Foundations Failures of Bridges and Geotechnical Investigations

In the present paper two cases of foundation failures due to which the complete bridge structure have failed are reported. The 93m long Palakmati high level brick masonry arch bridge on Hoshangabad - Piparia Road was constructed in year 1910. This bridge has shallow well brick masonry foundation with brick masonry wall type piers. Foundations of piers were on two circular shallow independent wells. The wells are resting on yellow soil. During floods of 1989, the pier No.3 sunk. This brought down 5 spans. Two well foundations were up-rooted. Cracks were developed in other arches also. The 90.5m long submersible R.C.C. trough slab type Mand bridge in 60/8 km on Ambikapur-Pathalgaon Road of 5. 5m width was constructed in the year 1945-46. The bridge has open foundation resting on rock whereas superstructure consist of R.C.C. portal framed structure. The foundation of first pier towards Ambikapur side sunk by about 0. 4m in August 1991. Due to this abrupt settlement the abutment and all the three piers have developed through cracks below the supports and severe cracks in all spans. Geotechnical investigations are carried out in these two cases and remedial measures are suggested for reconstruction of new bridges

Role of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing leprosy: in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Leprosy, a chronic inflammatory granulomatous disease chiefly involving skin and peripheral nerves and occasionally other organ systems, caused by Mycobacterium leprae. It has tormented the human civilization through time immemorial. Leprosy remains a significant public health problem worldwide, especially in developing countries like India. The diagnosis of leprosy is not always easy because of long incubation period, over dependence of clinical expertise and a lack of rapid and simple diagnostic tool, patients remain undiagnosed for longer time. Fine needle aspiration (FNAC) technique is an inexpensive, rapid and accurate procedure for diagnosis of leprosy. We conducted a prospective study evaluating the ability of fine needle aspiration cytology in diagnosing and classifying leprosy lesions on Ridley-Jopling scale (R-J scale). The aim of this prospective study was to assess the usefulness of fine needle aspiration cytology in early diagnosis of leprosy, to identify specific cytological characteristics of diagnosis and to correlate the cytological smear findings with histopathology and to evaluate merits of relatively non-invasive procedure of FNAC over more invasive procedure - biopsy.Methods: The study is a hospital based prospective study carried out in the Department of Pathology and Department of Skin, Venereal Diseases, Leprosy, N.S.C.B. Medical College & Hospital, Jabalpur (M.P.) September 2010 to September 2013. Patients with new skin lesions were selected for the study. FNAC was performed and aspirates were evaluated for cytology using Hematoxylin and Eosin staining (H&E staining), Ziehl-Neelsen staining (ZN staining) and punch biopsy was collected.Results: Out of 50 cases, clinical and cytological correlation was seen in 88% tuberculoid leprosy, 93.7% of borderline tuberculoid, 33% of borderline lepromatous leprosy and 66% of lepromatous leprosy. While clinical with histopathological correlation revealed 100% specificity in tuberculoid leprosy, 100% in borderline tuberculoid, 66.6% in borderline lepromatous, 83.3% in lepromatous leprosy and 80% in indeterminate leprosy and 100% in histoid leprosy in our study. The overall cytodiagnostic accuracy has been 92% in present study.  Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that the combination of FNAC and ZN staining for Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) can provide a rapid diagnosis in majority of leprosy suspected cases. FNAC is a safe, simple, rapid, less-invasive, OPD procedure for early diagnosis and classification of leprosy cases.

NANOSUSPENSION: AN OVERVIEW

Nanotechnology has emerged as a tremendous field in the medicine. Nano refers to particles size range of 1-1000nm. Nanosuspensions are part of nanotechnology. Nanosuspensions contain submicron colloidal dispersion of pharmaceutical active ingredient particles in a liquid phase stabilized by surfactants. Nanosuspension technology is a unique andeconomical approach to overcome poor bioavailability that is related with the delivery of hydrophobic drugs, including those that are poorly soluble in aqueous media. Nanosuspensions are important carriers to develop novel drug formulations. Few techniques such as precipitation methods, milling methods and homogenization methods are developed to produce nanosuspension (NS) and have been successfully employed in large-scale production. They are administered by Parenteral, per oral, ocular and pulmonary routes. Now their application also extended to site specific delivery. Nanosuspensions are prepared by using wet mill, high pressure homogenizer, emulsionâ€solvent evaporation, melt emulsification method and super critical fluid techniques. Nanosuspension technology can be used to improve the stability as well as bioavailability of poorly soluble drug. Nanosuspensions are also use in various dosage forms, including specialized drug delivery system such as mucoadhesive hydrogel. The unique features of nanosuspensions have enabled their use in various dosage forms, including specialized delivery systems such as mucoadhesive hydrogels. Rapid strides have been made in the delivery of nanosuspensions by parenteral, per-oral, ocular and pulmonary routes. Currently, efforts are being directed to extending their applications in site-specific drug delivery

Osmotic controlled drug delivery system (OSMO technology) and its impact on diabetes care

Recently, focus on the development of controlled release drug delivery system has increased, as existing drugs exhibit certain pharmacokinetic limitations. The major goal of designing sustained release formulations is to improve the drug performance by prolonged duration of drug action, decreased frequency of dosing and reduced side effects by using smallest quantity of drug administered by the most suitable route. Osmotic-controlled release oral delivery system (OSMO technology) is the most promising strategy based system for sustained delivery of drug. Drug can be delivered in a controlled manner over a long period of time by the process of osmosis. Osmotic drug delivery system appears to be a promising solution for the limitations of conventional extended release formulations by virtue of their distinguished technological features. The present review describes briefly about various controlled drug delivery systems with special focus on advantages of osmotic-controlled release oral delivery system related to diabetes therapy and improved compliance

Robust generation of transgenic mice by simple hypotonic solution mediated delivery of transgene in testicular germ cells

Our ability to decipher gene sequences has increased enormously with the advent of modern sequencing tools, but the ability to divulge functions of new genes have not increased correspondingly. This has caused a remarkable delay in functional interpretation of several newly found genes in tissue and age specific manner, limiting the pace of biological research. This is mainly due to lack of advancements in methodological tools for transgenesis. Predominantly practiced method of transgenesis by pronuclear DNA-microinjection is time consuming, tedious, and requires highly skilled persons for embryo-manipulation. Testicular electroporation mediated transgenesis requires use of electric current to testis. To this end, we have now developed an innovative technique for making transgenic mice by giving hypotonic shock to male germ cells for the gene delivery. Desired transgene was suspended in hypotonic Tris-HCl solution (pH 7.0) and simply injected in testis. This resulted in internalization of the transgene in dividing germ-cells residing at basal compartment of tubules leading to its integration in native genome of mice. Such males generated transgenic progeny by natural mating. Several transgenic animals can be generated with minimum skill within short span of time by this easily adaptable novel technique

Phases of a conserved mass model of aggregation with fragmentation at fixed sites

To study the effect of quenched disorder in a class of reaction-diffusion systems, we introduce a conserved mass model of diffusion and aggregation in which the mass moves as a whole to a nearest neighbour on most sites while it fragments off as a single monomer (i.e. chips off) from certain fixed sites. Once the mass leaves any site, it coalesces with the mass present on its neighbour. We study in detail the effect of a \emph{single} chipping site on the steady state in arbitrary dimensions, with and without bias. In the thermodynamic limit, the system can exist in one of the following phases -- (a) Pinned Aggregate (PA) phase in which an infinite aggregate (with mass proportional to the volume of the system) appears with probability one at the chipping site but not in the bulk. (b) Unpinned Aggregate (UA) phase in which \emph{both} the chipping site and the bulk can support an infinite aggregate simultaneously. (c) Non Aggregate (NA) phase in which there is no infinite cluster. Our analytical and numerical studies show that the system exists in the UA phase in all cases except in 1d with bias. In the latter case, there is a phase transition from the NA phase to the PA phase as density is increased. A variant of the above aggregation model is also considered in which total particle number is conserved and chipping occurs at a fixed site, but the particles do not interact with each other at other sites. This model is solved exactly by mapping it to a Zero Range Process. With increasing density, it exhibits a phase transition from the NA phase to the PA phase in all dimensions, irrespective of bias. Finally, we discuss the likely behaviour of the system in the presence of extensive disorder.Comment: RevTex, 19 pages including 11 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

An integrated transcriptomics-guided genome-wide promoter analysis and next-generation proteomics approach to mine factor(s) regulating cellular differentiation

Differential next-generation-omics approaches aid in the visualization of biological processes and pave the way for divulging important events and/or interactions leading to a functional output at cellular or systems level. To this end, we undertook an integrated Nextgen transcriptomics and proteomics approach to divulge differential gene expression of infant and pubertal rat Sertoli cells (Sc).Unlike, pubertal Sc, infant Sc are immature and fail to support spermatogenesis. We found exclusive association of 14 and 19 transcription factor binding sites to infantile and pubertal states of Sc, respectively, using differential transcriptomics-guided genome-wide computational analysis of relevant promoters employing 220 Positional Weight Matrices from the TRANSFAC database. Proteomic SWATH-MS analysis provided extensive quantification of nuclear and cytoplasmic protein fractions revealing 1,670 proteins differentially located between the nucleus and cytoplasm of infant Sc and 890 proteins differentially located within those of pubertal Sc. Based on our multi-omics approach, the transcription factor YY1 was identified as one of the lead candidates regulating differentiation of Sc.YY1 was found to have abundant binding sites on promoters of genes upregulated during puberty. To determine its significance, we generated transgenic rats with Sc specific knockdown of YY1 that led to compromised spermatogenesis