Promoting the proper use of medicines in rural school children of India

Background: The problem of irrational use of medicines is prevalent in rural India. For safe and proper use of medicines there is a need to understand the proper way of taking medicines. Teaching proper use of medicines is the most neglected domain of the school health curriculum. So this study targeted school going children in rural area of India as the earlier the intervention, the more firmly longer lasting health related behavior can be successfully inculcated. The objectives of the study were (1) To study base level knowledge about use of medicines and (2) To implement and see the effect of an intervention to increase medicine knowledge in the form of information, education and communication (IEC) in rural school children.Methods: This was an interventional, questionnaire based (quantitative) study in which an intervention in the form of lectures which was given to school children. Rural school going children in age group of13-15 years were selected from 3 different schools of rural areas of Nagpur district, India. 500 school children were included after obtaining permission from school authorities and informed consent from their parents. Pretesting done by administering a questionnaire containing 20 questions to assess children's base level knowledge about medicine use. The same questionnaire was repeated on 16th and 45th day of intervention i.e. daily lectures of 25-30 minutes for 15 days on proper use of medicines, to judge the improvement.Results: It was observed that the interventions brought about a positive change in the knowledge of the students as well as increased awareness about proper use of medicines.Conclusions: This study showed that properly timed and meticulously implemented intervention can bring about a positive change in the attitude and knowledge of school children

Anti-hyperalgesic effect of paracetamol in rat model of thermal hyperalgesia: implications for the treatment of neuropathic pain

Background: Neuropathic pain conditions are prevalent in general population and difficult to treat. Most currently available therapies do not provide adequate benefit in all treated patients. Though Paracetamol is available for more than 100 years and have huge safety data, it is still not included in any treatment guidelines for neuropathic pain, as very few studies have evaluated its effects in neuropathic pain conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate antihyperalgesic activity of paracetamol and to compare it with antihyperalgesic effect of amitriptyline and gabapentin in rat model of thermal hyperalgesia.Methods: Male albino wistar rats weighing 200-250 g of body weight and 4-6 months old were used. After anaesthetizing rats with 2% halothane, mild thermal injury was induced using hot plate analgesiometer. Drugs were administered intraperitoneally 30 minutes after thermal injury. Paw withdrawal latencies were measured at 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes after drug administration. Statistical analysis done using GraphPad Prism version 5.01 and one way ANOVA followed by post hoc Dunnett's test or Tukey's test were used.Results: Paracetamol showed both dose as well as time dependent antihyperalgesic activity. Gabapentin demonstrated significantly more antihyperalgesic activity compared to amitriptyline (p< 0.05) and paracetamol (p< 0.01).Conclusions: Paracetamol showed antihyperalgesic activity however, it was less as compared to drugs like gabapentin and amitriptyline. Considering the excellent safety profile of paracetamol, it might be useful adjuvant drug for treatment of neuropathic pain conditions

Diversity and Functions of Chromophores in Insects: A Review

Insects are the most diverse among the animal kingdom. The diversity of insects is ever increasing due to their fast adaptability to the rapidly changing environmental conditions. The physiology of insects plays a vital role in the adaptation and competing adjustments in the nature with other species. The mechanism of vision and the involvement of visual pigments, like chromophores particularly in flies, have proved to be landmarks in the field of research. This has been achieved with the discovery of novel pathways involved in the mechanism of pigment development. However, certain visual pigments and their relationship with various chromophores need to be further elaborated. The role of insect pigments in vision, to identify the hosts, prays, and predators, is also discussed. Many naturally occurring pigments of insect origin are continuously being explored for better prospects and human welfare. The abundant availability of insect species all over the world and the never ending task of exploring their potential at morphological, physiological, evolutionary, and genetic levels have a tremendous potential to explore the subject like entomology

Diversity of Pigments in Insects, Their Synthesis and Economic Value for Various Industries

Pigments play an essential role in imparting colors to the various organs of invertebrates particularly, insects. Genetic evolution and adaptive pigmentation of invertebrates have been studied which depicted that insect colors respond to the climatic changes. The physical, chemical and structural properties of insect pigments are being studied by researchers for years to elucidate their evolutionary aspects of physiology, metabolism, and economic importance for human welfare. Color development in insects varies within the species of different genera. In this state-of-the-art literature review, we discuss the variety of pigments other than visual ones found in different species of insects. The review also highlights the potential benefits or functions of pigments to insects

Air Bearing and its Stability

Bearing are machine element that allow components to move with respect to each other. A little consideration will shows that some part of power wasted in overcoming the frictional resistance and due to the contact of surfaces large amount of wear and tear takes place between the contacted surfaces. Hence to avoid wear and tear in sliding contact bearing and to reduce frictional resistance the thin layer of fluid is introduced which is called as lubricant. Air bearing are introduced to reduce such frictional resistance and wear of sliding contact bearings. Air bearings are bearings that use a thin film of pressurized air to provide low frictional load bearing interfaces between surfaces. There is a small gap between two surfaces i.e. two surfaces do not touch. As these bearings are contact free various problems in traditional bearing like friction, wear, particulates, and lubricant handling are avoided. There are advantages like precision positioning, such as lacking backlash and static friction as well as in high speed application. Other than this characteristics, stability is also important factor in air bearing

Bursting Smoke as an Infrared Countermeasure

This paper describes the experimental setup for the evaluation of bursting smoke for anti-infrared role using SR-5000 spectroradiometer and a source of IR radiation (8-13 micrometer) using cadmium-mercury-telluride (CMI) detector cooled by liquid nitrogen. The particle size and shape of the powders used in the bursting smokes were determined microscopically using Carl Zeiss Jena Neophot- 21. Highest attenuation of 97 -lOO percent was produced for about 12 s using a mixture of bronze flakes and chaff, and for about 8 s using a mixture of bronze copper lined flakes, bronze flakes and chaff

Studies on Development and Testing of Sensor for Automatic Irrigation System

In India, agriculture is the main sector for increasing the food production. In India, agriculture depends on the monsoons which is not sufficient source of water. So the irrigation is used in agriculture field. Every type of plant requires different amount of water to grow. To reduce the wastage of water and apply the optimum amount of water to the plants irrigation scheduling is needed. For irrigation scheduling it requires to determine the moisture content present in the soil. So to determine the moisture content the methods are very time consuming and less accurate. This project is an attempt to reduce the time consumption to determine the moisture content and to make it automatic and easy to use. We developed a moisture sensing kit and compared its reading with the gravimetric method. Also we design the automatic motor operating irrigation system on the basis of that moisture sensor reading. That is the motor is on when moisture is less than 50% and continues up to 80%.If moisture is greater than 80% then motor will automatically stopped. Also we provide GSM system with that microcontroller. If moisture is less than 50% then message will be automatically receive on the mobile. The aim of our project is to provide new agriculture technology by programming

Biobutanol: the outlook of an academic and industrialist.

Abstract The gradual shift of transportation fuels from oil based fuels to the alternative fuel resources and worldwide demand for energy has been the impetus for research to produce alcohol biofuels from renewable resources. Current bioethanol and biodiesel can, however, not cover an increasing demand for biofuels. Hence, there is an extensive need for advanced biofuels with superior fuel properties. The present review is focused on the developments of biobutanol, which is regarded to be superior to bioethanol in terms of energy density and hygroscopicity. Although acetone-butanolethanol (ABE) fermentation is one of the oldest large-scale fermentation processes, butanol yield by anaerobic fermentation remains sub-optimal. For sustainable industrial scale butanol production, a number of obstacles need to be addressed including choice of feedstock, low product yield, product toxicity to production strain, multiple end-products and downstream processing of alcohol mixtures. Metabolic engineering provides a means for fermentation improvements. Different strategies are employed in the metabolic engineering of Clostridia that aim to enhance the solvent production, improve selectivity for butanol production, and increase the tolerance of Clostridia to solvents. The introduction and expression of a non-clostridial butanol producing pathway in E. coli is most promising strategy for butanol biosynthesis. Several rigorous kinetic and physiological models for fermentation have been formulated, which form useful tool for optimization of the process. Due to the lower butanol titers in the fermentation broth, simultaneous fermentation and product removal techniques have been developed to improve production economics. With the use of new strains, inexpensive substrates, and superior reactor designs, economic ABE fermentation may further attract an attention of researchers all over the world. The present review is attempting to provide an overall outlook on discoveries and strategies that are being developed for commercial n-butanol production