Effect of Aegle marmelos methanolic extracts of leaf and fruit pulp on learning and memory in albino rats

Background: The objective was to study the effect of Aegle marmelos methanolic extracts of leaf (LE) and fruit pulp extract (FE) on learning and memory in albino rats. 40 healthy wistar albino rats of either sex were randomly divided into 10 groups of 4 each (n=4), weighing about 150 to 200 gm were selected for the study. The extracts i.e. 1ml of 1% carboxy methyl cellulose, LE and FE at doses of 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg were administered per oral one hour before the experiment.Methods: Learning and memory was assessed by elevated plus maze and Hebb William maze. Latency time and number of entries were assessed by elevated plus maze whereas only latency was assessed by Hebb William maze.Results: Plant extracts of LE and FE at doses 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg have shown significant percentage reduction in latency time in elevated plus maze and Hebb William maze (p<0.05) and reduction in the number of entries in elevated plus maze.Conclusions: LE and FE at doses 200 mg/kg have shown significant effect on learning and memory

Striatal cholinergic interneurons generate beta and gamma oscillations in the corticostriatal circuit and produce motor deficits

Cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic (CBT) neural circuits are critical modulators of cognitive and motor function. When compromised, these circuits contribute to neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson's disease (PD). In PD, motor deficits correlate with the emergence of exaggerated beta frequency (15-30 Hz) oscillations throughout the CBT network. However, little is known about how specific cell types within individual CBT brain regions support the generation, propagation, and interaction of oscillatory dynamics throughout the CBT circuit or how specific oscillatory dynamics are related to motor function. Here, we investigated the role of striatal cholinergic interneurons (SChIs) in generating beta and gamma oscillations in cortical-striatal circuits and in influencing movement behavior. We found that selective stimulation of SChIs via optogenetics in normal mice robustly and reversibly amplified beta and gamma oscillations that are supported by distinct mechanisms within striatal-cortical circuits. Whereas beta oscillations are supported robustly in the striatum and all layers of primary motor cortex (M1) through a muscarinic-receptor mediated mechanism, gamma oscillations are largely restricted to the striatum and the deeper layers of M1. Finally, SChI activation led to parkinsonian-like motor deficits in otherwise normal mice. These results highlight the important role of striatal cholinergic interneurons in supporting oscillations in the CBT network that are closely related to movement and parkinsonian motor symptoms.DP2 NS082126 - NINDS NIH HHS; R01 NS081716 - NINDS NIH HHS; R21 NS078660 - NINDS NIH HHShttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4896681/Published versio

Drug utilization pattern of antimicrobials in OPD of ENT in teaching hospital

Background: A drug utilization study may be helpful to identify the problems, suggest the remedial measures and promote rational use. Antimicrobials are commonly used to treat infections caused by bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi, evidently require huge prescriptions in India.Methods: A prospective, observational study was carried out for a period of four months from February to May 2019 in the Department of ENT (OPD) at NRI Medical College and General Hospital. Prescriptions were collected randomly from around 300 patients attending the ENT outpatient department after obtaining informed consent. The data were collected in the predesigned proforma for analysis.Results: 300 ENT patients were selected for the study, 62% were male and 38% were female. Out of 300 patients 190 ear disorders, 50 nasal, and 60 throat infections. Antimicrobial therapy were most commonly instituted in ear diseases (67.66%), nose (16.95%) and throat (15.37%) respectively. The most commonly used agents were amoxicillin with clavulanic acid- n=295, cefixime- n=1260, gentamicin- n=200, ciprofloxacin- n=157, azithromycin- n=199, nitroimidazoles (metronidazole- n=111).Conclusions: Cefixime and amoxicillin+clavulanic acid combination was the most commonly prescribed antibiotic in our study. Interventions to rectify the use of brand names are necessary to promote rational drug use. An antibiotic policy has to be developed for the doctors in treating infections so that rationality in using the antibiotics will be developed and the occurrence of antibiotic resistance can be reduced

A Novel Multi-Symbol Curve Fit based CABAC Framework for Hybrid Video Codec's with Improved Coding Efficiency and Throughput

Video compression is an essential component of present-day applications and a decisive factor between the success or failure of a business model. There is an ever increasing demand to transmit larger number of superior-quality video channels into the available transmission bandwidth. Consumers are increasingly discerning about the quality and performance of video-based products and there is therefore a strong incentive for continuous improvement in video coding technology for companies to have market edge over its competitors. Even though processor speeds and network bandwidths continue to increase, a better video compression results in a more competitive product. This drive to improve video compression technology has led to a revolution in the last decade. In this thesis we addresses some of these data compression problems in a practical multimedia system that employ Hybrid video coding schemes. Typically Real life video signals show non-stationary statistical behavior. The statistics of these signals largely depend on the video content and the acquisition process. Hybrid video coding schemes like H264/AVC exploits some of the non-stationary characteristics but certainly not all of it. Moreover, higher order statistical dependencies on a syntax element level are mostly neglected in existing video coding schemes. Designing a video coding scheme for a video coder by taking into consideration these typically observed statistical properties, however, offers room for significant improvements in coding efficiency.In this thesis work a new frequency domain curve-fitting compression framework is proposed as an extension to H264 Context Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coder (CABAC) that achieves better compression efficiency at reduced complexity. The proposed Curve-Fitting extension to H264 CABAC, henceforth called as CF-CABAC, is modularly designed to conveniently fit into existing block based H264 Hybrid video Entropy coding algorithms. Traditionally there have been many proposals in the literature to fuse surfaces/curve fitting with Block-based, Region based, Training-based (VQ, fractals) compression algorithms primarily to exploiting pixel- domain redundancies. Though the compression efficiency of these are expectantly better than DCT transform based compression, but their main drawback is the high computational demand which make the former techniques non-competitive for real-time applications over the latter. The curve fitting techniques proposed so far have been on the pixel domain. The video characteristic on the pixel domain are highly non-stationary making curve fitting techniques not very efficient in terms of video quality, compression ratio and complexity. In this thesis, we explore using curve fitting techniques to Quantized frequency domain coefficients. we fuse this powerful technique to H264 CABAC Entropy coding. Based on some predictable characteristics of Quantized DCT coefficients, a computationally in-expensive curve fitting technique is explored that fits into the existing H264 CABAC framework. Also Due to the lossy nature of video compression and the strong demand for bandwidth and computation resources in a multimedia system, one of the key design issues for video coding is to optimize trade-off among quality (distortion) vs compression (rate) vs complexity. This thesis also briefly studies the existing rate distortion (RD) optimization approaches proposed to video coding for exploring the best RD performance of a video codec. Further, we propose a graph based algorithm for Rate-distortion. optimization of quantized coefficient indices for the proposed CF-CABAC entropy coding

Effect of Sesbania grandiflora Linn leaf extracts on diuresis in wistar rats

Background: This study was designed to evaluate the effect of sesbania grandiflora linn leaf extracts on diuretic activity in wistar rats.Methods: Healthy male wistar albino rats divided into 9 groups and weighing 150-200gm.diuretic activity was expressed by Natriuretic activity, saluretic activity, carbonic anhydrase inhibition, Diuretic index or Diuretic action, saluretic index, Natriuretic index. Animalgroups are divided into: group1 treated as control, 2and 3 treated as standards, group 4, 5 and 6 treated with aqueous leaf extract of Sesbania grandiflora Linn. in different doses of 150,300,450mg/kg. Group 7,8and 9 treated with methanolic leaf extract of Sesbania grandiflora Linn. Doses of 150,300,450mg/kg.Results: No change in body weight group treated with AE-150 (p>0.05) with AE-150 (0.1%), increase in urine volume with increasing doses both with aqueous and methanolic extracts, sodium excretion with methanolic extract was high compared with the aqueous extract, significant increase in potassium excretion in both aqueous and methanolic extract treated groups.All the statistical tests were done by using SPSS version 6. The level of significance was 5% (p≤0.05).Conclusions: All the electrolytes concentration was increased in the urine, hence excluding osmotic diuretic action. Diuretic index, saluretic activity, saluretic index and natriuretic index of ME-450 were more than the value of hydrochlorothiazide hence excludes thiazide diuretic action. But these values were less than furosemide

Knowledge of medical students on clinical trials

Background: Basic research can help medical school students improve critical thinking skills required by medical practice. In this era of evidence-based medicine, the combination of medical education with clinical research is the key to ensure scientific discoveries are translated into clinical practice. This study’s objective was to know the awareness about clinical trials among undergraduate medical students.Methods: After obtaining approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee of NRI Academy of Medical Sciences, Guntur, India, this cross sectional study was conducted in second year medical students after taking their consent. A sample of 90was considered for statistical analysis. A structured questionnaire was used to measure the objective of this study, which had general, regulatory and ethical questions related to clinical trials. Qualitative data variables were expressed by using frequency and Percentage (%).Results: Out of 90 students, it was observed that in the general questions category, 70% of students were aware of the purpose of conducting clinical trials, 50% were aware of the pre-requisites for a participant before participating in a clinical trial and 50% were aware of the parameters evaluated in a clinical trial. 95% of students did not know the response for regulatory questions. The students’ awareness regarding ethics related to clinical trials was better than the other two categories.Conclusions: The overall awareness of clinical trials was low among students though they demonstrated good awareness regarding few aspects of clinical trials

Study of awareness of insulin usage in diabetics attending NRI Medical College and General Hospital

Background: India had 69.2 million diabetic patients. Insulin is an important part of diabetes treatment, but one-third of patients fail to take their insulin as prescribed, and many adults intentionally skip their doses. Since, diabetes treatment continues for lifetime, there is a need to assess the knowledge and understanding of patients in relation to their disease process and its management.Methods: A cross sectional, observational, knowledge and attitude survey were carried on patients with type II diabetes mellitus who are taking insulin therapy and attended medicine diabetes OPD in tertiary care Hospital during the period of April 2017 to Dec 2017. 200 diabetic patients’ ≥18 years of age who were willing to respond to the study questionnaire were interviewed.Results: Total of 200 study participants were interviewed using structured questionnaires, almost 75 (37.5%) of the respondents were age group of 41 - 50 years. 109 (54.5 %) male, 67 (33.5%)Hindus, 121 (60.5 %) married,79 (39.5%) were primary school, 120 (73.8%) were family history of diabetes, duration of treatment1-3 years 72 (31.5 %), 160 (63%) of the study subjects know about diabetes is high blood glucose, 119(59.5%)of subjects know complications of diabetes, 165(82.5%) were know about insulin used for diabetes, 115 (57.5%) of patients know other substitute for insulin, 94 (47%) of the study subjects have knowledge of complications of insulin therapy, 85 (42.5) were know different types of insulin preparations, 141 (70.5%) were know insulin is mandatory in some patients,159 (79.5%) were understood the route of administration of insulin.Conclusions: The finding of present study showed that, diabetes patients had average knowledge and less favourable attitude among diabetic patients toward insulin therapy

Evaluation of adverse drug reactions of anti-tubercular drugs in the treatment of tuberculosis in tertiary care hospital

Background: Adverse drug reactions are very common among patients on anti-tubercular treatment. Hence, the current study was done to evaluate the adverse drug reaction (ADR) profile in patients receiving anti-tubercular treatment (ATT).Methods: A 6 months prospective, cross-sectional observational study was performed in collaboration with Pulmonology Medicine department. WHO-UMC scale and Naranjo scale was used to evaluate the ADRs.Results: Ninety-two patients receiving ATT presented with 113 adverse drug events (ADE). Males were more affected than females. DOTS category-1 regimen was mostly responsible for ADE. Addition of drugs for the management of ADR events was done.Conclusions: The study results show more ADRs related to ATT demanding increased collaboration between NTEP 2020 and Pharmacovigilance Programme of India to enhance drug safety in this field

The Biomechanical Aspects of Pedestrian Protection

In this paper a biomechanical basis for pedestrian protection is presented based on reviews of epidemiological and biomechanical studies conducted over the last three decades. Epidemiological studies reveal the nature and cause of pedestrian crashes and injuries sustained in the field. The various factors that influence pedestrian crashes and fatalities such as pedestrian demographics, time and location of crash, type of vehicles involved and their design characteristics, impact speeds, and nature and severity of injuries sustained are covered in the epidemiology section. The biomechanical studies identify the injury mechanisms and the biomechanical tolerances. Several biomechanical studies that attempt to identify the injury mechanisms and quantify the tolerances are critically reviewed in this paper, and the existing gaps in literature are identified. Further, the three primary injury mechanisms for pedestrian lower extremity injuries are highlighted, and an injury mechanism for depressed tibial fracture is hypothesized. The effect of exterior vehicle parameters such as bumper height, bumper stiffness, hood length, hood stiffness, bumper lead angle on the nature and severity of injuries sustained are also discussed. The biomechanical injury criteria and tolerance values in a proposed draft ECE pedestrian regulation are also presented. Finally conclusions are drawn based on the epidemiological and biomechanical studies, which lead to a proposal for future work