Assessment of ethnopharmacological potential of Cyperus difformis L. in terms of its’ phytochemistry, antibacterial, antioxidant and anticancer attributes

The present research was carried out on Cyperus difformis L., commonly found sedge weed in rice field to evaluate its’ ethnopharmacological potential in terms of phytochemical constituents, antibacterial, antioxidant and anticancer activities. FTIR spectroscopy of powdered material of plant parts, rhizome (with roots), leaves and flowers showed the presence of three main chemical groups, i.e. -OH (alcohol), -C=O (carbonyl) and -CO-O-CO (anhydride). The phytochemical composition of n-Hexane, chloroform and ethanol crude extracts of same parts analysed by GC-MS and n-Hexane extract of various parts indicated 14 compounds with highest (10) in flowers extract followed by six compounds in chloroform and five in ethanol extracts of plant parts. The antibacterial activity was assessed against Salmonella enterica, E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus by using well diffusion method and similar resistance was shown by n-Hexane and ethanol extracts while noticeable inhibition by chloroform extract, especially by leaves showing zone of inhibition, 16.17±0.52mm, comparable with Gentamycin 18±0.11mm. The antioxidant activity in terms of DPPH Scavenging activity was found higher in n-Hexane and chloroform extracts, especially leaves i.e., 54.6±0.43 & 43.45±0.53 as compared to that of ethanol extracts. The percentage activity was increased with an increase of concentration of extracts. Antiproliferative activity checked by SRB proliferative assay and the crude extracts of plant parts of C. difformis showed good activity against A2780 and HCT116 cancer cells in three days. C. difformis having therapeutic action as well as its’ ethnopharmacological history, being used as fodder, it may be recommended good herbal fodder for the dairy animals

Islamic Monetary Economics: Insights from the Literature

This chapter reviews critical early literature of Islamic monetary economics. The prohibition of Riba has imposed challenges on Islamic economists to come up with the viable alternatives to achieve Islamic monetary policy goals. Our extensive review of theoretical and empirical literature indicates that equity based profit- and loss-sharing instruments have been proposed for conducting open market operations in an interest-free economy. Theoretically, the central bank can achieve desired goals by controlling money supply and profit-sharing ratios. The findings from empirical literature suggest that money demand tend to be more stable in an interest-free economy. Whether monetary transmission works through Islamic banking channel is controversial, but the literature is growing. These findings are not surprising as majority Muslim countries lack sustainable and equitable economic growth. Moreover, these countries suffer from higher inflation and unemployment with little or no monetary freedom due to fixed exchange rate regime, shallow financial markets and strict capital control

In silico modeling of the specific inhibitory potential of thiophene-2,3-dihydro-1,5-benzothiazepine against BChE in the formation of β-amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alzheimer's disease, known to be associated with the gradual loss of memory, is characterized by low concentration of acetylcholine in the hippocampus and cortex part of the brain. Inhibition of acetylcholinesterase has successfully been used as a drug target to treat Alzheimer's disease but drug resistance shown by butyrylcholinesterase remains a matter of concern in treating Alzheimer's disease. Apart from the many other reasons for Alzheimer's disease, its association with the genesis of fibrils by β-amyloid plaques is closely related to the increased activity of butyrylcholinesterase. Although few data are available on the inhibition of butyrylcholinesterase, studies have shown that that butyrylcholinesterase is a genetically validated drug target and its selective inhibition reduces the formation of β-amyloid plaques.</p> <p>Rationale</p> <p>We previously reported the inhibition of cholinesterases by 2,3-dihydro-1, 5-benzothiazepines, and considered this class of compounds as promising inhibitors for the cure of Alzheimer's disease. One compound from the same series, when substituted with a hydroxy group at C-3 in ring A and 2-thienyl moiety as ring B, showed greater activity against butyrylcholinesterase than to acetylcholinesterase. To provide insight into the binding mode of this compound (Compound A), molecular docking in combination with molecular dynamics simulation of 5000 ps in an explicit solvent system was carried out for both cholinesterases.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Molecular docking studies revealed that the potential of Compound A to inhibit cholinesterases was attributable to the cumulative effects of strong hydrogen bonds, cationic-π, π-π interactions and hydrophobic interactions. A comparison of the docking results of Compound A against both cholinesterases showed that amino acid residues in different sub-sites were engaged to stabilize the docked complex. The relatively high affinity of Compound A for butyrylcholinesterase was due to the additional hydrophobic interaction between the 2-thiophene moiety of Compound A and Ile69. The involvement of one catalytic triad residue (His438) of butyrylcholinesterase with the 3'-hydroxy group on ring A increases the selectivity of Compound A. C-C bond rotation around ring A also stabilizes and enhances the interaction of Compound A with butyrylcholinesterase. Furthermore, the classical network of hydrogen bonding interactions as formed by the catalytic triad of butyrylcholinesterase is disturbed by Compound A. This study may open a new avenue for structure-based drug design for Alzheimer's disease by considering the 3D-pharmacophoric features of the complex responsible for discriminating these two closely-related cholinesterases.</p

Subnational mapping of HIV incidence and mortality among individuals aged 15–49 years in sub-Saharan Africa, 2000–18 : a modelling study

Background: High-resolution estimates of HIV burden across space and time provide an important tool for tracking and monitoring the progress of prevention and control efforts and assist with improving the precision and efficiency of targeting efforts. We aimed to assess HIV incidence and HIV mortality for all second-level administrative units across sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: In this modelling study, we developed a framework that used the geographically specific HIV prevalence data collected in seroprevalence surveys and antenatal care clinics to train a model that estimates HIV incidence and mortality among individuals aged 15–49 years. We used a model-based geostatistical framework to estimate HIV prevalence at the second administrative level in 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for 2000–18 and sought data on the number of individuals on antiretroviral therapy (ART) by second-level administrative unit. We then modified the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) to use these HIV prevalence and treatment estimates to estimate HIV incidence and mortality by second-level administrative unit. Findings: The estimates suggest substantial variation in HIV incidence and mortality rates both between and within countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with 15 countries having a ten-times or greater difference in estimated HIV incidence between the second-level administrative units with the lowest and highest estimated incidence levels. Across all 44 countries in 2018, HIV incidence ranged from 2 ·8 (95% uncertainty interval 2·1–3·8) in Mauritania to 1585·9 (1369·4–1824·8) cases per 100 000 people in Lesotho and HIV mortality ranged from 0·8 (0·7–0·9) in Mauritania to 676· 5 (513· 6–888·0) deaths per 100 000 people in Lesotho. Variation in both incidence and mortality was substantially greater at the subnational level than at the national level and the highest estimated rates were accordingly higher. Among second-level administrative units, Guijá District, Gaza Province, Mozambique, had the highest estimated HIV incidence (4661·7 [2544·8–8120·3]) cases per 100000 people in 2018 and Inhassunge District, Zambezia Province, Mozambique, had the highest estimated HIV mortality rate (1163·0 [679·0–1866·8]) deaths per 100 000 people. Further, the rate of reduction in HIV incidence and mortality from 2000 to 2018, as well as the ratio of new infections to the number of people living with HIV was highly variable. Although most second-level administrative units had declines in the number of new cases (3316 [81· 1%] of 4087 units) and number of deaths (3325 [81·4%]), nearly all appeared well short of the targeted 75% reduction in new cases and deaths between 2010 and 2020. Interpretation: Our estimates suggest that most second-level administrative units in sub-Saharan Africa are falling short of the targeted 75% reduction in new cases and deaths by 2020, which is further compounded by substantial within-country variability. These estimates will help decision makers and programme implementers expand access to ART and better target health resources to higher burden subnational areas

Intraperitoneal drain placement and outcomes after elective colorectal surgery: international matched, prospective, cohort study

Despite current guidelines, intraperitoneal drain placement after elective colorectal surgery remains widespread. Drains were not associated with earlier detection of intraperitoneal collections, but were associated with prolonged hospital stay and increased risk of surgical-site infections.Background Many surgeons routinely place intraperitoneal drains after elective colorectal surgery. However, enhanced recovery after surgery guidelines recommend against their routine use owing to a lack of clear clinical benefit. This study aimed to describe international variation in intraperitoneal drain placement and the safety of this practice. Methods COMPASS (COMPlicAted intra-abdominal collectionS after colorectal Surgery) was a prospective, international, cohort study which enrolled consecutive adults undergoing elective colorectal surgery (February to March 2020). The primary outcome was the rate of intraperitoneal drain placement. Secondary outcomes included: rate and time to diagnosis of postoperative intraperitoneal collections; rate of surgical site infections (SSIs); time to discharge; and 30-day major postoperative complications (Clavien-Dindo grade at least III). After propensity score matching, multivariable logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to estimate the independent association of the secondary outcomes with drain placement. Results Overall, 1805 patients from 22 countries were included (798 women, 44.2 per cent; median age 67.0 years). The drain insertion rate was 51.9 per cent (937 patients). After matching, drains were not associated with reduced rates (odds ratio (OR) 1.33, 95 per cent c.i. 0.79 to 2.23; P = 0.287) or earlier detection (hazard ratio (HR) 0.87, 0.33 to 2.31; P = 0.780) of collections. Although not associated with worse major postoperative complications (OR 1.09, 0.68 to 1.75; P = 0.709), drains were associated with delayed hospital discharge (HR 0.58, 0.52 to 0.66; P &lt; 0.001) and an increased risk of SSIs (OR 2.47, 1.50 to 4.05; P &lt; 0.001). Conclusion Intraperitoneal drain placement after elective colorectal surgery is not associated with earlier detection of postoperative collections, but prolongs hospital stay and increases SSI risk

Coordination and adaptation techniques for efficient resource utilization in cognitive radio networks

Abstract The aim of this thesis is to devise coordination and adaptation techniques that enable the wireless devices operating in a cognitive network to utilize their available resources efficiently. The first part of this thesis considers the case where multiple autonomous devices sense the frequency channels sequentially in some sensing order for spectrum opportunities. In particular, the first part is interested in the scenario where devices with false alarms autonomously select the sensing orders in which they visit channels, without coordination from a centralized entity. An adaptive persistent sensing order selection strategy that allows autonomous adaptations to collision-free sensing orders is proposed and evaluated. It is shown that the proposed strategy converges and maximizes cognitive network throughput compared to a random selection of sensing orders. The second part of this thesis considers the case where distributed devices interact with one another to cooperate to fulfill tasks or to improve the efficiency of network resource usage. Tools from coalition formation game theory are adopted to devise dynamic cooperative strategies for distributed devices. Dynamic coalition formation methods, are proposed for two different network scenarios: 1) Distributed devices operating in an interference channel; 2) Distributed devices performing spectrum sensing. It is observed that in distributed spectrum sensing if the devices pursue their goals selfishly then coalition formation may lead to a suboptimal equilibrium where devices, through their interactions, reach an undesirable coalition structure from a network point of view. The proposed selfish model of dynamic coalition formation is then extended to determine whether and how the coalitional behavior of devices will change if coalition formation is ''not entirely selfish''. It is observed that for the problem of distributed spectrum sensing, average throughput per device is increased when devices cooperate to maximize the overall gains of the group as compared to when they cooperate to increase their individual gains. Finally, in the last part of the thesis, to reduce spectrum sensing overhead and total energy consumption of a cognitive radio network, the problem of sensor selection is considered. Different techniques for selecting devices with the best detection performance are proposed, and it is shown that the proposed device selection methods are able to offer significant gains in terms of system performance as compared to a random selection of devices.Tiivistelmä Tämän työn tavoitteena oli kehittää koordinointi- ja adaptointimenetelmiä, jotka mahdollistavat langattomien laitteiden toiminnan kognitiivisessa verkossa ja tarjolla olevien resurssien tehokkaan käytön. Työn ensimmäisessä osassa käsitellään tapausta, jossa useat itsenäiset laitteet havainnoivat taajuuskanavien spektriominaisuuksia sekventiaalisesti jossakin järjestyksessä. Ensimmäisessä osassa ollaan erityisesti kiinnostuneita skenaariosta, jossa virheellisen hälytyksen antava laite automaattisesti valitsee kanavien havainnointijärjestyksen, joka tapahtuu ilman keskusyksikön koordinointia. Tässä työssä ehdotetaan ja evaluoidaan adaptiivinen jatkuva havainnointijärjestyksen valintastrategia, joka sallii itsenäisen sopeutumisen törmäysvapaaseen havainnointijärjestykseen. Osoitetaan, että ehdotettu strategia suppenee ja maksimoi kognitiivisen verkon kapasiteetin verrattuna satunnaiseen havainnointijärjestysten valintaan. Työn toisessa osassa pohditaan tilannetta, jossa hajautetut laitteet vuorovaikuttavat keskenään yhteistyössä suorittaakseen tehtäviään tai parantaakseen verkon resurssien käytön tehokkuutta. Peliteoreettisia työkaluja koalitioiden muodostamiseen mukautetaan dynaamisten yhteistoiminnallisten strategioiden laatimiseen hajautetuille laitteille. Dynaamisia koalitioiden muodostamismenetelmiä ehdotetaan kahteen erilaiseen verkkoskenaarioon: 1) hajautetut laitteet toimivat häiriöllisessä kanavassa, 2) hajautetut laitteet suorittavat spektrin havainnointia. Havaitaan, että jos hajautetussa spektrin havainnoinnissa laitteet tavoittelevat päämääriään itsekkäästi, niin koalitioiden muodostaminen voi johtaa alioptimaaliseen tasapainotilaan, jossa laitteet keskinäisen vaikutuksensa kautta saavuttavat verkon näkökulmasta epätoivotun koalitiorakenteen. Ehdotettua itsekästä mallia dynaamiseen koalitioiden muodostamiseen laajennetaan ottamaan selville, miten laitteiden koalitiokäyttäytyminen muuttuu, jos koalitioiden muodostaminen ei ole täydellisen itsekästä. Havaitaan, että hajautetun spektrin havainnoinnin probleemassa, keskimääräinen laitekohtainen kapasiteetti kasvaa kun laitteet tekevät yhteistyötä maksimoidakseen ryhmän kokonaishyödyn verrattuna siihen, jos ne tekevät yhteistyötä lisätäkseen yksittäisiä etujaan. Työn viimeisessä osassa pohditaan sensorien valintaongelmaa. Siinä ehdotetaan erilaisia menetelmiä, jotka valitsevat parhaan suorituskyvyn omaavat laitteet ja näytetään, että ehdotetut laitteiden valintamenetelmät pystyvät tarjoamaan merkittäviä suorituskykyetuja verrattuna satunnaiseen laitteiden valintaan

Kinetics of formation of N-diketohydrindylidene histidinatocopper(II):Elucidation of template mechanism

1018-1020The kinetics of formation of N-diketohydrindylidene histidinatocopper(II) has been studied spectrophotometrically at pH 5.0. The reaction follows an irreversible first order reaction kinetics with respect to copper(II)histidine complex and fractional order with respect to ninhydrin. The composition of the product has been determined by Job's method of continuous variations. The reaction proceeds through the coordination of ninhydrin with copper(II)histidine complex. Condensation of coordinated amino group to coordinated carbonyl group takes within the coordination sphere of copper(II). On the basis of the observed results, template mechanism has been discussed and thermodynamic parameters have been calculated

FPGA-assisted real-time RF wireless data analytics system:design, implementation, and statistical analyses

Abstract A wide range of new ultra reliable low latency communication (URLLC) applications in next generation (NG) wireless systems demand real-time radio frequency (RF) data analytics of channel utilization (CU) that can help in making proactive resource allocation decisions. However, such real-time RF data analytics require processing of tens of millions of in-phase and quadrature (IQ) samples per second and sending huge quantities of samples to a resource allocating entity is not practical. We present design and implementation of an RF data analytics system which utilizes field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) at the network edge to process real-time streaming IQ samples from RF transceiver. FPGAs process millions of samples per second and output low-overhead descriptive statistics of wireless CU, such as mean CU values, maximum CU values, and entire histograms to obtain probability distribution of CU values, to a resource controller server where a quantile estimation based technique is used to detect congestion in CU in real-time. The FPGA-based modules are implemented on Xilinx’s Zynq-7000 devices mounted with RF transceivers. We evaluate the performance of the implemented analytics system using extensive measurements, testing, and statistical analyses that are performed in both laboratory and over-the-air environments

Interactive trial and error learning method for distributed channel bonding:model, prototype implementation and evaluation

Abstract Channel bonding (CB) has been proposed as a technique to accommodate growing data rate demands in shared spectrum (SS) bands, such as in the 5 GHz unlicensed band. Using CB a wireless user can combine multiple non-overlapping channels into one wide channel. In practice, efficient CB utilization in SS bands can be challenging as diverse owners of networks can deploy and operate heterogeneous technologies in an uncoordinated manner. This paper leverages a game theoretic learning rule for efficient distributed channel/bonding selection. Using the proposed method, each user occasionally measures channels to try out new channel/bonding selections, rejecting those selections that are erroneous in the sense that they do not lead to higher utility. Using both analytical and simulation results, we perform a Nash equilibrium assessment of the proposed method. Using various performance metrics, we analyze and compare the performance of the proposed method with a centralized solution and also with conventional distributed CB selection solutions. To realize a complete over-the-air (OTA) channel/bonding selection solution, we also implement a prototype of the proposed method on the Wireless Open-Access Research Platform (WARP). Performance of the implemented prototype is evaluated by experiments which use real OTA wireless communications

Kinetics and mechanism of base-catalysed hydrolysis of L-asparagine and its copper(II} complex

737-739Kinetic studies on hydrolysis of L-asparagine and Cu(II)-L-asparagine complex have, been carried out in sodium hydroxide solution (0.1-2.5 mol dm-3). The pseudo-first order rate constants follow the general relationship: kobs = k0[OH-] where k0 is an empirical constant