peroxidatio

Short term effect of 28-homobrassinolide on serum, liver and kidney marker enzymes and other biochemical parameters of male albino rats

Brassinosterols (BS) are ubiquitous pluripotent growth regulator present in plants. They exist in isoforms of epi and homobrassinolides (HB).  BS act as potent stimulators of root and shoot elongation, cell division, DNA and RNA polymerase activity, ethylene production and of stress tolerance to temperature, water scarcity and salinity in plants. It is also used to increase the yield of crop and to protect the plants against pesticides. Consumption of plant material as diet and used as growth regulator in animals, and application of BS in agriculture would increases its availability to the host tissues. In the present study, the effect of 28-HB, an isomer of brassinosterol on serum, liver and kidney marker enzymes, lipid peroxidation, tissue histology and the blood parameters of rat were investigated. The rats were given the compound by intradermal mode at the concentration of 75µg, 150µg and 300µg as single dose and the effects were observed after 4 hr to study the immediate response of the animal. The treatment of rats with 28-HB, caused different effects on the serum, liver and kidney parameters of this study. In conclusion, the present study showed that 28-HB affects the structure and function of rat tissues in a dose dependent manner.Keywords: Brassinosterols; homobrassinolides; 28-HB; lipid peroxidatio

Biochemical evaluation of low dose methyl 2-benzimidazole carbamate fungicide on male albino rats

Methyl 2-benzimidazole carbamate (carbendazim) is one of the synthetic fungicides that controlled organisms that caused plant diseases of different types. It is widely used as a preservative in leather, paint, textile, fruits and papermaking industry. It is also used as an anticancer drug in chemical medicine. In the present study low concentrations of carbendazim was administered at 5, 10, 25 and 50mM doses intradermally to male albino rats. At the end of 6 hr, 12hr and 24hr duration, blood samples were collected from the animal for the analysis of biochemical and haematological parameters. Carbendazim caused an increase of cholesterol, uric acid, glucose and creatinine while serum phosphorous content was decreased. However, mean hemoglobin, WBC, E, and platelet counts increased and total RBC, N and L counts decreased. These results indicated that low dose level carbendazim contributed to toxicological effects in the rat tissues.Keywords: Methyl 2-benzimidazole carbamate; Fungicide; Rat tissue

EVALUATION OF IN VITRO ANTICANCER POTENTIAL OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT AND ITS DIFFERENT FRACTIONS OF CAESALPINIA BONDUC (L) ROXB SEEDS

Objective: The present study aims to evaluate the anticancer potential of ethanolic extract and its different fractions of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds against Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) cell lines. Methods: Ethanolic extract and its fractions were subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening and anticancer activity by using in vitro anticancer assay. Chemical constituents of petroleum ether fraction of C. bonduc seeds were identified by using GC-MS and the active compounds were subjected to in silico studies. Results: In vitro anticancer assay showed that the petroleum ether fraction of ethanolic extract of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds has potential anticancer activity. Conclusions: Petroleum ether fraction of ethanolic extract of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds has significant anticancer activity. Further in-depth studies, could result in the development of a good anticancer agent from the seeds of Caesalpinia bonduc

Fast evaluation of appointment schedules for outpatients in health care

We consider the problem of evaluating an appointment schedule for outpatients in a hospital. Given a fixed-length session during which a physician sees K patients, each patient has to be given an appointment time during this session in advance. When a patient arrives on its appointment, the consultations of the previous patients are either already finished or are still going on, which respectively means that the physician has been standing idle or that the patient has to wait, both of which are undesirable. Optimising a schedule according to performance criteria such as patient waiting times, physician idle times, session overtime, etc. usually requires a heuristic search method involving a huge number of repeated schedule evaluations. Hence, the aim of our evaluation approach is to obtain accurate predictions as fast as possible, i.e. at a very low computational cost. This is achieved by (1) using Lindley's recursion to allow for explicit expressions and (2) choosing a discrete-time (slotted) setting to make those expression easy to compute. We assume general, possibly distinct, distributions for the patient's consultation times, which allows us to account for multiple treatment types, as well as patient no-shows. The moments of waiting and idle times are obtained. For each slot, we also calculate the moments of waiting and idle time of an additional patient, should it be appointed to that slot. As we demonstrate, a graphical representation of these quantities can be used to assist a sequential scheduling strategy, as often used in practice

The Cumulative Effect of Transient Synchrony States on Motor Performance in Parkinson's Disease.

Bursts of beta frequency band activity in the basal ganglia of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are associated with impaired motor performance. Here we test in human adults whether small variations in the timing of movement relative to beta bursts have a critical effect on movement velocity and whether the cumulative effects of multiple beta bursts, both locally and across networks, matter. We recorded local field potentials from the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in 15 PD patients of both genders OFF-medication, during temporary lead externalization after deep brain stimulation surgery. Beta bursts were defined as periods exceeding the 75th percentile amplitude threshold. Subjects performed a visual cued joystick reaching task, with the visual cue being triggered in real time with different temporal relationships to bursts of STN beta activity. The velocity of actions made in response to cues prospectively triggered by STN beta bursts was slower than when responses were not time-locked to recent beta bursts. Importantly, slow movements were those that followed multiple bursts close to each other within a trial. In contrast, small differences in the delay between the last burst and movement onset had no significant impact on velocity. Moreover, when the overlap of bursts between the two STN was high, slowing was more pronounced. Our findings suggest that the cumulative, but recent, history of beta bursting, both locally and across basal ganglia networks, may impact on motor performance.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Bursts of beta frequency band activity in the basal ganglia are associated with slowing of voluntary movement in patients with Parkinson's disease. We show that slow movements are those that follow multiple bursts close to each other and bursts that are coupled across regions. These results suggest that the cumulative, but recent, history of beta bursting, both locally and across basal ganglia networks, impacts on motor performance in this condition. The manipulation of burst dynamics may be a means of selectively improving motor impairment

Source analysis of beta-synchronisation and cortico-muscular coherence after movement termination based on high resolution electroencephalography

We hypothesized that post-movement beta synchronization (PMBS) and cortico-muscular coherence (CMC) during movement termination relate to each other and have similar role in sensorimotor integration. We calculated the parameters and estimated the sources of these phenomena.We measured 64-channel EEG simultaneously with surface EMG of the right first dorsal interosseus muscle in 11 healthy volunteers. In Task1, subjects kept a medium-strength contraction continuously; in Task2, superimposed on this movement, they performed repetitive self-paced short contractions. In Task3 short contractions were executed alone. Time-frequency analysis of the EEG and CMC was performed with respect to the offset of brisk movements and averaged in each subject. Sources of PMBS and CMC were also calculated.High beta power in Task1, PMBS in Task2-3, and CMC in Task1-2 could be observed in the same individual frequency bands. While beta synchronization in Task1 and PMBS in Task2-3 appeared bilateral with contralateral predominance, CMC in Task1-2 was strictly a unilateral phenomenon; their main sources did not differ contralateral to the movement in the primary sensorimotor cortex in 7 of 11 subjects in Task1, and in 6 of 9 subjects in Task2. In Task2, CMC and PMBS had the same latency but their amplitudes did not correlate with each other. In Task2, weaker PMBS source was found bilaterally within the secondary sensory cortex, while the second source of CMC was detected in the premotor cortex, contralateral to the movement. In Task3, weaker sources of PMBS could be estimated in bilateral supplementary motor cortex and in the thalamus. PMBS and CMC appear simultaneously at the end of a phasic movement possibly suggesting similar antikinetic effects, but they may be separate processes with different active functions. Whereas PMBS seems to reset the supraspinal sensorimotor network, cortico-muscular coherence may represent the recalibration of cortico-motoneuronal and spinal systems

Nonlinear Parabolic Equations arising in Mathematical Finance

This survey paper is focused on qualitative and numerical analyses of fully nonlinear partial differential equations of parabolic type arising in financial mathematics. The main purpose is to review various non-linear extensions of the classical Black-Scholes theory for pricing financial instruments, as well as models of stochastic dynamic portfolio optimization leading to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. After suitable transformations, both problems can be represented by solutions to nonlinear parabolic equations. Qualitative analysis will be focused on issues concerning the existence and uniqueness of solutions. In the numerical part we discuss a stable finite-volume and finite difference schemes for solving fully nonlinear parabolic equations.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1603.0387

Co-firing of biomass with coals Part 1. Thermogravimetric kinetic analysis of combustion of fir (abies bornmulleriana) wood

The chemical composition and reactivity of fir (Abies bornmulleriana) wood under non-isothermal thermogravimetric (TG) conditions were studied. Oxidation of the wood sample at temperatures near 600 A degrees C caused the loss of aliphatics from the structure of the wood and created a char heavily containing C-O functionalities and of highly aromatic character. On-line FTIR recordings of the combustion of wood indicated the oxidation of carbonaceous and hydrogen content of the wood and release of some hydrocarbons due to pyrolysis reactions that occurred during combustion of the wood. TG analysis was used to study combustion of fir wood. Non-isothermal TG data were used to evaluate the kinetics of the combustion of this carbonaceous material. The article reports application of Ozawa-Flynn-Wall model to deal with non-isothermal TG data for the evaluation of the activation energy corresponding to the combustion of the fir wood. The average activation energy related to fir wood combustion was 128.9 kJ/mol, and the average reaction order for the combustion of wood was calculated as 0.30