DESIGN, PREPARATION, AND EVALUATION OF SELF-MICROEMULSIFYING DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM OF BAMBUTEROL HYDROCHLORIDE

Objective: The self-micro-emulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS) of bambuterol hydrochloride was designed, prepared, and evaluated to overcome the problem of poor bioavailability.Methods: The designing of the formulation included the selection of oil phase, surfactant, and cosolvent/cosurfactant based on the saturated solubility studies. Psuedoternary phase diagram was constructed using aqueous titration method, to identify the self-emulsifying region. Different ratios of the selected surfactant and cosolvent/cosurfactant (Smix) were also studied and used to construct the ternary phase diagram. The prepared formulations of the SMEDDS were evaluated for drug content, morphology, globule size, robustness to dilution, emulsification time, optical clarity, and stability.Results: The formulation containing 10 mg bambuterol hydrochloride, triacetin (12.50% w/w), Tween 80 (43.75% w/w), and ethanol (43.75% w/w) was concluded to be optimized. The optimized SMEDDS not only showed optimum globule size, zeta potential, and drug content but was also found to be robust to dilution, formed emulsion spontaneously, and was stable. The optimized SMEDDS showed increased permeability of the drug across the intestinal membrane in ex vivo studies.Conclusion: The results suggest that bambuterol hydrochloride can be formulated as self-microemulsifying drug delivery system, and further, SMEDDS can be used to improve the oral bioavailability of bambuterol hydrochloride

MOSQUITO REPELLENT ACTION OF DURANTA PLUMIERI (VERBENACEAE) AGAINST CULEX QUINQUEFASCIATUS

Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the repellent activity of different extracts of Duranta plumieri against mosquito vector Culex quinquefasciatus. Methods: Four different extracts (petroleum ether, chloroform, ethanol, and aqueous) of D. plumieri were evaluated for repellency test against mosquito vector C. quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae) in comparison with diethyltoluamide (DEET), which was used as a positive control. Results: Results showed that chloroform extract was the most effective against mosquito vector even at a low dose. A direct relationship was observed with different concentrations of D. plumieri extract and the repellent activity. Moreover, all the extracts showed highly significant level of repellency as compared to DEET at 10% dosage till 5 h of exposure. Among all of these, chloroform extract showed significant repellency at 5% dosage till 4 h. Conclusion: Chloroform extract of D. plumieri has the potential as an effective mosquito repellent and further studies are needed to isolate the marker compound responsible for this activity

EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF SOLID MICRONEEDLES ON THE TRANSDERMAL DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR Ɣ-ORYZANOL

Objective: This study's goals were to develop a minimally invasive array of biocompatible polymeric solid microneedles and formulate a transdermal patch of drug Ɣ-Oryzanol as per poke and patch technology. Methods: Scanning electron microscopy was used to analyse the morphology of the solid microneedle arrays, which were created using a stereolithography (SLA) printer with high-resolution capabilities (25 and 140 microns for the z and x axes, respectively). Transdermal Patches of Ɣ-Oryzanol were formulated and evaluated for various characterization parameters. Further, the produced microneedle-transdermal drug delivery system of Ɣ-Oryzanol was examined for microneedle insertion skin and permeation of the drug across the porcine skin. Results: Solid microneedle arrays were manufactured using biocompatible Class I Dental SG resin having dimensions of 600 µm height and 300 µm width with tip diameters of 30 µm and 1.85 mm interspacing (Distance from tip to tip) and they were strong enough to penetrate porcine skin to a depth of 381.356 µm crossing the stratum corneum layer without causing any structural changes. Transdermal patches containing Ɣ-Oryzanol were formulated using different ratios of HPMC: Eudragit E-100. Good, consistent, and transparent films were formulated when the thickness of the film ranges between 0.516±0.25-0.628±0.21 mm, average weights ranged from 168.23±2.61to171.22±1.25(10/cm2), folding endurance ranged in between 10 folds to 12 folds for all the formulations with tensile strength lie between the 0.365 kg/mm2 to 0.465 kg/mm2. All the formulations showed good drug content between 99.3±0.06%-90.4±1.64% with 100% flat surfaces. Moisture content was found in the range of 2.012±0.013 to 4.213±0.031. Drug permeation studies reveal that compound Ɣ-Oryzanol transdermal patches didn’t show significant permeation across porcine skin (4.802.25 g/cm2) without piercing with microneedles while after poking skin using microneedles (74.502.35 g/cm2) drug showed good penetration properties. It was found that the amount of drug delivered increased to 44.251.57 g/cm2 at 2 min, which was 14.502.35 g/cm2 at 1 min to 4 min 74.502.35 g/cm2. Conclusion: Successful preparation of the Microneedle-Transdermal drug delivery system of Ɣ-Oryzanol and their evaluation indicated that the quality and consistency of the formulated preparation were excellent. With advantages in terms of lowered dose frequency, better patient compliance, and bioavailability, this may find use in the therapeutic field

Identification of Land undergoing degradation using geospatial techniques: A case study of Kohima, Nagaland

Land degradation is defined as the process of transformation of productive lands into non-productive lands which affects the living conditions of the people. Assessing land degradation vulnerability is an important step to combat land degradation. To combat the degradation process, it is necessary to understand the causes and impacts caused by the socio economic and natural parameters. The present study aims to assess the areas undergoing Land Degradation in Kohima District of Nagaland using Remote sensing and GIS techniques. Socio-economic Indices such as Economic Development Index, Amenities Index and Natural parameters such as Land utilisation Index and Soil Index are used to derive Degradation Vulnerability Index. The results indicate that, about 40.92% of land of Kohima falls under high vulnerable and 25.40% under very high vulnerable class

IN VITRO ABSORPTION STUDY OF CARBAMAZEPINE SOLID DISPERSION USING EVERTED GUT SAC METHOD

The oral Bioavailability of BCS (Bio Pharmaceutical Classification System) class II drug with poor solubility and reasonable permeability is limited by drug dissolution. In order to improve the aqueous solubility of the drug and dissolution of thedrug, the solid dispersion was prepared and evaluated for its absorption in intestine using modified everted gut sac method. The solid dispersion of carbamezepine (CBZ) was prepared using polaxomer and guargum by kneading method. The CBZ and CBZSD (Solid Disposisi) shows 2.329% and 3.948% drug absorption, respectively. The data show that solid dispersion increase the absorption of the CBZ in CBZ-SD is more than 70% in comparison to pure CBZ. The increase in CBZ solubility of the SD could be attributed to several factors such as improved wettability, local solubilization, drug particle size reduction and crystalline or, interstitial solid solution reduction. Key words: Everted gut sac method, solid dispersion, absorption, solubilit

Formulation and Evaluation of Colon Targeted Tablets of Mesalazine

In the present investigation an attempt was made to formulate the time and pH dependent drug delivery system, reduce the frequency of dose administeration, to prevent ulcerative colitis by developing sustained delayed release tablets of Mesalazine using combination of Eudragit S-100 and L-100 as enteric coating. The core tablets of Mesalazine were prepared using wet granulation containing a superdisintegrant. The aim of present study is to develop colon specific drug delivery of Mesalazine sustained release matrix tablets for ulcerative colitis using HPMC K-4M and HPMC K-15M as a semisynthetic polymer. Effect of polymer concentration and superdisintegrant level was also investigated. The matrix tablets of Mesalazine are subjected to an in-vitro drug release study using simulated gastric fluid (0.1N HCl) for 2 hours, simulated intestinal fluid (pH 7.4) for 3 hours and simulated colonic fluid (pH 6.8) for 7 hours as dissolution fluid. The study showed that, lag time prior to drug release was highly affected by the coating. Colon drug delivery is advantageous in treatment of colonic disease and oral delivery of drugs that are unstable and susceptible to enzymatic degradation in upper GI tract. The disintegration data obtained from tablets demonstrated that disintegration data rate of studied tablets is dependent on: (i) The polymer used to coat the tablets (ii) pH of disintegration media. Results also demonstrated that combination of Eudragit S-100 and L-100 can be successfully used to coat tablets for colon targeted delivery of drug

Optimized Architecture for AES

This paper presents a highly optimized architecture for Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) by dividing and merging (combining) different sub operations in AES algorithm. The proposed architecture uses ten levels of pipelining to achieve higher throughput and uses Block-RAM utility to reduce slice utilization which subsequently increases the efficiency. It achieves the data stream of 57 Gbps at 451 MHz working frequency and obtains 36% improvement in efficiency to the best known similar design throughput per area (Throughput/Area) and 35% smaller in slice area. This architecture can easily be embedded with other modules because of significantly reduced slice utilization

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MIGRATING A CODE FROM A FIRST FORMAT TO A SECOND FORMAT

The present disclosure relates to a migration tool to convert a code in a first format to a code in a second format. The source code received can be from a user (108) or from a database (106). The input code is said to be in the first format. An Abstract Syntax tree (AST) of the code in the first format is generated by a system (104) by parsing the code. A modified AST is generated based on the AST of the code in the first format. A code in the second format is generated from the modified AST

The Indian COSMOS Network (ICON): validating L-band remote sensing and modelled soil moisture data products

Availability of global satellite based Soil Moisture (SM) data has promoted the emergence of many applications in climate studies, agricultural water resource management and hydrology. In this context, validation of the global data set is of substance. Remote sensing measurements which are representative of an area covering 100 m2 to tens of km2 rarely match with in situ SM measurements at point scale due to scale difference. In this paper we present the new Indian Cosmic Ray Network (ICON) and compare it’s data with remotely sensed SM at different depths. ICON is the first network in India of the kind. It is operational since 2016 and consist of seven sites equipped with the COSMOS instrument. This instrument is based on the Cosmic Ray Neutron Probe (CRNP) technique which uses non-invasive neutron counts as a measure of soil moisture. It provides in situ measurements over an area with a radius of 150–250 m. This intermediate scale soil moisture is of interest for the validation of satellite SM. We compare the COSMOS derived soil moisture to surface soil moisture (SSM) and root zone soil moisture (RZSM) derived from SMOS, SMAP and GLDAS_Noah. The comparison with surface soil moisture products yield that the SMAP_L4_SSM showed best performance over all the sites with correlation (R) values ranging from 0.76 to 0.90. RZSM on the other hand from all products showed lesser performances. RZSM for GLDAS and SMAP_L4 products show that the results are better for the top layer R = 0.75 to 0.89 and 0.75 to 0.90 respectively than the deeper layers R = 0.26 to 0.92 and 0.6 to 0.8 respectively in all sites in India. The ICON network will be a useful tool for the calibration and validation activities for future SM missions like the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)

Cosmic-ray soil water monitoring: the development, status & potential of the COSMOS-India network

Soil moisture (SM) plays a central role in the hydrological cycle and surface energy balance and represents an important control on a range of land surface processes. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal dynamics of SM is important for applications ranging from numerical weather and climate predictions, the calibration and validation of remotely sensed data products, as well as water resources, flood and drought forecasting, agronomy and predictions of greenhouse gas fluxes. Since 2015, the Centre for Ecology and Ecology has been working in partnership with several Indian Research Institutes to develop COSMOS-India, a new network of SM monitoring stations that employ cosmic-ray soil moisture sensors (CRS) to deliver high temporal frequency, near-real time observations of SM at field scale. CRS provide continuous observations of near-surface (top 0.1 to 0.2 m) soil volumetric water content (VWC; m3 m-3) that are representative of a large footprint area (approximately 200 m in radius). To date, seven COSMOS-India sites have been installed and are operational at a range of locations that are characterised by differences in climate, soil type and land management. In this presentation, the development, current status and future potential of the COSMOS-India network will be discussed. Key results from the COSMOS-India network will be presented and analysed