Evaluation of Prescription Pattern for Internal Medicines Outpatients using World Health Organization Indicators

Rational use of drugs plays an important role in efficacy and safety. World Health Organization (WHO) developed a set of indicators to assess medicines precribing pattern. The aim of this study was to evaluate the rational use of drugs among internal medicines outpatients at a hospital in Papua, Indonesia, using WHO prescribing indicators. This study was a retrospective observational study conducted during January-March 2014. The data were obtained from patients medical prescriptions. From each prescriptions, data regarding the the total number of drugs, generic, antibiotics, parenteral, and essential drugs were extracted. A total of 2025 medical precriptions were included in this study. We found out that the average number of drugs per prescription was 2.3. Majority of the prescribed drugs were generic (84.14%). The use of antibiotics, parenteral drugs, and essential drugs were 33.43%, 3.40%, and 60.13%, respectively. Polypharmacy was relatively low among the subjects. The medicines prescribing patterns among internal medicines outpatients were in accordance with WHO recommendation

Hepatotoxicity Effects of Alcohol Consumption during Paracetamol Therapy of Malaria Patients

The risk of paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity could increase with alcohol consumption. Paracetamol was usually given to tropical malaria patients to treat fever. The aim of this study was to determine the hepatotoxicity effect of alcohol consumption in malaria tropica patients receiving paracetamol. This study was a cross-sectional study which was conducted during April-June 2015 at a hospital in Jayapura, Indonesia. The data were obtained from questionnaires and medical records. Alcohol status was determined by Short Michigan Alcoholics Screening Test (SMAST) questionnaire. Level of ALT, AST and bilirubin were observed before and after receiving paracetamol therapy for 5 days. Based on the results, the ALT and bilirubin levels of alcoholic group were higher than in non-alcoholic. However, chi-square test showed that alcohol status did not have a significant influence in ALT, AST, and bilirubin levels. Otherwise, logistic regression analysis showed that age gave a significant effect on AST level (P=0.067). Keywords: alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alcohol, malari

7X performance results - final report : ASCI Red vs Red Storm.

The goal of the 7X performance testing was to assure Sandia National Laboratories, Cray Inc., and the Department of Energy that Red Storm would achieve its performance requirements which were defined as a comparison between ASCI Red and Red Storm. Our approach was to identify one or more problems for each application in the 7X suite, run those problems at multiple processor sizes in the capability computing range, and compare the results between ASCI Red and Red Storm. The first part of this report describes the two computer systems, the applications in the 7X suite, the test problems, and the results of the performance tests on ASCI Red and Red Storm. During the course of the testing on Red Storm, we had the opportunity to run the test problems in both single-core mode and dual-core mode and the second part of this report describes those results. Finally, we reflect on lessons learned in undertaking a major head-to-head benchmark comparison

Exploiting the power of DSM and SMP clusters for parallel CFD

The new generation of powerful DSM and SMP cluster computers enables simulations of fluid dynamics at sufficient resolution to compute the complex nonlinear interactions of small-scale turbulent motions with a large-scale driving flow. With a new programming model of hierarchical shared memory multitasking, it is possible to exploit these new systems without disrupting the flow of small and medium-sized jobs that makes their existence possible

Harnessing the Power of the New SMP Cluster Architecture Harnessing the Power of the New SMP Cluster Architecture

Introduction

Harnessing the power of the new SMP cluster architecture

In 1993, members of our team collaborated with Silicon Graphics to perform the first full-scale demonstration of the computational power of the SMP cluster supercomputer architecture. That demonstration involved the simulation of homogeneous, compressible turbulence on a uniform grid of a billion cells, using our PPM gas dynamics code. This computation was embarrassingly parallel, the ideal test case, and it achieved only 4.9 Gflop/s performance, slightly over half that achievable by this application on the most expensive supercomputers of that day. After four to five solid days of computation, when the prototype machine had to be dismantled, the simulation was only about 20% completed. Nevertheless, this computation gave us important new insights into compressible turbulence and also into a powerful new mode of cost-effective, commercially sustainable supercomputing [S]. In the intervening 6 years, the SMP cluster architecture has become a fundamental strategy for several large supercomputer centers in the US, including the DOE's ASCI centers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the NSF's center NCSA at the University of Illinois. This SMP cluster architecture now underlies product offerings at the high-end of performance from SGI, IBM, and HP, among others. Nevertheless, despite many successes, it is our opinion that the computational science community is only now beginning to exploit the full promise of these new computing platforms. In this paper, we will briefly discuss two key architectural issues, vector computing and the flat multiprocessor architecture, which continue to drive spirited discussions among computational scientists, and then we will describe the hierarchical shared memory programming paradigm that we feel is best suited to the creative use of SMP cluster systems. Finally, we will give examples of recent large-scale simulations carried out by our team on these kinds of systems and point toward the still more challenging work which we foresee in the near future

Formulation and Evaluation of Fast Dissolving Films for Delivery of Triclosan to the Oral Cavity

The present investigation was undertaken with the objective of formulating TC containing fast dissolving films for local delivery to oral cavity. Various film forming agents, film modifiers and polyhydric alcohols were evaluated for optimizing the composition of fast dissolving films. The potential of poloxamer 407 and hydroxypropyl-β- cyclodextrin (HPBCD) to improve solubility of TC was investigated. Fast dissolving films containing hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), xanthan gum, and xylitol were formulated. Use of poloxamer 407 and HPBCD resulted in significant improvement in the solubility of TC. Fast dissolving films containing TC-HPBCD complex and TC-Poloxamer 407 were formulated and were evaluated for the in vitro dissolution profile and in vitro microbiological assay. Films containing TC-Poloxamer 407 exhibited better in vitro dissolution profile and in vitro antimicrobial activity as compared to the films containing TC-HPBCD complex. Effect of incorporation of eugenol on the in vivo performance of TC-Poloxamer 407 containing films was evaluated in human volunteers. Eugenol containing films improved the acceptability of TC-Poloxamer 407 films with respect to taste masking and mouth freshening without compromising the in vivo dissolution time