Journal of Basic and Applied Research International

Histopathological and Morphometric Evidence of Cadmium-induced Testicular Damage in Syrian Golden Hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus)

Ravikash Maurya — 2026-08-13

Cadmium (Cd) is a persistent environmental pollutant known to impair male reproductive function following bioaccumulation. This study evaluated the histopathological and morphometric effects of acute cadmium exposure on the testes of adult Syrian golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus). Animals (n = 5 per group, with each group assessed in triplicate) received intraperitoneal cadmium chloride at 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg body weight for 10 consecutive days; control animals received saline. Histological examination revealed dose-dependent seminiferous tubule degeneration, pyknotic nuclei, germ-cell exfoliation, luminal cellular debris, widening of the interstitial spaces, epithelial thinning, and reduced luminal spermatozoal density, with the most severe changes observed at 2.0 mg/kg. Morphometric analysis using ImageJ corroborated these findings: seminiferous tubule area decreased from 579,418.6 ± 35,325.6 µm² in the control group to 389,477.6 ± 53,283.5 and 294,111.8 ± 52,149.5 µm² in the low- and high-dose groups, respectively (P < 0.05); tubule diameter decreased from 889.2 ± 62.8 to 615.2 ± 68.0 µm, and epithelial height decreased from 292.2 ± 49.6 to 140.0 ± 25.5 µm, with significant reductions only at the high dose; the spermatogonia count decreased from 381.4 ± 21.1 to 249.4 ± 31.6, 226.8 ± 22.3, and 140.2 ± 25.3 across the treated groups (P < 0.05). These findings indicate progressive, dose-related disruption of testicular architecture and spermatogenesis and support the suitability of the Syrian golden hamster as a model for heavy-metal-induced reproductive toxicity.

Effects of Feeding System (Pelleted Diet vs. Forage-based diet) on Growth Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus)

K. J. B. Alla — 2026-08-18

Aims: To evaluate the effects of a pelleted diet, compared with a forage-based diet supplemented with concentrate, on growth performance, carcass characteristics, and technological properties of meat in captive grasscutters.

Study Design: Completely randomised controlled feeding trial.

Place and Duration of Study: Laboratory of Animal Science and Animal Production, Félix HOUPHOUËT-BOIGNY National Polytechnic Institute, Yamoussoukro, between September 2018 and January 2019.

Methodology: Eighteen weaned male grasscutters (Thryonomys swinderianus; 45 ± 7 days old; 528 ± 190g) were randomly assigned to a pelleted diet (growing: 19% ADF; finishing: 17% ADF) or a forage-based diet supplemented with concentrate (n = 9 per treatment). Animals were reared individually until six months of age. Growth performance, carcass traits, and technological properties of meat were assessed after slaughter.

Results: Grasscutters fed the pelleted diet had a significantly higher final body weight (2,693g), exceeding that of the forage-fed group by 968g, and a greater average daily gain during the finishing phase (17g/day; P = .01). The pelleted diet significantly increased hot (2,172g), chilled (2,155g), and commercial carcass weights (2,109g) (P ≤ .002), as well as the weights of the forequarter (506g), loin (444g), and hindquarter (833g) (P < .001). Dressing percentage (80.7%), net carcass yield (92.3%), commercial carcass yield (78.4%), meat proportion (92.0%; P = .04), and muscle-to-bone ratio (11.7; P = .02) were also higher, whereas cooking loss was lower (15.4%; P = .03).

Conclusion: A complete pelleted diet improved growth performance, carcass traits, and technological properties of meat in growing grasscutters. This feeding strategy could shorten the fattening period and improve the productivity of grasscutter farming systems.

In vitro Antagonistic Efficacy of Trichoderma viride Culture Filtrates Against Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc., the Causal Agent of Groundnut Stem Rot

K. Balamurugan — 2026-08-25

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an important oilseed crop, but its productivity is affected by stem rot caused by Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc. Biological control using antagonistic fungi offers a potential approach for reducing dependence on chemical disease management. The present study evaluated the in vitro inhibitory activity of cell-free culture filtrates from ten native isolates of Trichoderma viride against S. rolfsii. The pathogen was isolated from infected groundnut stem tissues and identified based on colony morphology and sclerotial characteristics. T. viride isolates were obtained from rhizosphere soil samples and maintained as Tv₁ to Tv₁₀. Culture filtrates were prepared from 10-day-old potato dextrose broth cultures and incorporated into potato dextrose agar at 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% concentrations using the poisoned food technique. All isolates reduced radial mycelial growth of S. rolfsii compared with the control and inhibition generally increased with filtrate concentration. Among the isolates tested, Tv₄ showed the greatest inhibitory effect, restricting pathogen growth to 27.79 mm, 19.56 mm, 12.26 mm and 0.00 mm at 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% concentrations, respectively. Complete inhibition was observed with Tv₄ at a 40% concentration. Tv₆, Tv₇ and Tv₈ also showed high inhibition at the highest concentration. These results indicate that T. viride culture filtrates can suppress S. rolfsii growth under in vitro conditions.

Parenting Stress and Psychological Health among Staff Nurses in Selected Hospitals of Sasaram, Bihar: A Descriptive-correlational Study

K. Latha — 2026-09-04

Staff nurses who are parents must balance demanding clinical responsibilities with childcare and family roles, which may contribute to parenting stress and psychological distress. This study assessed parenting stress and psychological health and examined the relationship between them among staff nurses working in selected hospitals of Sasaram, Bihar. A quantitative descriptive-correlational design was used, involving 100 married staff nurses with at least one child who were selected through non-probability sampling. Data were collected using a socio-demographic proforma, the 18-item Parental Stress Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), and analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and chi-square tests. Moderate parenting stress was reported by 64% of participants, while 18% had low and 18% had high parenting stress; the mean score was 56.82 ± 11.34. Mild psychological distress was observed in 47%, moderate distress in 25%, severe distress in 7%, and good psychological health in 21%; the mean GHQ-28 score was 12.76 ± 4.95. Parenting stress was positively correlated with psychological distress (r = 0.68, p < 0.05). Age, number of children, family type, and duty pattern were significantly associated with both outcomes. The findings indicate a need for counselling, stress-management support, family-friendly scheduling, and workplace measures that promote psychological wellbeing among parent nurses.

Phytochemical Profiling and Evaluation of Antioxidant, Antidiabetic, and Antimicrobial Activities of Blighia sapida Leaves

A. J. Adepoju — 2026-09-08

Blighia sapida is a medicinal plant with reported therapeutic properties in several plant parts. The present study evaluated the phytochemical profile, antioxidant activity, α-amylase inhibitory potential and antifungal properties of leaf extracts obtained with n-hexane, ethyl acetate and ethanol. Ethanol produced the highest extract yield (2.17%), followed by ethyl acetate (2.07%) and n-hexane (1.69%). Preliminary screening detected saponins, alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, coumarins, steroids, cardiac glycosides, anthocyanins and phenols in the ethyl acetate and ethanol extracts, while terpenoids and anthraquinones were absent. Quantitative analysis showed that the ethyl acetate extract contained higher phenols (37.70±0.03 GAE/mg/g), flavonoids (12.96±0.02 QE/mg/g), tannins (10.75±0.01 TAE/mg/g), alkaloids (13.92±0.02%) and saponins (9.87±0.02%) than the ethanol extract. Antioxidant assays indicated concentration-dependent radical scavenging and reducing activities in both extracts, with variations between DPPH and FRAP responses. The ethanol extract showed stronger α-amylase inhibitory activity, with percentage inhibition ranging from 54.04±0.78% to 76.40±0.57% and an IC50 of 1.57 mg/mL, compared with 26.09±0.67% to 70.19±1.00% and an IC50 of 2.19 mg/mL for the ethyl acetate extract. Both extracts also demonstrated antifungal activity against selected fungal isolates, although no inhibition was observed against Aspergillus fumigatus, and ethanol showed no activity against Murcortic spp. These findings suggest that B. sapida leaves contain phytochemicals that may contribute to antioxidant, α-amylase inhibitory and antifungal activities.

Large Language Models for Zhuang Medicine Translation: Translation Quality Assessment and A Human–AI Collaborative Translation Pathway

Tingting Long — 2026-09-09

Zhuang Medicine, an important component of China’s ethnic medicine system, embodies distinctive medical theories and cultural knowledge whose accurate English translation is essential for international communication and global dissemination. However, existing studies have primarily focused on terminology translation, while systematic empirical evaluations of Large Language Models (LLMs) for Zhuang Medicine text translation remain limited. Using Practical Zhuang Medicine Techniques as the source corpus, this study constructed a test dataset of 240 representative sentences and systematically evaluated the Chinese–English translation performance of five representative LLMs (ChatGPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, DeepSeek-V3.2, and ERNIE 5.0) using the COMET metric, supplemented by statistical tests and qualitative analyses. The results indicate that DeepSeek-V3.2 achieved the highest mean COMET score (0.0249), followed by Claude Sonnet 4.5 (0.0218) and Gemini 2.5 Pro (0.0215). However, the Nemenyi post-hoc test indicated that statistically significant differences were only observed between ERNIE 5.0 and DeepSeek-V3.2, and between ERNIE 5.0 and Claude Sonnet 4.5. Qualitative analysis further demonstrates that translation quality is strongly dependent on text type: all models performed consistently well on texts with standardised terminology and low cultural specificity but encountered common difficulties in translating culturally embedded concepts, non-standardised terminology, and information-dense clinical descriptions. Based on these findings, this study proposes a three-tier Human–AI Collaborative Translation pathway comprising resource construction, model adaptation, and human quality assurance, offering practical insights into intelligent translation and human–AI collaborative workflows in low-resource specialised domains.

Simulation of Dependence-Aware Joint Chance-constrained A-Star-Based Path Planning for Unmanned Ground Vehicles under Obstacle-Position Uncertainty

Vu Dinh Phong — 2026-09-11

Path planning for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in uncertain environments requires more than geometric shortest-path optimisation, particularly when narrow-passage traversability depends on imperfect obstacle-position estimates. This paper presents a dependence-aware joint chance-constrained A-Star-based planning framework in which successive passage widths are modelled as correlated random variables. The dependence arises naturally when adjacent passages share an uncertain obstacle boundary: a displacement that enlarges one passage may simultaneously reduce the neighbouring passage. The proposed formulation maps obstacle-boundary uncertainty to passage-width covariance through a linear difference model, evaluates route-level feasibility using a multivariate Gaussian joint probability, and selects the shortest candidate route satisfying a prescribed reliability threshold. The framework is evaluated using two-passage validation, sensitivity analysis, a controlled route-selection testbed, a multi-passage extension, a randomised campaign of 5,000 scenarios, Monte Carlo verification, and runtime benchmarks. In the controlled testbed, the independence approximation accepts the shorter route with a predicted feasibility of 0.901279, whereas the dependence-aware model gives 0.898714 and Monte Carlo gives 0.898332, confirming a threshold-sensitive false-safe acceptance at P_min = 0.90. In the randomised campaign, 58 independence-based false-safe planner decisions were identified at P_min = 0.90; in all 58 cases, the dependence-aware estimate was closer to Monte Carlo, reducing mean absolute error by 84.82% and root-mean-square error by 81.47%. A threshold sweep from 0.85 to 0.99 further showed that false-safe independence-based decisions persisted across all tested reliability levels, while becoming less frequent as the acceptance criterion became more restrictive. Dependence-aware rerouting incurred an average path-length penalty of 18.34% in the 21 cases where a feasible alternative was available. For two correlated passages, the additional probability-evaluation cost was small in absolute terms, whereas higher-dimensional multivariate Gaussian evaluation exhibited a clear scalability limitation. These results indicate that explicitly modelling shared uncertainty improves route-level feasibility estimation and reduces threshold-sensitive false-safe selections in probabilistic graph-based UGV planning.