Hypoglycemic activity of Pterocarpus marsupium in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disorder, and it requires drug treatment over a long period of time. Apart from synthetic drugs available in the market for the management of diabetes, there is voluminous literature pouring on indigenous medicine with claim for the utility in diabetes mellitus. Pterocarpus marsupium is one of the traditional medicinal plants with hypoglycemic activity, used by a lot of patients on a large scale. The objectives of the study were to compare the blood glucose lowering effect of P. marsupium as add-on therapy with oral hypoglycemic drugs in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus and to determine adverse events (if any).Methods: The study was carried out at tertiary care hospital of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. Total of 56 old uncontrolled hyperglycemic (Type 2 diabetes mellitus) patients already taking oral hypoglycemic drugs were enrolled on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The duration of treatment with P. marsupium as add-on therapy with glimepiride+metformin or glimepiride+metformin+pioglitazone was 12 weeks with 4 weekly clinical attendances for review and collection of the drug. It was prospective, open, non-randomized, interventional, efficacy, and safety type of study, the dosage of P. marsupium wood powder being 2-4 g/day.Results: At the end of treatment (12 weeks) with P. marsupium as add-on therapy, mean fasting blood glucose, postprandial blood glucose, and glycosylated hemoglobin were compared with baseline using student’s paired t-test. Calculated p value for all parameter is <0.05, i.e., it is statistically significant.Conclusions: P. marsupium is highly effective blood glucose lowering Indian traditional plant agent, its glycemic effect being comparable as add-on therapy in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus and free from any adverse event

Applying dissipative dynamical systems to pseudorandom number generation: Equidistribution property and statistical independence of bits at distances up to logarithm of mesh size

The behavior of a family of dissipative dynamical systems representing transformations of two-dimensional torus is studied on a discrete lattice and compared with that of conservative hyperbolic automorphisms of the torus. Applying dissipative dynamical systems to generation of pseudorandom numbers is shown to be advantageous and equidistribution of probabilities for the sequences of bits can be achieved. A new algorithm for generating uniform pseudorandom numbers is proposed. The theory of the generator, which includes proofs of periodic properties and of statistical independence of bits at distances up to logarithm of mesh size, is presented. Extensive statistical testing using available test packages demonstrates excellent results, while the speed of the generator is comparable to other modern generators.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

Climate change, extreme heat, and South Asian megacities: Impact of heat stress on inhabitants and their productivity

Of the 33 global megacities, 10 were situated in South Asia. Extreme heat waves have become an annual phenomenon due to climate change in South Asian megacities, causing severe health issues and even deaths. In this study, we evaluated 29 years (1990–2019) of historical data on heat stress in ten selected megacities (existing and prospective)—New Delhi, Dhaka, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chittagong, and Pune—in India and Bangladesh. We used heat index (HI) and environmental stress index (ESI) analyses to evaluate stress and vulnerability. Our results showed New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Chennai in India; Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh were already experiencing an elevated number of hours of “danger” levels of heat stress, which may lead to heat cramps, exhaustion, stroke, and even death. Furthermore, the frequency of “danger” levels of heat stress and vulnerable levels of ESI has increased significantly since 2011 in the selected megacities, which elevated the heat-related vulnerability among the millions of inhabitants in terms of work hours lost for light, moderate, and heavy work due to heat stress. The vulnerable population in the studied megacities might have to reduce annual work hours by 0.25–860.6 h (light work), 43–1595.9 h (moderate work), and 291–2402 h (heavy work) due to extreme heat in 1990–2019. We also discussed the implication of the work-hour loss on productivity, income, gross domestic product, and sustainable development goal progress because of heat stress and its causes and suggested recommendations to reduce its impact

An Educational Interventional Study to Assess Awareness about Mosquito Breeding, Diseases Caused and Protective Measures Against them among Families Residing in an Urban Slum of Indore City

Background: Community participation plays an important role in control of Mosquito borne diseases. This study tries to assess impact of educational intervention on various aspects of mosquito borne diseases in an urban slum. Methodology: An educational interventional study was done in 200 families residing in a slum (Badi Gwaltoli) which is in field practice area of Urban Health Centre attached to Department of Community Medicine of M.G.M.Medical College, Indore. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was administered to the Head of the family which studied their awareness and perception regarding breeding sites and biting habits of mosquitoes, diseases spread by them and personal protective measures used, followed by an educational intervention and post assessment. Data was entered into Microsoft excel spread sheet and analysed using SPSS version 20 software. Results: 46% of study population knew the correct breeding season of mosquitoes (monsoon season) during pre-intervention and 68% of the population post- intervention (p- value 0.004). When asked at what time mosquitoes bite the most, maximum number (92%) of people said that mosquitoes bite most in the evening and night, while only 6% and 2% were for morning and noon, respectively. Only 3.5% of the population who knew about breeding sites knew about artificial collections of water. Majority said mosquito breed in dirty stagnant water (78.5%). About 96%of the study population was aware that mosquitoes spread diseases. However, only 33.3%of respondents knew correctly about the diseases spread which improved to 68% in the post-intervention period (p-value=.000). 46% knew all the protection measures against mosquitoes in the pre-intervention which increased to 86% in the post intervention (p.value-.005). Conclusion: Awareness about Aedes mosquitoes and its habits is quite poor and many people still believe that only dirty water serves as a breeding place in mosquitoes. Regular IEC sessions informing community about mosquito-borne diseases will improve community participation

Communicating future overheating risks to building design practitioners:Using the Low Carbon Futures tool

The Low Carbon Futures tool provides a probabilistic assessment of future overheating risks and cooling demands for domestic and nondomestic buildings in the UK. The approach adopted for the development of the Low Carbon Futures tool includes academic rigour within the development of the calculation engine, and also practitioner feedback throughout the process. This paper discusses the journey of the tool from modelling and simulation to the practitioner engagement, which took place by means of a questionnaire, focus groups and interviews with building design professionals aimed at understanding how the issue of overheating in buildings is being addressed. Throughout these events, the synergies between designing for low-carbon targets and designing for a future climate were explored. A final dissemination event was held to identify output styles that could be generated by the Low Carbon Futures tool that would be more practical and useful for specific client types. The workshop discussions serve to shape the outputs from the tool, and the feedback gathered will be used to inform a number of output styles, based on client type. Practical application: This paper outlines the development of the Low Carbon Futures tool for analysing overheating risks in buildings and discusses the practitioner feedback obtained from industry professionals on the use and applicability of the tool, in a final event hosted by the Low Carbon Futures research team in London. This event confirmed that practitioners need to be comfortable with the layout and format of the output in order to communicate its meaning and possible implications to a range of clients. A balanced output is required, which conveys some of the complexity of the underlying analysis, but which is easily understood and conveyed to a potentially lay audience. </jats:p

Synchronisation schemes for two dimensional discrete systems

In this work we consider two models of two dimensional discrete systems subjected to three different types of coupling and analyse systematically the performance of each in realising synchronised states.We find that linear coupling effectively introduce control of chaos along with synchronisation,while synchronised chaotic states are possible with an additive parametric coupling scheme both being equally relevant for specific applications.The basin leading to synchronisationin the initial value plane and the choice of parameter values for synchronisation in the parameter plane are isolatedin each case.Comment: 17 pages 8 figures. submitted to physica script

Assessment of Chemical Inhibitor Addition to Improve the Gas Production from Biowaste

The coexistence of sulphate-reducing bacteria and methanogenic archaea in the reactors during the anaerobic digestion from sulphate-containing waste could favor the accumulation of sulfide on the biogas, and therefore reduce its quality. In this study, the effect of sulphate-reducing bacteria inhibitor (MoO−2 4 ) addition in a two phase system from sulphate-containing municipal solid waste to improve the quality of the biogas has been investigated. The results showed that although SRB and sulphide production decreased, the use of inhibitor was not effective to improve the anaerobic digestion in a two phase system from sulphate-containing waste, since a significant decrease on biogas and organic matter removal were observed. Before MoO−2 4 addition the average values of volatile solid were around 12 g/kg, after 5 days of inhibitor use, those values did exceed to 28 g/kg. Molybdate caused acidification in the reactor and it was according to decrease in the pH values. In relation to microbial consortia, the effect of inhibitor was a decrease in Bacteria (44%; 60% in sulphate-reducing bacteria) and Archaea (38%) population

A multi-sectoral approach to modelling community energy demand of the built environment

This paper examines the major challenges associated with evaluating energy demand in the residential building sector in an integrated energy system modelling environment. Three established modelling fields are examined to generate a framework for assessing the impact of energy policy: energy system models, building stock models and dynamic building simulation. A set of profound challenges emerge when attempting to integrate such models, due to distinct differences in their intended applications, operational scales, formulations and computational implementations. Detailed discussions are provided on the integration of temporally refined energy demand, based on thermodynamic processes and socio-technical effects which may stem from new policy. A detailed framework is discussed for generating aggregate residential demands, in terms of space heating demand, domestic hot water demand, and lighting, appliance and consumer electronics demand. The framework incorporates a pathway for interpreting the effects of changes in household behaviour resulting from prospective policy measures. When long-term planning exercises are carried out using this framework, the cyclic effects between behavioural change and policy implementation are also considered. This work focused specifically on the United Kingdom energy system, however parallels can be drawn with other countries, in particular those with a mature privatised system, dominated by space heating concerns

Stability of Terrestrial Planets in the Habitable Zone of Gl 777 A, HD 72659, Gl 614, 47 Uma and HD 4208

We have undertaken a thorough dynamical investigation of five extrasolar planetary systems using extensive numerical experiments. The systems Gl 777 A, HD 72659, Gl 614, 47 Uma and HD 4208 were examined concerning the question of whether they could host terrestrial like planets in their habitable zones (=HZ). First we investigated the mean motion resonances between fictitious terrestrial planets and the existing gas giants in these five extrasolar systems. Then a fine grid of initial conditions for a potential terrestrial planet within the HZ was chosen for each system, from which the stability of orbits was then assessed by direct integrations over a time interval of 1 million years. The computations were carried out using a Lie-series integration method with an adaptive step size control. This integration method achieves machine precision accuracy in a highly efficient and robust way, requiring no special adjustments when the orbits have large eccentricities. The stability of orbits was examined with a determination of the Renyi entropy, estimated from recurrence plots, and with a more straight forward method based on the maximum eccentricity achieved by the planet over the 1 million year integration. Additionally, the eccentricity is an indication of the habitability of a terrestrial planet in the HZ; any value of e>0.2 produces a significant temperature difference on a planet's surface between apoapse and periapse. The results for possible stable orbits for terrestrial planets in habitable zones for the five systems are summarized as follows: for Gl 777 A nearly the entire HZ is stable, for 47 Uma, HD 72659 and HD 4208 terrestrial planets can survive for a sufficiently long time, while for Gl 614 our results exclude terrestrial planets moving in stable orbits within the HZ.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figures submitted to A&