Search

In South Africa, traditional medicine remains a key source of health care, however majority of the plants used as medicines by traditional health care practitioners have not been investigated for their in vitro biological activity. The purpose of the present study was to examine the antityrosinase, anti-acne, antioxidant and cytotoxic potential of 25 ethanolic extracts from 16 different plant families which were collected in the Jongilanga community in the Mpumalanga province. The tyrosinase inhibitory activity was evaluated using the mushroom tyrosinase enzyme to determine potential plant extracts that could treat skin hyperpigmentation. Six of the plant extracts showed a fifty percent inhibitory concentration (IC50) lower than 200 μg/mL, of which Acacia nilotica (L.) Delile (12.97 ± 1.07 μg/mL) showed the highest activity, followed by Schotia brachypetala Sond. (35.07 ± 0.71 μg/mL) and Combretum collinum Fresen. (47.92 ± 1.13 μg/mL). The anti-acne potential of the extracts was evaluated by determining their antibacterial activity against Cutibacterium acnes. The highest activity was noted for Harpagophytum procumbens (Burch.) with a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 31.25 μg/mL, followed by S. brachypetala (125 μg/mL) and C. collinum, Ozoroa sphaerocarpa R. Fern & A. Fern and Pterocarpus rotundifolius DC. which all showed MIC values of 250 μg/mL. The antioxidant studies revealed that the majority of the plant extracts showed strong DPPH radical scavenging activity. The 2,3-Bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium-5-carboxyanilide salt (XTT) method was used to assess the cytotoxic effect of the plant extracts, of which only two extracts showed strong cytotoxicity against the non-cancerous human keratinocyte (HaCat) cell line namely; H. procumbens and Ipomoea oblongata Hook. The remaining extracts showed low to moderate cytotoxicity. The promising antityrosinase activity of A. nilotica, S. brachypetala and C. collinum as well as the promising antibacterial activity of O. spaerocarpa, P. rotundifolius and S. brachypetala, together with their low to moderate cytotoxicity against HaCat cells, merits further investigation of these species.

Background: Medicinal plants remain an integral part of the lives of people in rural areas. The aim of this study was to document information about the medicinal plants used by Shangaan people in villages under Jongilanga tribal council, Bushbuckridge municipality, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Materials and Methods: An ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants was conducted using a semi-structured questionnaire with 15 traditional healers as informants; one of them also served as a field guide during data collection. Results were analysed by using various quantitative indices of information consensus factor (ICF), use report (UR), frequency citation (FC) and relative frequency citation (RFC). Results and Methods: The study reported 86 medicinal plants used in villages for the treatment of various ailments, the majority (25 species) of which were used for urino-genital disorders. The Fabaceae family was the most represented family (17 species) of all the medicinal plants recorded in this study. The roots were the most frequently used plant part, accounting for 56% of the plants reported, and decoctions were often used in the preparation of herbal remedies. Respiratory diseases had the highest ICF value recorded among the 8 categories of ailments. The highest use report was reported for Combretum collinum (4), while the FC and RFC values (15) were highest in 12 plant species. The study revealed that medicinal plants are still widely used in rural areas and this documentation can serve as an ethno pharmacological basis for selecting plants with potential pharmaceutical properties.

Seventy-four ethanolic extracts were prepared from traditionally used medicinal plants in the Jongilanga community in Mpumalanga South Africa. The aim was to determine the biological activity of the selected plants against cancer, mycobacteria species and acne. From the results, it was evident that Mundulea sericea was able to inhibit the proliferation of human melanoma cells (A375) with a fifty percent inhibitory concentration (IC50) ranging between 50 and 100 µg/ml as well as the ability to inhibit Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Mycobacterium smegmatis and Propionibacterium acnes with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of 125, 31.25 and 7.9 µg/ml respectively. This further led to the investigation of the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity as well as the influence of the extract on mycothiol disulphide reductase (Mtr) and glutathione reductase enzymes (Gtr) as potential targets against the above-mentioned diseases. M. sericea inhibited the COX-2 enzyme, responsible for inflammation, with an IC50 value of 10.70 ± 1.14 µg/ml, furthermore compounds previously isolated from M. sericea showed potential inhibition of COX-2 in molecular docking studies. Low radical scavenging capacity against the DPPH free radical with an IC50 value of 60.52 ± 2.40 µg/ml was obtained, however, M. sericea showed a higher affinity towards Mtr as compared to Gtr, which makes it an ideal plant for use as an antimycobacterial agent.

A common task for spoken dialog systems (SDS) is to help users select a suitable option (e.g., flight, hotel, and restaurant) from the set of options available. As the number of options increases, the system must have strategies for generating summaries that enable the user to browse the option space efficiently and successfully. In the user-model based summarize and refine approach (UMSR, Demberg and Moore, 2006), options are clustered to maximize utility with respect to a user model, and linguistic devices such as discourse cues and adverbials are used to highlight the trade-offs among the presented items. In a Wizard-of-Oz experiment, we show that the UMSR approach leads to improvements in task success, efficiency, and user satisfaction compared to an approach that clusters the available options to maximize coverage of the domain (Polifroni et al., 2003). In both a laboratory experiment and a web-based experimental paradigm employing the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform, we show that the discourse cues in UMSR summaries help users compare different options and choose between options, even though they do not improve verbatim recall. This effect was observed for both written and spoken stimuli.

Background In 2015, the microbiology laboratory introduced a multiplex PCR test (FilmArray™ Gastrointestinal Panel (GIP)), replacing traditional stool culture. The GIP is faster and more sensitive than traditional stool culture, detecting 22 common viral, bacterial, and parasitic pathogens; but is significantly more expensive. The antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) developed guidelines on test use and interpretation, recommending inpatient use only once per admission and not after hospital day 5. C. difficile test results from the GIP were not reported at any time. Methods Inpatient GIP use was reviewed over one year and considered inappropriate if performed >3 days after admission or repeated. Noncompliance with ASP recommendations was common; no meaningful pathogens were detected upon review of all inappropriate GIP use. An inpatient GIP electronic order restriction was implemented in April 2017 eliminating the ability to order tests inappropriately. GIP testing outside the restriction could be approved by the microbiology lab director. We captured separate C. difficile testing rates as a counterbalance measure. We used Poisson regression models to compare the rate of GIP and C. difficile tests per month between Period 1 (July 2015–March 2017) and Period 2 (April 2017–March 2018) per 1,000 patient-days (PD). Results The restriction resulted in a 26% reduction in GIP ordering rates between the two periods (Table 1, Figure 1). Direct cost savings was approximately $63,000. Table 1 shows changes in C. difficile test ordering rates during Periods 1 and 2. When including GIP tests that were ordered but not completed, potential GIP testing was reduced by 46% for a savings of $131,000 (Figure 2). Only 42 test overrides were approved by the microbiology director since the intervention; of those only two were positive (Cryptosporidium and Norovirus). Conclusion Diagnostic stewardship of GIP using guidelines and electronic ordering restrictions can lead to meaningful improvements in test appropriateness and reduction in cost and waste, demonstrating the value of ASP interacting with the microbiology laboratory. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Being interrupted by notifications and reminders is common while working. In this study we consider whether system politeness reduces (negative) effects of being interrupted by system requests. We carried out a 2 (polite vs. neutral system request) x 2 (high vs. low mental load) between-participants experiment. We measured annoyance, frustration and mental effort. Our results suggest that social strategies can mitigate some of the negative effects, but that this depends on the difficulty of the task. We discuss the implications of these results for the design of interruptive system messages and for further research into social computing.

This report presents the experiments that were carried out to investigate ways in which an intelligent adaptive interface could support inhabitants in providing accurate smell descriptions. We investigated the effect of multi-modal odor cues on human smell identification performance to inform the development of an adaptive interface for a mobile application. This involved a data elicitation study (N=429) to collect people’s olfactory associations when exposed to nine sample odors. Based on these associations, we then developed a multimodal interface that offered textual, image or combined cues to augment subjects’ odor perception, and 190 new subjects used the interface to identify odors. We found that participants’ smell identification performance increased when the interface offered visual (image and/or text) cues for odor identification. Furthermore, participants experienced the combination of visual and textual cues as most useful and enjoyable. The results of this experiment show that human smell perception can be successfully enhanced with the help of an adaptive odor cue interface. We have used the results of this study to develop a first prototype of an intelligent interface that automatically generates cues to assist human smell identification. This prototype is based on causal models (Bayesian Networks). We extracted these observation models for a few relevant chemicals. Due to the lack of data, all types of chemicals could not be covered. Nevertheless, we have shown that construction of models supporting detection and localization using human reports is possible.

Author(s): Winterboer, Diane E. | Abstract: More than 300 migratory bird species in Oregon have the potential to nest in highway rights-of-way or on bridges. Because these species are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and there are no incidental take permits, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) projects may be impeded by nesting birds. In 2006, ODOT contacted USDA Wildlife Services to assist with MBTA compliance. This paper describes the unique nature of the inter-governmental agreement and the success it has brought both agencies.

In this paper we examine the effect of linguistic devices on recall and comprehension in information presentation using both recall and eye-tracking data. In addition, the results were validated via an experiment using Amazon's Mechanical Turk micro-task environment.

In this paper we examine the effect of linguistic devices on recall and comprehension in information presentation using both recall and eye-tracking data. In addition, the results were validated via an experiment using Amazon's Mechanical Turk micro-task environment.

This paper describes an experiment comparing the effect of two different approaches to information presentation on item recall. The results show that using discourse cues facilitates recalling the presented information.

In this paper we present results of a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) experiment comparing two approaches to information presentation in spoken dialogue systems. We show that the user-model based summarize- and-refine (UMSR) approach leads to increased task efficiency in comparison with the summarize-and-refine (SR) approach. Moreover, user ratings on four evaluation criteria demonstrated a clear preference for recommendations based on the UMSR approach to information presentation.

A 2x2 enhanced Wizard-of-Oz experiment (N = 32) was conducted to compare two different approaches to presenting information to drivers in easy and difficult driving conditions. Data of driving safety, evaluation of the spoken dialogue system, and perception of self were analyzed. Results show that the user-modeled summarizeand- refine (UMSR) approach led to more efficient information retrieval than did the summarize-and-refine (SR) approach. However, depending on driving condition, higher efficiency did not always translate into pleasant subjective experience. Implications for usability testing and interface design were presented, followed by discussions of future research directions.

This paper presents results of a Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) study examining the effect of two different information presentation methods on a secondary task, namely driving. The results demonstrate that the user-model based summarize and refine(UMSR) approach enables more efficient information retrieval in comparison to the data-driven summarize and refine (SR) approach, and does not negatively affect driving performance.

Die vorm van die pileus van Coprinus comatus (Müll, ex Fr.) S.F. Gray verander tydens ontwikkeling van ovaalvormig na klokvormig. Die hifes besit gespeverbindings en daar kom doliporieë in die dwarswande voor. Daar is twee soorte hifes: breë, opgeblase en dunner draadagtige hifes. Die lamelle bestaan uit drie lae: trama, subhimenium en himenium. Die himeniumlaag is diggepak met basidiums wat twee generasies voorstel, en sistidiums wat tussen die basidiums voorkom. Daar kom vesikels en glikogeenkorrels in die basidium voor. Die spoor is ellipsvormig en het ’n dik wand wat uit verskeie lae opgebou is.

The shape of the pileus of Coprinus comatus (Müll. ex. Fr.) S.F. Gray changes during development from ovulate to bellshaped. The hyphae bear clamp connections, have dolipores in the septa and are of two kinds: wide, inflated and narrower, thread-like hyphae. The gills have three layers: trama, sub-hymenium and hymenium. The hymenial layer is densely packed with basidia representing two generations, and cystidia intermingled with the basidia. Vesicles and glycogen granules are found in the basidia. The basidiospore is ellipsoidal and has a thick multilayered wall.

The nutrient content of Coprinus comatus (Mull. ex Fr.) S.F. Gray was determined and compared with that of Agaricus brunnescens Peck. It was found that the nutrient content of C. comatus is comparable with that of A. brunnescens.