Anti-helicobacter pylori and urease inhibition activities of some traditional medicinal plants.

Different parts of Acacia nilotica (L.) Delile, Calotropis procera (Aiton) W.T. Aiton, Adhatoda vasica Nees, Fagoniaar abica L. and Casuarina equisetifolia L. are traditionally used in folk medicine for the treatment of a variety of common ailments like nausea, cold, cough, asthma, fevers, diarrhea, sore throat, swelling, etc. The present study was aimed to evaluate the anti-Helicobacter pylori and urease inhibition activities of extracts produced from the above selected medicinal plants native to Soon Valley (home to an old civilization) in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Methanol, acetone and water extracts of the plants were evaluated for anti-bacterial activity against thirty four clinical isolates and two reference strains of H. pylori. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of the extracts were determined using the agar dilution method and compared with some standard antibiotics like amoxicillin (AMX), clarithromycin (CLA), tetracycline (TET) and metronidazole (MNZ), used in the triple therapy for H. pylori eradication. H. pylori urease inhibition activity of the extracts was assessed by the phenol red method, wherein, Lineweaver-Burk plots were used to determine Michaelis-Menten constants for elucidating the mechanism of inhibition. Methanol and acetone extracts from Acacia nilotica and Calotropis procera exhibited stronger anti-H. pylori activity than MNZ, almost comparable activity with TET, but were found to be less potent than AMX and CLT. The rest of the extracts exhibited lower activity than the standard antibiotics used in this study. In the H. pylori urease inhibitory assay, methanol and acetone extracts of Acacia nilotica and Calotropis procera showed significant inhibition. Lineweaver-Burk plots indicated a competitive mechanism for extract of Acacia nilotica, whereas extract of Calotropis procera exhibited a mixed type of inhibition

Virulence gene profile and antimicrobial resistance of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from bovine mastitis in Kashmir, India

The Staphylococcus aureusis often responsible for a number of diseases in humans and animals, and it is considered as a main etiological agent of bovine mastitis. The pathogenicity of S. aureus is due to both its ability to resist antibiotics, and the production of toxins. This study investigated virulence genes, prevalence and antibiogram profile of S. aureus isolated from dairy cows suffering from mastitis in the Kashmir. A total of 70 S. aureus isolates were obtained from 250 mastitic milk samples collected from both organized (47/150) and unorganized (23/100) dairy farms. Five pathogenic factors including clfA, hld, seo, lukM, and coa and one resistance gene mecAgene were checked through PCR. Clumping factor gene (clfA) was found in most of the isolates with a percentage of 81.42 % whereas,hld, seo, lukM, and coa were present in 61.2, 54.28, 70, and 71 percent of isolates, respectively. However, amplification of coagene yielded DNA bands of two different sizes. A high percentage of antimicrobial resistance rates were observed, wherein, Ampicillin showed highest resistance with 85.7 %, followed by Kanamycin, Cefotaxime, Sulphadizine and Streptomicin showing 71.42 %, 54.28 %, 51.48 % and 42 %, respectively. A high frequency of Methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA 28.57 %) was observed in these isolates and all methicillin resistant isolates were found to be positive for mecA gene via PCR amplification. These results revealed that mastitis-associated S. aureus among bovines of Kashmir is able to accumulate different virulence factors and resistance to antimicrobials, making the treatment of infections difficult

Recent Developments in Chatbot Usability and Design Methodologies

Chatbots are rapidly growing and becoming prevalent in many applications, including healthcare, education, and consumer services. As such, it is crucial to design chatbots with usability in mind. Traditional usability heuristics call for error prevention, consistency, and task efficiency. The heuristics are suited for all types of user interfaces, including chatbots. However, chatbots have their unique challenges, and thus, recently, some researchers have developed sets of usability guidelines specifically for chatbots. However, there is a shortage of studies that summarize the latest advances in chatbot usability design and assessment. As such, this chapter covers the existing general and chatbot-specific usability heuristics and examples of usage. Moreover, the chapter presents the recent developments in chatbot design techniques and challenges

Antecedents of Growth in Market Share of Samsung, a Financial Analysis

In this case study researcher discussed about financial ratio analysis of Samsung by using the financial statements of Samsung. Also focused on industry and competitor analysis of Samsung. The objective of this paper is find the profitability, liquidity and financial position of the Samsung to check the impact of these determinants on the market share of Samsung. This paper discuss the relationships of the different items in financial statements by conducting ratio, time series, and DuPont analysis. Although Samsung have several segments but this paper concentrated on the telecommunication segment of the Samsung Electronics because it generate major portion of Samsung’s revenue.  To conduct this research the financial data of the Samsung up to 10 years is analyzed. The data is taken from the Annual Reports Samsung. Ratios are calculated for 10 years to check the trends in profitability, liquidity and return on equity.  The results of this analysis shows that Samsung’s liquidity is positive and growing trend. The earnings are positive and profitability has positive trend. Samsung is less leveraged. Further research can be conducted on the rising issue of Samsung and its effect on the performance of the firm. The limitation of the research case is that it only focused on the financial aspects of Samsung performance. This research will be helpful for the mangers of the Samsung to analyze the financial performance of the firm, for investors who want to in invest in the stocks of the Samsung and students of finance will also benefited from this paper for their better understanding financial analysis and its practical implication. Keywords: Financial Analysis of Samsung, Liquidity Position, Profitability Position, Capital Structure and Operations Management

Design Of A Wireless Fish Length Measuring Board For Fisheries Research

The goal of this work is to design and implement the fundamental technology needed to construct a wireless fish measuring board that performs non-contact length measurements. After taking the measurement, the board sends the information containing the length of the fish amongst other parameters wirelessly to a receiver located several meters away. The receiver in turn decodes the information and sends it for display on a computer monitor. The wireless transmission must be immune to the typical non-line of sight (NLOS) environments that are found in the fisheries industry. The non-contact technique used here is based on the Hall-effect sensing mechanism. The wireless link operates in the 902-928MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band. The entire system was fully developed using Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components and is shown to perform satisfactorily in typical NLOS environment

Maternal and fetal outcome in liver disorders in pregnancy

Background: Liver disorders comprise 3% of all pregnancy complications. All liver disorders, pregnancy specific, pregnancy related and pregnancy unrelated disorders have both maternal and fetal effects. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of liver disorders in pregnancy. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of liver disorders on pregnancy outcome.Methods: All pregnant patients with clinical and biochemical evidence of liver dysfunction were taken as cases. Pregnant women with normal liver function tests were taken as controls. All patients were followed during pregnancy and postpartum. Maternal and fetal outcome was studied.Results: A total of 140 patients were included- 70 cases and 70 controls. Maternal and fetal outcome was studied in both the groups. PPH and oligohydroamnios were most frequent among cases with p value of 0.034 and 0.035 respectively. Similarly, pre-term birth, RDS and perinatal asphyxia was more common in cases with a p value of 0.011, 0.001 and 0.005 respectively.Conclusions: Study concludes that liver disorders in pregnancy have adverse maternal and fetal complications.

Role of transvaginal ultrasound in predicting preterm labor in singleton pregnancies

Background: Preterm delivery (PTD) is a major cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. Objective of present study was to identify the women at risk of preterm delivery with the help of trans-vaginal ultrasound by assessing cervical length changes, funneling of lower uterine segment, cervical dilatation.Methods: A prospective study was carried out over a period of 2 years on 50 patients with 24-36 weeks of gestation who clinically presented with signs of threatened preterm labor and were subjected to transvaginal sonographic measurement of cervical length.Results: Prediction of spontaneous preterm birth at <37 weeks of gestation with cervical length to be 2.75 cm has sensitivity of 95%, specificity of 96.5%, positive predictive value of 86.36% and negative predictive value of 98.7%.Conclusions: Transvaginal ultrasonography is the reliable, reproducible and objective method to assess cervix and to predict the risk of preterm delivery

Exploring Immersive Learning Experiences: A Survey

Immersive technologies have been shown to significantly improve learning as they can simplify and simulate complicated concepts in various fields. However, there is a lack of studies that analyze the recent evidence-based immersive learning experiences applied in a classroom setting or offered to the public. This study presents a systematic review of 42 papers to understand, compare, and reflect on recent attempts to integrate immersive technologies in education using seven dimensions: application field, the technology used, educational role, interaction techniques, evaluation methods, and challenges. The results show that most studies covered STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) topics and mostly used head-mounted display (HMD) virtual reality in addition to marker-based augmented reality, while mixed reality was only represented in two studies. Further, the studies mostly used a form of active learning, and highlighted touch and hardware-based interactions enabling viewpoint and select tasks. Moreover, the studies utilized experiments, questionnaires, and evaluation studies for evaluating the immersive experiences. The evaluations show improved performance and engagement, but also point to various usability issues. Finally, we discuss implications and future research directions, and compare our findings with related review studies

Characterizing Visual Programming Approaches for End-User Developers: A Systematic Review

Recently many researches have explored the potential of visual programming in robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and education. However, there is a lack of studies that analyze the recent evidence-based visual programming approaches that are applied in several domains. This study presents a systematic review to understand, compare, and reflect on recent visual programming approaches using twelve dimensions: visual programming classification, interaction style, target users, domain, platform, empirical evaluation type, test participants\u27 type, number of test participants, test participants\u27 programming skills, evaluation methods, evaluation measures, and accessibility of visual programming tools. The results show that most of the selected articles discussed tools that target IoT and education, while other fields such as data science, robotics are emerging. Further, most tools use abstractions to hide implementation details and use similar interaction styles. The predominant platforms for the tools are web and mobile, while desktop-based tools are on the decline. Only a few tools were evaluated with a formal experiment, whilst the remaining ones were evaluated with evaluation studies or informal feedback. Most tools were evaluated with students with little to no programming skills. There is a lack of emphasis on usability principles in the design stage of the tools. Additionally, only one of the tools was evaluated for expressiveness. Other areas for exploration include supporting end users throughout the life cycle of applications created with the tools, studying the impact of tutorials on improving learnability, and exploring the potential of machine learning to improve debugging solutions developed with visual programming. © 2013 IEEE