Medicinal Plants for Snake Bite Treatment - Future Focus

Snake bite is a major health hazard that leads to high mortality and great suffering in victims. The remedies are of great interest since they may have recognizable therapeutic or toxic effects and are steeped in cultural beliefs that invariably conflict with formal health care practices. The study of the interaction between plants and people is invaluable in discovering new herbal medicines and plant-derived drugs. The present study was aimed at conserving largely herbal drug knowledge and availing to the scientific world the plant therapies used as antivenom in the society. The long-term goal is to actualize conventional snake bite therapy options with effective, cheap, accessible and less allergic plant compounds

Are Computers Good for Children? The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes

Although computers are universal in the classroom, nearly twenty million children in the United States do not have computers in their homes. Surprisingly, only a few previous studies explore the role of home computers in the educational process. Home computers might be very useful for completing school assignments, but they might also represent a distraction for teenagers. We use several identification strategies and panel data from the two main U.S. datasets that include recent information on computer ownership among children -- the 2000-2003 CPS Computer and Internet Use Supplements (CIUS) matched to the CPS Basic Monthly Files and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 -- to explore the causal relationship between computer ownership and high school graduation and other educational outcomes. Teenagers who have access to home computers are 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than teenagers who do not have home computers after controlling for individual, parental, and family characteristics. We generally find evidence of positive relationships between home computers and educational outcomes using several identification strategies, including controlling for typically unobservable home environment and extracurricular activities in the NLSY97, fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and including future computer ownership and falsification tests. Home computers may increase high school graduation by reducing non-productive activities, such as truancy and crime, among children in addition to making it easier to complete school assignments.technology, computers, education

EVALUATION OF ANTHELMINTIC ACTIVITY OF CITRUS RETICULATA: IN VITRO AND ITS PHYTOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATION

Background: The prevalence of worm infestation is high in under developed and developing countries due to poor sanitation and lack of health education. Citrus reticulata, fruit belonging to citrus family rutaceae is a common fruit native to Asia. Peels of the fruit is rich in limonene, a potent phytoconstituent having anthelmintic activity. However, proper utilization of peels has not been done as it is not consumed and is therefore discarded.Objective: To explore various phytoconstituents present in Citrus reticulata and its anthelmintic effect.Method: Various concentration of Methanolic extract and Volatile oil of Citrus reticulata were subjected for assessment of anthelmintic activity in earthworms. Time of paralysis and time of death were used as an evaluation parameter. Albendazole (25 mg/ml) was used as a standard drug. Results: Phytochemical test revealed the presence of alkaloids, carbohydrates, tannins, flavonoids, terpenoids and glycosides. Concentration dependent anthelmintic effect was observed with the extract where 150 mg/ml concentration of methanolic extract showed paralysis of test worm (earthworm) at 5.76 min and death at 19.16 min respectively.Conclusion: Citrus reticulata peel has shown substantial anthelmintic activity using in vitro model on earthworms. Hence, further research is required to understand its mechanism of action using in vivo models to confirm its anthelmintic potential

EFFECT OF CULTURAL CONDITION ON EVALUATION OF HEPATOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF METHANOLIC BARK EXTRACT OF ANOGEISSUS LATIFOLIA ON ETHANOL-INDUCED HEPATOTOXICITY

Objective: Geographical location has a great importance on phytoconstituents content in plants. The present study was aimed to understand the impact of soil nature of geographical zone on evaluation of hepatoprotective activity Anogeissus latifolia (AL), (family: Combretaceae) methanolic bark extract on ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity in Wistar rats.Methods: Soil sample was collected and analyzed for various physicochemical properties. Atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used for determination of heavy metals present in soil sample. Thereafter, liver damage was produced by ethanol (3.76 g/kg p.o). The plant extract was administered orally for 25 days. At the end of the study, the biochemical parameters were investigated. Silymarin was used as a standard. Furthermore, histopathology was carried out and characterized by severe vacuolar, cytoplasmic degeneration, and hepatic necrosis. Finally, the impact of soil parameters is correlated with the evaluated study.Results: Analyzed soil sample showed pH is acidic (pH=5.48) and presence of higher amount of iron (Fe), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn) (77.37 mg/kg, 10.87 mg/kg, and 19.26 mg/kg, respectively) whereas other metals such as nickel, chromium, cadmium, and lead are present in less content. Thereafter, treatment of animals with methanolic extract of AL bark significantly (p<0.05) decrease the levels of serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase in serum which is an indicative of hepatoprotective activity. Also brought down the level of serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase significantly (p<0.05 in 200 mg/kg b.w. and 400 mg/kg b.w. doses, respectively). Various parameters physical parameters, cholesterol level, and total protein were estimated. Histopathology studies and triglycerides also were indicative of hepatoprotective property.Conclusion: Finally, the results concluded that the presence of higher amount of Fe and Zn helps to get the significant results of the present investigation which has great impact on liver protection and the selected plant extract showed dose-dependent significant hepatoprotective effect against ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity in Wistar rats

Proof by reflection in semantics

Conventional approach to describe the semantics of programming language usually rely on relations, in particular inductive relations. Simulating program execution then relies on proof search tools. We describe a functional approach to automate proofs about programming language semantics. Reflection is used to take facts from the context into account. The main contribution of this work is that we developed a systematic approach to describe and manipulate unknown expressions in the symbolic computation of programs for formal proof development. The tool we obtain is faster and more powerful than the conventional proof tools

Interface Assessment of FRP by Alternating DSC and FTIR Imaging Techniques

The quality of the interface of any fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite material is critical for its structural and functional integrity. The present work gives an assessment of the degradation in glass fiber-reinforced epoxy matrix composite under thermal andhumid conditions. Micro-composites have been employed for this study in order to get a better picture of the physical and chemical changes taking place at the interface. UV and microwave heating techniques were used for the curing process. The samples were exposed to a relative humidity of 95% for 10 hours at a temperature of 60ºC. The DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry) curves manifested an increase in glass transition temperature (Tg), of the composite material, due to curing process and hygrothermal exposure. The FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) images further supported the assumption that increase in Tg may be attributed to formation of hydrogen double bonds. Some SEM photographs were also taken to depict the physical changes occurring in the composite, especially in the resin

HoneyTree: Making Honeywords Sweeter

Cyber deception is an area of cybersecurity based on building detection systems and verification models using decoys or controlled misinformation to confuse or misdirect the adversaries into revealing their presence and/or intentions. In the era of online services where our data is usually protected on the cloud relying on a secret key, even the most secure cyber systems can get compromised, losing highly confidential data to the attackers, including hashed passwords that can be cracked offline. Prior work has been done in carefully placing traps in the systems to detect intrusion activities. The Honeywords project by Juels and Rivest is the most straightforward and successful technique in detecting and deterring offline-password brute force by placing multiple plausible decoy passwords together along with the real password. In this paper, we enhance this approach and combine it with the concept of Merkle tree to build a new model called HoneyTree. Our model achieves twice the level of security as the Honeywords project at the same storage cost. We perform a detailed comparison of our approach to the original Honeywords project and analyze its pros and cons

Primary intracranial myxoma - Report of a rare case and review of literature

Myxomas are benign primary tumors of the heart of mesenchymal origin. Neurological complications attributed to atrial myxoma occurs in 10% to 12% of  patients, with ischemic presentation due to cerebral infarct in 83%-89% of cases. Few case reports are available of multiple metastatic myxomas from primary inthe heart, despite its slow growing and innocuous histological appearance. Primary intracranial myxomas are extremely rare and only six cases have been reported in literature till date, out of which four were supratentorial in location. As on account of its benign nature, complete surgical resection of the tumor is the recommended treatment

ESTIMATION OF ALKALOIDS AND PHENOLICS OF FIVE EDIBLE CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS AND THEIR ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY

Objective: Objective of the present work was qualitative and quantitative estimation of alkaloids and phenolics of five edible cucurbitaceous plants and to evaluate their antibacterial activity against some human pathogenic bacteria.Methods: Total alkaloid present was determined by acid-based titrimetric methods using methyl red as an indicator and observing a faint yellow end point. Total phenolics were estimated by follin-ciocaltue's method using tannic acid as standard. Antibacterial activity was determined by Disc diffusion method using SRL Agar medium. The 70% ethanolic dried powdered was dissolved in 20% DMSO at different concentration to carry out the anti-microbial activity.Results: It was found that all the experimental plants contained almost equal amount of alkaloids but their phenolic contents as tannic acid equivalents were different. Alkaloids content of five Cucurbitaceous plants were found to vary from 1.15 g % to 1.34 g % and phenol content was varied from 4.54 mg/g to 10.13 mg/g. All the selected Cucurbitaceous plants were active against the tested pathogens, except against V. cholerae non.0139 (L4). Only the 70% ethanolic leaf extract of Momordica charantia (Linn.) showed a relative percentage inhibition from 15.02 to 16.63. So, Momordica charantia (Linn.) extract was the most active among five selected plants against the tested pathogens.Conclusion: The activity might be due to the presence of alkaloids and phenols. However, the extent of activity or zone of inhibition was found varied for different extracts might be due to the difference in the constituents present in the plant extracts