Preparation and characterization of rufinamide HP-β-cyclodextrin complexes prepared by the kneading method for solubility enhancement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The author(s) are thankful to Ramanbhai Patel College of Pharmacy, Gujarat for providing facility to carry out research work.Aims: The present investigation concerns the preparation and characterization of Rufinamide HP-β-cyclodextrin complexes prepared by the kneading method. Material & methods: Rufinamide was procured as a gift sample from Torrent Pharmaceuticals limited. HP-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was purchased from Himedia, India. Methanol and Hydrochloric Acid were purchased from S. D. Fine Chem. Pvt. Ltd., India. kneading method was selected to prepare inclusion complexation of Rufinamide. Phase solubility study was performed to check formation of inclusion complex. Prepared complex were characterize by different methods like DSC study, FTIR study, X-RPD study & in-vitro dissolution study Results: It was found that there is a formation of 1:1 inclusion complex between HP-β-CD as stability constant was found to be 221.27 M-1. DSC study, FTIR study had given supporting data for formation of inclusion complex. Amorphous nature of the complex was confirmed from the X-RPD study. Conclusions: From in-vitro dissolution study it was found that 1:1.5 complex showed around 50% drug released in 30 min & more than 70% of Drug release in 60 mins.Objetivos: La presente investigación se refiere a la preparación y caracterización de complejos de rufinamida HP-β-ciclodextrina preparados por el método de amasado. Material y métodos: La rufinamida fue donada por la empresa Torrent Pharmaceuticals limitado. HP-β-ciclodextrina (HP-β-CD) se adquirió de Himedia, India. Metanol y ácido clorhídrico se obtuvieron de SD Fine Chem. SA. Ltd., India. Se utilizó el método de amasado para preparar complejos de inclusión de rufinamida. El estudio de la fase de solubilidad se realizó para comprobar la formación de complejos de inclusión. Los complejos preparados se caracterizaron por diferentes métodos como DSC, FTIR, X-RPD y ensayo de disolución in vitro. Resultados: Se encontró que se producían formación de complejos en la relación 1:1. La constante de estabilidad encontrada fue de 221,27 M-1. Los estudios de DSC, FTIR confirmaron la formación del complejo de inclusión. Mediante X-RPD se confirmó la naturaleza amorfa del complejo. Conclusiones: El estudio de disolución in vitro mostró que la proporción 1:1.5 liberaba alrededor de 50% de fármaco en 30 min y a los 60 minutos se consiguió una liberación del 70%

SHELF-LIFE ASSESSMENT OF DANTASHODHANA PASTE (A POLYHERBAL TOOTHPASTE): A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Objective: Shelf life is the period during which the potency (Virya) of a drug remains unaffected due to environmental factors or from microbial contamination. Considering the growing popularity of Ayurveda products, it becomes important to maintain the quality of all such products. Shelf life is one of the essential components under quality and needs to be evaluated for all products. Dantashodhana paste (DP) is a polyherbal toothpaste containing Vyosha (Zingiber officinale Roxb., Piper nigrum Linn., and Piper longum Linn.), Trijata (Cinnamomum zeylanicum Blume., Elettaria cardamomum Maton., Cinnamomum tamala (Buch.-Ham.) T.Nees and Eberm.), Tejovati (Zanthoxylum armatum DC.), Saindhava (rock salt), and other excipients. Methods: DP was prepared with the following standard guidelines. The samples were subjected to accelerated stability study by maintaining temperature and humidity 40±2°C and 75±5%, respectively. Relevant analytical parameters were analyzed at an interval of 0, 1, 3, and 6 months to check the degradation levels in the formulation. Results: DP was found to be free from microbial contamination. Heavy metals were within the prescribed limits for toothpaste complying the official standards. There were insignificant changes in physicochemical profiles at different intervals. On extrapolation of the observations, the shelf life of DP was found to be 12.16 years. Conclusion: Shelf life of DP is found to be much longer than the standards specified in the D and C act. This prolonged shelf life may be contributed to care taken during drug preparation, storage, and properties of herbal drugs used in the formulation

Factors associated with community-acquired urinary tract infections among adults attending assessment centre, Mulago Hospital Uganda.

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are a common medical problem affecting the general population and thus commonly encountered in medical practice, with the global burden of UTIs at about 150 million people. Because uropathogens largely originate from colonic flora, they are easy to predict, and this is the rationale for empirical treatment in Community Acquired- UTI (CA-UTIs). With the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant bacteria among adults with CA-UTI in Uganda, it is no longer adequate to manage CA-UTIs on empiric regimen without revising the susceptibility patterns of common CA-UTI causative agents. Thus in this study we set out to identify: The factors associated with CA-UTIs, the common uropathogens and the drug sensitivity patterns of the common uropathogens cultured. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study that was conducted in adults who presented with symptoms of a UTI at Mulago Hospital, assessment center. There were 139 patients who consented to the study and were recruited, an interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect information from the study participants as regards demographic, social and clinical characteristics and Mid Stream Urine (MSU) samples were collected for urinalysis, culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing using the Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique was applied to the isolates.Numeric data were summarized using measures of central tendency while the categorical data was summarized using proportions and percentages. Results: Age, female sex and marital status were factors that were significantly associated with CA-UTIs. Fifty four (54) cultures were positive for UTI with 26 giving pure growths. The commonest uropathogen isolated was Escherichia coli at 50%, this was followed by Staphylococcus aureus at 15.4%. The sensitivity of Escherichia coli to Ampicillin and Nitrofurantoin were78.6%, 64.3% respectively, and the sensitivity of Staphylococcus aureus to ciprofloxacin, Nitrofurantoin and gentamycin were 100%, 66.7% and 66.7% respectively. Conclusion: There are known factors associated with CA-UTIs such as age, female sex. There was generally high sensitivity to nitrofurantoin and gentamycin by most of the uropathogens isolated, and high resistance to the common antibiotics such as nalidixic acid and erythromycin thus a need for a bigger study that can be used to effect the change of the current recommendations in the Uganda Clinical Guidelines as regards empirical management of CA-UTIs

Identifying optimal generic processors for biomedical implants

The extremely limited resource budget available to medical implants makes it imperative that they are designed in the most optimal way possible. The limited resources include - but are not limited to - battery life, expected responsiveness of the system and chip area. We have already detailed the design of a design-space exploration (DSE) tool specifically geared towards finding the Pareto-optimal design front. In this paper, we choose processor configurations from the Paretooptimal processor set found by the DSE using real implants as case studies. We find that even under the extremely biased constraints that we use, our processor(s) perform better than many of the real implants. This provides strong hints towards designing an implant processor that is generic enough to cover most, if not all, implant applications

Preparación y caracterización de complejos de rufinamida con HP-β-ciclodextrina por el método de amasado para mejorar la solubilidad.

Aims: The present investigation concerns the preparation and characterization of Rufinamide HP-β-cyclodextrin complexes prepared by the kneading method.Material & methods: Rufinamide was procured as a gift sample from Torrent Pharmaceuticals limited. HP-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was purchased from Himedia, India. Methanol and Hydrochloric Acid were purchased from S. D. Fine Chem. Pvt. Ltd., India. kneading method was selected to prepare inclusion complexation of Rufinamide. Phase solubility study was performed to check formation of inclusion complex. Prepared complex were characterize by different methods like DSC study, FTIR study, X-RPD study & in-vitro dissolution study.Results: It was found that there is a formation of 1:1 inclusion complex between HP-β-CD as stability constant was found to be 221.27 M-1. DSC study, FTIR study had given supporting data for formation of inclusion complex. Amorphous nature of the complex was confirmed from the X-RPD study.Conclusions: From in-vitro dissolution study it was found that 1:1.5 complex showed around 50% drug released in 30 min & more than 70% of Drug release in 60 mins.Objetivos: La presente investigación se refiere a la preparación y caracterización de complejos de rufinamida HP-β-ciclodextrina preparados por el método de amasado.Material y métodos: La rufinamida fue donada por la empresa Torrent Pharmaceuticals limitado. HP-β-ciclodextrina (HP-β-CD) se adquirió de Himedia, India. Metanol y ácido clorhídrico se obtuvieron de SD Fine Chem. SA. Ltd., India. Se utilizó el método de amasado para preparar complejos de inclusión de rufinamida. El estudio de la fase de solubilidad se realizó para comprobar la formación de complejos de inclusión. Los complejos preparados se caracterizaron por diferentes métodos como DSC, FTIR, X-RPD y ensayo de disolución in vitro.Resultados: Se encontró que se producían formación de complejos en la relación 1:1. La constante de estabilidad encontrada fue de 221,27 M-1. Los estudios de DSC, FTIR confirmaron la formación del complejo de inclusión. Mediante X-RPD se confirmó la naturaleza amorfa del complejo.Conclusiones: El estudio de disolución in vitro mostró que la proporción 1:1.5 liberaba alrededor de 50% de fármaco en 30 min y a los 60 minutos se consiguió una liberación del 70%

ImpEDE: A multidimensional design-space exploration framework for biomedical-implant processors

The demand for biomedical implants keeps increasing. However, most of the current implant design methodologies involve custom-ASIC design. The SiMS project aims to change this process and make implant design more modular, flexible, faster and extensible. The most recent work within the SiMS context provides ImpEDE, a framework based on a multiobjective genetic algorithm, for automatic exploration of the design space of implant processors. The framework provides the processor designer with a Pareto front through which informed decisions can be made about specific implant families after analyzing their particular tradeoffs and requirements. A highly efficient, parallelized version of the genetic algorithm is also used to evolve the front and has as its objectives the optimization of power, performance and area. In addition, we illustrate the extensibility of our framework by modifying it to include a case study of a synthetic implant application with hard realtime deadlines

Vehicle classification using the convolution neural network approach

We present vehicle detection classification using the Convolution Neural Network (CNN) of the deep learning approach. The automatic vehicle classification for traffic surveillance video systems is challenging for the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to build a smart city. In this article, three different vehicles: bike, car and truck classification are considered for around 3,000 bikes, 6,000 cars, and 2,000 images of trucks. CNN can automatically absorb and extract different vehicle dataset’s different features without a manual selection of features. The accuracy of CNN is measured in terms of the confidence values of the detected object. The highest confidence value is about 0.99 in the case of the bike category vehicle classification. The automatic vehicle classification supports building an electronic toll collection system and identifying emergency vehicles in the traffic

CANNY EDGE DETECTION BASED REAL-TIME INTELLIGENT PARKING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Real-time traffic monitoring and parking are very important aspects for a better social and economic system. Python-based Intelligent Parking Management System (IPMS) module using a USB camera and a canny edge detection method was developed. The current situation of real-time parking slot was simultaneously checked, both online and via a mobile application, with a message of Parking “Available” or “Not available” for 10 parking slots. In addition, at the time entering in parking module, gate open and at the time of exit parking module, the gate closes automatically using servomotor and sensors. Results are displayed in figures with the proposed method flow chart

ImpBench revisited: An extended characterization of implant-processor benchmarks

Implants are nowadays transforming rapidly from rigid, custom-based devices with very narrow applications to highly constrained albeit multifunctional embedded systems. These systems contain cores able to execute software programs so as to allow for increased application versatility. In response to this trend, a new collection of benchmark programs for guiding the design of implant processors, ImpBench, has already been proposed and characterized. The current paper expands on this characterization study by employing a geneticalgorithm- based, design-space exploration framework. Through this framework, ImpBench components are evaluated in terms of their implications on implant-processor design. The benchmark suite is also expanded by introducing one new benchmark and two new stressmarks based on existing ImpBench benchmarks. The stressmarks are proposed for achieving further speedups in simulation times without polluting the processor-exploration process. Profiling results reveal that processor configurations generated by the stressmarks follow with good fidelity - except for some marked exceptions - ones generated by the aggregated ImpBench suite. Careful use of the stressmarks can seriously reduce simulation times up to x30, which is an impressive speedup and a good tradeoff between DSE speed and accuracy

A Vision-Based Real-Time Adaptive Traffic Light Control System Using Vehicular Density Value and Statistical Block Matching Approach

In India, traffic control management is a difficult task due to an increment in the number of vehicles for the same infrastructure and systems. In the smart-city project, the Adaptive Traffic Light Control System (ATLCS) is one of the major research concerns for an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) development to reduce traffic congestion and accidents, create a healthy environment, etc. Here, we have proposed a Vehicular Density Value (VDV) based adaptive traffic light control system method for 4-way intersection points using a selection of rotation, area of interest, and Statistical Block Matching Approach (SBMA). Graphical User Interface (GUI) and Hardware-based results are shown in the result section. We have compared, the normal traffic light control system with the proposed adaptive traffic light control system in the results section. The same results are verified using a hardware (raspberry-pi) device with different sizes, colors, and shapes of vehicles using the same method