SELF-MICROEMULSIFYING DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM

ABSTRACTOral route is the most convenient route of drug administration in many diseases and till today it is the first way investigated in the development ofnew dosage forms. The major problem in oral drug formulations is low and erratic bioavailability, which mainly results from poor aqueous solubility,thereby pretense problems in their formulation. More than 40% of potential drug products suffer from poor water solubility. For the therapeuticdelivery of lipophilic active moieties (biopharmaceutical classification system Class II drugs), lipid-based formulations are inviting increasingattention. Currently, a number of technologies are available to deal with the poor solubility, dissolution rate, and bioavailability of insoluble drugs.One of the promising techniques is self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS). SMEDDS have gained exposure for their ability to increasesolubility and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs. SMEDDS, which are isotropic mixtures of oils, surfactants, solvents, and co-solvents/surfactantscan be used for the design of formulations to improve the oral absorption of highly lipophilic drug compounds. Conventional SMEDDS are mostlyprepared in a liquid form, which can have some disadvantages. SMEDDS can be orally administered in soft or hard gelatin capsules and form finerelatively stable oil-in-water emulsions. Solid-SMEDDS are prepared by solidification of liquid/semisolid self-micron emulsifying ingredients intopowders, have gained popularity. This article gives a complete overview of SMEDDS, but special attention has been paid to formulation, design,evaluation, and little emphasis on application of SMEDDS.Keywords: Self-microemulsifying drug delivery system, Surfactant, Oil, Co-surfactant, Bioavailability, Lipophilic, Biopharmaceutical classificationsystem Class II drugs

Categorical Frailty Phenotype and Continuous Frailty Index: A Conceptual Overview of Frailty and Its Components among Older Persons in India

  Background: Frailty indicator can be an important indicator of understanding ageing and health in India. It will be interesting to examine and compared different model of frailty using the same dataset. The present paper aimed to compare two frailty models and examine the association between socioeconomic status with frailty and frailty components among older persons in India.  Methods: The WHO Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE) Wave 1, collected between 2007 and 2010 in India was used for this study. Two frailty model was constructed. Education and wealth quintile was used as socio economic indicators. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated for comparing both frailty models. Linear regression and logistic regression were used. The regression analysis was separately done for each age group and gender category. The coefficients were reported separately for education and wealth quintile categories.  Results: Low sensitivity was observed between the two frailty models. The results suggest that frailty index was more useful in depicting wealth and education inequality among different gender and age groups in India. Wealth and education differences in, number of morbidities, morbidity symptoms and Self rated health (SRH) were most consistently significant across age groups and gender categories. BMI and functional limitation were even found significant at p-value <0.01 for education and wealth quintile.  Conclusion: The results of the analysis suggest that frailty index covers more dimension than categorical phenotype categories, and can be used as an indicator to depict the healthy aging.&nbsp

Global Medical Device Nomenclature: The Concept for Reducing Device-Related Medical Errors

In the medical device field, there are a number of players, having quite different responsibilities and levels of understanding of the processes, but all with one common interest, that of ensuring the availability of sound medical devices to the general public. To assist in this very important process, there is a need for a common method for describing and identifying these medical devices in an unambiguous manner. The Global Medical Device Nomenclature (GMDN) now provides, for the first time, an international tool for identifying all medical devices, at the generic level, in a meaningful manner that can be understood by all users. Prior to the GMDN, many nomenclature systems existed, all built upon different structures, and used locally or nationally for special purposes, with unusual approaches. These diverse systems, although often workable in their own right, have had no impact on improving the overall situation of providing a common platform, whereby, medical devices could be correctly identified and the related data safely exchanged between the involved parties. Work by standard organizations such as, CEN (European Committee for Standardization) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization), from 1993 to 1996, resulted in a standard that specified a structure for a new nomenclature, for medical devices. In this article we are trying to explain GMDN as the prime method to reduce medical device errors, and to understand the concept of GMDN, to regulate the medical device throughout the globe. Here we also make an attempt to explain various aspects of the GMDN system, such as, the process of development of the GMDN-CEN report, purpose, benefits, and their structural considerations. In addition, there will be an explanation of the coding system, role of the GMDN agency, and their utilization in the unique device identification (UDI) System. Finally, the current area of focus and vision for the future are also mentioned

To Recognize the Use of International Standards for Making Harmonized Regulation of Medical Devices in Asia-Pacific

‘Medical Devices’ include everything from highly sophisticated, computerized, medical equipment, right down to simple wooden tongue depressors. Regulations embody the public expectations for how buildings and facilities are expected to perform and as such represent public policy. Regulators, who develop and enforce regulations, are empowered to act in the public’s interest to set this policy and are ultimately responsible to the public in this regard. Standardization contributes to the basic infrastructure that underpins society including health and environment, while promoting sustainability and good regulatory practice. The international organizations that produce International Standards are the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). With the increasing globalization of markets, International Standards (as opposed to regional or national standards) have become critical to the trading process, ensuring a level playing field for exports, and ensuring that imports meet the internationally recognized levels of performance and safety. The development of standards is done in response to sectors and stakeholders that express a clearly established need for them. An industry sector or other stakeholder group typically communicates its requirement for standards to one of the national members. To be accepted for development, a proposed work item must receive a majority support of the participating members, who verify the global relevance of the proposed item. The regulatory authority (RA) should provide a method for the recognition of international voluntary standards and for public notification of such recognition. The process of recognition may vary from country to country. Recognition may occur by periodic publication of lists of standards that a regulatory authority has found will meet the Essential Principles. In conclusion, International standards, such as, basic standards, group standards, and product standards, are a tool for harmonizing regulatory processes, to assure the safety, quality, and performance of medical devices. Standards represent the opinion of experts from all interested parties, including industry, regulators, users, and others

Pain during ice water test distinguishes clinical bladder hypersensitivity from overactivity disorders.

BACKGROUND: The Bladder cooling reflex (BCR) i.e. uninhibited detrusor contractions evoked by intravesical instillation of cold saline, is a segmental reflex believed to be triggered by menthol sensitive cold receptors in the bladder wall, with the afferent signals transmitted by C fibres. The BCR is a neonatal reflex that becomes suppressed by descending signals from higher centres at approximately the time when the child gains full voluntary control of voiding. It re-emerges in adults with neurogenic detrusor overactivity as a consequence of loss of central descending inhibition, resulting from conditions such as spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis. We have recently shown an increase of nerve fibres expressing the cool and menthol receptor TRPM8 in both overactive (IDO) and painful bladder syndrome (PBS), but its functional significance is unknown. We have therefore studied the bladder cooling reflex and associated sensory symptoms in patients with PBS and overactivity disorders. METHODS: The BCR, elicited by ice water test (IWT) was performed in patients with painful bladder syndrome (PBS, n = 17), idiopathic detrusor overactivity (IDO, n = 22), neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO, n = 4) and stress urinary incontinence (as controls, n = 21). The IWT was performed by intravesical instillation of cold saline (0 - 4 degrees C). A positive IWT was defined as presence of uninhibited detrusor contraction evoked by cold saline, associated with urgency or with fluid expulsion. Patients were asked to report and rate any pain and cold sensation during the test. RESULTS: A positive IWT was observed in IDO (6/22, 27.3%) and NDO (4/4, 100%) patients, but was negative in all control and PBS patients. Thirteen (76.5%) PBS patients reported pain during the IWT, with significantly higher pain scores during ice water instillation compared to the baseline (P = 0.0002), or equivalent amount of bladder filling (100 mls) with saline at room temperature (P = 0.015). None of the control or overactive (NDO/IDO) patients reported any pain during the IWT. CONCLUSION: The BCR in DO may reflect loss of central inhibition, which appears necessary to elicit this reflex; the pain elicited in PBS suggests afferent sensitisation, hence sensory symptoms are evoked but not reflex detrusor contractions. The ice water test may be a useful and simple marker for clinical trials in PBS, particularly for novel selective TRPM8 antagonists

Dynamics of socio-economic factors affecting climate vulnerability and technology adoption: Evidence from Jodhpur district of Rajasthan

192-196Climate change and extreme weather fluctuations are the most threatening challenges to the farming communities especially in semi-arid tropics. The paper investigates socio-economic factors affecting vulnerability and adoption of innovations using micro-level survey data of 100 systematically selected farmers in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan, India. The results reveal that higher income, irrigation and provision of seeds reduce climate vulnerability to a great extent. Several farm level strategies have been adopted by the farmers against climate induced stress, including change in cropping pattern, reduction in irrigation usage, use of drips and sprinklers and water conservation. In case of pearl millet cropping system, we found that adoption of wide row spacing is significantly influenced by the level of the farmer’s education, land size category, climate awareness and trainings programs. The study suggests that diversified crop sequence involving pearl millet-wheat-cluster bean-barley-onion, farmers’ adoption of suitable adaptation strategies and climate resilient technologies will improve with better awareness, education and farm governance with regard to climate change. Moreover, technologies especially indigenous ones suitable to the local contextual needs must be developed or fine-tuned and disseminated for reducing climate-induced vulnerability

RADIATION EFFECTS ON AN UNSTEADY MHD VERTICAL POROUS PLATE IN THE PRESENCE OF HOMOGENEOUS CHEMICAL REACTION

ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to study the on an unsteady MHD flow, radiation and mass transfer of a viscous incompressible conducting fluid past on impulsively started infinite vertical porous plate with variable temperature in the presence of homogeneous chemical reaction is studied. The governing equations are solved by using the finite element method. The expression for velocity, temperature and concentration has been obtained. Some important applications of physical interest for different type motion of the plate are discussed. The results obtained have also been presented numerically through graphs to observe the effects of various parameters and the physical aspects of the problem

A Wideband Multi Segment Dielectric Resonator Antenna

The present work deals with the design of a wideband multi segment dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) that can be used for various applications.The proposed antenna resonates at a tri-band frequencies of 8.48GHz, 16.8GHz and 23.95GHz giving an impedence bandwidth of 62.99%.The tri-band DRA is excited by a coaxial-cable-feed

Cysteine oxidation targets peroxiredoxins 1 and 2 for exosomal release through a novel mechanism of redox-dependent secretion

Non-classical protein secretion is of major importance as a number of cytokines and inflammatory mediators are secreted via this route. Current evidence indicates that there are several mechanistically distinct methods of non-classical secretion. We have recently shown that peroxiredoxin (Prdx) 1 and Prdx2 are released by various cells upon exposure to inflammatory stimuli such as LPS or TNF-α. The released Prdx then acts to induce production of inflammatory cytokines. However, Prdx1 and 2 do not have signal peptides and therefore must be secreted by alternative mechanisms as has been postulated for the inflammatory mediators IL-1β and HMGB1. We show here that circulating Prdx1 and 2 are present exclusively as disulphide-linked homodimers. Inflammatory stimuli also induce in vitro release of Prdx1 and 2 as disulfide-linked homodimers. Mutation of cysteines Cys51 or Cys172 (but not Cys70) in Prdx2, and Cys52 or Cys173 (but not Cys71 or Cys83) in Prdx1 prevented dimer formation and this was associated with inhibition of their TNF-α-induced release. Thus, the presence and oxidation of key cysteine residues in these proteins are a prerequisite for their secretion in response to TNF-α and this release can be induced with an oxidant. In contrast, the secretion of the nuclear-associated danger signal HMGB1 is independent of cysteine oxidation, as shown by experiments with a cysteine-free HMGB1 mutant. Release of Prdx1 and 2 is not prevented by inhibitors of the classical secretory pathway; instead, both Prdx1 and 2 are released in exosomes from both HEK cells and monocytic cells. Serum Prdx1 and 2 are also associated with the exosomes. These results describe a novel pathway of protein secretion mediated by cysteine oxidation that underlines the importance of redox-dependent signalling mechanisms in inflammation