FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF TERBINAFINE HYDROCHLORIDE MICROSPONGE GEL

Objective: The purpose of the present research work was to formulate and evaluate Terbinafine hydrochloride microsponges using quasi emulsion solvent diffusion technique and microsponge gel by using carbopol for controlled release of the drug and consequently avoiding its side effects. Methods: Microsponges containing Terbinafine hydrochloride were obtained successfully with six different drugs: polymer ratios. The formulations were studied for particle size, physical characterization, and in vitro release. Results: A selected THCI microsponge (MS IV) due to its better results when compared to other microsponge formulations was incorporated in different concentrations of carbopol and formulated as gels and evaluated for its pH, viscosity, spreadability, drug content, in vitro release, antifungal activity and in vivo studies. Among the four microsponge gel formulations, THMG II showed better results like pH 6.2, viscosity 3960 cps, spreadability 18.1 g cm/s, drug content of 87.6% and drug release showed fickian release pattern. The antifungal studies showed a zone of inhibition with 15.8 mm when compared to the pure drug, 19.2 mm, marketed formulation 16.0 mm and also showed better antifungal activity on fungal induced guinea pig skin when compared with control. Conclusion: In this study, we found that the controlled release of terbinafine hydrochloride from the microsponge gel reduced side effects and remarkably decreased gel application for fungal treatment

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF METFORMIN HYDROCHLORIDE AND GLICLAZIDE SUSTAINED RELEASE BILAYER TABLETS: A COMBINATION THERAPY IN MANAGEMENT OF DIABETES

Objective: The main objective of the present investigation is to develop a sustained-release (SR) formulation to optimize the postprandial elevation of glucose level in type 2 Diabetic subjects using combination therapy. In the present research work, bilayer sustained release formulation of metformin hydrochloride (MFH) and gliclazide (GLZ), based on monolithic-matrix technology was developed and evaluated. Methods: The formulations of metformin hydrochloride layer and gliclazide layer that contain polyox WSR coagulant and different viscosity grades of hydroxyl propyl methylcellulose (HPMC) as sustained-release matrix were prepared by direct compression and wet granulation method respectively. The bilayer tablets were prepared after carrying out the optimization of metformin layer and evaluated for various pre-compression and post-compression parameters. For the best formulation selected on basis of in vitro evaluation of tablets, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) studies and comparison of in vitro dissolution profile of developed formulation with the innovator were performed. Results: Metformin hydrochloride and gliclazide showed sustained release of drug by diffusion mechanism and followed first-order kinetics. The best formulation of metformin hydrochloride (M7) and gliclazide (G8) show 99.93% and 99.65% of drug release in 24 h respectively. The similarity factor (f2) was 79.95 for metformin hydrochloride and 73.62 for gliclazide when compared with the innovator. Conclusion: The monolith diffusion-controlled bilayer tablets of metformin hydrochloride and gliclazide offer improved patient compliance and convenience with better postprandial hyperglycemic control with once-a-day dosing. The sustained release of the drug up to 24 h regulate antidiabetic activity round the clock with minimal side effects

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF ORODISPERSIBLE TABLETS (ODTS) OF DICLOFENAC SODIUM BY USING SUPERDISINTEGRANT FROM NATURAL ORIGIN

Objective: In this study, a polysaccharide isolated from the seeds of Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea) was investigated as a super disintegrant in the orodispersible tablets of diclofenac sodium. Methods: Diclofenac sodium tablets were prepared separately using different concentrations (5%, 7.5%, 10%, and 15% w/w) of isolated Cajanus cajan seed polysaccharide (natural) and sodium starch glycolate (synthetic) as super disintegrant by the direct compression method. Evaluation of tablets was done for various pre-and post-compression parameters. The stability studies were performed on optimized formulation F5. The disintegration time and in vitro drug release of the formulation F5 was compared with pregelatinized starch and synthetic super disintegrant (sodium starch glycolate). Results: The drug-excipient interactions were characterized by Fourier transform infrared studies. The Optimized formulation F5 containing 15% polysaccharide showed wetting time of 118.7 seconds with 105.3 seconds of disintegration time and 95.61% dissolved in 3 min. Conclusion: The present work revealed that Cajanus cajan seed polysaccharide has a good disintegrating agent in the formulation of orodispersible tablets

Radar-guided Monocular Depth Estimation and Point Cloud Fusion for 3D Object Detection

Multi-class road user detection using the next- generation, 3+1D (range, azimuth, elevation, and Doppler) radars has been shown feasible, thanks to the increased density of their point clouds and the inclusion of elevation information. However, object detection networks using LiDAR (64-layer) point clouds still dominate the performance metrics. In this work, we explore the potential of fusing a 3+1D radar point cloud and a monocular image to further close this performance gap in 3D object detection. We propose a generic and modular fusion architecture to extract both spatial and semantic cues from an RGB image to complement the radar point cloud. In a two-stage approach, we first generate a 3D point cloud representation of the input monocular image appended with semantic information through our proposed RAID (RAdar guided Instance-aware Depth) network, which takes monocular depth map and panoptic masks predicted from any pre-trained state-of-the-art networks, and a radar depth map as input. We then append the resulting point cloud to the 3+1D radar point cloud in a straightforward fusion scheme and train a point cloud-based object detection network. Results on the View-of-Delft dataset [1] show that our fusion approach significantly outperforms multiple state-of-the-art radar-camera fusion methods (proposed fusion vs. best baseline: 53.6 mAP vs. 50.8 mAP), and yields comparable performance to a network trained on LiDAR input when evaluated in the safety-critical driving corridor (80.5 mAP vs. 81.6 mAP).Mechanical Engineerin

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF FLOATING MATRIX TABLETS OF LEVOFLOXACIN HEMIHYDRATE USING HYDROXYPROPYL METHYLCELLULOSE K4M TO TREAT HELICOBACTER PYLORI INFECTION

Objective: The aim of the study was to develop a floating drug delivery system of levofloxacin (LVF) hemihydrate for sustained drug delivery to improve the extended retention in the stomach, oral bioavailability, and local site-specific action in the stomach. Methods: Preparation of LVF tablets using melt granulation method using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) K4M with sodium bicarbonate as gas generating agent. From LFTA1 to LFTA5, formulations were developed and evaluated for floating properties for swelling characteristics and in vitro drug release studies. In vitro dissolution was carried out using USP II paddle method using 0.1N HCI pH buffer at 50 rpm and samples were measured at 294 nm using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. Results: Obtained Fourier-transform infrared charts indicated that there is no positive evidence for the interaction between LVF and ingredients of the optimized formula. In vitro drug release was performed and drug release kinetics were evaluated using the linear regression method and were found to be followed the zero-order release by diffusion controlled release. Optimized formula was found to be LFTA4 with 20% of a polymer with 99.03% of drug release with 12 h of floating time and 32 s floating lag time. Conclusion: Matrix tablets (LFTA4) formulated employing 20% HPMC K4M are best suited to be used for gastroretentive dosage form of LVF

Membrane Catalysed Formation of Nucleotide Clusters and Its Role in the Origins of Life

One of the mysteries in studying the molecular “Origin of Life” is the emergence of RNA and RNA-based life forms, where non-enzymatic polymerization of nucleotides is a crucial hypothesis in formation of large RNA chains. The non-enzymatic polymerization can be mediated by various environmental settings such as cycles of hydration and dehydration, temperature variations and proximity to a variety of organizing matrices such as clay, salt, fatty acids, lipid membrane and mineral surface. In this work, we explore the influence of different phases of the lipid membrane towards nucleotide organization and polymerization in a simulated prebiotic setting. We calculate the free energy cost of localizing a mononucleotide, Uridine monophosphate (UMP), in distinct membrane settings and we perform all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to estimate the role of the monophasic and biphasic membrane in modifying the behavior of UMPs localization and their clustering mechanism. Based on the free-energy and diffusion data from our MD calculations, we develop a lattice based model to explore the thermodynamic limits of the observations made from the MD simulations. The mathematical model substantiates our hypothesis that the lipid layers can act as unique substrates for ‘catalyzing’ polymerization of mononucleotides due to the inherent spatiotemporal heterogeneity and phase change behavior

Accuracy of Demirjian′s 8 teeth method for age prediction in South Indian children: A comparative study

Introduction: Demirjian′s method of tooth development is most commonly used to assess age in individuals with emerging teeth. However, its application on numerous populations has resulted in wide variations in age estimates and consequent suggestions for the method′s adaptation to the local sample. Original Demirjian′s method utilized seven mandibular teeth, to which recently third molar is added so that the method can be applied on a wider age group. Furthermore, the revised method developed regression formulas for assessing age. In Indians, as these formulas resulted in underestimation, India-specific regression formulas were developed recently. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the accuracy and applicability of original regression formulas (Chaillet and Demirjian 2004) and India-specific regression formulas (Acharya 2010) using Demirjian′s 8 teeth method in South Indian children of age groups 9-20 years. Methods: The present study consisted of 660 randomly selected subjects (330 males and 330 females) were in the aged ranging from 9 to 20 years divided into 11 groups according to their age. Demirjian′s 8 teeth method was used for staging of teeth. Results: Demirjian′s method underestimated the dental age (DA) by 1.66 years for boys and 1.55 years for girls and 1.61 years in total. Acharya′s method over estimated DA by 0.21 years for boys and 0.85 years for girls and 0.53 years in total. The absolute accuracy was better for Acharya′s method compared with Demirjian method. Conclusion: This study concluded that both the Demirjian and Indian regression formulas were reliable in assessing age making Demirjian′s 8 teeth method applicable for South Indians

Multi-class Road User Detection with 3+1D Radar in the View-of-Delft Dataset

Next-generation automotive radars provide elevation data in addition to range-, azimuth- and Doppler velocity. In this experimental study, we apply a state-of-the-art object detector (PointPillars), previously used for LiDAR 3D data, to such 3+1D radar data (where 1D refers to Doppler). In ablation studies, we first explore the benefits of the additional elevation information, together with that of Doppler, radar cross section and temporal accumulation, in the context of multi-class road user detection. We subsequently compare object detection performance on the radar and LiDAR point clouds, object class-wise and as a function of distance. To facilitate our experimental study, we present the novel View-of-Delft (VoD) automotive dataset. It contains 8693 frames of synchronized and calibrated 64-layer LiDAR-, (stereo) camera-, and 3+1D radar-data acquired in complex, urban traffic. It consists of 123106 3D bounding box annotations of both moving and static objects, including 26587 pedestrian, 10800 cyclist and 26949 car labels. Our results show that object detection on 64-layer LiDAR data still outperforms that on 3+1D radar data, but the addition of elevation information and integration of successive radar scans helps close the gap. The VoD dataset is made freely available for scientific benchmarking.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Intelligent Vehicle

Alkaline phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase enzyme activity in gingival crevicular fluid during orthodontic tooth movements

Background: Bone remodeling is a biologic process involving an acute inflammatory response in periodontal tissues during orthodontic tooth movement. The early response of periodontal tissues to mechanical stress involves metabolic changes that allow tooth movement. Aim of the Study: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the changes in alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) enzyme activity in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) when forces are applied during initial alignment (Phase 1 [P1]) and retraction (Phase 2 [P2]). Settings and Design: The study was performed in a hospital-based population with an experimental design. Materials and Methods: A total of 17 patients (11–21 years) were included in the study, all requiring first premolar extractions undergoing fixed orthodontic treatment. Maxillary canine and mandibular second molar were used as test tooth (TT) and control tooth (CT) in each patient, respectively. On the 14th day after the start of each phase, 2 μL of GCF was collected from mesial side of both TT and CT for ALP and LDH activity determination using spectrophotometer. Statistical Analysis: Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS (version 13, SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA) package. The significance of differences in both phases at test or, at control site for LDH and ALP enzyme activity, was evaluated by performing Student's paired t-test. The significance of differences in between test and control sites in each phase separately was evaluated by performing Student's unpaired t-test. Results: There was a variation in enzyme activity during orthodontic tooth movement. At TT, there was statistically significant increase in ALP and LDH activity in P2 as compared to P1 with P = 0.005 and P < 0.001, respectively. At CT, there was no statistically significant difference in ALP and LDH activity in P1 and P2 with P = 0.054 and P = 0.061, respectively. Conclusion: This study concluded that ALP and LDH activity could be successfully estimated in the GCF, and ALP and LDH activity in GCF reflects the biologic activity in the periodontium during orthodontic tooth movements