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Medicinal herbs are promising source of biologically active phytochemicals, many of which possess antifungal activities against phytopathogens. This research presents in vitro antifungal activity and analysis of a medicinally important herb Centaurium erythraea Rafn extracts against a highly problematic pathogen of tomato namely Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (FOL). In-vitro results prominently disclosed that the extracts showed good percentage growth inhibition (PGI) against FOL. Methanolic extract of C. erythraea at 200 mg mL-1 showed growth inhibition 93.3% while the synthetic fungicide benomyl showed highest growth inhibition of 90.2% at the same concentration. Phytochemical analysis indicated that methanolic extracts of this plant possess phytochemicals of all the major classes such as alkaloids, steroids, terpenoids, saponins etc. This study concludes that the extracts of C. erythraea are the best alternatives to fungicides to control Fusarium wilt pathogen of tomato.

In the present study, an azo dye 4-hydroxyazobenzene was synthesized and its antifungal activity against a notorious soil-borne plant pathogen Macrophomina phaseolina was evaluated. The 4-hydroxyazobenzene was synthesized by azo coupling reaction between aniline diazonium salt and activated phenol. The azo coupling preferably occurred at para position of the phenol ring since the charge density get reinforced at this position and to minimize the steric hindrance between ortho positioned hydroxyl group. Azo coupling involved an electrophilic substitution reaction of phenyl diazonium cation with phenolate ion, the coupling partner. In vitro antifungal activity of the compound was assessed by dissolving the compound in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and preparing its different concentrations (ranging from 0.78 to 100 mg mL-1) in malt extract broth. All the concentrations of synthesized compound significantly (P≤0.05) reduced biomass of M. phaseolina by 31–49%. This study concludes that 4-hydroxyazobenzene can be used for control of M. phaseolina.

Shoulder withdrawals are horrendous and can hinder everyday activities as well as help in sports. The greater part of shoulder separations (>95%) happen in the front course and are from time to time achieved by injury. Discontinuous separations can be avoided and social costs can be diminished with proper treatment. Objective: To evaluate the recurrence of anterior should dislocation with or without physiotherapy. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted over 180 participants of recurrence of anterior shoulder dislocation according to inclusion exclusion criteria. Non probability purposive sampling was used to assemble data from Lahore. Data was collected by questionnaire Functional shoulder Instability. Data were collected from the Patients of the University of Lahore Teaching Hospital, Mansoora Hospital, Jinnah Hospital and Mayo Hospital. Results: Out of total 180 participant’s, 140 were males and 40 were females. Mean age was 25.9 with a St. Deviation of 5.3 having maximum age of 35.00 and minimum age of 15.00. Injury mechanism among participants was seizure in 20 (11.1%), falls present in 46 (25.6%), sporting injury in 54 (30.0%), motor vehicle accident in 54 (30.0%) and in other is 6 (3.3%). 98 (54.4%) participants have previous instability of other shoulder and 82 (45.6%) don’t have previous instability of other shoulder. 74 (41.1%) participants have left dislocation side and 106 (58.9%) participants have right dislocation side. 28 (15.6%) participant’s undergoes physiotherapist treatment and 152 (84.4%) participant’s undergoes general physician treatment. Conclusions: Hence it was concluded that, recurrence of shoulder was occurred mostly in that participants’ which were undergoes general physician treatment.

The main purpose of this study is to observe the importance of machine vision (MV) approach for the identification of five types of skin cancers, namely, actinic-keratosis, benign, solar-lentigo, malignant, and nevus. The 1000 (200 × 5) benchmark image datasets of skin cancers are collected from the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC). The acquired ISIC image datasets were transformed into texture feature dataset that was a combination of first-order histogram and gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features. For the skin cancer image, a total of 137,400 (229 × 3 x 200) texture features were acquired on three nonover-lapping regions of interest (ROIs). Principal component analysis (PCA) clustering approach was employed for reducing the dimension of feature dataset. Each image acquired twenty most discriminate features based on two different approaches of statistical features such as average correlation coefficient plus probability of error (ACC + POE) and Fisher (Fis). Furthermore, a correlation-based feature selection (CFS) approach was employed for feature reduction, and optimized 12 features were acquired. Furthermore, a classification algorithm naive bayes (NB), Bayes Net (BN), LMT Tree, and multilayer perception (MLP) using 10 K-fold cross-validation approach were employed on optimized feature datasets and the overall accuracy achieved by MLP is 97.1333%.

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess anxiety as predictor of social adjustment and psychological wellbeing in blind adolescents. The present study examined the level of anxiety, social adjustment and psychological wellbeing of blind adolescents. Methodology: Cross sectional research design was used in the study. The study was carried out on the sample of 150 blind adolescents between the ages of 12 to 18 years. Demographic variables were also considered in analyses to examine their influences. The tools related to anxiety, psychological wellbeing and social adjustment were used. Urdu version of beck anxiety inventory (1988), social adjustments scale (Mundt et al., 2002) and psychological wellbeing scale (Ryff, 1989) was used. Results: Independent t-test, Correlation and multiple Regression analyses were run to test the hypotheses. Independent t-test showed that the level of anxiety is comparatively greater in females than males, t (148) = -1.15, p= .25.”. Correlation analysis showed that there is significant negative correlation among anxiety and psychological well-being of the blind adolescents, r = - 0.21, *p

Flowers of Cassia fistula L. were collected from Lahore, Pakistan and extracted in methanol followed by separation of n-hexane soluble compounds in a separating funnel. The separated n-hexane phase was analyzed by GC-MS for identification of various possible phytochemicals. Among the 31 identified compounds, the predominant compound in this fraction was butanoic acid, methyl ester with 17.81% peak area followed by 3-eicosene, (E)- (6.83%), 2-ethylformanilide (6.59%), naphthalene (6.10%), trifluoroacetoxy hexadecane (5.88%), 5-octadecene, (E)- (5.58%), phenylethanolamine (5.09%), 1-hexene- 3,5-dione (4.68%) tetratetracontane (3.42%), which were ranked as moderately abundant compounds. Eleven compounds including benzenebutanamine (3.80%), heptadecyl trifluoroacetate (3.65%), heptadecane (3.08%), octadecyl trifluoroacetate (2.30%), 2-pyrrolidinone, 1-methyl- (1.78%), 1-undecanol (1.64%), ethylene glycol, O,O-di(pivaloyl)- (1.48%), benzyl alcohol (1.38%), hexadecanoic acid, 15-methyl-, methyl ester (1.32%), 1-docosene (1.27%) and heneicosane (1.25%), with their peak areas between 1 and 4% were categorized as less abundant compounds. The remaining 9 compounds with peak areas less than 1% were categorized as least abundant or minor compounds. Bangladesh J. Bot. 51(2): 393-399, 2022 (June)

Parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus L.) ranks amongst the top ten most devastating weeds. It has spread on a large scale in various regions of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. In an attempt to search alternatives to chemical herbicides for control of this weed, metabolites of a fungal species Penicillium crustosum were evaluated for their herbicidal potential. The fungus was grown in two growth media viz. potato dextrose broth (PDB) and malt extract broth (MEB) for two weeks. After filtration, the culture filtrates from both the media were used in original (100%) as well as diluted (50%) forms. The experiment was carried out in 9-cm Petri plates, having 25 parthenium seeds in each plate. The effect of metabolites was assessed on germination and seedling growth. PDB metabolites proved more inhibitory against various studied parameters than the metabolites prepared in MEB. There was 62%, 88%, 91% and 93% suppression in germination, shoot length, root length and seedling dry biomass over control due to original metabolites prepared in PDB as compared to 33%, 74%, 94% and 81% reduction in these parameters, respectively, due to MEB metabolites.

Hundreds of plant species, including many economically important crop plants, are attacked by a highly destructive soil-borne fungus Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid. In the present study, methanolic root extract of septicweed [Senna occidentalis (L.) Link] was evaluated against M. phaseolina. Different concentrations of the extract (0.5 to 3.0%) considerably decreased fungal biomass by 33–43%. Nine compounds were recognized when the extract was analyzed by GC-MS. The major compound was 11-octadecanoic acid, methyl ester (26.49%) followed by (5β)pregnane-3,20β-diol, 14α d-mannose (13.85%);, 18α-[4-methyl-3-oxo-(1-oxa-4-azabutane-1,4-diyl)]-, diacetate (13.61%); ethyl iso-allocholate (11.37%); pentadecanoic acid, 14-methyl-, methyl ester (11.01%); and 9,12-octadecadienoic acid, methyl ester, (E,E)- (9.76%), which might be the cause of antifungal activity.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) are two of the most important indicators for agricultural productivity. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the changes in SOC and N in the deep soil profile (up to 100 cm) and their relationships with crop productivity under the influence of long-term (since 1990) fertilization in the wheat-maize cropping system. Treatments included CK (control), NP (inorganic N and phosphorus (P) fertilizers), NPK (inorganic N, P and potassium fertilizers), NPKM (NPK plus manure), and M (manure). Crop yield and the properties of topsoil were measured yearly from 2001 to 2009. C and N contents were measured at five different depths in 2001 and 2009. The results showed that wheat and maize yields decreased between 2001 and 2009 under the inorganic fertilizer (NP and NPK) treatments. The average yield between 2001 and 2009 under the NP, NPK, NPKM, and M treatments (compared with the CK treatment) increased by 38, 115, 383, and 381%, respectively, for wheat and 348, 891, 2 738, and 1 845%, respectively, for maize. Different long-term fertilization treatments significantly changed coarse free particulate (cfPOC), fine free particulate (ffPOC), intramicroaggregate particulate (iPOC), and mineral-associated (mSOC) organic carbon fractions. In the experimental years of 2001 and 2009, soil fractions occurred in the following order for all treatments: mSOC>cfPOC>iPOC>ffPOC. All fractions were higher under the manure application treatments than under the inorganic fertilization treatments. Compared to the inorganic fertilization treatments, manure input enhanced the stocks of SOC and total N in the surface layer (0–20 cm) but decreased SOC and N in the deep soil layer (80–100 cm). This reveals the efficiency of manure in increasing yield productivity and decreasing risk of vertical loss of nutrients, especially N, compared to inorganic fertilization treatments. The findings provide opportunities for understanding deep soil C and N dynamics, which could help mitigate climate change impact on agricultural production and maintain soil health.

BACKGROUND AND AIM Physical inactivity and obesity are the two emerging problems in Pakistan. Schools have been identified as an essential setting for health promotion through physical activity participation. Many schools in Pakistan mainly concentrate on the higher study level and insufficient attention towards children’s physical health that may impair due to low physical activity level and increased sedentary behavior leading to obesity and other health issues. The study aims to assess the level of physical activity in school children. METHODOLOGY A cross-sectional exploration was lead at schools of district T. M.Khan Sindh from Oct-2019 to Feb-2020. Raosoft Tool was used to a calculated sample of the study. The instrument utilized for information assortment contains the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C) to survey active work. Information was entered and broke down by the SPSS-22 version. RESULTS Four hundred kids were comprised in an investigation; 328 observers were girls, and 72 were boys. The mean age ± SD of the members was 13.79 ± 1.522. The mean BMI ± SD of the members was 25.05 ± 1.19, which falls into the classification of overweight. CONCLUSION The survey indicated that school-going children have no physical activity to a low level of Physical Activity. KEYWORDS Body Mass index, Children, Obesity, Physical Activity, Physical education, School

An eco-friendly simple protocol has been devised for the preparation of coumarin derivatives using doubly Brønsted acidic task specific ionic liquid (TSIL) as a catalyst.

Land cover change has posed significant concerns to biodiversity and climate change in Bangladesh and globally. Despite the country’s designation of forest regions as protected areas to conserve their valuable resources, deforestation and forest conversion remained unabated. Fashiakhali Wildlife Sanctuary (FKWS), a protected area in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and its surrounding forested impact area have experienced considerable changes over the years, yet are deficient in extensive assessment. This study evaluated the land use land cover (LULC) changes in the FKWS impact area over almost 3 decades (1994–2021) using multispectral remotely sensed data. The Landsat images of 1994, 2001, 2010, and 2021 were classified using a maximum likelihood algorithm and analyzed for change detection. The comparative potential of vegetation indices, including Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), in forest cover assessment, and the relationship between Land Surface Temperature (LST) and NDVI was also assessed. A significant forest cover loss of around 1117.17 ha (16%) was recorded in the FKWS impact area between 1994 and 2021, with the hugest proportion of 867.78 ha (12.24%) deforested in the first period (1994–2001). Agricultural land also declined by 593.73 ha (8.37%) within the entire period, despite its initial increase of 392.04 ha (5.53%) between 2001 and 2010, being the primary driver of earlier deforestation. However, in the recent decade (2010–2021), settlement expansion of 963.90 ha (13.59%) due to massive human migration in the area contributed to the most remarkable overall land cover change of 1731.51 ha (24.42%). Furthermore, NDVI provided a better and more accurate forest cover assessment than SAVI and was recommended to aid in the quick evaluation and monitoring of the future impacts of agriculture, settlement, and other sorts of land use on the forest cover. In tandem with the widely acknowledged issue of increased temperature due to climate change, an absolute negative correlation was found between the NDVI and LST, confirming the negative impact of climate change on forest loss in the FKWS impact area.

Vinca major L. is an evergreen perennial weed of family Apocynaceae, growing naturally in hilly areas of Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Flowers of this weed were collected from Khanspur, Ayubia during June 2021, shade dried and extracted in pure methanol for two weeks. After filtration, the extract was analyzed by GC-MS for identification of possible bioactive compounds. α-Amyrin was the major compounds (32.49%) followed by lup-20(29)-en-3-ol, acetate, (3β)- (25.72%). Moderately abundant compounds included γ-sitosterol (8.78%), β-amyrone (7.25%), cyclohexane, 1,3,5-triphenyl- (7.01%), olean-12-en-3-ol, acetate, (3β)- (5.68%), and n-hexadecanoic acid (3.18%). Some of the identified compounds have various important biological properties including anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anticancer, antimalarial, antioxidant, antidiabetic, antitumor etc.

Bergenia ciliata is a weed of hilly areas of Pakistan that generally grows in rock crevices. In the present study, flowers of this weeds were collected from Murree. The dried flowers were extracted in methanol and subjected to GC-MS analysis that showed 7 compounds in it. The predominant compound was hexanedioic acid, bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester (48.88%) followed by γ-sitosterol (22.56%). Moderately occurring compound was cyclohexane, 1,3,5-triphenyl- (12.87%). The remaining compounds namely n-hexadecanoic acid (4.97%), pentadecanoic acid, 14-methyl-, methyl ester (3.77%), 9,12-octadecadienoic acid, methyl ester, (Z,Z)- (2.94%) and 9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid, methyl ester, (Z,Z,Z)- (2.92%) were categorized as less abundant compounds. Literature survey indicated that these compounds possess antimicrobial, larvicidal, anti-inflammatory, anticancer and/or antidiabetic properties.

Objective: To assess the frequency of depression in patients with religious inclination. Materials & Methods: It was a cross sectional survey conducted in outpatients’ department of Psychiatry of Sughra Shafi Medical Complex, Narowal over the period of 6 months. Sample size of 160 cases is calculated having age 40 to 75 years with 95% confidence level, 6% margin of error and taking expected percentage of depression was as 17% in subjects with religious inclination. Non-probability consecutive sampling was used. Depression was assessed according to HADS scale for depressive disorder of any severity. Results: Frequency of depression in patients with religious inclination was recorded in 19.38% (n=31) while 80.62% (n=129) had no findings of the morbidity. Conclusion: However, in observation of the above, we concluded that the frequency of depression in religiously inclined participants is not higher and some other factors i.e. socioeconomic was considerably greater, it may be the associated factor of depression in our study, further research in this field is necessary to validate our findings. Keywords: Depression, morbidity, religious inclination, socioeconomic status

The polytypism of solids has been established as one of the most effective approaches to alter their physical properties. In this first-principles-based study, we practiced the polytypism of galliu...

Calotropis procera is a medicinal weed of family Asclepiadaceae. This study was carried out to explore the biochemical profile of C. procera flowers collected from Southern Punjab region of Pakistan. Methanolic flower extract of C. procera was subjected to GC-MS analysis. There were 30 compounds identified in this extract. The predominant compound was γ-sitosterol with 15.39% peak area. Other abundantly occurring compounds included stigmasterol (9.22%), 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z,Z)-, methyl ester (9.01%), campesterol (8.63%), α-amyrin acetate (8.25%), β-amyrin (8.09%), hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester (7.91%), 11-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (6.15%), and 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (5.66%). Moderately abundant compounds included nonacos-1-ene (2.83%), methyl stearate (1.57%), pentacosane (1.44%), phytol (1.33%), heptacos-1-ene (1.20%), heneicosane (1.19%), and 1-hexacosene (1.09%). The remaining less abundant compounds were present with peak areas less than 1%. Literature survey showed that the major compounds identified in the flower extract of C. procera possess various bioactivities including antidiabetic, anticancer, antihyperglycemic, antioxidant, antimicrobial and anti-inflamatory.

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), a medicinal plant of family Cannabaceae, growing wildly in most of the rainfed areas of Punjab, Pakistan. In this study, phytochemical profile of methanolic extract of root was assessed through GC-MS analysis and various biologically active compounds were identified through literature survey. There were 14 compounds in the root extract. The most abundant compounds were γ-sitosterol (27.08%) and 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z,Z)-, methyl ester (24.09%) and hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester (21.81%). Other identified compounds were methyl stearate (5.51%), stigmasterol (5.12%), campesterol (4.19%), phenol, 2,2'-methylenebis[6-(1,1-dimethylethyl)-4-methyl-(2.52%), 11-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (2.10%), squalene (1.89%), β-amyrin (1.88%), eicosanoic acid, methyl ester (0.85%), tetracosanoic acid, methyl ester (0.88%), dronabinol (1.02%) and 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (0.96%). Most of the identified compounds possess one or more biological activities viz. antitumor, antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and/or analgesic.

The present study aimed to evaluate the antagonistic potential of Aspergillus spp. against Macrophomina phaseolina. All the tested species namely Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus flavipes, Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus sydowii were identified by rDNA sequencing of ITS and β-tubulin regions prior to determine their antagonistic behaviour against the pathogen by using dual culture technique. A. flavipes proved to be the most effective in reducing the colony diameter of M. phaseolina (53%) followed by A. niger (41%) and A. flavus (37%) over control, whereas A. sydowii and A. terreus were the least effective with 6.2% and 5% in vitro biocontrol potentials, respectively. The secondary metabolites produced by A. flavipes were tested against the genomic DNA of M. phaseolina to understand the mechanism of antagonism. The bioactive metabolites completely degraded the pathogenic fungal DNA at higher concentrations of 400% and 500% after 24 h. Moreover, the chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions of culture filtrates of A. flavipes were subjected to GC–MS analysis for the identification of potential antimicrobial compounds and a total of 14 and 8 compounds were identified in these fractions, respectively. Among these 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z,Z)- followed by 1,2-benzedicarboxylic acid, diisooctyl ester; decane; hexadecanoic acid,2-hydroxy-1-(hydroxymethyl) ethyl ester; benzene, 1,2,3-trimethyl; n-hexadecanoic acid and naphthalene were the predominant compounds with peak areas of 31.72%, 26.27%, 18.47%, 10.62%, 6.82%, 6.04% and 5.67%, respectively. Literature shows that some of identified compounds possess antimicrobial properties, which might be responsible for control of M. phaseolina.

The processing of medical data has profited from automation and contemporary computing breakthroughs, which have given rise to several novel instructional approaches. In both traditional and cutting-edge disciplines, deep learning has emerged as a cutting-edge machine learning paradigm. Deep learning algorithms have developed into supervised, semi-supervised, and unsupervised modes for a variety of real-time applications. The technology has shown to be broadly applicable in image processing, computer vision, medical diagnostics, robotics, and control operation. Deep learning is essential in the field of medical science for recognizing various diseases and solving health issues. The deep learning revolution will significantly alter cardiovascular imaging within the next decade. To ensure that deep learning may meaningfully impact clinical practice, it is crucial for medical practitioners to stay up with these breakthroughs. This evaluation is intended to be a preliminary step in that process. In this study cardiovascular disease diagnosis and classification have been examined using different state-of-the-art deep learning approaches. Deep Neural Networks can be used to improve the classification of heart disease as a whole in a crucial field called heart illness. The classification process can be carried out using a variety of methods, such as DL, KNN, SVM, ANN Nave Bayes, Random Forest, SSD, DNN, and TDNN where DL exhibited maximum accuracy. Although deep learning-based automated cardiovascular classification algorithms have shown highly accurate results, they have not yet been widely used by healthcare professionals.

The reactive oxygen species (ROS) which are produced during storage of boar semen are causing oxidative stress and leads to poor fertility. Also, tropical and sub-tropical weather condition adversely impacts the physicomorphological quality and fertility of boar sperm. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of feeding linseed oil to boar on its seminal attributes, sperm kinetics, biomarkers of antioxidant, fatty acid profile of seminal plasma (SP) and sperm and in vivo fertility. Six Hampshire crossbreed boars were fed with 90 ml linseed oil (LIN) whereas six Hampshire crossbreed boars were fed 90 ml canola oil (CON) for 16 weeks. Sperm quality was evaluated (60 ejaculates for each group; a total of 120 ejaculates) for motility, livability, abnormal morphology, acrosomal membrane integrity, hypo-osmotic swelling test (HOST) and sperm kinetic parameters by computer assisted semen analysis (CASA) at 0 h and at 72 h of storage at 17°C. Biomarkers of antioxidant (glutathione peroxidase; GPx, catalase; CAT, total antioxidant capacity; TAC) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured in SP and serum. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for the estimation of fatty acid composition of SP and sperm. Boars fed with linseed oil had higher semen volume (p .01) and more total sperm numbers (p .01). Feeding linseed oil to boar enhanced seminal attributes (p .05) at 0 h as well as at 72 h of storage. Linseed oil feeding (p .01) improved biomarkers of antioxidants and significantly (p .01) lowered the lipid peroxidation in serum and SP. Linseed oil feeding (p .05) increased the proportion of alpha linolenic (ALA), arachidonic and docosahexaenoic (DHA) fatty acids in SP. The ratio of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids in sperm increased significantly (p .01) in treatment group. Farrowing rate was significantly (p .05) higher in treatment group. In conclusion, feeding linseed oil to boar improved the in vivo fertility, enhanced antioxidant capacity and increased the DHA content of SP and sperm.

This study investigates the comparison of the microstructural and mechanical properties of a novel ternary reinforced AA7075 hybrid metal matrix composite. Four samples, including AA7075 (base alloy), AA7075-5wt %SiC (MMC), AA7075-5wt %SiC-3wt %RHA (s-HMMC), and AA7075-5wt %SiC-3wt %RHA-1wt %CES (n-HMMC) were developed using the stir casting liquid metallurgy route, followed by the heat treatment. The experimental densities corresponded with the theoretical values, confirming the successful fabrication of the samples. A minimum density of 2714 kg/m3 was recorded for the n-HMMC. In addition, the highest porosity of 3.11% was found for n-HMMC. Furthermore, an increase of 24.4% in ultimate tensile strength and 32.8% in hardness of the n-HMMC was recorded compared to the base alloy. However, its ductility and impact strength was compromised with the lower values of 5.98% and 1.5 J, respectively. This was confirmed by microstructural analysis, which reveals that n-HMMC has mixing issues and forms agglomerates in the matrix, which served as the potential sites of stress concentration leading to low impact strength and ductility. Nevertheless, the hybrid composites showed superior mechanical properties over the MMC and its base alloy.

In order to find out various bioactive compounds in flowers of Ageratum conyzoides, a weed of the family Asteraceae, the dried powdered flowers were extracted in analytical grade methanol and the extract was examined by GC-MS. In total, eight constituents were identified. The predominant compound in the extract was precocene II (59.50%). Three moderately abundant compounds included ethanone, 1-(7-hydroxy-5-methoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran-6-yl)- (9.77%), precocene I (8.61%) and caryophyllene (7.60%). Three compounds namely (E)-β-famesene (4.23%), β-cubebene (4.19%) and 1-nonadecene (4.07%) were categorized as less abundant. The eighth compounds phytol was the least abundant one with peak are of 1.99%. The literature survey showed that most of the identified compounds possessed various biological properties such as aphid repellant, antioxidant, anticancer, antimicrobial and/or anti-inflammatory.

Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop., commonly known as creeping thistle, is a weed of Asteraceae. This study was undertaken to explore various phytoconstituents present in flower of this weed. To achieve this goal, the dried flowers of this weed were soaked in methanol for one week and filtered. This methanolic extract was subjected to GC-MS analysis and 7 compounds were identified. These included olean-12-en-3-ol, acetate, (3β)- (63.87%), lanosta-8,24-dien-3-ol, acetate, (3β)- (12.12%), β-amyrin (6.19%), γ-sitosterol (6.09%), α-amyrin (5.24%), stigmasterol (3.29%) and carbonic acid, 2-ethylhexyl heptadecyl ester (3.16%). Literature survey showed that these compounds possess anti-inflamatory, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, antioxidant and/or anticancer activities.

Southern blight or collar rot of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) caused by Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc., is a serious disease that results in significant yield losses annually. A pot experiment was carried out for the management of this disease using dry biomass of Datura metel, a medicinal plant of the family Solanaceae. The soil was amended with 0.5, 1.0, …, 3.0% dry biomass of D. metel with and without the inoculation of S. rolfsii. The highest disease incidence (100%) was recorded in the positive control where the soil was inoculated with S. rolfsii without any soil amendment. The disease was completely controlled by 2% soil amendment. This soil amendment treatment enhanced bell pepper yield by 30% over the negative control (without any inoculation or amendment) and 136% over the positive control. Activities of defense-related enzymes namely polyphenol oxidase (PPO), peroxidase (POX), and phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) were significantly increased in the positive control. However, the activities of these enzymes were significantly dropped due to the soil amendment with D. metel. This study concluded that the application of 2% dry biomass of D. metel can control collar rot disease resulting in a significant increase in the yield of bell pepper.

BackgroundAnaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is an endocrine tumor with a low incidence but a very poor prognosis. The vast majority of patients have a survival time of only three to six months, but a few survive for two years or more. In recent years, there have been major breakthroughs in targeted and immunotherapy in the field of oncology therapy. Although the preliminary study for ATC showed a promising prospect, more clinical trials are needed. It is the best approach to explore the measures that can improve survival time of ATC from the available clinical data, especially those with long survival.MethodsWe report on an 82-year-old ATC patient who survived for 3 years and systematically review the clinical characteristics of 45 ATC patients with complete data from the two largest centers in northwest China. In particular, factors related to long-term survival were analyzed and summarized.ResultsThree years prior, an 82-year-old woman was diagnosed with ATC by core needle biopsy following a physical examination. The thyroid tumor was resected within one month, and then the patient was treated with radiotherapy. The patient was still healthy after three years of follow-up. Analysis of prognostic factors for the 45 reviewed patients showed that those undergoing radical surgery (median overall survival (OS) = 472 days, p = 0.0261) and radiotherapy (median OS = 220 days, p = 0.0136) had better outcomes. In addition, patients younger than 65 years (median OS = 164.5 days, p = 0.0176) and with a lower tumor stage (IV A, median OS = 633.5 days, p = 0.0191) also had a better outcome.ConclusionATC is a highly malignant tumor, but timely early diagnosis and standardized treatment with radical surgery and radiotherapy as the core can achieve good results. Some patients can achieve long-term survival.