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The present study was designed to investigate the potential of raw-extract of Centella asiatica (RECA) in suppressing acetylcholinesterase (AChE), inflammations and oxidative stress via induction of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on animal model of Sprague Dawley rats. Centella asiatica is a plant that has been used as a traditional herbal remedy for the management of several diseases, including memory improvement, treatment of mental fatigue and wound healing. Pre-treatment with RECA in vitro significantly reduced the AChE activity in a concentration-dependent manner with IC50 value of 57.47 ± 13.55 µg/ml. Interestingly, this result was parallel with in vivo studies. Moreover, the level of pro-inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress were significantly reduced by RECA in dose-dependent manner. Overall, our findings clearly dictate the potential of RECA as AChE inhibitor as well anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant agents.

This paper presents the three-dimensional finite element analysis of squat RC walls using a continuum constitutive model for concrete developed at ANATECH. The concrete model is based on the smeared-cracking concept and an elastic-plastic formulation that permits the simulation of cracking and other particular response characteristics of concrete. The laws governing the normal and tangential stresses on a crack are suitable for the simulation of shear failures and crack closing and reopening under load reversals. Finite element models have been developed to reproduce experiments on squat walls found in the literature. These tests were conducted on walls with rectangular and non-rectangular sections subjected to cyclic lateral loading. The finite element models provide a good representation of the nonlinear response and shear failure of these walls. Results of a blind simulation of a five-story shear wall building tested on a shake-table, in which a diagonal shear failure was well predicted, are also presented.

Classical phenylketonuria, an inborn error in metabolism, is caused by a deficiency of the hepatic enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase. The identification of putative cDNA clones coding for rat liver phenylalanine hydroxylase by hybrid-selected translation has previously been reported [Robson, K. J., Chandra, T., MacGillivray, R. T. A., & Woo, S. L. C. (1982) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79, 4701-4705]. The authenticity of the clones, however, could not be definitively ascertained at the time because of a lack of amino acid sequence data of the enzyme in the literature. Purified rat liver phenylalanine hydroxylase was subjected to cyanogen bromide treatment, and the resulting fragments were used for N-terminal amino acid sequence analysis. The partial amino acid sequence was then compared to that deduced from an open reading frame in the nucleotide sequence of the cDNA clones. A perfect match of 17 amino acid residues was found between the two sequences following a unique methionine codon present in the nucleotide sequence, thereby providing unambiguous evidence for the identity of the rat liver phenylalanine hydroxylase cDNA clones.

SummaryThe foundation necessary for a constitutive model to simulate the response of concrete at elevated temperature has been presented. A model including temperature dependent creep, material property degradation, and cracking is needed to evaluate the long term functional requirements of concrete as a barrier material for nuclear waste disposal. Since the stress due to thermal load is proportional to the modulus, the degradation of the modulus with time even at constant elevated temperatures requires continual redistribution of load. Furthermore, since this degradation is not recoverable, the response of the material at elevated temperatures exhibits a complex dependence not only on the temperature distribution, but on the prior thermal history of the structure.This constitutive model for the response of concrete at elevated temperatures has been implemented into an implicit, finite element program called ANACAP [8]. Because of the direct coupling with temperature, both through thermal loads and material property dependency, ANACAP also contains a heat transfer module that includes thermal effects due to fluid flow and moving material boundaries. This program has been applied to problems involving underground waste storage tanks and grout vaults at the DOE Hanford site in Richland, Washington.

Coproporphyrinogen-III (1) is shown to be converted biochemically into protoporphyrin-IX (4) with loss of one hydrogen atom from each propionate residue on rings A and B and the 3H-tracer results are consistent with a stereospecific process.