A RAPID ASSAY METHOD DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION FOR THE ESTIMATION OF EPLERENONE IN TABLETS BY UV SPECTROPHOTOMETRY

Objective: To develop a rapid, simple and a cheap UV spectrophotometric assay method for the estimation of Eplerenone in tablets and validate as per ICH guidelines.Methods: The optimized method uses 0.05N HCl as a solvent for the estimation of assay of Eplerenone in tablets at a detection wavelength of 245 nm.Results: System precision and intra-day precision are exemplified by relative standard deviation of 1.5% and 1.3% respectively. Method was found to be rugged as precision was found to be 1.2%. The developed method resulted in Eplerenone exhibiting linearity in the range 5-15μg/ml. Percentage Mean recovery was found to be in the range of 98â€102, during accuracy studies. Conclusion: A rapid, simple and a cheap UV spectrophotometric assay method was developed and validated for the estimation of Eplerenone in tablets as per ICH guidelines and hence it can be used for the routine analysis in various pharmaceutical industries.Â

Evaluation of Indole production and Tellurite reduction for speciation of Candida species and Trichosporon species

Background: Candidiasis is one of the commonest infections in man, along with Trichosporon infection. Conventional methods for identification are often delayed, which leads to delay in empirical therapy in these infections. Methods: We here describe two newer methods, i.e. Indole production and Tellurite reduction for identification of these two genera. Results: Both these tests, combined together, were equally good as compared to conventional identification techniques. Conclusion: Indole production and Tellurite reduction are useful tests to identify these common yeast pathogens in the laboratory

A prospective, parallel group, open label, observational study to compare efficacy and feto-maternal outcomes in treatment of pregnancy induced hypertensive patients

Background: Pregnancy induced  hypertension (PIH) is defined as  elevation in blood pressure 140/90 mmHg or greater after 20 weeks of gestation  on two occasions more than 4 hours apart in a newly diagnosed patients. Complications of pregnancy are the major health problems leading to maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. Some anti-hypertensive drugs are commonly used to control hypertension.Methods: A prospective, parallel group, open label observation study was carried out at SVS Medical Hospital, Mahabubnagar. Patients were divided into three groups based on severity of hypertension and the drug used for treatment.Results: Of 120 patients diagnosed with PIH majority (50%) of women were in the age group of 21-24 years with 33-37 gestational age. In the present study there was a significant reduction in BP after the treatment with Labetalol when compare to Nifedepine and Methyldopa. Although, all the three groups have shown significant reduction in BP during 24 hrs treatments and the mean time to achieve target BP was shown less in Labetalol group when compare to Methyldopa and Nifedepine and the maximum doses required to achieve target BP was in between 4-6 doses/day. 40% of complication observed was HELLP syndrome.Conclusions: Our study coincides with the previous findings that labetolol is an efficacious and safer drug for use in control of PIH and mean time required to achieve target BP is low when compared to nifedipne and methyldopa.

Enhancing the ultrafast third order nonlinear optical response by charge transfer in VSe2-reduced graphene oxide hybrid

Nonlinear optical phenomena play a critical role in understanding microscopic light-matter interactions and have far-reaching applications across various fields, such as biosensing, quantum information, optical switching, and all-optical data processing. Most of these applications require materials with high third-order absorptive and refractive optical nonlinearities. However, most materials show weak nonlinear optical responses due to their perturbative nature and often need to be improved for practical applications. Here, we demonstrate that the charge donor-acceptor hybrid of VSe2-reduced graphene oxide (rGO) hybrid exhibits enhanced ultrafast third-order absorptive and refractive nonlinearities compared to the pristine systems, at least by one order of magnitude. Through density functional theory and Bader charge analysis, we elucidate the strong electronic coupling in the VSe2-rGO hybrid, involving the transfer of electrons from VSe2 to rGO. Steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements confirm the electronic coupling and charge transfer. Furthermore, we fabricate an ultrafast optical limiter device with better performance parameters, such as an onset threshold of 2.5 mJ cm-2 and differential transmittance of 0.42

A study of nonlocal fractional delay differential equations with hemivariational inequality

In this paper, we study an abstract system of fractional delay differential equations of order 1 < q < 2 with a hemivariational inequality in Banach spaces. To establish the existence of a solution to the abstract inequality, we employ the Rothe technique in conjunction with the surjectivity of multivalued pseudomonotone operators and features of the Clarke generalized gradient. Further, to show the existence of the fractional differential equation, we use the fractional cosine family and fixed point theorem. Finally, we include an example to elaborate the effectiveness of the findings

Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Gender differences and prevalence in a Pakistani medical student population

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect which causes significant distress or impairment in functioning. Few studies have assessed gender differences in BDD in a non clinical population. Also no study assessed BDD in medical students. This study was designed to determine the point prevalence of BDD in Pakistani medical students and the gender differences in prevalence of BDD, body foci of concern and symptoms of BDD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The medical students enrolled in a medical university in Karachi, Pakistan filled out a self-report questionnaire which assessed clinical features of BDD. BDD was diagnosed according to the DSM-IV criteria.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of the 156 students, 57.1% were female. A total of 78.8% of the students reported dissatisfaction with some aspect of their appearance and 5.8% met the DSM-IV criteria for BDD. The male to female ratio for BDD was 1.7. Regarding gender differences in body foci of concern, the top three reported foci of concern in male students were head hair (34.3%), being fat (32.8%), skin (14.9%) and nose(14.9%), whereas in females they were being fat (40.4%), skin (24.7%) and teeth (18%). Females were significantly more concerned about being fat (p = 0.005). Male students were significantly more concerned about being thin (p = 0.01) and about head hair (p = 0.012).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>BDD is fairly common in our medical student population, with a higher prevalence in males. Important gender differences in BDD symptomatology and reported body foci of concern were identified which reflected the influence of media on body image perception. The impact of cultural factors on the prevalence as well as gender differences in BDD symptomatology was also established.</p

FORMULATION AND IN-VITRO EVALUATION OF FLOATING PULSATILE DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM OF IVABRADINE

The aim of present investigation was to develop press coated tablets for Floating pulsatile drug delivery of Ivabradine used for is a medication used for the symptomatic management of stable heart-related chest pain and heart failure not fully managed by beta blockers. The drug delivery system was designed to deliver the drug such a time when it could be needful of patient conditions. The press coated tablets containing Ivabradine in the inner core were formulated by direct compression method with an outer coating of different amount of HPMCK200 M. The release profile of press coated tablet exhibited a lag time. The optimized batch F9 gave good drug release of 99.58 %. Key words: Ivabradine, Eudragit, EC, HPMCK200

In vitro cryopreservation of date palm caulogenic meristems

Cryopreservation is the technology of choice not only for plant genetic resource preservation but also for virus eradication and for the efficient management of large-scale micropropagation. In this chapter, we describe three cryopreservation protocols (standard vitrification, droplet vitrification, and encapsulation vitrification) for date palm highly proliferating meristems that are initiated from vitro-cultures using plant growth regulator-free MS medium. The positive impact of sucrose preculture and cold hardening treatments on survival rates is significant. Regeneration rates obtained with standard vitrification, encapsulation-vitrification, and droplet-vitrification protocols can reach 30, 40, and 70%, respectively. All regenerated plants from non-cryopreserved or cryopreserved explants don't show morphological variation by maintaining genetic integrity without adverse effect of cryogenic treatment. Cryopreservation of date palm vitro-cultures enables commercial tissue culture laboratories to move to large-scale propagation from cryopreserved cell lines producing true-to-type plants after clonal field-testing trials. When comparing the cost of cryostorage and in-field conservation of date palm cultivars, tissue cryopreservation is the most cost-effective. Moreover, many of the risks linked to field conservation like erosion due to climatic, edaphic, and phytopathologic constraints are circumvented. (Résumé d'auteur

Is Content Really King? An Objective Analysis of the Public's Response to Medical Videos on YouTube

Medical educators and patients are turning to YouTube to teach and learn about medical conditions. These videos are from authors whose credibility cannot be verified & are not peer reviewed. As a result, studies that have analyzed the educational content of YouTube have reported dismal results. These studies have been unable to exclude videos created by questionable sources and for non-educational purposes. We hypothesize that medical education YouTube videos, authored by credible sources, are of high educational value and appropriately suited to educate the public. Credible videos about cardiovascular diseases were identified using the Mayo Clinic's Center for Social Media Health network. Content in each video was assessed by the presence/absence of 7 factors. Each video was also evaluated for understandability using the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM). User engagement measurements were obtained for each video. A total of 607 videos (35 hours) were analyzed. Half of all videos contained 3 educational factors: treatment, screening, or prevention. There was no difference between the number of educational factors present & any user engagement measurement (p NS). SAM scores were higher in videos whose content discussed more educational factors (p<0.0001). However, none of the user engagement measurements correlated with higher SAM scores. Videos with greater educational content are more suitable for patient education but unable to engage users more than lower quality videos. It is unclear if the notion “content is king� applies to medical videos authored by credible organizations for the purposes of patient education on YouTube