Chemical Characterization of Prickly Pear Seed Oil, Opuntia ficus-indica

Oil extracted from Opuntia ficus-indica seeds constituted 13.6% of the whole seed. Results of the physical and chemical analyses of the oil for refractive index, iodine number, saponification number, Reichert-Meissl number, Hehner value, acid value and unsaponifiable matter compared well with the characteristics of other commonly consumed vegetable oils. Thin-layer chromatography in conjunction with gas-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed a relatively high degree of unsaturation, 82%, with a linoleic acid content of 73.4% followed by palmitic, 12%, oleic 8.8% and stearic acid, 5.8%. Based on these results, Opuntia ficus-indica seed oil appears to be a good potential source of edible oil for human and/or animal consumption.     

Tests on a simply supported rhombic plate

This paper deals with tests done on a simply supported isotropic rhombic plate subjected to certain conditions of lateral loading. The loading conditions used were (i) uniformly distributed load covering the whole plate, (ii) patch load at the centre of the plate, (Hi) uniformly distributed load over a quarter of the plate. Bending moments were obtained at certain important locations on the plate, using electrical resistance strain gauges. The central deflections were also recorded. The results obtained were compared with the available theoretical results. The correlation for the case of uniformly distributed load covering the whole plate was found to be good.     

Saliency-based framework for facial expression recognition

This article proposes a novel framework for the recognition of six universal facial expressions. The framework is based on three sets of features extracted from a face image: entropy, brightness, and local binary pattern. First, saliency maps are obtained using the state-of-the-art saliency detection algorithm “frequency-tuned salient region detection”. The idea is to use saliency maps to determine appropriate weights or values for the extracted features (i.e., brightness and entropy).We have performed a visual experiment to validate the performance of the saliency detection algorithm against the human visual system. Eye movements of 15 subjects were recorded using an eye-tracker in free-viewing conditions while they watched a collection of 54 videos selected from the Cohn-Kanade facial expression database. The results of the visual experiment demonstrated that the obtained saliency maps are consistent with the data on human fixations. Finally, the performance of the proposed framework is demonstrated via satisfactory classification results achieved with the Cohn-Kanade database, FG-NET FEED database, and Dartmouth database of children’s faces.     

Application of ferrous sulfate alleviates negative impact of cadmium in rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i> L.)

Soil contamination with toxic heavy metals [such as cadmium (Cd)] is becoming a serious global problem due to rapid development of social economy. Iron (Fe), being an important element, has been found effective in enhancing plant tolerance against biotic and abiotic stresses. The present study investigated the extent to which different levels of Ferrous sulphate (FeSO₄) modulated the Cd tolerance of rice (Oryza sativa L.), when maintained in artificially Cd spiked regimes. A pot experiment was conducted under controlled conditions for 146 days, by using natural soil, mixed with different levels of CdCl₂ [0 (no Cd), 0.5 and 1 mg/kg] together with the exogenous application of FeSO₄ at [0 (no Fe), 1.5 and 3 mg/kg] levels to monitor different growth, gaseous exchange characteristics, oxidative stress, antioxidative responses, minerals accumulation, organic acid exudation patterns of O. sativa. Our results depicted that addition of Cd to the soil significantly (P < 0.05) decreased plant growth and biomass, gaseous exchange parameters, mineral uptake by the plants, sugars (soluble, reducing, and non-reducing sugar) and altered the ultrastructure of chloroplasts, plastoglobuli, mitochondria, and many other cellular organelles in Cd-stressed O. sativa compared to those plants which were grown without the addition of Cd in the soil. However, Cd toxicity boosted the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by increasing the contents of malondialdehyde (MDA), which is the indication of oxidative stress in O. sativa and was also manifested by hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) contents and electrolyte leakage to the membrane bounded organelles. Although, activities of various antioxidative enzymes like superoxidase dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and non-enzymatic antioxidants like phenolics, flavonoid, ascorbic acid, anthocyanin and proline contents increased up to a Cd level of 0.5 mg/kg in the soil but were significantly diminished at the highest Cd level of 1 mg/kg in the soil compared to those plants which were grown without the addition of Cd in the soil. The negative impacts of Cd injury were reduced by the application of FeSO₄ which increased plant growth and biomass, improved photosynthetic apparatus, antioxidant enzymes, minerals uptake together with diminished exudation of organic acids as well as oxidative stress indicators in roots and shoots of O. sativa by decreasing Cd retention in different plant parts. These results shed light on the effectiveness of FeSO₄ in improving the growth and upregulation of antioxidant enzyme activities of O. sativa in response to Cd stress. However, further studies at field levels are required to explore the mechanisms of FeSO₄-mediated reduction of the toxicity of not only Cd, but possibly also other heavy metals in plants.     

The roles of focal adhesion and cytoskeleton systems in fluid shear stress-induced endothelial cell response

Focal adhesions are polyproteins linked to extracellular matrix and cytoskeleton, which play an important role in the process of transforming force signals into intracellular chemical signals and subsequently triggering related physiological or pathological reactions. The cytoskeleton is a network of protein fibers in the cytoplasm, which is composed of microfilaments, microtubules, intermediate filaments, and cross-linked proteins. It is a very important structure for cells to maintain their basic morphology. This review summarizes the process of fluid shear stress transduction mediated by focal adhesion and the key role of the cytoskeleton in this process, which focuses on the focal adhesion and cytoskeleton systems. The important proteins involved in signal transduction in focal adhesion are introduced emphatically. The relationship between focal adhesion and mechanical transduction pathways are discussed. In this review, we discuss the relationship between fluid shear stress and associated diseases such as atherosclerosis, as well as its role in clinical research and drug development.     

Bangla language modeling algorithm for automatic recognition of hand-sign-spelled Bangla sign language

Because of using traditional hand-sign segmentation and classification algorithm,many diversities of Bangla language including joint-letters,dependent vowels etc.and representing 51 Bangla written characters by using only 36 hand-signs,continuous hand-sign-spelled Bangla sign language(BdSL)recognition is challenging.This paper presents a Bangla language modeling algorithm for automatic recognition of hand-sign-spelled Bangla sign language which consists of two phases.First phase is designed for hand-sign classification and the second phase is designed for Bangla language modeling algorithm(BLMA)for automatic recognition of hand-sign-spelled Bangla sign language.In first phase,we have proposed two step classifiers for hand-sign classification using normalized outer boundary vector(NOBV)and window-grid vector(WGV)by calculating maximum inter correlation coefficient(ICC)between test feature vector and pre-trained feature vectors.At first,the system classifies hand-signs using NOBV.If classification score does not satisfy specific threshold then another classifier based on WGV is used.The system is trained using 5,200 images and tested using another(5,200×6)images of 52 hand-signs from 10 signers in 6 different challenging environments achieving mean accuracy of 95.83%for classification with the computational cost of 39.972 milliseconds per frame.In the Second Phase,we have proposed Bangla language modeling algorithm(BLMA)which discovers all"hidden characters"based on"recognized characters"from 52 hand-signs of BdSL to make any Bangla words,composite numerals and sentences in BdSL with no training,only based on the result of first phase.To the best of our knowledge,the proposed system is the first system in BdSL designed on automatic recognition of hand-sign-spelled BdSL for large lexicon.The system is tested for BLMA using hand-sign-spelled 500 words,100 composite numerals and 80 sentences in BdSL achieving mean accuracy of 93.50%,95.50%and 90.50%respectively.     

Pharmacotherapeutics and molecular docking studies of alpha-synuclein modulators as promising therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an age-related neurodegenerative ailment that affects dopamine-producing neurons in a specific area of the brain called the substantia nigra of the ventral midbrain. It is clinically characterized by movement disorder and marked with unusual synaptic protein alpha-synuclein accumulation in the brain. To date, only a few Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs are available on the market for the treatment of PD. Nonetheless, these drugs show parasympathomimetic related adverse events and remarkably higher toxicity; hence, it is important to find more efficacious molecules to treat PD. In our study, We chosen 22 natural compounds as inhibitors that potentially block the alpha-synuclein clump—the pathological hallmark of PD—and provide new avenues for its treatment. Most of these molecules exhibited good pharmacokinetic behaviors, making them decisively favorable drug candidates to cure PD. Molecular docking studies were performed to investigate the binding interactions between natural compounds and alpha-synuclein as anti-Parkinson drug targets. Among the examined compounds, curcumin and piperine emerged as promising phytochemicals with the highest binding affinity, key residual stable bindings and showed a good inhibitory features. Thus, the present study indicates that curcumin and piperine hold the potential to be developed as treatment options against PD. Experimental validations are needed for insights into their mechanism of action and potential clinical application.