Vesicular (liposomal and nanoparticulated) delivery of curcumin: a comparative study on carbon tetrachloride–mediated oxidative hepatocellular damage in rat model

The liver plays a vital role in biotransforming and extricating xenobiotics and is thus prone to their toxicities. Short-term administration of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) causes hepatic inflammation by enhancing cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, promoting mitochondrial dysfunction, and inducing cellular apoptosis. Curcumin is well accepted for its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties and can be considered as an effective therapeutic agent against hepatotoxicity. However, its therapeutic efficacy is compromised due to its insolubility in water. Vesicular delivery of curcumin can address this limitation and thereby enhance its effectiveness. In this study, it was observed that both liposomal and nanoparticulated formulations of curcumin could increase its efficacy significantly against hepatotoxicity by preventing cellular oxidative stress. However, the best protection could be obtained through the polymeric nanoparticle-mediated delivery of curcumin. Mitochondria have a pivotal role in ROS homeostasis and cell survivability. Along with the maintenance of cellular ROS levels, nanoparticulated curcumin also significantly (P,0.0001) increased cellular antioxidant enzymes, averted excessive mitochondrial destruction, and prevented total liver damage in CCl4-treated rats. The therapy not only prevented cells from oxidative damage but also arrested the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. In addition, it also decreased the fatty changes in hepatocytes, centrizonal necrosis, and portal inflammation evident from the histopathological analysis. To conclude, curcumin-loaded polymeric nanoparticles are more effective in comparison to liposomal curcumin in preventing CCl4-induced oxidative stress–mediated hepatocellular damage and thereby can be considered as an effective therapeutic strategy

Determination of Pesticide Residues in curry leaf in local markets of Hyderabad, India

Studies were conducted for determining the residues of commonly used pesticides in curry leaf samples collected periodically from different markets of Hyderabad, India during 2013 - 2014. A total of 120 samples were collected from five selected markets of Hyderabad every month and analysed using QuEChERS method on LC-MS/MS. The most commonly detected pesticide residues were of Profenophos (22.5%), Ethion (20%), Cyfluthrin (16.67%), Bifenthrin (8.33%), Chlorpyriphos (7.5%), Dimethoate(7.5%), Triazophos (5.83%), Phorate (4.17%), Methyl parathion (3.33%) , cypermethrin (2.5%), Fenpropathrin (2.5%), Monocrotophos (2.5%), Acetamaprid(1.67%), Methamidophos(1.67%). Acephate, Allethrin, alpha cypermethrin ,Fipronil, Carbendazim, Deltamethrin, Malathion, Quinalphos all (0.83%) indicating that, curry leaf samples contained detectable level of the pesticides residues for which Maximum Residue Limits (MRL) are not fixed. As there are no MRLs for curry leaves, it should be considered as most important to fix MRLs to ensure food safety and consumer health and to create awareness among the farmers about the application dose, method of application and Pre Harvest Intervals. The mismanagement or non-availability of proper information about the pesticide application can lead to contamination of pesticide residues in curry leaf. The findings of this study provided important data about contamination of pesticide residues in curry leaf sold in the local markets of Hyderabad and hence, it is essential to conduct monitoring studies in other curry leaf growing agro climatic regions, which may serve as basis for future policy about the standards and quality control of pesticides

Risk Mitigation for Removal of Pesticide Residues in Curry Leaf for Food Safety

The increased consumer awareness and legal issues on food safety, with special reference to insecticide residues in foods, led us to attempt for cheap and effective methods for removal of pesticide residues to address the issues of consumer and food safety, as the farmers are not following the Good Agricultural Practices i.e pre-harvest intervals. The most commonly used pesticides such as dimethoate, quinalphos, acephate, imidacloprid and bifenthrin were sprayed at recommended doses at vegetative stage, samples were collected at 2 hours after treatment to quantify the deposits. The samples were subjected to various household treatments each in three replications, and analysed for residues using validated QuEChERS method, so as to estimate the % removal and their effectiveness. Out of all treatments, respectively, and is the best household method for removal of pesticide residues, and also the method is effective in reducing the residues below MRL (Maximum Residue Limits)

Efficient Energy Management in Cloud Data center using VM Consolidation

Cloud computing is a model which can fast provisioned and released the computing resources by using minimum number of management effort. This can be done by the user without doing any communication with the cloud service providers. Cloud provide the computing resources, on-demand network access which is pooled together and it can be provisioned dynamically according to the user needs. Due to the large application, more number of computing nodes are required. A large amount of electrical energy is consumed due to the establishment of the data center. There is a problem of carbon dioxide emissions and increasing cost of operation due to the formation of large data center. A consolidation of virtual machines technique is proposed in our thesis to reduce the energy consumption and to maximize the utilization of the computing resources in the data center. Several virtual machines are taken together into a single physical machine in the consolidation technique and it helps to decrease the consumption of energy by putting idle server into inactive mode. A number of active hosts is minimized by continuously reallocating VMs using live migration. In each migration, Service Level Agreement(SLA) violations may occur, hence it is required to reduce the number of migrations.In order to satisfy quality of services in cloud computing environment, our proposed techniques mainly performs the following functions:(i)reducing the consumption of energy, (ii) minimize the number of migrations and (iii) minimize the percentage of SLA violations. Initially we detect whether any host is overloaded or not. The Overloaded host is detected by considering CPU utilization as a threshold Value. If an overloaded host is detected then some virtual machines are migrated from it by using VM selection policy. After selection of the VMs, the next step is to place the new VMs. For VM placement, the greedy algorithms such as Best Fit Decreasing(BFD) and Modified First Fit Decreasing(MFFD) are used in this thesis. The proposed techniques are compared with the existing EEDVM and PALVM techniques. Using proposed AUTREC technique there is 8% improved in energy consumption, 3% in number of migrations, 10% in SLA violation and 12% in host shutdown as compared to EEDVM technique. Using proposed DUTREC technique there is 9% improved in energy consumption, 6% in number of migrations, 20% in SLA violation and 13% in host shutdown as compared to PALVM technique

A Study on Hyper Spectral Remote Sensing Pest Management

Designing innovative combination of techniques to improve the sustainability of cropping system is a major challenge in many regions of the world. Long-term cropping systems research is important in order to reduce production costs, to control crop pests, and to optimize the sustainability of agro-ecosystems. Research into vegetative spectral reflectance can help us gain a better understanding of the physical, physiological and chemical processes in plants due to pest and disease attack and to detect the resulting biotic stress. This has important implications to effective pest management. Pest surveillance programs such as field scouting are often expensive, time consuming, laborious and prone to error. As remote sensing gives a synoptic view of the area in a non-destructive and non-invasive way, this technology could be effective and provide timely information on spatial variability of pest damage over a large area. In this paper to study management of water, nutrients, and pests in agricultural crops and assesses the role of hyperspectral remote sensing in yield prediction and also remote sensing can guide scouting efforts and crop protection advisory in a more precise and effective manner in the field of pest management

Design of a novel control hysteresis algorithm for photovoltaic systems for harmonic compensation

Solar photovoltaic (PV) system design and integration with an existing AC grid is growing very fast in recent years and used by many of them as they are pollution-free, structure is limited and maintenance free. From the factors considering, the performance of PV system depends upon the inverter output voltage tested for linear, non-linear, with harmonic, and without harmonic loads. Generated due to the nonlinear loads. Better inverter control techniques are developed to maintain grid power quality. This article discusses the analysis and comparison of pulse width modulation (PWM) converters with unique and state of the art nonlinear control schemes and various modulation approaches. The primary objective of this research is controlling an active filtering hysteresis PWM converter with no sensors. A simple structure with hysteresis current control method total harmonic distortion (THD) is lower when compared with the sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) method. The said claims are supported by employing computer simulations using MATLAB/Simulink and different control approaches, such as proportional plus integral and artificial neural network controllers

INTERACTIVELY CONNECTING CORPORATE POLICY AND PROCESS TO POLICY CONSUMERS

Connected policy and process techniques are presented herein that facilitate extracting policies from archaic documents and putting them into interactive policy requirements at the fingertips of the people who have to follow them; thereby simplifying their experience and enabling speed to execution. Techniques presented herein may address various prioritization principles including, but not limited to reduction of risk from non-compliance; policy mapping, impact analysis (e.g., new business model, etc.), bi-directional linkages, and policy analytics; tighter controls around policy ownership and editing/approvals/socialization; increased user compliance and ease of consumption; providing improved policy governance and controls; and enhanced analytics

To study the correlation between severe oligohydramnios with perinatal outcome along with histopathology of placenta

The aim: To study the correlation between severe oligohydramnios with perinatal outcome and the placenta's histopathology. Materials and methods: comprised of 100 patients with oligohydramnios diagnosed after 28 weeks of gestation, admitted on an emergency basis, both booked / unbooked, who were willing to cooperate, were chosen. All patients with oligohydramnios (AFI<5 %) were included in the study. Results: 3 cases came with intra-uterine death. All three were totally unbooked cases. 2 preterm babies died neonatal intensive care unit after 4 days due to meconium aspiration syndrome. Thus the perinatal mortality was 5 %. 44 % of neonates required admission into the neonatal intensive care unit. In our study, it was found that neonatal mortality and morbidity increased significantly when oligohydramnios was associated with complications like IUGR and pregnancy-induced hypertension in mothers. All the cases associated with these histopathological changes had adverse perinatal outcomes. Hence estimation of the amount of liquor is important in the antenatal period because oligohydramnios gives insight into the associated maternal complications or fetal anomalies and has a significant bearing on the perinatal outcome. The placental examination will illuminate all the conditions affecting the perinatal outcome. Without associated complications, oligohydramnios does not have adverse perinatal outcomes. Conclusions: Thus, in cases of oligohydramnios with no associated complications, expectant management can be tried for a better fetal outcome. Only oligohydramnios may be the first sign of placental insufficiency and an independent manifestation of the placental-related complications spectrum