Jurinea dolomiaea Boiss., family Compositae, is a medicinally important plant of alpine region. Its tuberous roots are used in various ailments in folk medicine. This study was undertaken to estimate total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoid contents (TFC) and to determine anti-free radical potential by diverse in vitro antioxidant assays. Crude methanol extract (JDME) was fractionated into n-hexane (JDHE), chloroform (JDCE), ethyl acetate (JDEE), n-butanol (JDBE), and aqueous (JDAE) fractions. The results indicated that JDEE and JDCE constituted the highest amount of TFC (807 ± 7.2 mg rutin equivalent/g sample) and TPC (757 ± 9.4 mg gallic acid equivalent/g sample), respectively. Significant correlation of TFC with IC50 values was recorded for •OH (R 2 = 0.91), H2O2 (R 2 = 0.82), and ABTS (R 2 = 0.82) assay. It could be made clear that JDEE was the most potent in antioxidant activity as compared to others, with generally lower IC50 values for DPPH (41.1 ± 1.0 μg/mL), ABTS (46.7 ± 0.6 μg/mL), H2O2 (42.2 ± 0.9 μg/mL), •OH (61.1 ± 1.1 μg/mL), O2 − (152 ± 1.1 μg/mL), and antilipid peroxidation (54.3 ± 1.6 μg/mL). HPLC chromatogram of JDEE revealed the presence of catechin, caffeic acid, and rutin. The results indicated the antioxidant activities of J. dolomiaea roots and merit further investigations for their use in oxidative stress related disorders.

In the current study protective effect of ethanol extract of Pistacia chinensis bark (PCEB) was investigated in rats against CCl4 induced lung and thyroid injuries. PCEB dose dependently inhibited the rise of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances, hydrogen peroxide, nitrite, and protein content and restored the levels of antioxidant enzymes, that is, catalase, peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione-S-transferase, glutathione reductase, glutathione peroxidase, γ-glutamyl transpeptidase, and quinone reductase in both lung and thyroid tissues of CCl4 treated rats. Decrease in number of leukocytes, neutrophils, and hemoglobin and T3 and T4 content as well as increase in monocytes, eosinophils, and lymphocytes count with CCl4 were restored to normal level with PCEB treatment. Histological study of CCl4 treated rats showed various lung injuries like rupture of alveolar walls and bronchioles, aggregation of fibroblasts, and disorganized Clara cells. Similarly, histology of CCl4 treated thyroid tissues displayed damaged thyroid follicles, hypertrophy, and colloidal depletion. However, PCEB exhibited protective behaviour for lungs and thyroid, with improved histological structure in a dose dependant manner. Presence of three known phenolic compounds, that is, rutin, tannin, and gallic acid, and three unknown compounds was verified in thin layer chromatographic assessment of PCEB. In conclusion, P. chinensis exhibited antioxidant activity by the presence of free radical quenching constituents.

The present work is focused on the development of thiolated film for fluconazole buccal delivery. To this end, unmodified polymers chitosan and sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC) backbone was covalently modified by thioglycolic acid (TGA) and cysteine, respectively. The thiolated buccoadhesive film was evaluated in terms of thickness, weight uniformity, water-uptake capacity, drug content, and release patterns. Moreover, mucoadhesion profile was investigated on buccal mucosa. The resulting chitosan-TGA and NaCMC-cysteine conjugates displayed 171 ± 13 and 380 ± 19 μmol thiol groups per gram of polymer (mean ± SD; n = 3), respectively. The water binding capacity of the thiolated film was significantly ∼2-fold higher (p < 0.05) as compared to unmodified film. The obtained thiolated film displayed 5.8-fold higher mucoadhesive properties compared with corresponding film. Controlled release of drugs from film was observed over 8 h. The transport of fluconazole across excised buccal mucosa was enhanced up to 17-fold in comparison with fluconazole applied in buffer. Based on these findings, thiolated film seems to be promising for fluconazole buccal delivery.

It is concluded that some bioactive antioxidants of P. chinensis bark might be a good source to isolate the potent antioxidant components.

Background:  Plantar wart is a common viral infection of the plantar surface of the foot. Multiple treatment modalities are available but there is no definitive management option. The aim of this study is to compare topical adapalene gel 0.1% with cryotherapy in patients presenting with plantar warts in terms of time taken for complete clearance of the lesions. Methods: The study was conducted at the department of Dermatology, PNS Shifa Hospital, Karachi from 28th April to 28th October 2020. Eighty-four patients with plantar warts who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in the study. Approval from the institutional ethical review committee was sought and written informed consent was taken from all the patients. Patients were divided into two groups, A (Adapalene 0.1% gel) and B (Cryotherapy) of 42 patients each. Adapalene gel was applied twice daily under occlusion at home and cryotherapy was done at the clinic after every two weeks. Patients were followed weekly from the onset of treatment and days taken for complete clearance of plantar warts were noted. Both the groups were compared for the outcome, i.e., time taken for complete clearance of lesions. Results: The mean time for complete clearance of plantar warts in group A was 35.619±3.154 days and in group B, it was 50.404±3.178 days. Conclusion: Adapalene gel 0.1% used for the treatment of plantar warts helped in complete clearance of lesions faster than cryotherapy.

For a minimal surface, the mean curvature of the surface vanishes for all possible parameterizations which results in a second-order nonlinear partial differential equation ( p d e ), whose solution in general is the desired surface as the unknown function of surface parameters. The solution of this partial differential equation is known only for very few cases. Instead of solving the corresponding partial differential equation, we exploit an ansatz method (Ahmad et al. (2013), Ahmad et al. (2014) Ahmad et al. (2015)), used for Coons patches spanned by finite number of boundary curves for a quasi-minimal surface as the extremal of r m s of mean curvature. The ansatz method targets a slightly perturbed surface (the rational blending interpolants-based Coons patch, Hermite cubic polynomials interpolants-based Coons patch, and Ferguson surface (vanishing twist vectors) in our case) that comprises initially a nonminimal surface plus the product of a real parameter with a variational function of surface parameters (vanishes at the boundary curves along the unit normal to the slightly perturbed surface). The variational function can be deliberately chosen as the product of linear functions and the mean curvature of the initial nonminimal surface such that it is zero at the boundary curves and then replace this mean curvature by the mean curvature of the resulting surface to find a surface of reduced area, and the process can be repeated for further improvement. In this article, we extend the ansatz method (1) for the rational blending functions interpolants-based Coons patch with a parameter in their form for its different values and (2) for the blending functions comprising Hermite cubic polynomial interpolants-based Coons patch (bicubically blended Coons patch (BBCP) and the Ferguson surface). The ansatz method can be extended for the variational extremal of the surfaces for fuzzy optimal control problems (Filev et al. (1992), Emamizadeh (2005), Farhadinia (2011), Mustafa et al. (2021)).

Forecasting disease outbreaks in real-time using time-series data can help for the planning of public health interventions. We used a support vector machine (SVM) model using epidemiological data provided by Johns Hopkins University Centre for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CCSE), World Health Organization (WHO), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to predict upcoming records before the WHO made an official declaration. Our study, conducted on the time series data available from 22 January till 10 March 2020, revealed that COVID-19 was spreading at an alarming rate and progressing towards a pandemic. The initial insight that confirmed COVID-19 cases were increasing was because these received the highest number of effects for our selected dataset from 22 January to 10 March 2020, i.e., 126,344 (64%). The recovered cases were 68289 (34%), and the death rate was around 2%. Moreover, we classified the tweets from 22 January to 15 April 2020 into positive and negative sentiments to identify the emotions (stress or relaxed) posted by Twitter users related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis identified that tweets mostly conveyed a negative sentiment with a high frequency of words for #coronavirus and #lockdown amid COVID-19. However, these anxiety tweets are an alarm for healthcare authorities to devise plans accordingly.

Abstract. Sattar S, Khan MR, Shah NA, Noureen F, Naz K. 2016. Nephroprotective potential of Pistacia chinensis bark extract against induced toxicity in rats. Nusantara . Pistacia chinensis possesses profound antioxidant properties. In this study, the protective influence of P. chinensis bark ethanol extract (PCBE) was scrutinized against CCl 4 induced renal toxicity in rats (6 rats in each group). Seven different groups of Sprague-Dawley male rats were intraperitoneally injected with CCl 4 (1 mL/kg b.w.; 30% CCl 4 in olive oil) at an interval of 48 hour for four weeks. PCBE at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg b.w. or silymarin at a dose of 100 mg/kg b.w. was orally administered to the animals on alternate days. CCl 4 induced renal toxicity was evident by a significant increase in specific gravity, albumin, count of RBCs and pus cells in urine. Administration of PCBE significantly ameliorated the enhanced serum level of urea, creatinine and bilirubin whereas increased the level of total protein. Moreover, the influence of CCl 4 significantly elevated the level of lipid peroxidation (TBARS), H 2 O 2 and nitrite content whereas enzymatic antioxidants (glutathione-S-transferase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, γ-glutamyl transpeptidase, and quinone reductase), nonenzymatic antioxidant reduced glutathione (GSH) content in kidney homogenate was compromised. When animals were treated along PCBE, a remarkable protective role was observed on all the parameters of kidney in comparison to only CCl 4 treated groups. From this study, it can be concluded that PCBE holds an effective antioxidant and nephroprotective property.