Synthesis of Cu (II) and Zn (II) Complexes of a Quinoline Based Flexible Amide Receptor as Fluorescent Probe for Dihydrogen Phosphate and Hydrogen Sulphate and Their Antibacterial Activity.

A novel 8-hydroxy quinoline-derived amide receptor, in conjunction with its Cu (II) and Zn (II) complexes, has been strategically developed to function as remarkably efficient fluorescent receptors with a distinct capability for anion sensing. The comprehensive characterization of the synthesized compounds were achieved through UV-Vis, IR, NMR, and HRMS spectroscopic techniques. Among the Cu (II) and Zn (II) complexes, the latter exhibits superior selectivity for anions, specifically dihydrogen phosphate and hydrogen sulfate, as their tetrabutylammonium salts in a 9:1 acetonitrile-water (v/v) mixture. The Cu (II) complex demonstrates enhanced anion binding compared to the amide ligand, albeit with reduced selectivity. Furthermore, the affinity was evaluated using the Benesi-Hildebrand plot. The binding constants and Limit of Detection (LOD) for both complexes were precisely quantified. The Job plot illustrates a clear 1:1 binding interaction between the metal complexes and the guest anions. Significantly, both metal-complex receptors display a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity, against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. It is worth highlighting that the Zn (II) complexed receptor outperforms the Cu (II) complexed receptor, as evidenced by its considerably lower Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) value against both bacterial strains.

Bio-synthesized Cu-ZnO hetro-nanostructure for catalytic degradation of organophosphate chlorpyrifos under solar illumination.

In present study, a simple, effective and rapid green method using leaf extract of Melia azedarach was explored for the synthesis of Cu-ZnO nano heterojunction particles. The leaf extract of Melia azedarach acts as a reducing agent and prevents the agglomeration of nanoparticles. Different standard analytical techniques were used to study the morphology and size of synthesized nanocomposite. The efficiency of the synthesized material was tested as a photocatalyst for the degradation of simulated wastewater having chlorpyriphos pesticide. The different factors have been investigated such as pH of the solution, catalyst dosage and conact time. Approximately, 81% of chlorpyrifos was degraded after 240 min of solar illumination. The generation of hydroxyl radicals at the catalysts surface owing to photo-irradiation contributed to the chlorpyrifos degradation. The maximum photo-degradation (91%) of pesticides was observed at 6.0 pH. The pathway for the degradation of chlorpyriphos has been checked by LC-MS and this hinting the absence of any harmfull side product. The COD removal and TOC was found to be 32.4% and 28.5%, respectively. The photodegradation of chlorpyriphos using Cu-ZnO nanocomposite was followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic with higher value of regressiuon coefficient (0.99).

Inequality and the future of healthcare.

To protect our masses, primary care institutes were developed in many countries, all over the globe. In the previous era, labour was valuable to produce crops and protect native countries from enemies as no substitute for raw labour was available to do these jobs. The scenario has changed after the era of automation. After the agricultural revolution, technological revolution took place. Hence, most of the manual jobs in agriculture sector and industry sector were automated. As a result, "new" type of jobs has emerged which was based, so far, on mainly of cognitive skills, e.g., learning, analysing, communication, and understanding human emotions. As the technology is advancing day by day, the role of humans as individual is becoming less and less except for some extraordinary persons or elite groups. Now the important question is, will elites and governments will go on valuing every human being even when it pays no economic dividends? Will the development of mass medicine/primary care will continue? Will governments/bureaucrats fund adequately for the protection of the health of these useless classes merely on the humanitarian ground? We assume that due to technological advancement and greater role of elite classes, the norm of shifting non-normal people to normality may not require any more, the previous practice of treatment (health for all concept) may not repeat in future and it is quite natural. Experiences from Japan highlight that society may prefer theses elites to the useless average class. The gap between the two classes regarding availing health facilities may widen further. This is because the government may focus more on the health of elites than common masses. One step further the government/ bureaucrat may try for immortality/divinity for this elite class, at any cost for maintaining supremacy over the poor masses.

Strategies to overcome oxygen transfer limitations during hairy root cultivation of Azadiracta indica for enhanced azadirachtin production.

The vast untapped potential of hairy root cultures as a stable source of biologically active chemicals has focused the attention of scientific community toward its commercial exploitation. However, the major bottleneck remains its successful scale-up. Due to branching, the roots form an interlocked matrix that exhibits resistance to oxygen transfer. Thus, present work was undertaken to develop cultivation strategies like optimization of inlet gas composition (in terms of % (v/v) O(2) in air), air-flow rate and addition of oxygen vectors in the medium, to curb the oxygen transfer limitations during hairy root cultivation of Azadirachta indica for in vitro azadirachtin (a biopesticide) production. It was found that increasing the oxygen fraction in the inlet air (in the range, 20-100% (v/v) O(2) in air) increased the azadirachtin productivity by approximately threefold, to a maximum of 4.42 mg/L per day (at 100% (v/v) O(2) in air) with respect to 1.68 mg/L per day in control (air with no oxygen supplementation). Similarly, increasing the air-flow rate (in the range, 0.3-2 vvm) also increased the azadirachtin productivity to a maximum of 1.84 mg/L per day at 0.8 vvm of air-flow rate. On the contrary, addition of oxygen vectors (in the range, 1-4% (v/v); hydrogen peroxide, toluene, Tween 80, kerosene, silicone oil, and n-hexadecane), decreased the azadirachtin productivity with respect to control (1.76 mg/L per day).

Development of a mathematical model for growth and oxygen transfer in in vitro plant hairy root cultivations.

Genetically transformed, "Hairy roots" once developed can serve as a stable parent culture for in vitro production of plant secondary metabolites. However, the major bottleneck in the commercial exploitation of hairy roots remains its successful scale-up due to oxygen transfer limitation in three-dimensionally growing hairy root mass. Mass transfer resistances near the gas-liquid and liquid-solid boundary layer affect the oxygen delivery to the growing hairy roots. In addition, the diffusional mass transfer limitation due to increasing size of the root ball (matrix) with growth also plays a limiting role in the oxygen transfer rate. In the present study, a mathematical model is developed which describes the oxygen transfer kinetics in the growing Azadirachta indica hairy root matrix as a case study for offline simulation of process control strategies ensuring non-limiting concentrations of oxygen in the medium throughout the hairy root cultivation period. The unstructured model simulates the effect of oxygen transfer limitation in terms of efficiency factor (η) on specific growth rate (µ) of the hairy root biomass. The model is able to predict effectively the onset of oxygen transfer limitation in the inner core of the growing hairy root matrix such that the bulk oxygen concentration can be increased so as to prevent the subsequent inhibition in growth of the hairy root biomass due to oxygen transfer (diffusional) limitation.

Repeated batch cultivation of Ralstonia eutropha for Poly (beta-hydroxybutyrate) production.

Batch cultivation of Ralstonia eutropha NRRL B14690 attained 21 g biomass l(-1) and 9.4 g poly(beta-hydroxybutyrate) l(-1) (0.45 g PHB g(-1 )dry wt(-1)) in 60 h. Repeated batch operation (empty-and-fill protocol) to remove 20% (v/v) of the culture broth and to supplement an equal volume of fresh media resulted in 49 g biomass l(-1) and 25 g PHB l(-1) (0.51 g PHB g(-1) dry wt(-1)) with an overall productivity of 0.42 g PHB l(-1 )h(-1 )in 67 h. In the two cycles of repeated batch fermentation there was a 3-fold increase in productivity as compared to batch.

Primary cardiac tumors: surgical experience and follow-up.

BACKGROUND: Primary cardiac tumors are rare. There are only a few reports of such tumors from India. METHODS AND RESULTS: We report our experience with 34 patients with primary cardiac tumors operated on at our institute between December 1989 and October 2001. The study group comprised 16 males and 18 females with a mean age of 40.05 +/- 13.06 years (range 7-65 years). The predominant symptoms were breathlessness and congestive heart failure. In addition, 1 patient presented with peripheral embolism with impending limb ischemia that necessitated emergency embolectomy. Echocardiography was confirmatory in the diagnosis of all the benign tumors, whereas the malignant tumors were incidentally found during surgery. All the patients survived the operation. Complete resection of the tumor was possible only in benign tumors; however, malignant tumors were partly removed to relieve obstruction. All the excised benign tumors showed no recurrence on a mean follow-up of 54.78 +/- 31.30 months (range 3-108 months). Myxoma was found in 31 patients, left ventricular fibroma in 1, and leiomyosarcoma in 2. Both the patients with malignant tumors developed recurrence postoperatively, and succumbed to extensive distant metastases. CONCLUSIONS: The long-term outcome of surgery was excellent in patients with benign cardiac tumors. However, malignant tumors had an unchanged prognosis, although symptomatic relief was achieved.

Productivity improvement in l-sorbose biosynthesis by fedbatch cultivation of Gluconobacter oxydans.

The effect of increased (100, 200 and 300 gl(-1)) initial sorbitol concentrations (S0) was investigated in the sorbitol to sorbose bioconversion process. Batch cultivations with a S0 of 100, 200 and 300 gl(-1) were completed at 10, 14 and 24 h with a corresponding overall sorbose productivity of 10.1, 14.3 and 12.4 gl(-1) h(-1) respectively. The decrease in sorbose productivity at S0=300 gl(-1) was attributed to the inhibition by sorbitol of culture growth and product formation. In order to eliminate substrate inhibition, two identical fed-batch cultivations were performed in which a highly concentrated (500 gl(-1)) sorbitol solution was added at a constant feed rate (0.2 l h(-1)) in the exponential phase of growth. The Fed-batch culture initiated with S0=225 gl(-1) exhibited an enhanced accumulation of sorbose (336.2 gl(-1)) but with a processing time of 24 h, and a productivity of 14.0 gl(-1) h(-1). While, the fed-batch culture initiated with S0=100 gl(-1) accumulated 279.7 gl(-1) of sorbose with an increase in productivity of 17.6 gl(-1) h(-1) in 16 h.