Cefuroxime axetil induced glossitis: a case report

Cefuroxime axetil is a semi synthetic cephalosporin antibiotic, which is prescribed for different types of infections such as lung, ear, throat, urinary tract, and skin. This is the drug of choice in the treatment and prevention of streptococcal infections. In this case, the patient was prescribed cefuroxime axetil, diclofenac, and paracetamol for pharyngitis. The patient developed glossitis 3 hrs after ingestion of above drugs which improved after withdrawing the offending drug. Glossitis is an uncommon, but serious adverse drug effect of cefuroxime axetil. It is important to recognize and manage it to prevent fatality. The case has been reported to the Pharmacovigilance Center Uttar Pradesh Rural Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Saifai, Etawah

Privacy-Preserving Ride Sharing Scheme for Autonomous Vehicles

The transport sector is set to undergo an overall change with the advent of autonomous vehicles embedded with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Autonomous vehicles will not only make the road safer but also will improve the efficiency of the modern transport system. Ride sharing is a major gamechanger in the transport industry. Autonomous Vehiclescan make ride sharingpopular, convenientand necessary because it eliminates the need of a driver and will help in recuperating the initial cost of the vehicle. In current scenario, the organization of ride sharing requires the users to disclose sensitive private information not only about the pick-up and drop-off locations but also other details such as name and contact details. In this paper, we propose a scheme to facilitate ride sharing and address the privacy issues that plague down the current industry. The scheme encrypts data using similarity measurement technique to preserve the privacy of the user. The ride sharing route is divided into cells, which is further represented by one bit in a binary vector. Binary vectors are used to represent the trip data of each user.The encryption of the vector data is submitted to a server. The server can measure the similarity of the users’ trip data and find other users who can share rides along the same route without knowing the data. The proposed scheme can facilitate ride sharing without disclosing private information. The scheme is implemented using Visual C on a real map. The measurements from the results have confirmed that the scheme is effective when ride sharing becomes popular and the server needs to organize a large number of rides in short time

Evaluation of antidepressant and analgesic activity of tapentadol with mirtazapine: an experimental study

Background: Data comparing tapentadol with an antidepressant is limited. A comparison of tapentadol with mirtazapine at different dose has not been performed, the other antidepressant in the same therapeutic class with a significant market share, has been undertaken. In the absence of relevant data to assess the place that tapentadol should occupy in the therapeutic arsenal, indirect comparisons are the most rigorous way to go. We conducted a study evaluate antidepressant and analgesic activity of tapentadol with mirtazapine at different doses in Swiss albino mice.Methods: Tapentadol was administered at 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg (i.p) once daily for 14 days to swiss albino mice of either sex. The immobility period for antidepressant activity of mice were recorded in forced swim test and reaction time for analgesic activity of mice were recorded in tail flick test of the control and drug treated group. The antidepressant and analgesic activity of tapentadol (10, 20, 40 mg/kg i.p) was compared with that of mirtazapine (3, 5, 7 mg/kg i.p), administered for 14 days.Results: Tapentadol produced better antidepressant at (20, 40 mg/kg), but less at 10 mg/kg and significant analgesic activity at all the three doses, as indicated by reduction in immobility times and increase in reaction time as compared to control. Mirtazapine produced no antinociceptive activity at 3 mg/kg, but significant at 5, 7 mg/kg and showed better antidepressant activity at all the three doses in mice. The result of this study indicates the better analgesic activity of tapentadol at all the doses and least antidepressant activity at 10 mg/kg, as compared to mirtazapine which has shown better antidepressant activity at all the three doses but no analgesic activity at 3 mg/kg.Conclusion: It can be concluded that tapentadol is a better drug in case of depression associated with pain compared to mirtazapine in mice

Structural and antigenic variance between novel influenza A/H1N1/2009 and influenza A/H1N1/2008 viruses

BACKGROUND: The emergence of influenza A/H1N1/2009 is alarming. The severity of previous epidemics suggests that the susceptibility of the human population to H1N1 is directly proportional to the degree of changes in hemagglutinin/HA and neuraminidase/NA; therefore, H1N1/2009 and H1N1/2008 were analyzed for their sequence as well as structural divergence. METHODOLOGY: The structural and sequence divergence of H1N1/2009 and H1N1/2008 strains were analyzed by aligning HA and NA amino acid sequences by using ClustalW and ESyPred3D software. To determine the variations in sites of viral attachment to host cells, a comparison between amino acid sequences of HA and NA glycosylation sites was performed with NetNGlyc software. The antigenic divergence was executed by CTL epitope prediction method. RESULTS: The amino acid homology levels of H1N1/2009 were 20.32% and 18.73% compared to H1N1/2008 for HA and NA genes, respectively. In spite of the high variation in HA and NA amino acid composition, there was no significant difference in their structures. Antigenic analysis proposes that great antigenic differences exist between both the viral strains, but no addition of a new site of glycosylation was observed. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first report suggesting that the circulating novel influenza virus A/H1N1/2009 attaches to the same glycosylation receptor sites as its predecessor influenza A/H1N1/2008 virus, but is antigenically different and may have the potential for initiating a significant pandemic. Our study may facilitate the development of better therapeutics and preventive strategies, as well as impart clues for novel H1N1 diagnostic and vaccine development

Prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress among parents of neonates admitted to neonatal intensive care unit: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission causes significant distress that can hinder the successful transition into parenthood, child-parent relations, and child development. Purpose This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to understand parental psychological phenomena. Here we assessed the emotional response of parents of newborns during NICU admission. Methods Two authors independently searched the PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, Clinical Key, and Google Scholar databases for studies published between January 01, 2004, and December 31, 2021. The review followed Cochrane collaboration guidelines and the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis) statement. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Stata software (version 16) was used to compute the results. Results This review comprised 6,822 parents (5,083 mothers, 1,788 fathers; age range, 18–37 years) of NICU patients. The gestational ages and neonatal weights were 25.5–42 weeks and 750–2,920 g, respectively. The pooled prevalence of anxiety was higher among mothers (effect size [ES], 0.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.41–0.61; and heterogeneity [I2]=97.1%; P<0.001) than among fathers (ES, 0.26; 95% CI, 0.11–0.42; I2=96.6%; P<0.001). Further, the pooled prevalence of depression was higher among mothers (ES, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.24–0.38; I2=91.5%; P<0.001) than among fathers (ES, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.03–0.22; I2=85.6%; P<0.001). Similarly, the pooled prevalence of stress was higher among mothers (ES, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.31–0.51; I2= 93.9%; P<0.001) than among fathers (ES, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.09–0.34; I2=85.2%; P<0.001). Conclusion NICU admission is more stressful for mothers than fathers and can affect mental health and quality of life. Mothers reported a higher pooled prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression than fathers, possibly attributable to their feelings about birthing a sick child

Fermentation, Isolation, Structure, and antidiabetic activity of NFAT-133 produced by Streptomyces strain PM0324667

Type-2 diabetes is mediated by defects in either insulin secretion or insulin action. In an effort to identify extracts that may stimulate glucose uptake, similar to insulin, a high throughput-screening assay for measuring glucose uptake in skeletal muscle cells was established. During the screening studies to discover novel antidiabetic compounds from microbial resources a Streptomyces strain PM0324667 (MTCC 5543, the Strain accession number at Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, India), an isolate from arid soil was identified which expressed a secondary metabolite that induced glucose uptake in L6 skeletal muscle cells. By employing bioactivity guided fractionation techniques, a tri-substituted simple aromatic compound with anti-diabetic potential was isolated. It was characterized based on MS and 2D NMR spectral data and identified as NFAT-133 which is a known immunosuppressive agent that inhibits NFAT-dependent transcription in vitro. Our investigations revealed the antidiabetic potential of NFAT-133. The compound induced glucose uptake in differentiated L6 myotubes with an EC50 of 6.3 ± 1.8 μM without activating the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ. Further, NFAT-133 was also efficacious in vivo in diabetic animals and reduced systemic glucose levels. Thus it is a potential lead compound which can be considered for development as a therapeutic for the treatment of type-2 diabetes. We have reported herewith the isolation of the producer microbe, fermentation, purification, in vitro, and in vivo antidiabetic activity of the compound

Challenges and opportunities in mixed method data collection on mental health issues of health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Background: The present paper describes the key challenges and opportunities of mixed method telephonic data collection for mental health research using field notes and the experiences of the investigators in a multicenter study in ten sites of India. The study was conducted in public and private hospitals to understand the mental health status, social stigma and coping strategies of different healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative interviews were conducted telephonically. The experiences of data collection were noted as a field notes/diary by the data collectors and principal investigators.Results: The interviewers reported challenges such as network issues, lack of transfer of visual cues and sensitive content of data. Although the telephonic interviews present various challenges in mixed method data collection, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face data collection using available technology.Conclusions: It is important that the investigators are well trained keeping these challenges in mind so that their capacity is built to deal with these challenges and good quality data is obtained

Comparison of Small Gut and Whole Gut Microbiota of First-Degree Relatives With Adult Celiac Disease Patients and Controls

Recent studies on celiac disease (CeD) have reported alterations in the gut microbiome. Whether this alteration in the microbial community is the cause or effect of the disease is not well understood, especially in adult onset of disease. The first-degree relatives (FDRs) of CeD patients may provide an opportunity to study gut microbiome in pre-disease state as FDRs are genetically susceptible to CeD. By using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we observed that ecosystem level diversity measures were not significantly different between the disease condition (CeD), pre-disease (FDR) and control subjects. However, differences were observed at the level of amplicon sequence variant (ASV), suggesting alterations in specific ASVs between pre-disease and diseased condition. Duodenal biopsies showed higher differences in ASVs compared to fecal samples indicating larger disruption of the microbiota at the disease site. The duodenal microbiota of FDR was characterized by significant abundance of ASVs belonging to Parvimonas, Granulicatella, Gemella, Bifidobacterium, Anaerostipes, and Actinomyces genera. The duodenal microbiota of CeD was characterized by higher abundance of ASVs from genera Megasphaera and Helicobacter compared to the FDR microbiota. The CeD and FDR fecal microbiota had reduced abundance of ASVs classified as Akkermansia and Dorea when compared to control group microbiota. In addition, predicted functional metagenome showed reduced ability of gluten degradation by CeD fecal microbiota in comparison to FDRs and controls. The findings of the present study demonstrate differences in ASVs and predicts reduced ability of CeD fecal microbiota to degrade gluten compared to the FDR fecal microbiota. Further research is required to investigate the strain level and active functional profiles of FDR and CeD microbiota to better understand the role of gut microbiome in pathophysiology of CeD

An overview of anti-diabetic plants used in Gabon: Pharmacology and Toxicology

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Ethnopharmacological relevance: The management of diabetes mellitus management in African communities, especially in Gabon, is not well established as more than 60% of population rely on traditional treatments as primary healthcare. The aim of this review was to collect and present the scientific evidence for the use of medicinal plants that are in currect by Gabonese traditional healers to manage diabetes or hyperglycaemia based here on the pharmacological and toxicological profiles of plants with anti-diabetic activity. There are presented in order to promote their therapeutic value, ensure a safer use by population and provide some bases for further study on high potential plants reviewed. Materials and methods: Ethnobotanical studies were sourced using databases such as Online Wiley library, Pubmed, Google Scholar, PROTA, books and unpublished data including Ph.D. and Master thesis, African and Asian journals. Keywords including ‘Diabetes’ ‘Gabon’ ‘Toxicity’ ‘Constituents’ ‘hyperglycaemia’ were used. Results: A total of 69 plants currently used in Gabon with potential anti-diabetic activity have been identified in the literature, all of which have been used in in vivo or in vitro studies. Most of the plants have been studied in human or animal models for their ability to reduce blood glucose, stimulate insulin secretion or inhibit carbohydrates enzymes. Active substances have been identified in 12 out of 69 plants outlined in this review, these include Allium cepa and Tabernanthe iboga. Only eight plants have their active substances tested for anti-diabetic activity and are suitables for further investigation. Toxicological data is scarce and is dose-related to the functional parameters of major organs such as kidney and liver. Conclusion: An in-depth understanding on the pharmacology and toxicology of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is lacking yet there is a great scope for new treatments. With further research, the use of Gabonese anti-diabetic plants is important to ensure the safety of the diabetic patients in Gabon.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio