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The reproductive ecology of the Myanmar endemic species Morenia ocellata (Dume'ril and Bibro,1835) and Lissemys scutata (Peters, 1868) at the lake of Zena Man Aung Pagoda compound, Thaketa Township, Yangon Region were investigated from December 2013 to July 2014.

This study investigates the properties of four lesser used seasoned timber species in Myanmar Inn Dipterocarpus tuberculatus Roxb. , Kanyin Dipterocarpus turbinatus , Thit Sein Terminalia bellirica Roxb. and Yamane Gmelina arborea Roxb. . The experiments are tested according to American Standard Methods of Testing Small Clear Specimens of Timber ASTM D 143 09 . The moisture content is examined in the kiln dried condition. The mechanical properties are done to measure the bending strength, compressive strength parallel to grain, compressive strength perpendicular to grain, and tensile strength perpendicular to grain and shear strength of each species of timber. In addition, the density and moisture content of timber are also measured for physical properties. Total 600 specimens 30 specimens for each test and species are measured in this study. The results from experiments are also adjusted to 12 moisture content. Hla Hla Htay | Pan Ei Phyu "Experimental Study on Properties of Some Lesser Used Seasoned Timber Species in Myanmar" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-5 , August 2018, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd17105.pdf

A study on pervious concrete is the balance of permeability and mechanical properties as well as durability. Pervious concrete is important in concrete industry due to the increased awareness of environmental protection. Natural pozzolan is used as a supplementary cementitious material to partially replace of Portland cement in concrete. In this paper mainly focuses on experimental study of different replacement of cement with Popa volcanic natural pozzolan in pervious concrete. This research work is made previous concrete on 10 , 20 by weight replacement of cement with and without pozzolan. 19mm maximum size of crushed gravel was used. Type I Portland cement and water reducing and retarding concrete admixture were used. Mix design is based on the no slump method from the American Concrete Institute's Committee 211.3R 02. This concrete is tested for its properties, such as density, void content, water permeability and the compressive strength with various ages. According to the results, pozzolan replacement of cement increased as the compressive strength and permeability and durability of pervious concrete decreased. Hla Hla Htay | Htet Thu Aung "Study on Natural Pozzolan as a Partial Replacement for Cement in Pervious Concrete" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-5 , August 2018, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd15876.pdf

Yangon is the most populated commercial city in Myanmar. It is located just about 50km from Sagging Fault, the major earthquake fault of Myanmar, at which the ground excitation is more frequent this year. Moreover, most of the existing buildings in Yangon are old and less performance to seismic shaking. According to census data record, R.C type residential buildings are the most popular types in Yangon. Thus, in order to mitigate the risk of lives and properties under upcoming earthquake, the disaster mitigation plan becomes the major issue to get awareness of the public. For this purpose, this study is aimed to analyze the three existing R.C buildings under different levels earthquakes in three townships (Tarmway, Pazundaung and Kyaukdadar) in which the population density is higher and the soil condition is worse than other townships. The selected buildings have three heights (3; 6; and 8-stories). The material properties of these existing buildings are obtained by certain tests on sites. The soil condition of theexisting townships is determined based on the bore logs test data of soil investigation reports. The performance of the buildings is then assessed with the ATC 40 and FEMA 356 building acceptance criteria. From pushover analysis, the capacity curves for each building in two directions of the earthquake are obtained. The modeling and analysis is done by ETABS 9 software. According to fragility analysis, this study results that these existing R.C type buildings can suffer moderate damage under moderate level and severe damage under severe level earthquake.

The pervious concrete is designed with cementitious material content just enough to coat the coarse aggregate particles so that a configuration that allows the passage of water at a much higher rate than conventional concrete. The pervious concrete has many advantages that improves city environment, recharges the ground by rain water and could be used as pavement for light vehicles, pedestrian pathways, parking lots, also it reduces the tire pavement interaction noise etc. In this paper, structural property and permeability of pervious concrete made without and with different ratios of fine aggregate and pozzolan. 9.5 mm maximum size of crushed gravel and constant aggregate/cement ratio of 3.6 were used. Mix design void content is tested 20%. The specific gravity of fine aggregate 2.53 and the specific gravity of crushed stone 2.56. Type I Portland cement and water- reducing and retarding concrete admixture were used. Mix design is based on the no slump method from the American Concrete Institute’s Committee 211.3R-02, “Standard Practice for Selecting Proportions for No Slump Concrete.” This research work was divided into third /three sections. The first section is without pozzolan and fine aggregate and second section is with two different ratios of pozzolan third section is without pozzolan and with fine aggregate. Pozzolan is used as a supplementary cementitious material to partially replace Portland cement in pervious concrete mixes up to 20% by weight. Fine aggregate partially replace as a coarse aggregate in pervious concrete mixes up to 10% by weight. M ix design void content is tested 20%. This concrete is tested for its properties, such as density, void content, compressive strength and water permeability. The most important property of pervious concrete is its water permeability.

Curcumin, a well-known antioxidant in a principal ingredient of turmeric, acted as a prooxidant causing a copper-dependent DNA damage and the induction of apoptosis. Treatment of DNA from plasmid pBR322 and calf thymus with curcumin plus copper ion caused strand scission and the formation of 8-hydroxy-2(')-deoxyguanosine in DNA. Addition of catalase protected DNA from the curcumin-dependent injuries, indicating that hydroxyl radical may participate in the DNA damage. Flow cytometry analysis showed that curcumin caused an apoptotic cell death of HL60 cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Curcumin-mediated apoptosis was closely related to the increase in intracellular reactive oxygen species. On the contrary, capsaicinoids, which have a ortho-methoxy phenolic structure without beta-diketone in the side chain, did not produce 8-hydroxy-2(')-deoxyguanosine. Capsaicin further did not induce apoptosis of HL60 cells, but rather protected cells from prooxidant-induced apoptosis. Curcumin can generate reactive oxygen species as a prooxidant in the presence of transition metals in cells, resulting in DNA injuries and apoptotic cell death. The prooxidant action of curcumin may be related to the conjugated beta-diketone structure of this compound.

Apoptosis of HL60 cells by gallic acid derivatives was analyzed in relation to their prooxidant action. Octyl- and laurylgallates showed a potent apoptosis-inducing effect on HL60 cells, whereas gallic acid, ethyl-, propyl- and butylgallates caused only a little apoptosis. Long hydrophobic alcoholic chain in gallic acid esters enhanced apoptotic activity. Octylgallate markedly inactivated aconitase sensitive to oxidative stress before the apoptotic cells appeared. Preincubation of HL60 cells with butylated hydroxyanisole inhibited apoptosis completely. Treatment of cells with TEMPOL, which crosses the cell membrane, inhibited the octylgallate-mediated apoptosis, whereas the cell-impermeable DTPA did not protect the apoptosis. These results suggest that gallic acid compounds with hydrophobic chains may enter the cell, and can generate reactive oxygen species through the redox cycling in cells, resulting in the induction of apoptosis.

The addition of aluminum-maltol complex to PC12D cells induced a time-dependent and concentration-dependent growth inhibition as well as cell death, whereas aluminum chloride or maltol alone did not affect the viability of PC12D cells. Apoptosis of differentiated PC12D cells was assessed by using terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated 2'-deoxyuridine-5'-triphosphate nick end labeling (TUNEL) technique to detect DNA strand breaks in situ. The number of TUNEL-positive cells treated with aluminum-maltol increased with time in the treatment cultures. The ability of aluminum ion to elevate intracellular reactive oxygen species was determined by fluorescence in PC12D cells loaded with the oxidant-sensitive dye 2',7'-dichlorofluorescin diacetate. Aluminum ion incorporated to PC 12D cells causes apoptotic cell death by enhancing the generation of reactive oxygen species.

We reevaluated the BACTEC MGIT 960 antimicrobial susceptibility testing system (MGIT 960 AST) by using 1,112 isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis . When the results of MGIT 960 AST were compared with that of the proportion method using Ogawa medium (Ogawa PM), discrepant results were obtained for 30 strains with isoniazid, all resistant by MGIT 960 AST but susceptible by Ogawa PM. For 93% of the strains that produced discrepant results, the MIC was 0.4 or 0.8 μg/ml, showing resistance by the proportion method using Middlebrook agar plates. Furthermore, it was also established by analyses of the katG and inhA genes that strains resistant only by MGIT 960 AST have a low level of isoniazid (INH) resistance, indicating that MGIT 960 AST is a reliable method. Ninety-six strains were resistant to 0.1 μg/ml INH by MGIT 960 AST. When they were divided into three groups, Low-S (susceptible at 0.2 μg/ml), Low-R (resistant at 0.2 μg/ml), and High-R (resistant at 1.0 μg/ml), by Ogawa PM, 43.3% of the Low-S strains had mutations in the promoter region of inhA and no mutations were detected in katG codon 315, while 61.7% of the High-R strains had katG codon 315 mutations or a gross deletion of katG . These results suggest that mutations in inhA are associated with low-level resistance to INH and katG codon 315 mutations are associated with high-level resistance to INH. In addition, the analyses demonstrated some relationship of mutations in the inhA gene with ethionamide resistance for the Low-S strains, but not for the High-R strains.

Gallic acid and its alkylesters, polyphenolic compounds with antioxidative activity, acted as a prooxidant causing a copper-dependent DNA damage. Treatment of DNA from plasmid pBR322 and calf thymus with gallic acid plus copper ion caused strand scission and the formation of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine in DNA. Addition of catalase protected DNA from the gallic acid/copper-dependent strand breaks and the formation of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine, indicating that hydroxyl radical may participate in the DNA damage. Ethyl-, propyl- and butylgallates showed only a little DNA damage. Octyl- and laurylgallates caused negligible damage of DNA. DNA strand breaks and formation of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine were closely related to the reduction of copper by gallate compounds. These results imply that cuprous ion reduced by gallate derivatives may play a key role in the oxidative cleavage of DNA and the formation of base adduct. The cytotoxic effect of gallate compounds can be explained by their prooxidant action dependent on the reducing activity.

Uric acid (UA) and urea nitrogen (UN) were determined in urinary stains and the UA/UN x 20 values were calculated. The values in human urinary stains were 1.11-4.21, while those in other mammals except some of chimpanzees, were under 0.7, and those in fecal stains of birds were over 80. Most of the stains of other human body fluids or plant juices tested contained neither UA nor UN, and some contained one, but never the other. Ascorbic acid (AS) of up to 100 mg/dl in urine did not interfere with UA determination when dried human urinary stains were analyzed. It was also found that the contents of UA were very low at the peripheral parts of urinary stains. The present results indicate that the quotient UA/UN is useful for identification of human urinary stains in forensic practice provided that the peripheral part of the stain is not used.

1. 1. Uricase was partially purified from livers of five mammals (dog, bovine, horse, house musk shrew and guinea pig), and its immunological properties were studied using anti-hog liver uricase prepared in rabbits. 2. 2. Results obtained by immunodiffusion suggest that hog uricase has four sites of partial antigens (a, b, c, d), while the enzyme of other mammals has only part of them, and a cladogram of these six mammals is presented showing development of partial antigens. 3. 3. Results obtained by immunoelectrophoresis suggest that the protein structure of house musk shrew uricase is considerably different from the other five mammals tested.

Antigenic properties of bloodstains of human and non-human primates as well as other animal bloodstains were investigated by the inhibition ELISA using commercially available anti-human albumin (Alb), alpha 2-macroglobulin (alpha 2-M), fibrinogen, transferrin, and immunoglobulin G. In general, chimpanzee bloodstains showed strong cross-reactions with these antisera, and the extent of the cross-reactions of other animal bloodstains decreased largely with the phylogenic order, i.e., agile gibbon (ape), Old World monkeys (Japanese monkey and hamadryas baboon), New World monkeys (night monkey and tufted capuchin monkey), prosimians (grand galago and ring-tailed lemur) and other animals (rat, cattle, swine, goat, dog, cat, and chicken). Among these antisera, anti-human alpha 2-M showed the weakest cross-reaction with chimpanzee bloodstains, and anti-human Alb showed next.