E. coli AB 1157 susceptibility test, MTT assay on MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines of root and leaf fractions of Viburnum Linn. species

525-530The aim of this study was to evaluate mutagenic bacterial susceptibility and cytotoxic potency of Viburnum coriaceum Blume and Viburnum erubescens Wall.ex DC in order to report the actual chemotherapeutic potentials of these two species. The methanolic (80%) leaf and chloroform root extracts of Viburnum Linn. Species were tested for their bacterial strain based cytotoxicity employing Agar diffusion method suing E. coli AB 1157 strain. Also, the MTT assay was carried out employing MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines and HeLa cervical cell lines. It was started with IC50 value determination of the selected test extracts from the results of bacterial strain based cytotoxicity. Upon increase in concentration up to 1000 µg/mL in agar diffusion cytotoxicity studies VCMLE, VEMLE and VCCRE had shown diameter of inhibition zone 10 mm, 9 mm and 10 mm respectively. Among other extracts, the VEMLE and VCCRE were selected to go ahead with anticancer activity by MTT assay. The potentials of extracts through cytotoxicity mechanism had produced 30-40% protection against cancer cell lines. It was concluded that VEMLE and VCCRE had produced the cytotoxic effect on E. coli AB 1157 strain. and were selected for the cytotoxic studies. The effects exhibited by the selected extracts may be due to the presence of diverse number of active constituents present in Viburnum Linn species also may be to the presence of unreported constituents

E. coli AB 1157 susceptibility test, MTT assay on MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines of root and leaf fractions of Viburnum Linn. species

The aim of this study was to evaluate mutagenic bacterial susceptibility and cytotoxic potency of Viburnum coriaceumBlume and Viburnum erubescens Wall.ex DC in order to report the actual chemotherapeutic potentials of these two species.The methanolic (80%) leaf and chloroform root extracts of Viburnum Linn. Species were tested for their bacterial strainbased cytotoxicity employing Agar diffusion method suing E. coli AB 1157 strain. Also, the MTT assay was carried outemploying MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines and HeLa cervical cell lines. It was started with IC50 value determination of theselected test extracts from the results of bacterial strain based cytotoxicity. Upon increase in concentration up to 1000μg/mL in agar diffusion cytotoxicity studies VCMLE, VEMLE and VCCRE had shown diameter of inhibition zone 10 mm,9 mm and 10 mm respectively. Among other extracts, the VEMLE and VCCRE were selected to go ahead with anticanceractivity by MTT assay. The potentials of extracts through cytotoxicity mechanism had produced 30-40% protection againstcancer cell lines. It was concluded that VEMLE and VCCRE had produced the cytotoxic effect on E. coli AB 1157 strain.and were selected for the cytotoxic studies. The effects exhibited by the selected extracts may be due to the presenceof diverse number of active constituents present in Viburnum Linn species also may be to the presence ofunreported constituents

Screening of phytoactives and antioxidant potentiality in Gymnema sylvestre

Gymnema sylvestre  is  wellknown as “gurmar” for its discrete function as sugar destroyer. It is an excellent herb in the Ayurvedic system of medicine. The herb exhibits a wide range of healing effects as an effectual natural remedy for diabetes, arthritis, asthma , anemia, cardiopathy, constipation diuretic, , hypercholesterolemia,  indigestion ,microbial infections, osteoporosis etc.Realising its importance, The current study was carried out to reveal the distinct phytoactive potentiality in Gymnema sylvestre. It suggested that the antioxidant activities of   Gymnema sylvestre can be used as a natural antioxidant and might be effective to diminish oxidative stress associated with different pathophysiological conditions. Keywords: Gymnema sylvestre , Phytochemicals, antioxidant activity

A NEW SPEECH ENHANCEMENT TECHNIQUE USING PERCEPTUAL CONSTRAINED SPECTRAL WEIGHTING FACTORS

This paper deals with musical noise result from perceptual speech enhancement type algorithms and especially wiener filtering. Although perceptual speech enhancement methods perform better than the non perceptual methods, most of them still return annoying residual musical noise. This is due to the fact that if only noise above the noise masking threshold is filtered then noise below the noise masking threshold can become audible if its maskers are filtered. It can affect the performance of perceptual speech enhancement method that process audible noise only. In order to overcome this drawback here proposed a new speech enhancement technique. It aims to improve the quality of the enhanced speech signal provided by perceptual wiener filtering by controlling the latter via a second filter regarded as a psychoacoustically motivated weighting factor. The simulation results shows that the performance is improved compared to other perceptual speech enhancement method

Post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents one year after a super-cyclone in Orissa, India: exploring cross-cultural validity and vulnerability factors

BACKGROUND: It has been asserted that psychological responses to disasters in children and adolescents vary widely across cultures, but this has rarely been investigated. The objectives of the study were to clinically evaluate the construct of traumatic stress symptoms and disorder in children and adolescents after a super-cyclone in Orissa, India; to find out the prevalence at one year; compare the effect in high and low exposure areas and study the factors associated with it. METHODS: Clinical examination of children and adolescents (n = 447) was done, supplemented by a symptoms checklist based on International Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, Diagnostic Criteria for Research and a semi-structured questionnaire for disaster related experiences. RESULTS: A majority of children had post-traumatic symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was present in 30.6% (95% confidence interval: 26.4 to 34.9), and an additional 13.6% had sub-syndromal PTSD. Parents or teachers reported mental health concerns in 7.2% subjects, who were a minor proportion (12.8%) of subjects with any syndromal diagnosis (n = 196). Significantly more (43.7%) children in high exposure areas had PTSD than that (11.2%) in low exposure areas (p < 0.001). Depression was significantly associated with PTSD. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that high exposure, lower educational level and middle socioeconomic status significantly predicted the outcome of PTSD. Extreme fear and perceived threat to life during the disaster, death in family, damage to home, or staying in shelters were not significantly associated with PTSD. CONCLUSION: Following natural disaster PTSD is a valid clinical construct in children and adolescents in Indian set up; and though highly prevalent it may be missed without clinical screening. Its manifestation and associated factors resembled those in other cultures

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. Methods The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODErn), to generate cause fractions and cause specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised. Findings At the broadest grouping of causes of death (Level 1), non-communicable diseases (NC Ds) comprised the greatest fraction of deaths, contributing to 73.4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 72.5-74.1) of total deaths in 2017, while communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional (CMNN) causes accounted for 186% (17.9-19.6), and injuries 8.0% (7.7-8.2). Total numbers of deaths from NCD causes increased from 2007 to 2017 by 22.7% (21.5-23.9), representing an additional 7.61 million (7. 20-8.01) deaths estimated in 2017 versus 2007. The death rate from NCDs decreased globally by 7.9% (7.08.8). The number of deaths for CMNN causes decreased by 222% (20.0-24.0) and the death rate by 31.8% (30.1-33.3). Total deaths from injuries increased by 2.3% (0-5-4-0) between 2007 and 2017, and the death rate from injuries decreased by 13.7% (12.2-15.1) to 57.9 deaths (55.9-59.2) per 100 000 in 2017. Deaths from substance use disorders also increased, rising from 284 000 deaths (268 000-289 000) globally in 2007 to 352 000 (334 000-363 000) in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, total deaths from conflict and terrorism increased by 118.0% (88.8-148.6). A greater reduction in total deaths and death rates was observed for some CMNN causes among children younger than 5 years than for older adults, such as a 36.4% (32.2-40.6) reduction in deaths from lower respiratory infections for children younger than 5 years compared with a 33.6% (31.2-36.1) increase in adults older than 70 years. Globally, the number of deaths was greater for men than for women at most ages in 2017, except at ages older than 85 years. Trends in global YLLs reflect an epidemiological transition, with decreases in total YLLs from enteric infections, respirator}, infections and tuberculosis, and maternal and neonatal disorders between 1990 and 2017; these were generally greater in magnitude at the lowest levels of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI). At the same time, there were large increases in YLLs from neoplasms and cardiovascular diseases. YLL rates decreased across the five leading Level 2 causes in all SDI quintiles. The leading causes of YLLs in 1990 neonatal disorders, lower respiratory infections, and diarrhoeal diseases were ranked second, fourth, and fifth, in 2017. Meanwhile, estimated YLLs increased for ischaemic heart disease (ranked first in 2017) and stroke (ranked third), even though YLL rates decreased. Population growth contributed to increased total deaths across the 20 leading Level 2 causes of mortality between 2007 and 2017. Decreases in the cause-specific mortality rate reduced the effect of population growth for all but three causes: substance use disorders, neurological disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases. Interpretation Improvements in global health have been unevenly distributed among populations. Deaths due to injuries, substance use disorders, armed conflict and terrorism, neoplasms, and cardiovascular disease are expanding threats to global health. For causes of death such as lower respiratory and enteric infections, more rapid progress occurred for children than for the oldest adults, and there is continuing disparity in mortality rates by sex across age groups. Reductions in the death rate of some common diseases are themselves slowing or have ceased, primarily for NCDs, and the death rate for selected causes has increased in the past decade. Copyright (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background: A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97\ub71 (95% UI 95\ub78-98\ub71) in Iceland, followed by 96\ub76 (94\ub79-97\ub79) in Norway and 96\ub71 (94\ub75-97\ub73) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18\ub76 (13\ub71-24\ub74) in the Central African Republic, 19\ub70 (14\ub73-23\ub77) in Somalia, and 23\ub74 (20\ub72-26\ub78) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91\ub75 (89\ub71-93\ub76) in Beijing to 48\ub70 (43\ub74-53\ub72) in Tibet (a 43\ub75-point difference), while India saw a 30\ub78-point disparity, from 64\ub78 (59\ub76-68\ub78) in Goa to 34\ub70 (30\ub73-38\ub71) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4\ub78-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20\ub79-point to 17\ub70-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17\ub72-point to 20\ub74-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view-and subsequent provision-of quality health care for all populations

Global, regional, and national disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 359 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

How long one lives, how many years of life are spent in good and poor health, and how the population's state of health and leading causes of disability change over time all have implications for policy, planning, and provision of services. We comparatively assessed the patterns and trends of healthy life expectancy (HALE), which quantifies the number of years of life expected to be lived in good health, and the complementary measure of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), a composite measure of disease burden capturing both premature mortality and prevalence and severity of ill health, for 359 diseases and injuries for 195 countries and territories over the past 28 years. Methods We used data for age-specific mortality rates, years of life lost (YLLs) due to premature mortality, and years lived with disability (YLDs) from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 to calculate HALE and DALYs from 1990 to 2017. We calculated HALE using age-specific mortality rates and YLDs per capita for each location, age, sex, and year. We calculated DALYs for 359 causes as the sum of YLLs and YLDs. We assessed how observed HALE and DALYs differed by country and sex from expected trends based on Socio-demographic Index (SDI). We also analysed HALE by decomposing years of life gained into years spent in good health and in poor health, between 1990 and 2017, and extra years lived by females compared with males. Findings Globally, from 1990 to 2017, life expectancy at birth increased by 7·4 years (95% uncertainty interval 7·1-7·8), from 65·6 years (65·3-65·8) in 1990 to 73·0 years (72·7-73·3) in 2017. The increase in years of life varied from 5·1 years (5·0-5·3) in high SDI countries to 12·0 years (11·3-12·8) in low SDI countries. Of the additional years of life expected at birth, 26·3% (20·1-33·1) were expected to be spent in poor health in high SDI countries compared with 11·7% (8·8-15·1) in low-middle SDI countries. HALE at birth increased by 6·3 years (5·9-6·7), from 57·0 years (54·6-59·1) in 1990 to 63·3 years (60·5-65·7) in 2017. The increase varied from 3·8 years (3·4-4·1) in high SDI countries to 10·5 years (9·8-11·2) in low SDI countries. Even larger variations in HALE than these were observed between countries, ranging from 1·0 year (0·4-1·7) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (62·4 years [59·9-64·7] in 1990 to 63·5 years [60·9-65·8] in 2017) to 23·7 years (21·9-25·6) in Eritrea (30·7 years [28·9-32·2] in 1990 to 54·4 years [51·5-57·1] in 2017). In most countries, the increase in HALE was smaller than the increase in overall life expectancy, indicating more years lived in poor health. In 180 of 195 countries and territories, females were expected to live longer than males in 2017, with extra years lived varying from 1·4 years (0·6-2·3) in Algeria to 11·9 years (10·9-12·9) in Ukraine. Of the extra years gained, the proportion spent in poor health varied largely across countries, with less than 20% of additional years spent in poor health in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, and Slovakia, whereas in Bahrain all the extra years were spent in poor health. In 2017, the highest estimate of HALE at birth was in Singapore for both females (75·8 years [72·4-78·7]) and males (72·6 years [69·8-75·0]) and the lowest estimates were in Central African Republic (47·0 years [43·7-50·2] for females and 42·8 years [40·1-45·6] for males). Globally, in 2017, the five leading causes of DALYs were neonatal disorders, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, lower respiratory infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Between 1990 and 2017, age-standardised DALY rates decreased by 41·3% (38·8-43·5) for communicable diseases and by 49·8% (47·9-51·6) for neonatal disorders. For non-communicable diseases, global DALYs increased by 40·1% (36·8-43·0), although age-standardised DALY rates decreased by 18·1% (16·0-20·2)