A SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT RESEARCH OUTPUT DURING 1989 TO 2014

The main objective of this article is to find out most prolific authors and journals in the environmental management research output during 1989 to 2014. This area is an interdisciplinary subject and developed dramatically over the last few decades. Scientometrics offers assess the quantitative analytical techniques with the development and growth of research in Environmental management. The total sample data retrieved from the database of Web of Knowledge, includes, SCI, SSCI, A&HCI. Total records of 61877 research articles retrieved from 22 types of different sources. Applicability of Bradford’s law and Lotka’s law methods was tested

DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION, AND STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF ORAL RECONSTITUTED SUSPENSION OF CLARITHROMYCIN USING ION-EXCHANGE RESINS

Objectives: The objective of the present study is taste masking of bitter clarithromycin using Indion 204, Indion 234, and Tulsion 335 as ion-exchange resins, which forms insoluble complexes, inhibiting the drug release in saliva as ion-exchange resins are cross-linked polymers, water-insoluble that contains salt-forming groups in repeating positions on the polymer chain. Drugs that are bitter and cationic get adsorbed onto weak cationic exchange resins of carboxylic acid functionality such as Indion 204, Indion 234, and Tulsion 335 to form non-bitter complexes. Methods: The drug-resin complex loading process was optimized for the resin content, activation, swelling time, stirring time, influence of pH, and temperature for maximum drug loading and the formed complex was evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to confirm complex formation. The drug-resin complex was also characterized by their micromeritic and rheological properties. These complexes were used to prepare oral reconstituted suspensions and the taste was evaluated. The formulation was evaluated for various parameters such as sedimentation volume, pH, redispersibility, viscosity, drug content, and in vitro drug release. Results: Acid-activated resins comprising Indion 204, Indion 234, and Tulsion 335 with the drug:resin ratio of 1:2, stirred in a solution of pH 7–8 at 70° for 6 h had a maximum drug loading and masked the bitter taste of clarithromycin. DSC of the drug-resin complex (DRC) revealed that there was interaction leading to complex formation. The drug-resin complex was formulated into suspension formulations (S1-S9) and evaluated. Various parameters were found to be within permissible limits. Formulations S3, S6, and S9 containing 1:2 ratios of the drug-resin complex of Indion 204, Indion 234, and Tulsion 335 revealed maximum taste masking. This was further confirmed by treatment of taste evaluation scores obtained from the volunteers by ANOVA, Dunnett’s multiple comparison test, and Tukey’s multiple comparison test. All the three optimized formulations had a significant difference of p<0.001 when compared to control S10. S6 formulation was widely accepted. Conclusion: Ion-exchange complexation could efficiently mask the bitter taste of clarithromycin and achieve palatable taste suitable for pediatric use

Permutation Decision Trees

Decision Tree is a well understood Machine Learning model that is based on minimizing impurities in the internal nodes. The most common impurity measures are Shannon entropy and Gini impurity. These impurity measures are insensitive to the order of training data and hence the final tree obtained is invariant to any permutation of the data. This leads to a serious limitation in modeling data instances that have order dependencies. In this work, we propose the use of Effort-To-Compress (ETC) - a complexity measure, for the first time, as an impurity measure. Unlike Shannon entropy and Gini impurity, structural impurity based on ETC is able to capture order dependencies in the data, thus obtaining potentially different decision trees for different permutations of the same data instances (Permutation Decision Trees). We then introduce the notion of Permutation Bagging achieved using permutation decision trees without the need for random feature selection and sub-sampling. We compare the performance of the proposed permutation bagged decision trees with Random Forests. Our model does not assume that the data instances are independent and identically distributed. Potential applications include scenarios where a temporal order present in the data instances is to be respected.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY ON DIABETES PATIENTS ALONG WITH PATIENT INTERACTION AND COUNSELING

Objective: The main objective was to study the prevalence of diabetes and to create the awareness of the diseases among the peoples who visited and admitted in tertiary care hospital at Chennai. Methods: This study was carried out at Sir Ivan Stedford Hospital in Chennai. The data were collected from the outpatient department of diabetology. In our study, 150 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients were selected, which include visited or admitted in the hospitals. The pilot study used to observe DM patient for 3 months and the outcome was recorded. As per the standard guidelines, patient data collection form was prepared and got approval from diabetologist for collected patient data and pharmaceutical care issues. Results: A total of 150 cases were collected for this study. The epidemiological evaluation study has expresses that female patients were more when compared to male patients. The survey results indicate that 62 numbers are literate people and 88 of them are illiterate. As per the survey, the results indicate that the diet followers are 92 and non-followers are 58. The findings show that in patients doing exercise are more when compared to non-exerciser. The alcohol consumers show 42 of DM patients. The survey results show that 42 peoples are alcohol consumers and 46 peoples are smokers. Conclusion: The survey on epidemiological study on diabetes patients demonstrated the prevalence of DM and the patient’s adherence to diabetic care. In our study, we guided patients based on their diet and exercise through counseling. As a pharmacist, we render our services to patients

A PRESPECTIVE STUDY ON APOBEC PROTEIN FAMILY

Apobec is an apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, catalytic polypeptide-like" is a family of deaminases. It has two types of APOBEC enzymes n-terminal of apobec enzyme and C-terminal of APOBEC enzyme. N-terminal domain is catalytic domain and C-terminal domain is a pseudo catalytic domain. Pathogen and cellular genome undergo mutation by human DNA cytosine to uracil deaminases. Three subtypes of APOBEC3D. APOBEC3F, APOBEC3G and APOBEC3H restrict human deficiency virus-1. Two APOBEC enzymes are the sources of somatic mutagenesis in cancer cells that drive tumor evolution and manifest clinically as theraphy resistance. This review of the APOBEC family will focus on an open question in regulation, namely what role the interactions of these proteins with RNA have in editing substrate recognition or allosteric regulation of DNA mutagenic and host-defense activities

A PERSPECTIVE REVIEW ON APPLICATIONS OF NANOPARTICLE MEDIATED DRUG DELIVERY TO THE CNS

Delivery of drugs into the brain is one of the most interesting and challenging areas of research. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a highly selective semipermeable membrane that separates blood from the brain in the central nervous system. It acts as a barrier to protect the brain from microbes, neurotoxins and other chemical substances and also blocks the entry of many drugs into the brain. An estimated 6.8 billion people die every year from CNS diseases like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, sclerosis, brain stroke, dementia and others. According to WHO, one billion people are affected worldwide, about 50 million suffer from epilepsy and 24 million suffer from Alzheimer and other dementias. This indicates the importance of the delivery of drugs into the brain for treating various neurological diseases and psychological disorders. In drug targeting, a concept was introduced by Dr. Paul Ehrlich as a ‘magic bullet’ that gave tremendous hope for the researches to deliver drugs into the brain. This review discuses about various drug targeting strategies and applications of nanotechnology in designing drug delivery systems with the ability to cross through the BBB for treating neurological diseases

Ferromagnetism and the Effect of Free Charge Carriers on Electric Polarization in Y_2NiMnO_6 Double Perovskite

The double perovskite Y_2NiMnO_6 displays ferromagnetic transition at Tc = 81 K. The ferromagnetic order at low temperature is confirmed by the saturation value of magnetization (M_s) and also, validated by the refined ordered magnetic moment values extracted from neutron powder diffraction data at 10 K. This way, the dominant Mn4+ and Ni2+ cationic ordering is confirmed. The cation-ordered P 21/n nuclear structure is revealed by neutron powder diffraction studies at 300 and 10 K. Analysis of frequency dependent dielectric constant and equivalent circuit analysis of impedance data takes into account the bulk contribution to total dielectric constant. This reveals an anomaly which coincides with the ferromagnetic transition temperature (T_c). Pyrocurrent measurements register a current flow with onset near Tc and a peak at 57 K that shifts with temperature ramp rate. The extrinsic nature of the observed pyrocurrent is established by employing a special protocol measurement. It is realized that the origin is due to re-orientation of electric dipoles created by the free charge carriers and not by spontaneous electric polarization at variance with recently reported magnetism-driven ferroelectricity in this materialComment: Published in Physical Review

Synthesis, Characterization and Pharmacological Evaluation of Pyrimidine and Its Derivatives for their Anticancer Activity

A novel series of 4,6-disubstituted pyrimidine derivatives were synthesized and all the synthesized compounds were purified by thin layer chromatography and characterized by elemental analysis, IR ,1H & 13C NMR and Mass spectral analysis. In IR spectra N-H stretching for the synthesized compound was between 3400 and 3427 cm-1, for C=O stretching between 1689 and 1665 cm-1 and for > C=N group it was between 1520 and 1540 cm-1. Further IR spectrum also showed absorption bands at 691 cm-1, 1271 cm-1 and 491 cm-1 for chloro, fluoro and bromo groups, respectively. The 13C spectra of all synthesized compounds showed the expected absorption. Then all synthesized compounds showed expected Molecular ion peak (M+), base peak and expected fragments indicate the chemical structure of the synthesized compounds. Preliminary antibacterial activity was carried out against the gram-positive organisms like against Staphylococcus aureus (NCCS 2079), Bacillus cereus (NCCS 2106) and gram-negative like Escherichia coli (NCCS 2065) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (NCCS 2200) were attempted. In the present study, pyrimidine derivatives like parachloro, parafluoro and parabromo showed maximum activity against Staphylococcus aureus than the other substituted compounds, but the other derivatives like paraethoxy, parachloro and paramethoxy substituted pyrimidine derivatives showed moderate activity against Bacillus cereus as compared to the effect of substituted pyrimidine compounds. In general, all the parachloro, parabromo, parafluoro, paramethoxy and paraethoxy substituted derivatives showed significant activity against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as compared to other tested substituted compounds. It reveals that halogen substituted compounds possess more antibacterial activity against all the tested organisms. The MIC of the synthesized compounds was determined using broth dilution method against various microorganisms. From which it was confirmed that the microbes like Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were found to be highly sensitive at the dose level of 100-250 μg/ml, for Bacillus cereus 100-225 μg/ml and Staphylococcus aureus 110-225 μg/ml, respectively. The antifungal activity of the synthesized pyrimidine derivatives was treated against Aspergillus niger (NCCS 1196) and Candida albicans (NCCS 3471). Among the tested compounds, the derivatives like Ethyl 4- (4 chlorophenylamino) pyrimidine-5 carboxylate, Ethyl 4- (4 bromophenylamino) pyrimidine –5- carboxylate and Ethyl 4-(4 fluorophenylamino) pyrimidine-5- carboxylate showed significant antifungal activity at the dose range of 250 μg/ml concentration. The total growth inhibitory concentration was considerably altered for the paraphenylamino and parafluoro derivatives, but all the other remaining derivatives like p-methoxy, p-ethoxy, p-chloro, p-toluidino phenylamino were found to be less significant and also few compounds were found to have negligible or insignificant cytotoxic action. Unlike these compounds the paraphenylamino and parafluoro phenylamino derivatives showed remarkable response even at lower concentrations. This may be due to the presence of electronegative action in all the derivatives. From the results observed here it was obvious that there would be correlation between the appearance of cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines (human) and functional groups in the pyrimidine nucleus. Also the presence of phenyl and fluoro groups at the 4th para position in all those most active synthetic compounds experimented for cytotoxic study against various human cancer cell lines was observed. In this MTT assay cytotoxic study the importance of phenyl and fluoro group of the synthesized compounds were confirmed and concluded that these functional groups at para position plays a dominant role and was responsible for the antitumour activity against the cell lines used in this study. Finally, it was concluded that among the tested derivatives the p-phenylamino and pfluorophenylamino derivatives were the most effective compounds on HT29, Hela and HepG2 cell lines. The reliable criteria for evaluating an anticancer drug are prolongation of lifespan of the animal and decrease in WBC count of blood.142 Results showed an increase in life span accompanied by a reduction in WBC count in substituted pyrimidine compounds treated mice. These results clearly demonstrate the antitumour effect of substituted pyrimidine compounds against EAC. Treatment with substituted pyrimidine compounds in EAC bearing mice caused a significant decrease in the body weight. This may be due to the cytotoxic effect of these synthetic drugs. These effects are comparable to that of 5-FU, the standard drug. Cytological studies of ascitic fluid on the 14th day in EAC bearing mice revealed that the tumour cells are large in size, and carcinoma cells showed binucleation. In substituted pyrimidine compounds treated animals bearing EAC, the carcinoma cells showed high n/c ratio, plasmocytoid feature with varying degree of degeneration and cytoplasmic vacuolation that is characteristic of immunoblast. All these cytological studies indicate the cytotoxic effect of substituted pyrimidine compounds. In EAC bearing mice, there was a regular and rapid increase in ascitic fluid volume. Ascitic fluid is the direct nutritional source for tumour growth as it meets the nutritional requirement of tumour cells. Substituted pyrimidine compounds treatment decreased the volume of solid tumour as well as ascites volume and increased the life span. It can be concluded that substituted pyrimidine compounds decrease the nutritional fluid volume and thereby arrest the tumour growth and increase the life span

Griffiths phase-like behaviour and spin-phonon coupling in double perovskite Tb2_{2}NiMnO6_{6}

The Griffiths phase-like features and the spin-phonon coupling effects observed in Tb$_2$NiMnO$_6$ are reported. The double perovskite compound crystallizes in monoclinic $P2_1/n$ space group and exhibits a magnetic phase transition at $T_c \sim$ 111 K as an abrupt change in magnetization. A negative deviation from ideal Curie-Weiss law exhibited by 1/$\chi(T)$ curves and less-than-unity susceptibility exponents from the power-law analysis of inverse susceptibility are reminiscent of Griffiths phase-like features. Arrott plots derived from magnetization isotherms support the inhomogeneous nature of magnetism in this material. The observed effects originate from antiferromagnetic interactions which arise from inherent disorder in the system. Raman scattering experiments display no magnetic-order-induced phonon renormalization below $T_c$ in Tb$_2$NiMnO$_6$ which is different from the results observed in other double perovskites and is correlated to the smaller size of the rare earth. The temperature evolution of full-width-at-half-maximum for the {\it stretching} mode at 645 cm$^{-1}$ presents an anomaly which coincides with the magnetic transition temperature and signals a close connection between magnetism and lattice in this material.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures; accepted in J. Appl. Phy