Evaluation of antibacterial potential of Trikatu churna and its ingredients: An in vitro study

Herbal medicines are being used increasingly as dietary supplements to fight or prevent common disease. The dried fruits of Piper nigrum L. (Piperaceae), Piper longum L. (Piperaceae) and rhizome of Zingiber officinale Roscoe. (Zingiberaceae) were powdered and mixed together in equiproportions to get a polyherbal formulation, Trikatu churna. The aqueous, ethanol, methanol and acetone extracts of these plant’s fruits and Trikatu churna were prepared and antibacterial activities were tested by disc diffusion method against enteric bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella typhimurium and Enterobacter aerogenes. The extracts of Piper longum, Piper nigrum and Zingiber officinale were found antibacterial to all bacterial pathogen tested. Trikatu churna exhibited potent antibacterial activity; this might be due to the multifunctional effect of all the three plant ingredients of Trikatu churna. Antibacterial activity of Trikatu churna and its ingredients was carried out in attempt to support the use of Trikatu churna for the treatment of enteric bacterial infections.Keywords: Antibacterial activity, Trikatu churna, bacterial pathogens

Evaluation of antibacterial potential of Trikatu churna and its ingredients: An in vitro study

Herbal medicines are being used increasingly as dietary supplements to fight or prevent common disease. The dried fruits of Piper nigrum L. (Piperaceae), Piper longum L. (Piperaceae) and rhizome of Zingiber officinale Roscoe. (Zingiberaceae) were powdered and mixed together in equiproportions to get a polyherbal formulation, Trikatu churna. The aqueous, ethanol, methanol and acetone extracts of these plant’s fruits and Trikatu churna were prepared and antibacterial activities were tested by disc diffusion method against enteric bacterial pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella typhi, Salmonella typhimurium and Enterobacter aerogenes. The extracts of Piper longum, Piper nigrum and Zingiber officinale were found antibacterial to all bacterial pathogen tested. Trikatu churna exhibited potent antibacterial activity; this might be due to the multifunctional effect of all the three plant ingredients of Trikatu churna. Antibacterial activity of Trikatu churna and its ingredients was carried out in attempt to support the use of Trikatu churna for the treatment of enteric bacterial infections.Keywords: Antibacterial activity, Trikatu churna, bacterial pathogens

A multimodal deep learning framework using local feature representations for face recognition

YesThe most recent face recognition systems are mainly dependent on feature representations obtained using either local handcrafted-descriptors, such as local binary patterns (LBP), or use a deep learning approach, such as deep belief network (DBN). However, the former usually suffers from the wide variations in face images, while the latter usually discards the local facial features, which are proven to be important for face recognition. In this paper, a novel framework based on merging the advantages of the local handcrafted feature descriptors with the DBN is proposed to address the face recognition problem in unconstrained conditions. Firstly, a novel multimodal local feature extraction approach based on merging the advantages of the Curvelet transform with Fractal dimension is proposed and termed the Curvelet–Fractal approach. The main motivation of this approach is that theCurvelet transform, a newanisotropic and multidirectional transform, can efficiently represent themain structure of the face (e.g., edges and curves), while the Fractal dimension is one of the most powerful texture descriptors for face images. Secondly, a novel framework is proposed, termed the multimodal deep face recognition (MDFR)framework, to add feature representations by training aDBNon top of the local feature representations instead of the pixel intensity representations. We demonstrate that representations acquired by the proposed MDFR framework are complementary to those acquired by the Curvelet–Fractal approach. Finally, the performance of the proposed approaches has been evaluated by conducting a number of extensive experiments on four large-scale face datasets: the SDUMLA-HMT, FERET, CAS-PEAL-R1, and LFW databases. The results obtained from the proposed approaches outperform other state-of-the-art of approaches (e.g., LBP, DBN, WPCA) by achieving new state-of-the-art results on all the employed datasets

Disease awareness campaigns in printed and online media in Latvia : Cross-sectional study on consistency with WHO ethical criteria for medicinal drug promotion and European standards

Funding Information: Teresa Leonardo Alves declares no conflicts of interest. She has worked in the past for not-for-profit organizations which have advocated against the relaxation of the direct-to-consumer advertising ban in the European Union, namely Prescrire (2012–2016) and Health Action International (2006–2011). Elita Poplavska is a board member of not-for-profit organizations - Health Projects for Latvia and Health Action International (which aim to promote rational use of medicines and reduce influence of pharmaceutical advertisement). Signe Mezinska is a board member of not-for-profit organizations - Health Projects for Latvia and Health Action International (which aim to promote rational use of medicines and reduce influence of pharmaceutical advertisement). Ieva Salmane-Kulikovska declares no conflicts of interest. Liga Andersone declares no conflicts of interest. Aukje Mantel-Teeuwisse is the Managing Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy & Regulation, which receives no direct funding or donations from private parties, including the pharmaceutical industry. Research funding from public-private partnerships, e.g. IMI, Lygature (https://www.lygature.org), is accepted under the condition that no company-specific product or company-related study is conducted. The Centre has received unrestricted research funding from public sources, e.g. Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW), Zorg Instituut Nederland (ZIN), the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board (MEB), and the Dutch Ministry of Health. Barbara Mintzes has acted as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in a Canadian class action suit on cardiovascular risks of testosterone therapy. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s).Background: European legislation prohibits direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines, but allows drug manufacturers to provide information to the public on health and diseases. Our aim was to measure the frequency of disease awareness campaigns in Latvian media and assess their compliance with international and European standards. Methods: Materials on health/disease and treatments were collected between April and September 2015 from 12 newspapers and magazines and six online portals. Disease awareness campaigns were assessed using a previously developed instrument based on the WHO Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug promotion and European standards (EU law and pharmaceutical industry self-regulatory guidelines). Collected materials were used to examine the information provided on medical conditions and their diagnosis and treatment. The inter-rater reliability was calculated. Results: We collected 263 materials from print (n = 149) and online media (n = 114); 94 were news items and 169 were disease-awareness advertisements. Cancer, cardiovascular problems, allergies and respiratory diseases were common topics. Of the 157 campaigns assessed, non-compliance was identified in 149 cases (inter-rater reliability 90%), mainly due to misleading or incomplete information, lack of balance and the absence of a listed author/sponsor. Six disease awareness campaigns directly mentioned a pharmaceutical product by brand name and other four included the logo or name of a manufacturer, referred to a condition and indirectly mentioned a treatment, all in contravention with European law. Conclusions: The compliance of disease awareness campaigns in Latvian media with international and European standards is low. This raises concerns about the nature of information being conveyed. Through lack of balance, missing sponsorship information, and misleading or incomplete information, these campaigns could contribute to inaccurate self-diagnosis and generate demand among those who might not need medical treatment.publishersversionPeer reviewe

Environmentally sustainable visible photocatalytic nanostructured ZnS doped with CuS for chemical effluent treatment applications

wing part of the innovative research concerning the degradation of the chemical industry pollutants was notably focused on photocatalysis process, in order to meet the strict pollution abatement legislation required by environmental protection agencies worldwide. Nanostructured TiO2, ZnO and ZnS as a semiconductor photocatalysts have proved to be effective and more suitable for the widespread environmental application, such as air purification, water disinfection, hazardous waste remediation and water purification. In the present investigation, CuS doped ZnS nanopowders have been synthesized by simple and cost effective sol-gel process. The dried powders have been sintered and the visible photocatalytic property of the pure ZnS and CuS doped in ZnS have been tested for the degradation of standard dyes along with chemical effluent. The samples have been characterized for their structural, chemical and morphological properties by employing X-ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques, respectively in order to understand the structure–property relationship

Consumer use of social media for health care and drug information: An exploratory study

Objective: The study objective is to assess consumer use of various social media outlets for health care, health care information, and drug information and how it impacts understanding, decision making, and provider relationships. Methods: An exploratory study via an online survey questionnaire will be performed using Qualtrics online consumer panel. Respondents (aged 18 years or older and an equal mix of men and women) will be included if they actively maintain at least one social media or network account, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Constructs assessed in the study include trust in and attitudes toward the various outlets, benefits and risks of discussing health and drug information via social media, and likelihood of sharing health and drug information. In addition, the type of information sought and how the information gathered affects disease/medication understanding, consumer decision making, and the consumer- health care provider relationship will be assessed. Standard demographic data, in addition to health literacy levels, will be examined for differences among the constructs. A sample size of 600 consumers will be surveyed to achieve the desired power (0.80), at an a priori α = 0.05, assuming a medium effect size. The subsequent data will be analyzed using descriptive, analysis of variance, and χ2 techniques. Results: Based on limited previous research of consumers\u27 general use and perception of social media, we expect consumers to identify benefits such as gathering information, sharing experiences, and engaging peers as well as risks such as privacy and quality of information. Additionally, social media/ network use should increase consumer understanding levels, aid in decision making, and positively impact the consumer- health care provider relationship. The results of this research can potentially demonstrate whether social media/ network use provides a positive impact on the social and behavioral factors of health care and aid in designing future interventions to see social media\u27s direct impact on health outcomes

Randomised controlled trial of thiopental for intubation in neonates

AIMS—To determine the effects of premedication with thiopental on heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation during semi-elective nasotracheal intubation in neonates.
METHODS—A randomised, placebo controlled, non-blinded study design was used to study 30 neonates (mean birthweight 3.27 kg) requiring semi-elective nasotracheal intubation. The babies were randomly allocated to receive either 6 mg/kg of thiopental (study group) or an equivalent volume of physiological saline (control group) one minute before the start of the procedure. Six infants were intubated primarily and 24 were changed from orotracheal to a nasotracheal tube. The electrocardiogram, arterial pressure wave, and transcutaneous oxygen saturation were recorded continuously 10 minutes before, during, and 20 minutes after intubation. Minute by minute measurements of heart rate, heart rate variability, mean blood pressure (MBP) and transcutaneous oxygen saturation (SpO(2)) were computed. The differences for all of these between the baseline measurements and those made during and after intubation were determined. Differences in the measurements made in the study and the control groups were compared using Student's t test.
RESULTS—During intubation, heart rate increased to a greater degree (12.0 vs−0.5 beats per minute, p < 0.03) and MBP increased to a lesser degree (−2.9 vs 4.4 mm Hg; p < 0.002) in the infants who were premedicated with thiopental. After intubation only the changes in MBP differed significantly between the two groups (−3.8 vs 4.6 mm Hg; p < 0.001). There were no significant changes in the oxygen saturation between the two groups during or after intubation. The time taken for intubation was significantly shorter in the study group (p < 0.04).
CONCLUSIONS—The heart rate and blood pressure of infants who are premedicated with thiopental are maintained nearer to baseline values than those of similar infants who receive no premedication. Whether this lessening of the acute drop in the heart rate and increase in blood pressure typically seen during intubation of unmedicated infants is associated with long term advantages to the infants remains to be determined.