Evaluation of Safety of Stewart’s Wood Fern (Dryopteris stewartii) and Its Anti-Hyperglycemic Potential in Alloxan-Induced Diabetic Mice

Diabetes has become a critical challenge to the global health concerns. Cytotoxicity and development of resistance against available drugs for management of diabetes have shifted the focus of global scientific researchers from synthetic to herbal medications. Therefore, the current study was conducted to investigate the possible anti-hyperglycemic potential of Dryopteris stewartii using Swiss albino mice. To evaluate any possible toxic effect of the plant, acute oral toxicity test was performed while the anti-diabetic effects of aqueous and ethanol extracts at 500 mg/kg, positive, negative and normal control were assessed simultaneously. The anti-diabetic study revealed that aqueous extract has higher anti-diabetic potential than ethanol extract while lowered blood glucose level at second week reaching 150 mg/dL, exerting stronger anti-diabetic effects, compared to ethanol extract (190 mg/dL). Oral glucose tolerance findings revealed that aqueous extract decreased blood glucose level by −0.41-fold, compared to ethanol extract showing a decrease by only −0.29-folds. The histopathological evaluation of liver and pancreas of all groups revealed normal cell architecture with no morphological abnormalities. These results suggested the possible use of D. stewartii as anti-diabetic herbal drug in near future. However, these recommendations are conditioned by deep mechanistic studies.     

EFM: evolutionary fuzzy model for dynamic activities recognition using a smartphone accelerometer

Activity recognition is an emerging field of research that enables a large number of human-centric applications in the u-healthcare domain. Currently, there are major challenges facing this field, including creating devices that are unobtrusive and handling uncertainties associated with dynamic activities. In this paper, we propose a novel Evolutionary Fuzzy Model (EFM) to measure the uncertainties associated with dynamic activities and relax the domain knowledge constraints which are imposed by domain experts during the development of fuzzy systems. Based on the time and frequency domain features, we define the fuzzy sets and estimate the natural grouping of data through expectation maximization of the likelihoods. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is investigated and designed to determine the optimal fuzzy rules. To evaluate the EFM, we performed experiments on seven daily life activities of ten human subjects. Our experiments show significant improvement of 9 % in class-accuracy and 11 % in the F-measures of recognized activities compared to existing counterparts. The practical solution to dynamic activity recognition problems is expected to be an EFM, due to EFM’s utilization of smartphones and natural way of handling uncertainties.     

Lipase immobilization on ionic liquid‐modified magnetic nanoparticles: Ionic liquids controlled esters hydrolysis at oil–water interface

Ester hydrolysis at oil–water interface by lipase covalently immobilized on ionic liquid‐modified magnetic nanoparticles was investigated. Magnetic supports with a diameter of 10–15 nm were synthesized by covalent binding of ionic liquids (chain length C₄ and C₈ and anions Cl^?, BF₄^?, and PF₆^?) on the surface of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles. Lipase was covalently immobilized on Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles using ionic liquids as the coupling reagent. Ionic liquid‐modified magnetic nanoparticle‐grafted lipase preferentially located at the oil–water interface. It has higher catalytic activity than its native counterpart. A modified Michaelis–Menten model was used to elucidate the effect of stirring rate, aqueous–organic phase ratio, total amount of enzyme, and ester chain length. The influences of these conditions on esters hydrolysis at oil–water interface were consistent with the introduction of the ionic liquids interlayer. Ionic liquids could be used to control the oil–water interfacial characteristics during lipase catalyzed hydrolysis, and thus control the behavior of immobilized lipase. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012     

Green fabricated CuO nanobullets via Olea europaea leaf extract shows auspicious antimicrobial potential

In present investigation, copper oxide (CuO) nanostructures have been prepared via green chemistry. Olea europaea leaf extract act as strong chelating agent for tailoring physical as well as bio‐medical characteristics of CuO at the nano‐size. Physical characterisation such as scanning electron microscope analysis depicts the formation of homogenised spherical shape nanoparticles (NPs) with average size of 42 nm. X‐ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy further confirmed the crystalline pure phase and monoclinic structure. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) testing is performed to evaluate the relative concentration of bioactive molecules in the O. europaea leaf extract. From HPLC results capping action of organic molecules around CuO‐NPs is hypothesised. The antimicrobial potency of biosynthesised CuO‐NPs have been evaluated using colony forming unit (CFU) counting assay and disc diffusion method which shows a significant zone of inhibition against bacterial and fungal strains may be highly potential for future antimicrobial pharmaceutics. Furthermore, reduction of various precursors by plant extract will reduce environmental impact over chemical synthesis.Inspec keywords: copper compounds, antibacterial activity, biochemistry, nanoparticles, nanomedicine, biomedical materials, chromatographyOther keywords: CuO, size 42 nm, chemical synthesis, antimicrobial pharmaceutics, bacterial strain, fungal strain, disc diffusion method, colony forming unit counting assay, biosynthesised CuO‐NP, bioactive molecules, high‐performance liquid chromatography testing, monoclinic structure, crystalline pure phase, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, homogenised spherical shape nanoparticles, scanning electron microscope analysis, CuO biomedical characteristics, chelating agent, green fabricated CuO nanobullets, green chemistry, copper oxide nanostructures, antimicrobial potential, Olea europaea leaf extract     

Strain-Mediated Lattice Rotation Design for Enhancing Thermoelectric Performance in Bi2S2Se

A unique strain-mediated lattice rotation strategy is introduced via nanocompositing to upsurge the optimized limits in the composition-to-structural pathway on rationally engineering the efficient thermoelectric material. In this study, a special lattice rotation via strain engineering is realized to optimize the desired electronic and chemical environment for enhancing thermoelectric properties in n-type Bi₂S₂Se. This approach results in a unique transport phenomenon to assist high-energy electrons in transferring through the optimized transport channels, and appropriate structure disparity to significantly localize phonons. As a result, Sb over Cl doping in Bi₂S₂Se gently reduces E_g and introduces defect states in bandgap with shifting down the Fermi level, thus causing increase in carrier concentration, which contributes to a higher power factor of ≈7.18 µW cm⁻¹ K⁻² (at T = 773 K). Besides, a lower thermal conductivity of ≈0.49 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ is driven through lattice strain and defect engineering. Consequently, an ultra-high ZT_max = 1.13 (at T = 773 K) and a high ZT_ave = 0.54 (323 K-773 K) are realized. This study not only leads to an extraordinary thermoelectric performance but also reveals a unique paradigm for electron transportation and phonon localization via lattice strain engineering.     

Microscopic and phytochemical techniques as a tool for authentication of herbal drug chiraita: Swertia cordata (G. Don) C.B. Clarke

Swertia cordata (G. Don) C.B. Clarke is one of the potential medicinal plants extensively used in eastern traditional medicine such as Unani, Ayurveda, Siddha, and in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicine. S. paniculata is the common adulterant of S. cordata at herbal shops and markets but S. paniculata is also used in number of herbal formulations. The present study was conducted to use microscopic, pharmacognostic, and phytochemical techniques as a tool for the authentication of herbal drug chiraita (S. cordata). In herbal markets, mixing, adulteration, and use of spurious materials as substitute have become a major concern for herbal practitioners, local user, and industry for reasons of safety and efficacy. Therefore, authentication of medicinal plants is of utmost importance at each level of drug research. In the present study, anatomical features of two species showed a great diversity, as irregular epidermal cells and nonglandular, unicellular trichomes were found in S. cordata while in S. paniculata epidermal cells were hexagonal in shape and trichomes were A‐shaped. Antioxidant activity of two species showed a great variation where IC₅₀ value recorded for S. cordata was 208 μg/mL, while for S. paniculata IC₅₀ was 624 μg/mL. The study can serve as an important source of information to achieve the authenticity and to evaluate the quality and purity of the plant material in accordance to WHO guidelines. As this species is greatly exploited, so conservation is highly recommended.     

Agarose Hydrogel Beads: An Effective Approach to Improve the Catalytic Activity,Stability and Reusability of Fungal Amyloglucosidase of GH15 Family

This study deals with the immobilization of amyloglucosidase within agarose using method of entrapment. Enzyme was produced from Aspergillus fumigatus KIBGE-IB33 and then partially purified using 40% ammonium sulphate saturation. Using 40 gl^?1 concentration of agarose and adjusting 3.0 mm size of hydrogels, maximum entrapment yield (78%) was obtained. The kinetic behavior was slightly changed after immobilization as reaction time and reaction temperature increases from 5.0 min (soluble) to 10.0 min (immobilized) and 60 °C (soluble) to 65 °C (immobilized), respectively while, pH optima remained same (pH 5.0). Substrate saturation kinetics revealed that K_m was increased from 1.47 to 4.215 mg ml^?1 while, the value of V_max decreased from 947 to 611 kU mg^?1 for soluble and entrapped amyloglucosidase, respectively. The stability profile of amyloglucosidase also significantly improved after entrapment in agarose hydrogels at 50, 60 and 70 °C for 120 min with retention of 77, 59 and 25% residual activity, respectively. Furthermore, the t_1/2 of soluble and immobilized amyloglucosidase at 60 °C was 167 and 375 min respectively. Due to increase in reusability for various subsequent cycles of entrapped amyloglucosidase, about 8.73 mg ml^?1 increase in glucose production was observed as compared to soluble enzyme.

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Quest for high performance carbon capture membranes: Fabrication of SAPO-34 and CNTs-doped polyethersulfone-based mixed-matrix membranes

Gas separation process is an effective method for capturing and removing CO₂ from post-combustion flue gases. Due to their various essential properties such as ability to improve process efficiency, polymeric membranes are known to dominate the market. Trade-off between gas permeability and selectivity through membranes limits their separation performance. In this study, solution casting cum phase separation method was utilized to create polyethersulfone-based composite membranes doped with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and silico aluminophosphate (SAPO-34) as nanofiller materials. Membrane properties were then examined by performing gas permeation test, chemical structural analysis and optical microscopy. While enhancing membranes CO₂ permeance, SAPO-34 and CNTs mixture improved their CO₂/N₂ selectivity. By carefully adjusting membrane casting factors such as filler loadings. Using Taguchi statistical analysis, their carbon capture efficiency was improved. The improved mixed-matrix membrane with loading of 5 wt% CNTs and 10 wt% SAPO-34 in PES showed highly promising separation performance with a CO₂ permeability of 319 Barrer and an ideal CO₂/N₂ selectivity of 12, both of which are within the 2008 Robeson upper bound. A better mixed-matrix membrane with outstanding CO₂/N₂ selectivity and CO₂ permeability was produced as a result of the synergistic effect of adding two types of fillers in optimized loading.     

A robust multimedia authentication and restoration scheme in digital photography

Image authentication and restoration is an important area of modern research. In digital photography, copyright protection is very crucial. Visible signatures distract from the meaning of the photograph as well as they are easy to be removed by using advanced softwares. Invisible watermarks provide protection, offer a better look to photographs than visible watermarking, and prevent the photographs from unauthorized manipulations. A robust multiple watermarking scheme is required which could invisibly protect the content and also should survive the manipulations for later verification and restoration. In this paper, a robust and imperceptible multimedia authentication and restoration scheme is proposed. The security of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is utilized to make an encrypted watermark. The encrypted watermark is then embedded into photographs in the salient regions by proposed Feature-Closest Point Transform (F-CPT) algorithm. The second watermark is generated by wavelet decomposition and embedded in the second and third level wavelet sub-bands of the cover photographs. Several security attacks are performed e.g. noise attack, compression attack, resizing attack, rotation attack, collage attack, and cropping attack on multiple watermarked photographs to examine the system robustness by normalized cross correlation (NCC) for retrieved authentication watermarks. Result of PSNR, MSE, and SSIM show the high imperceptibility of our technique and aesthetic score (AS) shows the aesthetic quality of watermarked photographs (WPs).     

Synthesis of cardo containing asymmetric poly(ether‐naphthalimide‐phthalimide)s

A series of cardo based asymmetric polyimides containing bulky rigid naphthalimide and phthalimide groups were prepared from asymmetric monomer bishaloimide and bisphenols by solution polycondensation. Bishalo(naphthalimide‐phthalimide) monomers containing different terminal leaving groups (Cl, F, NO₂) were synthesized, and the reactivity difference of these monomers was compared for the successful synthesis of polyimides. The inherent viscosities of the polyimides were in the range 0.51 ? 0.60 dL g^?1 in N ‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone at 30 °C. These polyimides demonstrated good organosolubility and mechanical properties with tensile strengths of 93 ? 120 MPa, tensile moduli of 3.5 ? 5.3 GPa and elongations at break of 2.8% ? 4.3%. The polyimides showed high glass transition temperatures (T _g) ranging from 330 to 363 °C. The 10% weight loss (T _10%) of asymmetric polyimides reached 436 ? 500 °C in nitrogen and 417 ? 476 °C in air. The water uptake of the polyimides was in the range 0.35% ? 0.72%. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry