Earticle

This paper proposes a medication reminder synchronization system that consists of medication reminder agents installed in medication reminders and a medication reminder manager installed in a medication server. The medication reminder synchronization system provides a patient with medications as prescribed by medical staff. In addition, medical staff can remotely send messages to the system in order to change the medication schedules or device configuration settings embedded in the medication reminder. The proposed system supports the OMA (open mobile alliance) DS (data synchronization) protocol, which was originally proposed as a DS standard protocol that synchronizes data between mobile devices and a central server. In this study, the OMA DS protocol is redefined and extended to transmit the patient’s medication status data and the device configuration data.

This study aimed to (1) categorize the diversity of medicinal plants in Tigbauan, Iloilo, Philippines based on their taxonomic rank; (2) document the traditional uses, preparations and applications of medicinal plants (ethnopharmacology) by the local community; (3) determine the distribution, morphological forms, habitat and values of indigenous medicinal plant resources in Tigbauan, Iloilo; and lastly identify and enumerate the medicinal uses of each identified indigenous plants. Ethnopharmacological and taxonomic data of indigenous medicinal plants were collected in the study site through semi-structured interview and snowball sampling methods among knowledgeable elders, gardeners, healers, and traders. The taxonomic classification of the indigenous medicinal plants in Tigbauan, Iloilo was based on Cronquist’s System of classification. A total of 101 species, grouped within 92 genera, 44 families and 27 orders. The medicinal plants were described according to preparation techniques, mode of application, administration route, growth forms, habitat distribution, abundance and medicinal uses. Results showed a diversity of medicinal plants, traditional and ethnopharmacological knowledge about the uses, preparations and applications present and maintained among the Tigbauenos. This study allowed the identification of many high value and high priority medicinal plant species, indicating high potential for economic development through sustainable collection and trade.

Different types of nutritional factors are influencing the production of recombinant staphylokinase variant from Msak - Hirulog pRSET-A GJ1158, which was constructed in our lab. The optimal conditions for the production of recombinant staphylokinase variant by using submerged fermentation at 370C for 6 hours after induction with 300 mM NaCl at flask level with a working volume of 100 ml. Initially, all nutritional factors were selected by one factor- at-a-time method. The significance of each factor with respect to recombinant staphylokinase production was identified by Taguchi (7 factors viz.,glucose, K2HPO4, TMM, KH2PO4, NH4Cl, yeast extract and MgSO4)and the enzymatic activity was increased remarkably by 1.32 folds compared to the test tube level (7580 to 10,081 U/mL). Based on taguchi results glucose, K2HPO4, TMM and KH2PO4 are the most influencing parameters. The outcome of taguchi design showed that the further optimization using response surface methodology (Central Composite Design) with 30 experiments increased the yield of 1.98 folds (10,081to 19,928 U/ml). For the first time we optimized the components concentration for enhanced production of sak variants and having maximum activity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between elite and novice kayak forward stroke motion. A total of 20 subjects participated; 10 elite university kayak players and 10 male university students. The experiment was performed indoors on a kayak-ergometer testing between varied knee flexion angles of 90°; 120°; 150°. During the three knee flexion conditions, the following were measured; stroke frequency, paddling amplitude, joint angle ROM for the knee flexion/extension and thorax and pelvis rotational ROM, and plantar foot pressure. The results show that rowing with 120° knee flexion angle showed had a higher stroke frequency and paddling amplitude than other knee flexion angles. There were significant differences at the thorax, pelvis rotation and knee flexion-extension ROM for each condition. There were significant differences for the foot pressure between the elite and novice. In conclusion, the skilled group used more rotation of their trunk and pelvis than the unskilled and the optimum angle for knee flexion was deemed to be 120°.

This paper outlines the ubiquitous healthcare technology and trends for patient location data (PLD) application. The field of healthcare became more sophisticated, and purpose of u-healthcare technologies is to provide convenient healthcare service to both caregivers and patients, and to make it easy to analyze user's health condition by a caregiver. Along with that the interest of the remote-treatment has also been increasing. Systems are being developed that can check the health status of a patient and treat them in a distance in a real time. A system is proposed to improve the effectiveness of u-healthcare by process and manage data at the hospital or emergency room in a distance by transferring bio-data such as ECG data, pulse data, and which can detect the location of patients through the portable-equipment based on wireless communication network.

Mutagenic dyes are risk for the health of workers, consumers and for the environment. Mutagenicity of chemical present on textiles could be seen as a major clue towards carcinogenic activities of these chemicals. This study was conducted to determine the comparative mutagenic effects of laboratory dyes on Drosophila melanogaster. Bioaccumulation of the laboratory dyes used, malachite green, safranin, crystal violet and methylene blue were allowed to induce mutations from the parental generations up to the second filial generations of D. melanogaster with constant exposure to the laboratory dyes used at 1% and 5% concentrations. Results of the study showed that constant exposure of the fruit flies at 1% and 5% concentrations of the laboratory dyes used increased the rate of mutations on the color of the eyes, body color and wing shapes of D. melanogaster. Chi-square statistic at 0.05 level of significance showed no significant difference on the incidence of mutation on the fruit flies phenotype. Thus, this showed that constant exposure to the laboratory dyes at varying concentrations could induce mutation.

The opencast mining has resulted to destruction of habitats, particularly for ground flora species, which is essential for maintaining nutrient cycling and ecological balance. The ground flora species are themselves capable of modifying site conditions to some extent. The floristic composition and luxuriance of ground flora in degraded ecosystem are largely dependent upon the secondary site conditions. In the present study, attempts have been made to assess the floristic composition and biomass accumulation of ground flora in age series of OB dump plantations and plain plantations of opencast mined out projects of NCL Singrauli. The frequently occurring ground flora species among different reclaimed sites were Ageratum conyzoides L., Hyptis suaveolens (L.) Poit., Tridex procumbens L., Alternanthera sessilis (L.) R.Br.ex DC., Desmodium triflorum (L.) DC., Justicia simplex D.Don., Sida cordifolia L., Achyranthes aspera L., Cassia tora L., Tephrosia purporea (L.) Pers., Euphorbia hirta L., Atylosia scarabaeoides (L.) Benth., Oplismenus burmanii (Retz.) P.Beauv., Eragrotis tenella (L.) P.Beauv. ex Roem. & Schult., Imperata cylindrical (L.) P.Beauv., Heteropogon contortus (L.) P. Beauv. ex Roem. & Schult., Bothriochloa purtusa (L.) A. Camus., Apluta mutica L., etc. In general, the biomass was found to show the increasing trend with the advancement of age of plantations. The diversity index values are falling in the middle range which indicates ambiguous distribution between all the species. The maximum and minimum values of total biomass varied from 0.339 tonnes per ha. (2 year old plantation of Dudhichua) to 1.993 tonnes/ha (16 year old plantation of Amlohri). The value of carbon content in ground flora was found to be varied from 0.169 tonnes per ha. (2 year old plantation of Dudhichua) to 0.997 tonnes/ha (16 year old plantation of Amlohri).

Four emergent macrophytes (semi-aquatic plants), Centrostachys aquatica, Polygomum pulchrum, Ischaenum hirtum and Hymenachne acutigluma, grow abundantly worldwide in natural wetlands and fresh waterways. To discover novel bio-resources for weed management, we have assessed the allelopathic potential of the aqueous methanol extracts of these species on the growth of two terrestrial weeds: barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli (L). Beauv.) and rye grass (Lolium multiforum Lam), and three model test plants: alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), cress (Lepidium sativum L.), lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). Among the aqueous methanol extracts of the four emergent macrophytes, the C. aquatica aqueous methanol extract showed the greatest inhibitory activity, completely inhibiting the shoot and root growth of rye grass (0.1 and 0.3 g dry weight equivalent extract, respectively) and barnyard grass (1g dry weight equivalent extract). The inhibitory activity of the H. acutigluma aqueous methanol extract on shoot growth of test plant was greater than P. pulchrum and I. hirtum while aqueous methanol extract of the P. pulchrum inhibited root growth greater than H. acutigluma and I. hirtum. The inhibitory efficacy of these emergent macrophytes was dependent on their potential activity, the test plant species and concentration of the extracts. The present results that all plants may contain allelopathically active substances and that C. quatica may contain the greatest herbicidal substance(s).

Remote monitoring of cardiopulmonary activities using quadrature direct conversion Doppler radar shows remarkable promise in medical and security applications. One major challenge for such monitoring is demodulation of the IQ signals and heart and respiration rate determination. This paper presents a rate finding algorithm based on extended kalman filter (EKF) and principal component analysis. We present a state space model of the quadrature IQ signals and use it with the EKF to simultaneously estimate and track heart and respiration rate by a unified statistical approach. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm for practical data obtained from the implemented hardware and present the results to illustrate the feasibility and accuracy of the algorithm. Results are compared with reference ECG results which clearly demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can be successfully applied for heart and respiration rate detection.