In vitro evaluation of marketed antimalarial chloroquine phosphate tablets

Background & objectives: The aim of the present study is to investigate the physicochemicalequivalence of seven brands of tablets containing chloroquine phosphate, an antimalarial purchasedfrom different retail pharmacy outlets.Methods: The quality and physicochemical equivalence of seven different brands of chloroquinephosphate tablets were assessed. The assessment included the evaluation of uniformity of weight,friability, crushing strength, disintegration and dissolution tests as well as chemical assay of thetablets.Results: All the seven brands of the tablets passed the British Pharmacopoeia (BP) standards foruniformity of weight, disintegration and crushing strength. One of seven brands failed the friabilitytest. One of the brands did not comply with the standard assay of content of active ingredients.Dissolution test passes the pharmacopoeial standards for chloroquine phosphate tablets. There wereno significant differences in the amounts of chloroquine phosphate released from the different brands.Interpretation & conclusion: Out of the seven brands of anti-malarial chloroquine phosphate tabletsonly one brand fails to meet BP quality specifications which shows constant market monitoring ofnew products to ascertain their equivalency to pharmacopoeial standards

Performance of Gonad Maturation and Spawned of Grouper Broodstock Cross Breeding Between F-2 and F-0

In fish grouper escpecially humpback grouper culture, seed and broodstock quality and availability determine the production success. Main supply of wild broodstock still dominates grouper hatchery activities, therefore, the exploitation of the wild broodstock is very high. Efforts to use the supply of cultured broodstock through selection and breeding processes will greatly determine their culture success. The purpose of this experiment was to get seeds from the cross breeding between F-2 and F-0. The research used two (2) concrete tanks with volume of 75 m3 each. Each tank was filled with 20 fishes consisting of 10 fishes of F-2 and 10 fishes of F-0. The experiment was conducted the Institute of Mariculture Research and Development, Gondol, Bali. The result showed a good gonadal development and natural spawning of cross breeding between F-2 and F-0. Total number of eggs (1.320.000) was found the highest in May in tank A, while the highest fertilized eggs of 385.000 were found in June. The SSCP analyses showed no difference in genetic characters of broodstock from cross-breeding between the female parent F-2 and F-0 male parent

Solar Assisted Heat Pump System for High Quality Drying Applications: A Critical Review

Solar assisted heat pump (SAHP) system integrates a solar thermal energy source with a heat pump. This technique is a very fundamental concept, especially for drying applications. By combining a solar thermal energy source such as solar thermal collectors and a heat pump dryer will assist in reducing the operation cost of drying and producing products with high quality. Many review papers in the literature evaluated the R&D aspects of solar-assisted heat pump dryers (SAHPD). This critical review paper studies some of the researches conducted in this field to understand and provides an update on recent developments in SAHPD. Also, a detailed explanation of principles and operation for SAHPD and its applications are presented. The used types of solar thermal collectors, as well as various heat pump dryers, are all discussed in this article. Finally, it is concluded that there is a clear lack of research in the techno-economic and environmental evaluation, while most of SAHPD studies focused on the performance study of the system

Interaction of the Psychiatric Risk Gene Cacna1c With Post-weaning Social Isolation or Environmental Enrichment Does Not Affect Brain Mitochondrial Bioenergetics in Rats

The pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders involves complex interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors. Confirmed by several genome-wide association studies, Cacna1c represents one of the most robustly replicated psychiatric risk genes. Besides genetic predispositions, environmental stress such as childhood maltreatment also contributes to enhanced disease vulnerability. Both, Cacna1c gene variants and stressful life events are associated with morphological alterations in the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Emerging evidence suggests impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics as a possible underlying mechanism of these regional brain abnormalities. In the present study, we simulated the interaction of psychiatric disease-relevant genetic and environmental factors in rodents to investigate their potential effect on brain mitochondrial function using a constitutive heterozygous Cacna1c rat model in combination with a four-week exposure to either post-weaning social isolation, standard housing, or social and physical environmental enrichment. Mitochondria were isolated from the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus to evaluate their bioenergetics, membrane potential, reactive oxygen species production, and respiratory chain complex protein levels. None of these parameters were considerably affected in this particular gene-environment setting. These negative results were very robust in all tested conditions demonstrating that Cacna1c depletion did not significantly translate into altered bioenergetic characteristics. Thus, further investigations are required to determine the disease-related effects on brain mitochondria

Recruitment Strategies and Lessons Learned from the Children's Healthy Living Program Prevalence Survey

The US Affiliated Pacific region's childhood obesity prevalence has reached epidemic proportions. To guide program and policy development, a multi-site study was initiated, in collaboration with partners from across the region, to gather comprehensive information on the regional childhood obesity prevalence. The environmental and cultural diversity of the region presented challenges to recruiting for and implementing a shared community-based, public health research program. This paper presents the strategies used to recruit families with young children (n = 5775 for children 2 - 8 years old) for obesity-related measurement across eleven jurisdictions in the US Affiliated Pacific Region. Data were generated by site teams that provided summaries of their recruitment strategies and lessons learned. Conducting this large multi-site prevalence study required considerable coordination, time and flexibility. In every location, local staff knowledgeable of the community was hired to lead recruitment, and participant compensation reflected jurisdictional appropriateness (e.g., gift cards, vouchers, or cash). Although recruitment approaches were site-specific, they were predominantly school-based or a combination of school- and community-based. Lessons learned included the importance of organization buy-in; communication, and advance planning; local travel and site peculiarities; and flexibility. Future monitoring of childhood obesity prevalence in the region should consider ways to integrate measurement activities into existing organizational infrastructures for sustainability and cost-effectiveness, while meeting programmatic (e.g. study) goals

Rime length, stress, and association domains

Every regular Chinese syllable has a syllable tone (the tone we get when the syllable is read in isolation). In some Chinese languages, the tonal pattern of a multisyllabic expression is basically a concatenation of the syllable tones. In other Chinese languages, the tonal pattern of a multisyllabic expression is determined solely by the initial syllable. I call the former M -languages (represented by Mandarin) and the latter S -languages (represented by Shanghai). I argue that there is an additional difference in rime structures between the two language groups. In S-languages, all rimes are simple, i.e., there are no underlying diphthongs or codas. In M-languages, all regular rimes are heavy. I further argue that a syllable keeps its underlying tones only if it has stress. Independent metrical evidence tells us that heavy rimes may carry inherent stress. Thus, in M-languages, all regular syllables are stressed and retain their underlying tones (which may or may not undergo further changes). In contrast, in S-languages, regular rimes do not carry inherent stress; instead, only those syllables that are assigned stress by rule can keep their underlying tones and hence head a multisyllabic tonal domain.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42998/1/10831_2005_Article_BF01440582.pd

Epileptic Disorder Detection of Seizures Using EEG Signals

Epilepsy is a nervous system disorder. Encephalography (EEG) is a generally utilized clinical approach for recording electrical activity in the brain. Although there are a number of datasets available, most of them are imbalanced due to the presence of fewer epileptic EEG signals compared with non-epileptic EEG signals. This research aims to study the possibility of integrating local EEG signals from an epilepsy center in King Abdulaziz University hospital into the CHB-MIT dataset by applying a new compatibility framework for data integration. The framework comprises multiple functions, which include dominant channel selection followed by the implementation of a novel algorithm for reading XLtek EEG data. The resulting integrated datasets, which contain selective channels, are tested and evaluated using a deep-learning model of 1D-CNN, Bi-LSTM, and attention. The results achieved up to 96.87% accuracy, 96.98% precision, and 96.85% sensitivity, outperforming the other latest systems that have a larger number of EEG channels

Aerodynamics of contemporary FIFA soccer balls

The soccer is the world's most popular and widely watched game. Due to increasing technological advancement and demand for performance, the ball manufacturers have been developing new designs progressively. A traditional spherical football made of 32 leather panels stitched together in 1970s has become only 14 synthetic curved panels thermally bonded without stitches ball in 2006 and more recently 8 panels football in 2010. Despite being most popular game in the world, scan data is available on aerodynamic properties of footballs especially Jabulani, Teamgeist and Fevernova balls. The primary objectives of this study were to evaluate aerodynamic performances of these three soccer balls. The aerodynamic forces and moments were measured experimentally for a range of wind speeds. The aerodynamic forces and their non-dimensional coefficients were determined and compared