Critical appraisal: how to evaluate research for use inclinical practice

The ability to make appropriate evidence-based decisions in clinical practice relies on pharmacists having the skills to extract and translate the most relevant and useful information from published literature

Preparation of high crystalline nanoparticles of rare-earth based complex pervoskites and comparison of their structural and magnetic properties with bulk counterparts

A simple route to prepare Gd$_{0.7}$Sr$_{0.3}$MnO$_3$ nanoparticles by ultrasonication of their bulk powder materials is presented in this article. For comparison, Gd$_{0.7}$Sr$_{0.3}$MnO$_3$ nanoparticles are also prepared by ball milling. The prepared samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD),field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS), and Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) magnetometer. XRD Rietveld analysis is carried out extensively for the determination of crystallographic parameters and the amount of crystalline and amorphous phases. FESEM images demonstrate the formation of nanoparticles with average particle size in the range of 50-100 nm for both ultrasonication and 4 hours (h) of ball milling. The bulk materials and nanoparticles synthesized by both ultrasonication and 4 h ball milling exhibit a paramagnetic to spin-glass transition. However, nanoparticles synthesized by 8 h and 12 h ball milling do not reveal any phase transition, rather show an upturn of magnetization at low temperature. The degradation of the magnetic properties in ball milled nanoparticles may be associated with amorphization of the nanoparticles due to ball milling particularly for milling time exceeding 8 h. This investigation demonstrates the potential of ultrasonication as a simple route to prepare high crystalline rare-earth based manganite nanoparticles with improved control compared to the traditional ball milling technique.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Phytochemical and Antibacterial Study of Ethanol and Ethyl acetate Extracts from Leaves of Alchornea Cordifolia Against Isolates from Infected Wounds

Alchornea cordifolia leaves have been reported to be used traditionally to treat wound infections. The leaves ofAlchornea cordifolia were extracted with ethanol which was partitioned with ethyl acetate to obtain the ethanolextract and ethyl acetate fraction respectively. The extracts were screened for basic phytocompounds and subjectedto antibacterial assay against bacterial isolates from infected wounds which include Pseudomonas aeruginosa,Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella spp, Enterobacter spp, Citrobacter spp, Escherichia coli, Proteus mirabilis andProteus vulgaris. Agar well diffusion method was used to determine the antibacterial activity of the extract andfraction. Phytochemical investigation revealed the presence of carbohydrates, cardiac glycosides, saponins,flavonoids, tannins and alkaloids. The zone of inhibition ranged between 1.0 - 32.2mm for the entiremicroorganisms. This variation in level of the activity among the extracts could be due to the difference in solubilityof the active ingredient in each solvent on one hand and to the constitutional or structural variability of the testedorganisms on the other hand. The results of the study showed that the ethyl acetate fraction of Alchornea cordifolialeaves possess high level of antibacterial activity against bacteria associated with wound infection. This givescredence to traditional medicine application of the plant for treating wound infections

Existence of solutions for fractional differential inclusions with nonlocal strip conditions

AbstractIn this paper, we discus the existence of solutions for a nonlocal boundary value problem of fractional differential inclusions concerning a nonlocal strip condition via some fixed point theorems. Our results include the cases when the right-hand side of the inclusion is convex as well as nonconvex valued