Comparison of the Antibacterial Efficacy of Bamboo Shoot Ethanol Extract With Chlorhexidine Mouth Rinse Against Salivary Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus acidophilus: An Ex Vivo Study.

Background Dental caries is the most prevalent polymicrobial oral infectious disease tormenting individuals' healthy lifestyles and presents a significant public health problem. The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the antibacterial properties of different concentrations of bamboo shoot ethanol extract with chlorhexidine mouth rinse on isolates of salivary Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) and Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus). Materials and methods Non-stimulated salivary samples from 30 young adults were treated ex vivo with bamboo shoot ethanolic extract at concentrations of 30 µg/ml, 40 µg/ml, 50 µg/ml, and 60 µg/ml. The colony-forming units were quantified by measuring the number of viable bacterial cells. Inhibition zones were evaluated using the agar diffusion method. One-way ANOVA and post-hoc test were used to analyze the significant difference between variables using SPSS version 22.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results The mean zone of inhibition with bamboo shoot ethanolic extract against salivary S. mutans (23.00 ± 0.816) and L. acidophilus (22.00 ± 0.816) total counts was closest to the control chlorhexidine (S. mutans = 22.00 ± 0.876 and L. acidophilus = 21.10 ± 0.876). A greater activity against S. mutans and L. acidophilus is seen in the zone of inhibition of the 60 µg/ml experimental concentration of bamboo shoot ethanolic extract, with a significant difference in the disc diffusion assay. Conclusion The treatment with bamboo shoot extract was equivalent effective in the mentioned bacterial species. Clinical relevance It can be assured that preventive measures like mouth rinse and dentifrices compromising bamboo shoots, a potential dental biomaterial, would be optimistic agents for caries control, including the cariostatic effect.

Challenges with using popular entertainment to address mental health: a content analysis of Netflix series 13 Reasons Why controversy in mainstream news coverage.

Background: Mental health conditions and psychiatric disorders are among the leading causes of illness, disability, and death among young people around the globe. In the United States, teen suicide has increased by about 30% in the last decade. Raising awareness of warning signs and promoting access to mental health resources can help reduce suicide rates for at-risk youth. However, death by suicide remains a taboo topic for public discourse and societal intervention. An unconventional approach to address taboo topics in society is the use of popular media. Method: We conducted a quantitative content analysis of mainstream news reporting on the controversial Netflix series 13 Reasons Why Season 1. Using a combination of top-down and bottom-up search strategies, our final sample consisted of 97 articles published between March 31 and May 31, 2017, from 16 media outlets in 3,150 sentences. We systematically examined the news framing in these articles in terms of content and valence, the salience of health/social issue related frames, and their compliance with the WHO guidelines. Results: Nearly a third of the content directly addressed issues of our interest: 61.6% was about suicide and 38.4% was about depression, bullying, sexual assault, and other related health/social issues; it was more negative (42.8%) than positive (17.4%). The criticism focused on the risk of suicide contagion, glamorizing teen suicide, and the portrayal of parents and educators as indifferent and incompetent. The praise was about the show raising awareness of real and difficult issues young people struggle with in their everyday life and serving as a conversation starter to spur meaningful discussions. Our evaluation of WHO guideline compliance for reporting on suicide yielded mixed results. Although we found recommended practices across all major categories, they were minimal and could be improved. Conclusion: Despite their well intentions and best efforts, the 13 Reasons Why production team missed several critical opportunities to be better prepared and more effective in creating social impact entertainment and fostering difficult dialogs. There is an urgent need to train news reporters about established health communication guidelines and promote best practices in media reporting on sensitive topics such as suicide.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of 1,2,3-triazole hybrids of 4-methoxy ethyl cinnamate isolated from Hedychium spicatum (Sm) rhizomes: identification of antiproliferative lead actives against prostate cancer.

A series of 1, 2, 3- triazole hybrids (9a-9n) were synthesised from major phenolic constituent, 4-methoxy ethyl cinnamate (5) isolated from rhizomes of Hedychium spicatum (Sm), a traditional medicinal plant used in variety of disease conditions. All the synthesised analogues were tested for their in vitro antiproliferative potential against HCT 116 (colon cancer), A549 (lung cancer), DU-145 (prostate cancer), Hep G2 (hepatoma) and HEK-293 (normal) cell lines. Among the compounds tested, compounds 9i and 9k potently arrested proliferation of DU-145 (prostate cancer) cell line. Compound 9i displayed 20 times better antiproliferative potential than parent compound and almost identical inhibitory activity to that of the standard drug, doxorubicin. The flow cytometric analysis revealed that 9i arrested cells in G2/M phase of cell cycle and induced apoptosis. Overall, the hybrid derivative 9i was found to be a potential antiproliferative lead against prostate cancer.

Mechanical or thermal damage: differentiating between underlying mechanisms as a cause of bone fractures.

To investigate the differences between pre- and post-fire fractures, 30 human forearm bones were subjected to either blunt-force impact, burning, or both. Bones, covered in soft tissue and wrapped in clothing, were burned in a reconstructed house fire. The burning context and dynamics led to differential burning, that was equal amongst the three groups. To evaluate the damage to the bones, a data collection sheet was developed based on the current literature on fracture features. To analyze the relation between exposure temperature and fracture class and occurrence, color was measured to estimate the exposure temperature. Observable and measurable changes on bone, and fracture surfaces, were macro- and microscopically analyzed. Many features overlapped between the three groups, and thus are not usable for differentiation. Fractures caused by blunt force impact (post-mortem, pre-fire) showed a rough fracture surface with smoothness in curved/slanted regions near the margin after burning, while heat-induced bone fractures showed a smooth fracture surface. The margins and surface of bone fractures that originated after the fire (indirect heat-induced) were evenly discolored, whereas heat-induced bone fractures showed uneven discoloration of the fracture margin and surface. Although there were generally more heat-induced fractures in the 450-700 °C range, no other distinctive trend was observed between exposure temperature and class of fractures.

Are Our Diabetic Patients Adherent to the Treatment?

AIM: To estimate the adherence to treatment among type 2 diabetic patients. BACKGROUND: Treatment adherence is a complex process that is controlled by multiple factors. Lack of treatment adherence is common with patients who suffer from type 2 diabetes and is becoming a very prevalent problem especially with the patients who suffer from non-communicable diseases (NCD) worldwide. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the adherence to treatment among type 2 diabetic patients and the perception and practice of self-management among them. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using a questionnaire was conducted amongst the patients of Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, a coastal city of southern India. The questionnaire consisted of Medical Adherence Rating Scale (MARS) to assess how adherent the patient is to the treatment and the Diabetes Self-care Questionnaire (DSMQ) for assessing the various self-care practices employed by diabetic patients. The data obtained was entered and the analysis was done by using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 25.0. RESULTS: The study involved 95 patients and the mean age was found to be 50.71 ± 12.633 years. More than 60% of the study population were male and 78.9% were literate. Nearly half of the patients (49.5%) had been on treatment for a duration of >5 years. Eighty-two percent population (82.1%) were adherent to their medications. Adherence was found to be nearly eighty percent (79.5%) among the literates. CONCLUSION: Adherence was more among the males as compared to the females. Most patients in the study had been adherent to their medications prescribed to them. Most of them were on oral drugs only. The majority of the patients who had diabetes mellitus were found to have inadequate self-care management for diabetes mellitus.

Intelligent animal detection system using sparse multi discriminative-neural network (SMD-NN) to mitigate animal-vehicle collision.

Animal-Vehicle Collision (AVC) is a predominant problem in both urban and rural roads and highways. Detecting animals on the road is challenging due to factors like the fast movement of both animals and vehicles, highly cluttered environmental settings, noisy images, and occluded animals. Deep learning has been widely used for animal applications. However, they require large training data; henceforth, the dimensionality increases, leading to a complex model. In this paper, we present an animal detection system for mitigating AVC. The proposed system integrates sparse representation and deep features optimized with FixResNeXt. The deep features extracted from candidate parts of the animals are represented in a sparse form using a feature-efficient learning algorithm called Sparse Network of Winnows (SNoW). The experimental results prove that the proposed system is invariant to the viewpoint, partial occlusion, and illumination. On the benchmark datasets, the proposed system has achieved an average accuracy of 98.5%.

In Situ FTIR Spectroscopic Monitoring of the Formation of the Arene Diazonium Salts and its Applications to the Heck-Matsuda Reaction.

This study depicts the use of a fiber-optic coupled Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-attenuated total reflection (FTIR-ATR) probe for the in-depth study of arene diazonium salt formation and their utilization in the Heck-Matsuda reaction. The combination of these chemical reactions and in situ IR spectroscopy enabled us to recognize the optimum parameters for arene diazonium salt formation and to track the concentrations of reactants, products and intermediates under actual reaction conditions without time consuming HPLC analysis and the necessity of collecting the sample amid the reaction. Overall advantages of the proposed methodology include precise reaction times as well as identification of keto enol tautomerization in allylic alcohols supporting the 'path a' elimination mechanism in the Heck-Matsuda reaction.

Comprehensive Analysis of Secondary Metabolites in Usnea longissima (Lichenized Ascomycetes, Parmeliaceae) Using UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS and Pro-Apoptotic Activity of Barbatic Acid.

Considering the importance of ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-quadrupole time of flight-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS) hyphenated techniques for analysis of secondary metabolites from crude extracts, the present study was aimed at identification of secondary metabolites in acetone extract of the lichen Usnea longissima. From our study, 19 compounds were tentatively identified through comparison of exact molecular masses from their MS/MS spectra, mass fragmentation studies and comparison with literature data. In addition, potent cytotoxic activity of U. longissima extract prompted us to isolate four compounds, 18R-hydroxy-dihydroalloprotolichesterinic acid (19), neuropogolic acid (20), barbatic acid (21), and usnic acid (22) from this extract which were adequately identified through mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy. All four compounds displayed cytotoxic activity. Barbatic acid (21) manifested doxorubicin equivalent activity against A549 lung cancer cell line with IC50 of 1.78 µM and strong G0/G1 accumulation of cells. Poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) cleavage confirmed that it induced cytotoxic activity via apoptosis. Finally, our work has discerned the depside, barbatic acid (21) from crude extract as a candidate anti-cancer molecule, which induces cell death by stepping up apoptosis.

New cycloartane type-triterpenoids from the areal parts of Caragana sukiensis and their biological activities.

A comprehensive re-investigation of aerial parts of Caragana sukiensis resulted in the isolation of twelve compounds (1-12) including three new cycloartane type triterpenoids (3-5) respectively. Chemical structures of the isolated compounds were established by analysis of their IR, HRMSESI, 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic data. In addition, these compounds were evaluated for their cytotoxic activity against cancer lines (HeLa, A549, MCF-7, DU-145) and Human embryonic kidney cell line (HEK-293). The results indicated that compound 8 showed potent cytotoxic activity against A549 with IC50 value of 1.54 µM which is comparable to standard drug, doxorubicin. Further, flow cytometric analysis showed that compound 8 arrested the cell cycle in the Go/G1 phase leading to apoptotic cell death. In addition, Hoechst 33258 staining, Annexin V-FITC assay and measurement of mitochondrial membrane potential also suggested that 8 induced cell death by apoptosis. Further, all the isolates were also screened for their antifeedant and insecticidal activity against tobacco caterpillar (Spodoptera litura), using no-choice leaf disk method. Among screened compounds 1, 3, 4, and 6 showed potent antifeedancy with ED50 values of 0.59, 1.19, 0.67, and 1.68 µg/cm2. Overall, this study identified a novel class of cycloartane tritepenoids as potent cyotoxic agents as well as antifeedants.

New free radical scavenging neolignans from fruits of Piper attenuatum.

OBJECTIVE: The aim was to study and identify free radicals scavenging and antihyperglycemic principles in fruit of Piper attenuatum. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Bioassay guided identification of extracts possessing potent free radical scavenging activity, and isolation of compounds was done. Chloroform extract of P. attenuatum possessing potent radical scavenging activity was also evaluated for antihyperglycemic activity following oral glucose tolerance test in rats. RESULTS: Nine neolignans namely, denudatin B (1), iso-4', 5'-dimethoxy-3, 4-methylenedioxy-2'-oxo-Δ(3',5',8')-8.1'-lignan (2), lancifolin D (3), denudatin A (4), wallichinin (5), piperenone (6), lancifolin C (7), 2-oxo-piperol B (8), piperkadsin A (9) and a crotepoxide (10) was identified in Chloroform extract of P. attenuatum. Neolignans (1-9) displayed potent 2, 2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) radical and piperkadsin A (9) also displayed 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity. Analysis of structure-activity relationship revealed that presence of furan ring and methoxy groups is an important criterion to influence 2, 2'-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) radical scavenging potentials. Chloroform extract of P. attenuatum fruit could not display antihyperglycemic activity following oral glucose tolerance test in rats. CONCLUSION: Neolignans present in P. attenuatum fruits are potent free radical scavengers and this is the first report identifying these compounds and activities in this fruit.

Application of H2O and UV/H2O2 processes for enhancing the biodegradability of reactive black 5 dye.

Leather processing is a traditional activity in India during which many organic and inorganic chemicals are added while part of it is absorbed by the leather, the remaining chemicals are discharged along with the effluent. The effluent contains both easily biodegradable and not easily biodegradable synthetic organics like dyes, syntans. Easily biodegradable organics are removed in the existing biological treatment units whereas synthetic organics present in the wastewater are mostly adsorbed over the microbes. As the tannery effluent contains complex chemicals, it is difficult to ascertain the degradation of specific pollutants. To determine the increase in the biodegradability, one of the complex and synthetic organic chemical like dye used in the tanning operation was selected for Advanced Oxidation Process (AOPs) treatment for cleaving complex organics and its subsequent treatment in aerobic process. In the present study, Reactive Black 5 Dye used in the tanning operation was selected for Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) and UV/H2O2 pre-treatment for different operating conditions like pH, contact time and different volume of H2O2. A comparison was made between the untreated, Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) and UV/H2O2 treated effluent in order to ascertain the influence of AOP on the improvement of biodegradability of effluent. An increase in the BOD5/COD ratio from 0.21 to 0.435 was achieved in the UV/H2O2 pre-treatment process. This pre-treated effluent was further subjected to aerobic process. Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal efficiency of the UV/H2O2 pre-treated dye solution in the aerobic process was found to be 86.39% and 77.82% when compared to 52.43% of BOD5 and 51.55% of COD removal efficiency without any pre-treatment. Hence from these results, to increase the biodegradability of Reactive Black 5 dye pre-treatment methods like H2O2 and UV/H2O2 can be used prior to biological treatment process.

Clinicopathological significance of tissue homeostasis in Indian breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: Tissue homeostasis and the maintenance of cell populations depend on a delicate balance between the rates of cell proliferation and cell death. Disruption of this balance is an important factor in development and progression of tumors. In the present study we evaluated the growth index in a large group of breast cancer patients and correlated it with various clinical and histopathological features of the tumor. METHODS: Estimation of apoptosis was determined by TUNEL assay while immunocytochemistry for proliferating nuclear cell antigen (PCNA) was used as a measure of proliferation. Necrosis was identified morphologically by haematoxylin and eosin staining. RESULTS: A positive correlation was observed between the percentage of PCNA positive cells and the frequency of mitosis (r=0.6117, p<0.0001). A highly statistical significant correlation was observed between type of tissue analyzed and growth index (r=0.46869, p<0.0001). No significant association was observed between hormone receptor status and growth index. CONCLUSIONS: The growth index was found to be higher in carcinoma cells that metastasised into lymph nodes compared with primary lesions with no nodal metastasis. Growth index was particularly prominent in high-grade tumors in which increased proliferative activity was evident. Apoptotic cells were detected more frequently in tumor cells with higher rather than lower proliferative activity. This suggests that not only proliferative activity but also capacity for apoptosis is altered in breast tumors.