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The quality control of medicinal herbs post harvesting or after collection becomes very critical because of susceptibility to fungal invasion during storage depending on the temperature and humidity of the storage area. The information on moisture equilibrium is important on the process and storage of foods which can be extended to medicinal herbs. In the present study, the growth of Aspergillus flavus was observed on selected ten medicinal herbs with water activity aw above 0.81 when stored at 25 +/- 2 degrees C, 30 +/- 2 degrees C and 40 +/- 2 degrees C except for Picrorhiza kurrooa and Alpinia galanga which were found to have anti-fungal properties. Aspergillus flavus did not grow in any samples of medicinal herbs with water activity aw below 0.81 at temperatures of 25 +/- 2 degrees C, 30 +/- 2 degrees C and 40 +/- 2 degrees C. Also Aspergillus flavus did not grow in any samples of medicinal herbs with water activity aw above 0.81 when stored below 10 +/- 2 degrees C. Therefore it can be concluded that the contamination of medicinal herbs with aflatoxins can be minimized by controlling water activity and storage temperature. Sorption isotherms (desorption) can be interpreted to determine the optimum drying which can lower the water activity to the level required for preventing growth of Aspergillus flavus and also for ensuring quality of medicinal herbs which may get destroyed upon over drying. Furthermore, it also saves incremental cost in prolonged drying over the optimum drying.

A fast and highly efficient microwave accelerated solution phase procedure for the synthesis of a series of 2-phenyl-3-(benzothiazol-2-yl)-4[3H]-quinazolinones, substituted in the benzothiazole ring, is developed. The title compounds were characterized by elemental analyses, IR, 1 H NMR, and EI-MS data. The anticonvulsant activity of all the new compounds (3a-m and 4a-m) was evaluated against Maximum Electroshock (MES) induced seizures and against subcutaneous pentylenetetrazole (PTZ) induced seizures model in mice.The neurotoxicity was assessed using the Rotorod procedure. All the compounds tested were administered intraperitoneally at a various dose levels ranging from 7-200 mg/Kg body weight and the median toxic dose (TD 50 ) and the protection index (PI) values were determined. In general compounds 3a-m were found to be more potent compared to compounds 4a-m. Among the compound tested, the compound 3e in the 2-phenyl-3-(benzothiazole-2-yl)-4[3H]-quinazolinone series and 4l in the 6,8-dibromo-2-phenyl-3-(benzothiazole-2-yl)-4[3H]-quinazolinone series were found to be the most potent.

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