DRUG UTILIZATION PATTERN FOR SKIN DISEASES IN DERMATOLOGY OPD AT TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL OF WESTERN MAHARASHTRA

Background: Periodic auditing of prescriptions in terms of drug utilization study is an important tool to enhance the efficacy of the treatment, to decrease the risk of the adverse effects, to give cost-effective treatment and to provide useful feedback to the clinician. Prevalence of dermatological diseases is very high throughout the world, and in day to day practice, a quarter of the cases are related to dermatological manifestations. In studies conducted in the Out Patient  Department (OPD) of dermatology in North Palestine and Western Nepal, irrationalities in the prescriptions have been reported. Aim: To study the drug utilization pattern for skin diseases in dermatology OPD at tertiary care hospital of Western Maharashtra. Methodology: The retrospective analysis of dermatology OPD records of 6 months (1st March 2018- 31st August 2018) was carried out during the study period (1st September 2018 to 30th November 2018). The proforma for collecting data was designed. Demographic details, diagnosis and treatment are given for each patient were recorded. The data collected was condensed, and the master chart was prepared for data analysis. Result: During the study period, a total of 3869 patient’s case records were studied and analysed. A maximum number of patients (26.5%) found in the age group 31-40 years, followed by 23.5% of patients in the age group 21- 30 years. Fungal infection was found in 39.6 % of patients followed by acne in 14.2% patients and eczema in 9.1% of patients. Drugs most commonly prescribed were antihistaminics (45.02%) followed by antifungal (39.6%) and steroids (27.8%). Levocetirizine (74.07%) and hydroxyzine (16.5%) were the most commonly prescribed antihistaminics. Itraconazole (58.17%) and Griseofulvin (24.67%) were the most commonly used oral antifungal drugs. Miconazole (73.73%) was the most commonly used topical antifungal drug, followed by ketoconazole (12.45%). Among steroids, prednisone (52%) and betamethasone (38.05%) were the most commonly used steroids by oral route while clobetasol (68.09%) and mometasone (19.5%) were the most commonly used steroids by topical route. Our study revealed that the percentage of drugs prescribed by the WHO essential drug list was only 23.87%. Drugs which prescribed by the generic names were less than <1%. Conclusion: Treatment protocols used in the management of skin disorders were near to the standard guidelines.  Keywords: Drug utilization; Prescription pattern; Dermatology; Skin disorders

DRUG UTILIZATION PATTERN FOR SKIN DISEASES IN DERMATOLOGY OPD AT TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL OF WESTERN MAHARASHTRA

Background: Periodic auditing of prescriptions in terms of drug utilization study is an important tool to enhance the efficacy of the treatment, to decrease the risk of the adverse effects, to give cost-effective treatment and to provide useful feedback to the clinician. Prevalence of dermatological diseases is very high throughout the world, and in day to day practice, a quarter of the cases are related to dermatological manifestations. In studies conducted in the Out Patient  Department (OPD) of dermatology in North Palestine and Western Nepal, irrationalities in the prescriptions have been reported. Aim: To study the drug utilization pattern for skin diseases in dermatology OPD at tertiary care hospital of Western Maharashtra. Methodology: The retrospective analysis of dermatology OPD records of 6 months (1st March 2018- 31st August 2018) was carried out during the study period (1st September 2018 to 30th November 2018). The proforma for collecting data was designed. Demographic details, diagnosis and treatment are given for each patient were recorded. The data collected was condensed, and the master chart was prepared for data analysis. Result: During the study period, a total of 3869 patient’s case records were studied and analysed. A maximum number of patients (26.5%) found in the age group 31-40 years, followed by 23.5% of patients in the age group 21- 30 years. Fungal infection was found in 39.6 % of patients followed by acne in 14.2% patients and eczema in 9.1% of patients. Drugs most commonly prescribed were antihistaminics (45.02%) followed by antifungal (39.6%) and steroids (27.8%). Levocetirizine (74.07%) and hydroxyzine (16.5%) were the most commonly prescribed antihistaminics. Itraconazole (58.17%) and Griseofulvin (24.67%) were the most commonly used oral antifungal drugs. Miconazole (73.73%) was the most commonly used topical antifungal drug, followed by ketoconazole (12.45%). Among steroids, prednisone (52%) and betamethasone (38.05%) were the most commonly used steroids by oral route while clobetasol (68.09%) and mometasone (19.5%) were the most commonly used steroids by topical route. Our study revealed that the percentage of drugs prescribed by the WHO essential drug list was only 23.87%. Drugs which prescribed by the generic names were less than <1%. Conclusion: Treatment protocols used in the management of skin disorders were near to the standard guidelines.  Keywords: Drug utilization; Prescription pattern; Dermatology; Skin disorders

UNICS - An Unified Instrument Control System for Small/Medium Sized Astronomical Observatories

Although the astronomy community is witnessing an era of large telescopes, smaller and medium sized telescopes still maintain their utility being larger in numbers. In order to obtain better scientific outputs it is necessary to incorporate modern and advanced technologies to the back-end instruments and to their interfaces with the telescopes through various control processes. However often tight financial constraints on the smaller and medium size observatories limit the scope and utility of these systems. Most of the time for every new development on the telescope the back-end control systems are required to be built from scratch leading to high costs and efforts. Therefore a simple, low cost control system for small and medium size observatory needs to be developed to minimize the cost and efforts while going for the expansion of the observatory. Here we report on the development of a modern, multipurpose instrument control system UNICS (Unified Instrument Control System) to integrate the controls of various instruments and devices mounted on the telescope. UNICS consists of an embedded hardware unit called Common Control Unit (CCU) and Linux based data acquisition and User Interface. The Hardware of the CCU is built around the Atmel make ATmega 128 micro-controller and is designed with a back-plane, Master Slave architecture. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) has been developed based on QT and the back end application software is based on C/C++. UNICS provides feedback mechanisms which give the operator a good visibility and a quick-look display of the status and modes of instruments. UNICS is being used for regular science observations since March 2008 on 2m, f/10 IUCAA Telescope located at Girawali, Pune India.Comment: Submitted to PASP, 10 Pages, 5 figure

Know The Star, Know the Planet. IV. A Stellar Companion to the Host star of the Eccentric Exoplanet HD 8673b

HD 8673 hosts a massive exoplanet in a highly eccentric orbit (e=0.723). Based on two epochs of speckle interferometry a previous publication identified a candidate stellar companion. We observed HD 8673 multiple times with the 10 m Keck II telescope, the 5 m Hale telescope, the 3.63 m AEOS telescope and the 1.5m Palomar telescope in a variety of filters with the aim of confirming and characterizing the stellar companion. We did not detect the candidate companion, which we now conclude was a false detection, but we did detect a fainter companion. We collected astrometry and photometry of the companion on six epochs in a variety of filters. The measured differential photometry enabled us to determine that the companion is an early M dwarf with a mass estimate of 0.33-0.45 M?. The companion has a projected separation of 10 AU, which is one of the smallest projected separations of an exoplanet host binary system. Based on the limited astrometry collected, we are able to constrain the orbit of the stellar companion to a semi-major axis of 35{60 AU, an eccentricity ? 0.5 and an inclination of 75{85?. The stellar companion has likely strongly in uenced the orbit of the exoplanet and quite possibly explains its high eccentricity.Comment: Accepted to the Astronomical Journal, 6 Pages, 5 Figure

Bringing the Visible Universe into Focus with Robo-AO

The angular resolution of ground-based optical telescopes is limited by the degrading effects of the turbulent atmosphere. In the absence of an atmosphere, the angular resolution of a typical telescope is limited only by diffraction, i.e., the wavelength of interest, λ, divided by the size of its primary mirror's aperture, D. For example, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), with a 2.4-m primary mirror, has an angular resolution at visible wavelengths of ~0.04 arc seconds. The atmosphere is composed of air at slightly different temperatures, and therefore different indices of refraction, constantly mixing. Light waves are bent as they pass through the inhomogeneous atmosphere. When a telescope on the ground focuses these light waves, instantaneous images appear fragmented, changing as a function of time. As a result, long-exposure images acquired using ground-based telescopes - even telescopes with four times the diameter of HST - appear blurry and have an angular resolution of roughly 0.5 to 1.5 arc seconds at best. Astronomical adaptive-optics systems compensate for the effects of atmospheric turbulence. First, the shape of the incoming non-planar wave is determined using measurements of a nearby bright star by a wavefront sensor. Next, an element in the optical system, such as a deformable mirror, is commanded to correct the shape of the incoming light wave. Additional corrections are made at a rate sufficient to keep up with the dynamically changing atmosphere through which the telescope looks, ultimately producing diffraction-limited images. The fidelity of the wavefront sensor measurement is based upon how well the incoming light is spatially and temporally sampled. Finer sampling requires brighter reference objects. While the brightest stars can serve as reference objects for imaging targets from several to tens of arc seconds away in the best conditions, most interesting astronomical targets do not have sufficiently bright stars nearby. One solution is to focus a high-power laser beam in the direction of the astronomical target to create an artificial reference of known shape, also known as a 'laser guide star'. The Robo-AO laser adaptive optics system employs a 10-W ultraviolet laser focused at a distance of 10 km to generate a laser guide star. Wavefront sensor measurements of the laser guide star drive the adaptive optics correction resulting in diffraction-limited images that have an angular resolution of ~0.1 arc seconds on a 1.5-m telescope

Characterizing the cool kois. V. koi-256: A mutually eclipsing post-common envelope binary

We report that Kepler Object of Interest 256 (KOI-256) is a mutually eclipsing post-common envelope binary (ePCEB), consisting of a cool white dwarf (M* = 0.592 ± 0.089 M, R = 0.01345 ± 0.00091 R , T eff = 7100 ± 700 K) and an active M3 dwarf (M* = 0.51 ± 0.16 M , R* = 0.540 ± 0.014 R , T eff = 3450 ± 50 K) with an orbital period of 1.37865 ± 0.00001 days. KOI-256 is listed as hosting a transiting planet-candidate by Borucki et al. and Batalha et al.; here we report that the planet-candidate transit signal is in fact the occultation of a white dwarf as it passes behind the M dwarf. We combine publicly-available long- and short-cadence Kepler light curves with ground-based measurements to robustly determine the system parameters. The occultation events are readily apparent in the Kepler light curve, as is spin-orbit synchronization of the M dwarf, and we detect the transit of the white dwarf in front of the M dwarf halfway between the occultation events. The size of the white dwarf with respect to the Einstein ring during transit (R Ein = 0.00473 ± 0.00055 R ) causes the transit depth to be shallower than expected from pure geometry due to gravitational lensing. KOI-256 is an old, long-period ePCEB and serves as a benchmark object for studying the evolution of binary star systems as well as white dwarfs themselves, thanks largely to the availability of near-continuous, ultra-precise Kepler photometry. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Momentum meets value investing in a small European market

In this paper, we investigate two prominent market anomalies documented in the finance literature – the momentum effect and value-growth effect. We conduct an out- of-sample test to the link between these two anomalies recurring to a sample of Portuguese stocks during the period 1988–2015. We find that the momentum of value and growth stocks is significantly different: growth stocks exhibit a much larger momentum than value stocks. A combined value and momentum strategy can generate statistically significant excess annual returns of 10.8%. These findings persist across several holding periods up to a year. Moreover, we show that macroeconomic variables fail to explain value and momentum of individual and combined returns. Collectively, our results contradict market efficiency at the weak form and pose a challenge to existing asset pricing theories.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio