A proanthocyanidin from cinnamomum zeylanicum stimulates phosphorylation of insulin receptor in 3t3-l1 adipocytes

Non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus is due to in large part to insulin resistance, a state where the target cells are no longer responding to ordinary levels of circulating insulin. A drug that promotes the initiation of insulin receptor (IR) signaling by enhancing IR phosphorylation should be useful in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. To investigate a compound that is able to phosphorylate IR, a proanthocyanidin, cinnamtannin B1, has been isolated from the stem bark of Cinnamomum zeylanicum Blume (Lauraceae). The structure of the compound was established by spectroscopic methods. Cinnamtannin B1 (0.11 mM) activates the phosphorylation of insulin receptor â-subunit on 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Like insulin, cinnamtannin B1-stimulated phosphorylation of insulin receptor was inhibited by wortmannin, a specific inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and cytochalasin B, an inhibitor of the glucose transporter (GLUT4); otherwise the phosphorylation was enhanced by vanadate, a tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor. These results suggest that the activity of cinnamtannin B1 is specially mediated by phosphorylation of IR through activation of the PI3K

Antioxidant properties of cashew leaves' extracts before and after treatment with activated carbon used in cosmetics

Natural ingredients such as cashew leaves extract could be an attractive candidate in cosmetic formulation. However, the plant extracts are normally dark brown and greenish color that might spoil the appearance of the products if they are added in cosmetic formulation. In order to solve this problem, use of activated carbon was tested to eliminate the intense color of plant extract without affecting the cosmeceutical properties. Ethanol and water extracts of cashew leaves were compared for the cosmeceutical properties mainly antioxidants. The system was tested with different concentrations of cashew leaves extract (CLE-5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30%) for solid and liqufied form of cashew leaves extract (CLE) before treatment with activated carbon and after treatment with (10, 15, 20 and 25g). The study shows that 15g activated carbon using 20%CLE (water) produces 0.13 radical scavenging activity (RSC%) antioxidant. Moreover, using a similar system, 25%CL (ethanol) produces 0.10(RSC%) antioxidants

Maternal satisfaction towards intrapartum care of designated healthcare facilities and its associated factors among postnatal women attending Klinik Kesihatan Salak

Introduction: The World Health Organization recommends evaluation of maternal satisfaction to improve quality of health care during childbirth. Dissatisfaction may lead to undesired outcomes such as unassisted homebirth and delay in seeking treatment. Determining the maternal satisfaction level and its associated factors may help to improve health care services and prevent negative implications to both mothers and infants. This study aimed to determine the maternal satisfaction towards intrapartum care of designated healthcare facilities and its associated factors among postnatal women. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of postnatal women attended Klinik Kesihatan Salak from December 2017 to February 2018. Systematic random sampling with the ratio of 1:3 was applied to the eligible respondents. A self-administered questionnaire that include respondent’s socio-demographic characteristics and a validated 14-items Maternal Satisfaction with Hospital-based Intrapartum Care Scale was used. Data was analyzed using SPSS 23. Results: 274 respondents were recruited in this study. Overall, only 21.2% of respondents were satisfied with the intrapartum care given. The level of satisfaction was highest in interpersonal care domain (36.1%), followed by physical birth environment (34.3%) and the least satisfied was information and decision making domain (27.7%). Binary logistic regression showed that maternal satisfaction was significantly associated with place of birth (AOR (95% CI): 0.046 (0.183, 0.984)) and labour complications (AOR (95% CI): 3.387 (1.345, 8.528)). Conclusion: The overall maternal satisfaction towards intrapartum care was low and the information and decision-making domain appeared to be the least satisfied. Maternal satisfaction was associated with place of birth and labour complications. Therefore, health care providers should emphasize and improve the quality of services especially for this domain and to consider factor that contribute to dissatisfaction towards the intrapartum care

MHD stagnation-point flow of a nanofluid past a stretching/shrinking sheet with induced magnetic field

The problem of the steady two dimensional stagnation-point flow of an incompressible electrically conducting nanofluid caused by a stretching/shrinking surface is studied. The effect of an induced magnetic field is taken into account. The nonlinear partial differential equations are transformed into nonlinear ordinary differential equations via. similarity transformations. The transformed governing equations are solved numerically using the shooting method which built-in function in Maple Software. The effects of governing parameters on the skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number, the local sherwood number and the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are also presented in this study. It is found that dual solutions exist for the shrinking case. Therefore, a stability analysis is performed to verify which solution is stable and it is found that the first solution is physically stable while the second solution is unstable

Cinnamtannin B1: a small compound having antidiabetes properties

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease that results from defects in insulin secretion and insulin receptor kinase. Investigation of novel small active molecule that can potentiate insulin action or having a similar action as insulin is important in the treatment of diabetes. World ethnobotanical information on medicinal plants reports almost 800 plants used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. However, only a small number of them have been studied thoroughly. Recent study conducted on Cinnamomum reported that it has a great activity in activating insulin receptor kinase and inhibiting insulin receptor phosphatase leading to increased insulin sensitivity and function as a mimetic for insulin. Our study was designed to investigate insulin-mimetic activity of cinnamtannin B1 isolated from Cinnamomum zeylanicum on adipocyte cells. The insulin-mimetic activity of cinnamtannin B1 was evaluated by monitoring preadipocytes differentiation, glucose uptake and phosphorylation of insulin receptor -subunit in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. To determine whether cinnamtannin B1 able to promote differentiation of preadipocytes, we cultured 3T3-L1 preadipocytes in the presence of cinnamtannin B1, or combination of cinnamtannin B1 and insulin, and then cell proliferation was measured at several points during the course of growth. Investigation of role of cinnamtannin B1 on tyrosine posphorylation of insulin receptor of 3T3-L1 cells was done by immunoprecipitation of cells lysate with anti-insulin receptor -subunit antibody and the immunocomplex samples were subjected to SDS-PAGE, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes, and immunoblotted with monoclonal anti- phosphotyrosine antibody. Evaluation of glucose uptake by adipocyte cells after treatment with cinnamtannin B1 was carried out by analyzing of radioactive glucose uptake with liquid scintillation counter. Based on these experiments, it was found that, a mixture cinnamtannin B1 with differentiation cocktail was able to induce differentiation of preadipocytes cells. Cinnamtannin B1 was found to active to stimulate phosphorylation of insulin receptor -subunit by positively exhibited phosphorylation at 170-kDa. The mixture of cinnamtannin B1 was also able to stimulate glucose uptake from a basal value. The results demonstrated that activity of cinnamtannin B1 on adipocyte cells was found to mimicking insulin action. It acted directly on insulin receptor -subunit by activation of PI3-kinase that stimulates glucose transporter-4 (GLUT-4) translocation. Stimulation of GLUT4 translocation therefore stimulates glucose uptake lead to glucose disposal process in adipocytes. Based on the work that has been carried out, it was suggested that cinnamtannin B1 could be one of the potential lead drug compound in the treatment of type 2 diabetes

Investigating the Relevant Agro Food Keyword in Malaysian Online Newspapers

Online newspaper is a valuable resource of information for decision making. To extract relevant information from them is a challenging process when their volume is massive, and its knowledge is in an unstructured form that is scattered on every page.  This situation becomes more complicated when different news providers have different styles of journalism when reporting a similar event and use different concepts and terms.  In this study, we examined the three Malaysian English online newspapers in order to identify knowledge in terms of the most relevant keywords used in daily online news. The news articles related to Agro-food industries were taken from online news websites - The Star Online, The Sun Daily, and The News Straits Times. During the extraction, about 458 Agro-food industries news articles were scrapped from the website within the time frame of 2014-2017.  The keywords were extracted using the RAKE algorithm and were classified into 4 groups i.e. agriculture, livestock, fishery and miscellaneous. The agriculture keywords group was found as the most frequent keywords in all newspapers (58%) and it was followed by the livestock (23%), fishery (12%), and miscellaneous (7%). Through the analysis, there were 146 Agro-related keywords found in all newspapers, repeated 720 times, and the highest Agro terms were found in The Star Online (35.13%), followed by The Sun Daily (33.78%), and The News Straits Times (31.08%). There were 12 Agro keywords0 which considered as the most relevant when they appear in all newspapers- palm oil, rice, fruits, fish, vegetable, livestock, paddy, crop, chicken, animal, meat, and beef. The ‘palm oil’ is the most popular keyword among the three newspapers and it was found 37 times (38.9%) in The Star Online, 26 times (37.9%) in News Straits Time, and repeated 22 times (23.2%) in the Sun. The identified keywords can be recommended as input to form a future Agro inventory

Classification of aromatic herbs using artificial intelligent technique

Herbs have unique characteristics such as colour, texture and odour. In general, herb identification is through organoleptic methods and is heavily dependent on botanists. It is becoming more difficult to identify different herb species in the same family based only on their aroma. It is because of their similar physical appearance and smell. Artificial technology, unlike humans, is thought to have the capacity to identify different species with precision. An instrument used to identify aroma is the electronic nose. It is used in many sector including agriculture. The electronic nose in this project was to identify the odour of 12 species such as lauraceae, myrtaceae and zingiberaceae families. The output captured by the electronic nose gas sensors were classified using two types of artificial intelligent techniques: Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). From the result, ANFIS has 94.8% accuracy compared with ANN at 91.7%

Dual solutions of MHD stagnation slip flow past a permeable plate

In this paper, dual solution to the problem of steady laminar magnetohydrodynamics boundary layer stagnation slip flow of the electrically conducting fluid over a permeable plate with suction effect is performed. The governing partial differential equations of the boundary layer are transformed into nonlinear ordinary differential equations via similarity transformations, and then numerically solved using the bvp4c method, which is the integrated algorithm of MATLAB. The effect of magnetic, slip and suction parameters on the skin friction coefficients and the velocity profiles and are presented in graphical form and discussed in detail. Dual solutions have been identified when suction is implied

Measuring program attainments (POs) of Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Environment) using OBE – ANAS v14.0 tool / Mohaiyedin Idris... [et al.]

Education system is recognised around the globe as an important element for a country’s development. Therefore, the prominence of education system around the world cannot be denied. In order to empower the education, the concept of Outcome Based Education (OBE) was first initiated by the academicians (who in particular?). Malaysia is also in line with other countries which pay close attention to the importance of OBE impact in the higher education institutions. The OBE implementation plays an important role in defining skills (psychomotor), knowledge (cognitive) and behavior (affective) for each graduate attributes. This paper is written to measure the program outcomes (POs) of Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Enviroment) with honors (EH224) for its accreditation purpose. OBE concept system consists of significant aspects for measuring, monitoring and evaluating to determine whether or not the POs are attainable in producing the competencies of the selected graduates. The tool to fulfill the measuring POs is worked out by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering OBE committee members and known as OBE-ANAS system. A graphical user interface (GUI) is designed based on the Microsoft Visual C# programming language and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (MSSQL 2012) is used as a database system. The tool is useful for measuring POs parameters such as POs average, POs density, individual POs and then, measuring the programme strength by implementing the measurement model which is the Degree of Programme Achievement (DPA)

Cinnamtannin B1: a small compound having antidiabetes properties

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease that results from defects in insulin secretion and insulin receptor kinase. Investigation of novel small active molecule that can potentiate insulin action or having a similar action as insulin is important in the treatment of diabetes. World ethnobotanical information on medicinal plants reports almost 800 plants used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. However, only a small number of them have been studied thoroughly. Recent study conducted on Cinnamomum reported that it has a great activity in activating insulin receptor kinase and inhibiting insulin receptor phosphatase leading to increased insulin sensitivity and function as a mimetic for insulin. Our study was designed to investigate insulin-mimetic activity of cinnamtannin B1 isolated from Cinnamomum zeylanicum on adipocyte cells. The insulin-mimetic activity of cinnamtannin B1 was evaluated by monitoring preadipocytes differentiation, glucose uptake and phosphorylation of insulin receptor β-subunit in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. To determine whether cinnamtannin B1 able to promote differentiation of preadipocytes, we cultured 3T3-L1 preadipocytes in the presence of cinnamtannin B1, or combination of cinnamtannin B1 and insulin, and then cell proliferation was measured at several points during the course of growth. Investigation of role of cinnamtannin B1 on tyrosine posphorylation of insulin receptor of 3T3-L1 cells was done by immunoprecipitation of cells lysate with anti-insulin receptor β-subunit antibody and the immunocomplex samples were subjected to SDS-PAGE, transferred to nitrocelluose membranes, and immunoblotted with monoclonal anti-phosphotyrosine antibody. Evaluation of glucose uptake by adipocyte cells after treatment with cinnamtannin B1 was carried out by analyzing of radioactive glucose uptake with liquid scintillation counter. Based on these experiments, it was found that, a mixture cinnamtannin B1 with differentiation cocktail was able to induce differentiation of preadipocytes cells. Cinnamtannin B1 was found to active to stimulate phosphorylation of insulin receptor β-subunit by positively exhibited phosphorylation at 170-kDa. The mixture of cinnamtannin B1 was also able to stimulate glucose uptake from a basal value. The results demonstrated that activity of cinnamtannin B1 on adipocyte cells was found to mimicking insulin action. It acted directly on insulin receptor β-subunit by activation of PI3-kinase that stimulates glucose transporter-4 (GLUT-4) translocation. Stimulation of GLUT4 translocation therefore stimulates glucose uptake lead to glucose disposal process in adipocytes. Based on the work that has been carried out, it was suggested that cinnamtannin B1 could be one of the Annals of Medicine & Healthcare Research Page 452 potential lead drug compound in the treatment of type 2 diabetes