An inventory of the ethnobotanicals used as anti-diabetic by a rural community of Dhemaji district of Assam, Northeast India

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Traditional remedies used for treating diabetic ailments are very important in the primary health care of the people living in rural Dhemaji district of Assam, north-east India. Novel information gathered from the current survey is important in preserving folk indigenous knowledge. Materials and methods: Interviews were conducted amongst 80 households comprising of 240 individuals using semi-structured questionnaires. The focus was on plants used in treating diabetes mellitus. Results: The current survey documented 21 plant species (20 families) which are reportedly used to treat diabetes mellitus by the rural people in the study area. To the best of our knowledge, Amomum linguiforme, Cinnamomum impressinervium, Colocasia esculenta, Dillenia indica, Euphorbia ligularia, Garcinia pedunculata, Solanum indicum, Sterculia villosa and Tabernaemontana divaricata are recorded for the first time based on globally published literature as medicinal plants used for treating diabetes mellitus and related symptoms. Conclusions: The wide variety of plants that are used to treat diabetes mellitus in this area supports the traditional value that medicinal plants have in the primary health care system of the rural people of Dhemaji district of Assam. The finding of new plant uses in the current study reveals the importance of the documentation of such ethnobotanical knowledge. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Fluidic Drive System for Intra-Aortic Balloon Heart Assist Device

Intra-aortic balloon pumping is a counter pulsation technique for temporary circulatory assistance in cardiogenic shock and other low cardiac output conditions. Conventional systems use a balloon at the end of a catheter driven by a solenoid valve, controlled by patient's ECG or ventricular pressure signal. This results in time delay introducted by solenoid spool inertia, gas inertia, and hysteresis effects of the solenoid. Fluidics, because of their non-moving part operation and high switching speeds, minimizes the inertial effects while contributing high reliability. This communication describes a fluidic system developed for driving the balloon accepting electric control signals.

e-SURAKSHAK: A Cyber-Physical Healthcare System with Service Oriented Architecture

In this paper we present the design of ``e-SURAKSHAK,'' a novel cyber-physical health care management system of Wireless Embedded Internet Devices (WEIDs) that sense vital health parameters. The system is capable of sensing body temperature, heart rate, oxygen saturation level and also allows noninvasive blood pressure (NIBP) measurement. End to end internet connectivity is provided by using 6LoWPAN based wireless network that uses the 802.15.4 radio. A service oriented architecture (SOA) 1] is implemented to extract meaningful information and present it in an easy-to-understand form to the end-user instead of raw data made available by sensors. A central electronic database and health care management software are developed. Vital health parameters are measured and stored periodically in the database. Further, support for real-time measurement of health parameters is provided through a web based GUI. The system has been implemented completely and demonstrated with multiple users and multiple WEIDs.