A STUDY ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS BOTTLED DRINKING WATER WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COIMBATORE CITY

Packaged drinking water means water derived from any source of portable water, which is, subjected to treatments namely decantation filtration, combination of filtration, accretions, filtration with membrane filter, depth filter, cartridge filter activated carbon filtration, demineralization, re-mineralization reverse osmosis packed. In marketing, consumers and their behaviour are viewed more carefully because of their importance. The individual consumer can change the entire market with his/her buying activities. Hence this study focuses the consumer behaviour towards bottled drinking water, to explain it the researchers have collected primary data through questionnaire and finally recommendations are provided in this study. The study concludes that quality is the most important factor influencing the consumers to go for a particular brand of bottled water. They believe that compared to the tap water, consuming Bottled Drinking water is a hygienic one. Therefore it is suggested to the manufacturers to give due consideration for the hygienic aspect while manufacturing Bottled Drinking water

Serum Procalcitonin as a Diagnostic Marker of Bacterial Infection in Febrile Children

Febrile illnesses are the most common cause for seeking health care in pediatric age group. Often children do not have classical signs and symptoms. In the past, various biomarkers have been evaluated with varying degree of sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing bacterial infections. This study aims at ascertaining whether serum procalcitonin (PCT) is able to accurately diagnose bacterial infection among febrile children. The study also attempts to compare the test characteristics of PCT with C–reactive protein (HsCRP) and absolute neutrophil count (ANC). Among the three parameters studied, PCT emerged as a highly specific marker (84.16% specificity), negative predictive value of 89% with an area under curve in ROC (receiver operating characteristic curve) of 0.755. Thus, we would like to postulate that PCT can be used as a single best marker to diagnose bacterial infection in febrile children when used in isolation

Study on Clinicopathological Spectrum of Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus and Its Correlation with Ancillary Tests

INTRODUCTION: Lupus erythematosus is a complex autoimmune disorder, of unknown etiology with various manifestations ranging from benign to fatal systemic illness. This study was done to analyze the clinicopathological spectrum and the most common histopathological features in various subtypes of Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus, in addition to the utility of special stains in highlighting the significant features. MATERIALS AND METHODS: It is a prospective study done for a period of one and a half years. In this study, 40 clinically diagnosed, untreated Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus patients were included. RESULTS: In 40 clinically diagnosed patients, 19 were diagnosed as Acute Lupus Erythematosus (47.5%), 6 as Subacute Lupus Erythematosus (15%) and 15 as Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (37.5%). The commonly affected patients were females between 31- 45 years of age. The most common histopathological features in various subtypes of Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus includes basal cell vacuolar degeneration with periadnexal and perivascular inflammation. In DLE patients, additional features such as basement membrane thickening and interstitial dermal mucin were frequently observed with the help of special stain, PAS with Alcian blue. CONCLUSION: In this study, histopathological examination of skin biopsy with concurrent use of special stain and clinical correlation helps in diagnosis and subclassification of the disease. Periodic assessment of cutaneous lesions of Lupus Erythematosus will help us to demonstrate the various manifestations of the disease in all aspects

PHARMACOPHORIC SCREENING OF VARIOUS ENDOPHYTIC FUNGAL METABOLITES

Objective: To screen various endophytic fungal metabolites toward anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant property virtually.Methods: In this study, 14 bioactive compounds reported from endophytic fungi have taken for structure-based drug design. With the help of softwareSchrodinger, different modules were used to perform screening of top active compounds. Ligprep, epharm, Glide, Quikprop are the modules were used from the software for our study. Identification of leads, pharmacophore model generation, and molecular docking studies were assessed using this software.Results: After the screening of molecules virtually, the most bioactive anti-inflammatory compound was found to be cycloepoxytriol with the dockingscore of −7.511 kcal/mole, and the most active anticancer compound was found to be Phomol with the docking score of −9.778 kcal/mole. The mostactive antioxidant compound was found to be Phomol with the docking score of −9.970 kcal/mole. Further account the potential of the compoundsto act as efficient drug candidates, their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion properties were also predicted. All the compounds wereshown to correlate well with all properties virtually.Conclusion: In conclusion, using structure-based drug design, we have obtained some promising leads for anti-inflammatory, anticancer, andantioxidant drug discovery. The discovery of compounds from natural products is very potent for formulating new drugs.Â

Comparing Deterministic and Stochastic Methods in Geospatial Analysis of Groundwater Fluoride Concentration

Dental and skeletal fluorosis caused by consuming high-fluoride groundwater has been reported over several decades globally. Prediction maps to estimate the fluoride contaminated area rely on interpolation methods. This study presents a comparison of the accuracy of nine spatial interpolation methods in predicting the fluoride in groundwater. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV), hold-out validation and validation with an independent dataset were used to assess the precision of the interpolation methods. This is the first study on fluoride with a large dataset (N = 13,585) applied at the regional level in India. Our findings showed that the inverse distance weighted (IDW) algorithm outperformed other methods in terms of less discrepancy between measured and predicted fluoride. IDW and local polynomial interpolation (LPI) were the only methods to predict contaminated areas (fluoride > 1.5 mg/L). However, the area estimated by the typical assessment of the percentage of unsuitable samples was much higher (6.1%) compared to that estimated by IDW (0.2%) and LPI (0.2%). LOOCV provided viable results than the other two validation methods. Interpolation methods are accompanied with uncertainty which are regulated by the sample size, sample density, sample distribution, minimum and maximum measured concentrations, smoothing and border effects. Drawing a comparison among variegated interpolation methods capturing a wide range of prediction uncertainty is suggested rather than relying on one method exclusively. The high-fluoride areas identified in this study can be used by the Government in planning remediation actions

Trace metals contamination in groundwater and implications on human health: comprehensive assessment using hydrogeochemical and geostatistical methods

Monitoring the groundwater chemical composition and identifying the presence of pollutants is an integral part of any comprehensive groundwater management strategy. The present study was conducted in a part of West Tripura, northeast India, to investigate the presence and sources of trace metals in groundwater and the risk to human health due to direct ingestion of groundwater. Samples were collected from 68 locations twice a year from 2016 to 2018. Mixed Ca–Mg–HCO3, Ca–Cl and Ca–Mg–Cl were the main groundwater types. Hydrogeochemical methods showed groundwater mineralization due to (1) carbonate dissolution, (2) silicate weathering, (3) cation exchange processes and (4) anthropogenic sources. Occurrence of faecal coliforms increased in groundwater after monsoons. Nitrate and microbial contamination from wastewater infiltration were apparent. Iron, manganese, lead, cadmium and arsenic were above the drinking water limits prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Water quality index indicated 1.5% had poor, 8.7% had marginal, 16.2% had fair, 66.2% had good and 7.4% had excellent water quality. Correlation and principal component analysis reiterated the sources of major ions and trace metals identified from hydrogeochemical methods. Human exposure assessment suggests health risk due to high iron in groundwater. The presence of unsafe levels of trace metals in groundwater requires proper treatment measures before domestic use

Characterization Studies of Medicinal Plants & I’ts Biological Evaluation Towards Anti-Bacterial Study

The traditional system of medicine proves to be one of the best sources for treating illness and infections. Murraya koenigii (curry leaves) and Asparagus racemosus (shatavari) are the two medicinal plant species that have numerous medicinal properties like antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, etc. In this study, the Ultrasound extraction and the Soxhlet mode of extraction were carried out using two different solvents such as Hexane and Ethyl acetate. Analysis and Retention factor were was carried out thin layer chromatography. The purification was performed using column chromatographic method and the various phytoconstituents such as tannins, terpenoids, carbohydrates, proteins, steroids, flavonoids, phlobatannins were analysed for the extracted samples. Retention factors have been calculated for both the extracted samples and the samples were further processed for sterility test in order to check for any contamination. The extracted samples were characterized using GC-MS analysis. The anti-bacterial evaluation was performed. The highest zone of inhibition found in 1000µg/ml concentration for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 500µg/ml concentration for Staphylococcus aureus. The minimum inhibitory concentration for Pseudomonas aeruginosa is predicted as 250µg/ml concentration and for Staphylococcus aureus as 500µg/ml concentration. The rate of kill was higher in 500µg/ml concentration for both bacterial samples. The crystal violet assay was performed and observed the cell viability. Further the In-silico analysis was performed towards the GC analysis compounds and their structure activity relationship were studied towards the protein

Analysis of quality of frozen thawed bull sperms treated with bisphenol A

Bisphenol A is a pervasive endocrine disruptor that causes various detrimental health effects on animals and humans. There are several evidences to support that this persistent chemical affects male fertility by interfering with the process of functional maturation of sperms like motility, hyperactivation, capacitation and acrosome reaction in laboratory species. The present study was aimed to evaluate the effect of BPA on the quality of the frozen thawed sperms in higher animal model namely bull. Frozen thawed bull sperms were exposed to four different concentrations of BPA. Aliquots of sperms from each treatment group were examined at three time periods for assessing acrosome integrity, viability and membrane integrity. Exposure of sperms in vitro to BPA revealed that there is a significant influence of BPA on treatment groups when compared to control. The loss of acrosomal integrity and viability was higher even at as low a concentration of 10 μM BPA. The reduction in sperm quality was proportional to the increase in exposure period. Further in vitro investigation is required to elucidate the mechanism of action of BPA that alters the sperm quality.

EVALUATION OF IN VITRO ANTICANCER POTENTIAL OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT AND ITS DIFFERENT FRACTIONS OF CAESALPINIA BONDUC (L) ROXB SEEDS

Objective: The present study aims to evaluate the anticancer potential of ethanolic extract and its different fractions of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds against Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma (EAC) cell lines. Methods: Ethanolic extract and its fractions were subjected to preliminary phytochemical screening and anticancer activity by using in vitro anticancer assay. Chemical constituents of petroleum ether fraction of C. bonduc seeds were identified by using GC-MS and the active compounds were subjected to in silico studies. Results: In vitro anticancer assay showed that the petroleum ether fraction of ethanolic extract of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds has potential anticancer activity. Conclusions: Petroleum ether fraction of ethanolic extract of Caesalpinia bonduc seeds has significant anticancer activity. Further in-depth studies, could result in the development of a good anticancer agent from the seeds of Caesalpinia bonduc