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Under most pathological conditions there is generation of reactive oxygen species and other free radicals. An increase in the antioxidant reserves of the organism can reduce oxidative stress and some of the plant-derived agents may help to reduce it. The aim of this study was to evaluate in vitro antioxidant activity inhibition of superoxide, nitric oxide, hydroxyl, reducing power assay and total antioxidant capacity. At (10-50mg/ml) concentration the S.spontaneum of 50mg/ml concentration exhibited high superoxide, nitric oxide and hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity using vitamin E rutin and ascorbic acid as positive control. In the concentration range (1-5mg/ml) investigated, the extract demonstrated that reducing power and total antioxidant capacity were increased linearly with concentration. Collectively, our results indicate that the ethanolic root extract of S.spontaneum has the potential to scavenge free radicals and act as a good antioxidant for treating various diseases.

Narayan’s women characters embody situations of female repression and exploitation within a patriarchal regime that is challenged by their resourcefulness and independence, to the extent where they enact terrible myths like that of the Goddess Kali. The characters’ symbolic primitivism is blended with western literary techniques in cases like that of “Selvi”, who personifies the Divine Singer Saraswati; Rosie the seducer who represents the Sacred Dancer Mohini; or Savitri and Shanta Bai, who are opposite faces of the loyal and perfect companions Savitri and Sita.

Table of contents for the month of June 2021

Postgraduate study has been considered as a main life event which can lead to marital discordance. Various adjustments have to be done by the students and their spouse. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate marital adjustment among married postgraduate students in two public universities in Malaysia. A random sample of 176 students from two public universities in Malaysia has been selected. The instrument employed is the adjusted Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment and a set of demographic variables. ANOVA 2x3x2 is used to investigate the means differences of marital adjustment according to gender, nationality, and university among the participants. Results indicated significant differences marital adjustment mean scores between gender, three nationalities, and two universities. Implications on family and college counseling are discussed. Finally, direction for future research on marital adjustments among postgraduate is suggested.

Linguists interest in discourse in recent years is gradually shifting from the traditional focus on ideational dimension of texts and speech to the ways they function interpersonally. Such a view argues that writers or speakers do not simply produce a text to convey information and to represent an external reality. They, however, seek to ensure that the information they present is understandable and acceptable. In this regard, they draw their addressees in, and try to motivate them to follow along. To communicate effectively, they anticipate their receivers' expectations, requirements and resources, and try to engage them in their texts and affect their understandings of them. Writing or speaking is, therefore, viewed as a social and communicative process between writers or speakers and readers or listeners.

Mortality refers to the state or condition of being subject to death that occur within a population. It is a basic demographic component of population change. Mortality and its causes vary both in space and time due to the factors such as advancement in medicines, propagation of education, improvement of nutritional level and improvement in general conditions of sanitation. Many demographic studies have revealed that mortality levels vary with the racial characteristics since every ethnic society has their own culture, socio-economic background, and attitudes. Sri Lanka has a multi ethnic condition and the levels of mortality in such ethnicities are diverse from one to another. Main purpose of this paper is to identify the trends in CDR, NMR, IMR, CMR, ASDR and CSDR and causes for the mortality in Indian Tamil population in Osborn Estate in Nuwara-Eliya District after 1980s. Finding the causes for the prevailing trends and examination of current socio-economic and health situation in the estate are the minor objectives. Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. Mortality trends were analyzed by using relevant annual death reports from 1984 to 2012 collected from the Osborne Estate Hospital. Questionnaire survey was conducted to identify the socio-economic and health care situation in the estate with the help of 75 households those who were selected randomly from six divisions in Osborne Estate. Analysis was done with the help of SPSS 17.0, Minitab and Microsoft Excel 2010 computer tools. According to the trend analysis, downward trends were found for CDR, NMR, IMR and CMR and slight upward trend for ASDR in 15-30 age group and downward trend for ASDR in 60 + age group in the target population. Causes for the deaths have totally changed from 1984 to 2012 and specifically hypertension was found as the major cause for the general mortality in present day. Suicide is one of the major causes for deaths among youth population due to poor thinking. Advancement of health condition is the main reason for declining trend of child mortality in currently. The study suggests to draw an extensive attention to youth population and to conduct counseling programs in order to minimize the suicide cases. Increasing of workers’ wages is positive impact for improving their demographic condition further.

Noise generally is known as unwanted and unwelcome sound. It is considered as the most pervasive pollutant besides the emission pollutants. Along with the increasing degree of air and water pollution, noise pollution is also emerging as a new threat to the inhabitants of Al-Samawah city. Al- Samawah city experienced rapid development and high influx of people with the implication of increased generation of noise. Hence the need to evaluate the noise pollution level of the city. Measurement of noise pollution level was carried out in 20 locations around the city using a GM1351 digital sound level meter with a range of 30-130 dB. Day-time urban noise quality assessment was studied in Al-Samawah city for six critical zones viz. Industrial , Commercial, Residential, Recreational ,Silence zone and Traffic areas. Noise pollution indices viz. L10, L50, L90, noise climate (NC), equivalent continuous noise level (Leq) and noise pollution level (Lnp) were computed for all zones. Excel's computer program used for fitting model equations to the obtained experimental data. Results indicated that the highest Leq of 72.5 dB in the industrial zone followed by 70.0 dB in traffic areas ,68.1 dB was observed in commercial zone, 65.2 dB in residential zone ,63.5 dB in silent zone, and 62.4 dB in recreational zone. For commercial zones, Leq observed were down the statutory limits, while for other zones it was above the WHO limits. The noise assessment study clearly revealed that the Industrial and residential zones caused noise pollution in Al-Samawah city and silence areas need attention and care from the institutions to be silent zones. As excessive noise affects health of people deleteriously, the establishment of an agency under the name of Iraqi Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) is essential for controlling this and similar hazards.

Lectures are inevitable in university classes and are used as a way of imparting knowledge to students. They must be comprehensible and salient especially for students of other languages who need help in understanding the content and in appropriating the language. Appropriate use of discourse markers (DMs) are believed to play an important role in producing a meaningful and coherent message. In the literature of second language acquisition, the field of discourse markers has been largely omitted so far and most of the studies on DMs have focused on native (or bilingual) speakers of English, who acquire this pragmatic competence in their childhood. This paper is an attempt to compare English (native) and Iranian (non-native) EFL lectures in the frequency and use of various discourse markers to identify the possible differences and related implications. For this purpose, a corpus of ten spoken lectures (5 North-American English lectures (NAC) taken from MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English), and 5 Iranian EFL lectures (IC) recorded at Najafabad Azad University) were analyzed. The results of the study revealed that DMs were used more in the IC than in the NAC.

In this article an interesting and famous realistic problem harmonic oscillators is discussed using the single-term Haar wavelet series (STHW) method. The results (approximate solutions) obtained very accurate using classical Runge-Kutta (RK) method, single-term Walsh Series (STWS) and STHW methods are compared with the ODE45 in Matlab. It is found that the solution obtained using STHW is closer to the ODE45 in Matlab. The high accuracy and the wide applicability of STHW approach will be demonstrated with numerical example. Solution graphs for discrete exact solutions are presented in a graphical form to show the efficiency of the STHW. The results obtained show that STHW is more useful for solving harmonic oscillators and the solution can be obtained for any length of time.

The behaviour of self-consolidating fibre reinforced high strength concrete (SCFRHSC) filled hollow structural steel (HSS) columns subjected to an axial load was investigated experimentally. A total of 45 specimens were tested. The main parameters varied in the tests are: (1) % of fibre (2) tube diameter or width to wall thickness ratio (D/t from 15 to 25) (3) L/d ratio from 2.97 to 7.04 The results from prediction were compared with the experimental data. Validation to the experimental results was made.