Cross sectional study of knowledge and practices regarding breast feeding amongst mothers belonging to tribal community in Melghat area, Amravati, Maharashtra, India

Background: Delayed breastfeeding initiation, colostrum deprivation, supplementary feeding of breast milk substitutes, early introduction of complementary feeding, and incorrect weaning from breast milk are commonly found practices in tribal communities around the world. Aim of the study was to assess the breast-feeding knowledge and practices among mothers belonging to tribal community and having children less than 1 years of age in Melghat area, Maharashtra, India.Methods: Present cross-sectional study was conducted in 14 villages of 4 sub centres of Bijudhawadi, Primary Health Centre in Dharni block of Amravati District, Maharashtra, India. Mothers belonging to tribal community having child less than one year and Mothers who were permanent residents of study area were included in study. Interview was planned as per the convenient time of the mother. Finally, 225 study subjects could be contacted during study period.Results: The mean age of mothers was 22.47 years with SD 3.24 years with range 16 - 35 years. Majority 178 (79.11%) study subjects were having correct knowledge about initiation of breastfeeding. Correct practice of initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour was seen in 167 (74.22%) study subjects. Significant difference was seen among correct knowledge and practice Colostrum initiation, Pre-lacteals, Period of exclusive breastfeeding.Conclusions: The present study was an attempt to understand knowledge and practices regarding breastfeeding in the context of tribal mothers in Melghat, Maharashtra, India

TASTE MASKING OF DONEPEZIL HYDROCHLORIDE USING DIFFERENT ION EXCHANGE RESINS- A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Taste mainly depends on the physiology, sensitivity and structure of taste buds. It is an important parameter in administering drugs orally. Bitter taste is a major limitation to patient compliance. Donepezil hydrochloride (DH) is a bitter drug used in Alzheimer's disease. Amongst the many techniques for taste masking, using ion exchange resins has been extensively reported. The technique of forming tasteless complexes with bitter drugs involves selection of most appropriate exchanger and optimization of complexing ratio. The aim of the present work was to select the best cationic exchanger amongst Indion 414, Indion 234 and Indion 214. All parameters were optimized to produce drug-loaded tasteless complexes. Complexation was carried out using batch process prior to which, acid-alkali activation was performed to remove adsorbed impurities from the resin bed surface and hence improve loading efficiency. UV-spectrophotometric method was used to determine percent drug loading. The molecular properties of drug resin complexes were studied using Fourier Transform Infra-red Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Xray Powder Diffraction which confirmed complexation. Indion 414 was found to give highest drug loading and minimal drug was released from the complex at salivary pH. Key words: Donepezil HCl, Ion exchange resins, Molecular properties, Taste maskin

A Novel Class of Pyrazoline Analogue of Combretastatin-A4 (CA-4): Synthesis Characterization and in-vitro Biological Testing

A series of pyrazoline bridged combretastatin analogues were designed and synthesised from their precursor chalcone analogues, and all these compounds were ascertained by IR, 1H NMR, and mass spectral analysis. Subsequently, all these compounds were evaluated for anticancer activities against breast cancer (MCF-7) and normal Vero (Monkey Kidney) cell lines, and five selected compounds from the series were evaluated against Hela (Human Cervical), MDA-MB-231 (Breast), and A-549 (Lung cancer) cell lines using the Sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay method. Compounds 3a, 6a, 6e, 5b, 7a, 5a, and 7d were found to be the most potent in the series, with a GI50 value of 10 to 30 M in the MCF-7 cell line. Moreover, the same compounds 6a and 7a showed remarkable cytotoxicity against the A-549 (Lung) cell line with a GI50 value ranging from 10 to 30 M, while compound 3a displayed moderate cytotoxicity against the Hela (Human Cervical) cell line. All these compounds were found nontoxic to the Vero (Monkey Kidney) normal cell line

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Indolyl Bis-chalcones as Anti-Breast Cancer and Antioxidant Agents

A series of novel α-cyano substituted indolyl bis-chalcones (3a−l) has been synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro antitumor activity against the human breast cancer MCF7 (estrogen receptor-positive) and normal Vero cell lines using sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay method. Compounds 3a, 3c and 3d showed potent activity (GI50 = 11.7, 15.3 and 17.9 µM respectively) against the human breast cancer MCF7 cell line, which was almost as good as that of adriamycin (GI50 = < 0.1 µM) whereas, screening against the normal Vero Monkey cell line showed moderate selectivity. Furthermore, all the synthesized compounds screened for their antioxidant potential against DPPH, NO, SOR, and H2O2 radicals. Most of the bis-chalcones exhibited significant DPPH (51.09−12.72 %) and NO (64.11−34.43 %) radical scavenging activity and modest activity against SOR (88.08−43.14 %) and H2O2 (80.13−56.0 %) radicals compared to the reference standard ascorbic acid (40.78 %, 42.63 %, 87.05 %, and 79.42 % respectively). Current study provides impetus for the development of highly potent indolyl bis-chalcone derivatives as anticancer leads. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Synthesis and Pharmacological Evaluation of Pyrazoline and Pyrimidine Analogs of Combretastatin-A4 as Anticancer, Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidant Agents

A library of 3,5-diaryl-1-carbothioamide-pyrazoline (5a–j), N1-phenyl sulfonyl pyrazoline (6a–e) and pyrimidine (7a) analogs of combretastatin-A4 were synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. Results of in vitro assay against human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) showed several compounds endowed with significant cytotoxicity compared to the adriamycin, a standard anticancer drug. Among the compounds synthesized, 7a was found to possess significant antiproliferative activity (GI50 < 0.1 µM) against the MCF-7 cell line as good as adriamycin (GI50 < 0.1 µM) whereas, compounds 6c, 5j and 5g also displayed good cytotoxicity (GI50 = 25.3–42.6 µM). Besides this, most active compound 7a was also evaluated against human myeloid leukemia cell line K562 and the remarkable result was obtained with GI50 < 0.1 µM, comparable to that of adriamycin (GI50 < 0.1 µM). In addition, all the synthesized compounds were evaluated for their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. The percent inhibition studies revealed that most of the compounds were found to possess substantial anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

TASTE MASKING OF DONEPEZIL HYDROCHLORIDE USING DIFFERENT ION EXCHANGE RESINS- A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Taste mainly depends on the physiology, sensitivity and structure of taste buds. It is an important parameter in administering drugs orally. Bitter taste is a major limitation to patient compliance. Donepezil hydrochloride (DH) is a bitter drug used in Alzheimer's disease. Amongst the many techniques for taste masking, using ion exchange resins has been extensively reported. The technique of forming tasteless complexes with bitter drugs involves selection of most appropriate exchanger and optimization of complexing ratio. The aim of the present work was to select the best cationic exchanger amongst Indion 414, Indion 234 and Indion 214. All parameters were optimized to produce drug-loaded tasteless complexes. Complexation was carried out using batch process prior to which, acid-alkali activation was performed to remove adsorbed impurities from the resin bed surface and hence improve loading efficiency. UV-spectrophotometric method was used to determine percent drug loading. The molecular properties of drug resin complexes were studied using Fourier Transform Infra-red Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Xray Powder Diffraction which confirmed complexation. Indion 414 was found to give highest drug loading and minimal drug was released from the complex at salivary pH

Design, Synthesis, and Spectroscopic Study of 7-Azaindolyl Hydrazones with Anti-Breast Cancer Activity

A series of 7-azaindolyl hydrazones were prepared by reacting of hydrazides of 7-azaindole-3-acetic acids with aromatic aldehydes and N-substituted indolyl-3-carboxyaldehydes. Structure of all the synthesized compounds were satisfactorily correlated by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and mass spectroscopic evidences. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for their possible anticancer potential against MCF-7 induced breast carcinoma. It is worth mentioning that most of the compounds were considerably active against MCF-7 cell line with GI50 values ranging from 22.3–81.0 μM. The hydrazones of N-1-substituted indole-3-carboxyaldehydes 9f, 9g, 9h, 9c, and 9j were active against MCF-7 cell line with GI50 values less than 40 μM (GI50 = 22.3 and 24.9, 29.6, 30.2 and 37.8 μM respectively) with moderate TGI values (TGI = 56.6, 59.5, 65.5, 70.7 and 94.6 μM respectively). The active compounds were also screened against the normal Vero monkey cell line, which showed moderate selectivity against inhibition of cancer cells. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use

Tobacco and alcohol use are heritable behaviours associated with 15% and 5.3% of worldwide deaths, respectively, due largely to broad increased risk for disease and injury(1-4). These substances are used across the globe, yet genome-wide association studies have focused largely on individuals of European ancestries(5). Here we leveraged global genetic diversity across 3.4 million individuals from four major clines of global ancestry (approximately 21% non-European) to power the discovery and fine-mapping of genomic loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use, to inform function of these loci via ancestry-aware transcriptome-wide association studies, and to evaluate the genetic architecture and predictive power of polygenic risk within and across populations. We found that increases in sample size and genetic diversity improved locus identification and fine-mapping resolution, and that a large majority of the 3,823 associated variants (from 2,143 loci) showed consistent effect sizes across ancestry dimensions. However, polygenic risk scores developed in one ancestry performed poorly in others, highlighting the continued need to increase sample sizes of diverse ancestries to realize any potential benefit of polygenic prediction.Peer reviewe

Field investigation of subgrade non-uniformity effects on concrete pavement

The traditional method of designing concrete pavements is through the assignment of a single modulus of subgrade reaction (k-value) to the soil for the section under consideration. It is well known that soil under pavement is not a homogenous, elastic, and isotropic half-space but varies spatially due to variations in the soil geological properties, environmental factors, and construction methods. Few studies have attempted to characterize this heterogeneous behavior as non-uniform subgrade support, theoretically analyze its effect on slab responses, or its effect on concrete pavement performance. This research has collected geotechnical data from two roadway sections in Michigan, MI I-94 and MI I-96, to characterize the effects of the foundation layer spatial non-uniformity on tensile stress changes in a concrete slab. For both the MI I-94 and MI I-96 roadway section, k-values were correlated from field Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) tests that were either deterministically or randomly assigned to a predefined area size. These spatial plots were discretized into various uniform area sizes to compare tensile stresses from a non-uniform support under a concrete pavement to a uniform support condition. The individual area sizes varied from 0.7x0.7 m2 and 1.16x1.16 m2. A 2-D finite element program was used to analyze the critical slab tensile stresses for multiple uniform and non-uniform conditions subjected to three axle configurations, loading paths, and temperature differentials. The results for MI I-94 stress analysis showed that the deterministic assignment of k-value from the field did not result in any significant increase in critical tensile stresses compared to the uniform support assumptions even for varying individual area sizes. However, when the k-value of the foundation layer was randomly assigned to these individual areas, using a normal distribution, for a soft subgrade (k-value = 63 psi/in and standard deviation = 25.6 psi/in), the overall peak tensile stresses along the edge loading path increased by 31% and the average peak tensile stress increased by 37%. The greatest increase in tensile stresses relative to the uniform support condition occurred for individual support areas of 1.16x1.16 m2. When the k-value was randomly assigned with a beta (B) distribution for a lower limit of 20 psi/in, there was no increase in the overall peak tensile stress in the slab relative to the uniform support condition. Although the section with stiffer soil (mean k-value = 397 psi/in), MI I-96, had a large range in measured k-values, it only increased the overall peak tensile stresses in the slab relative to uniform support conditions by 11% when randomly assigned to 81 k-value areas and increased the tensile stress by 6% when the k-values were deterministically assigned. The field data and theoretical analysis presented in this research has shown that non-uniform support conditions can lead to significantly higher slab stresses under certain geometric, loading, and slab support conditions. Non-uniform support along the edge of the slab especially very low support values near the location of maximum tensile stress substantially increased the slab tensile stresses. These tensile stresses are further increased under daytime temperature curling. Variability in the foundation stiffness had a larger impact on slabs supported by softer soils relative to stiff soils. For the inputs analyzed in this study, the size of the individual area of uniform support defined around 1 m2 produced the greatest increase in tensile stress in the slab. Detection and treatment of areas of weak and variable support along the anticipated free edges of the slab are important to improving the performance of concrete pavements