FAST DISSOLVING TABLETS (FDTs): CURRENT STATUS, NEW MARKET OPPORTUNITIES, RECENT ADVANCES IN MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Fast dissolving tablet technology is a topic of current interest in pharmacy and therapeutics. Tablet swallowing difficulty primarily affects the geriatric and paediatric populations whereas unpalatable taste of drugs leads to patient non-compliance. Swallowing problems also are common in young individuals because of their underdeveloped muscular and nervous systems. Fast Dissolving Tablets (FDTs) are one of the fruitful results of continuous technological advancements in the pharmaceutical industry. FD tablets play a major r

Hypertrophic pachymeningitis: a rare manifestation of IgG4 related disease

Hypertrophic pachymeningitis (HP) is a rare form of diffuse inflammatory disease that causes thickening of the dura mater. It can involve the cranial or the spinal dura or both. An increasingly well-known symptom of IgG4-related illness, a fibroinflammatory syndrome that may affect almost any organ, is IgG4-related hypertrophic pachymeningitis (IgG4-RHP). It is estimated that IgG4-RHP may account for a high proportion of cases of hypertrophic pachymeningitis once considered idiopathic. Contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows pachymeningeal enhancement. Serum IgG4 levels may be elevated but are normal in most patients. However, most patients have elevated cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) IgG4 index. Hence, CSF IgG4 index could serve as a less invasive diagnostic marker of IgG4-RHP. Confirmation of diagnosis is by meningeal biopsy that shows swirling “storiform” fibrosis with lymphocytic infiltrates, obliterate phlebitis and IgG4 positive plasma cells. This case highlights the diagnostic dilemma of IgG4-RHP as gold standard of diagnosis is meningeal biopsy which has many of its own limitations. CSF IgG4 index could be an alternate option for meningeal biopsy when the procedure is contraindicated or uninformative

Removal of turbidity from washing machine discharge using Strychnos potatorum seeds: Parameter optimization and mechanism prediction

In this research an attempt has been made to utilize the Strychnos potatorum seed powder as an environmentally friendly coagulant for the removal of turbidity from washing machine discharge. The performance of this system was also compared with synthetic water. Experimental studies were conducted for the maximum removal of turbidity from washing machine discharge and synthetic turbid water which were varied from 50 to 145 NTU. The effect of operating parameters such as initial turbidity, S. potatorum dosage and pH of the solution was optimized for the maximum removal of turbidity. It was seen that the percentage removal of turbidity lay was between 68-89% and 65-84% for synthetic turbid water and washing machine discharge sample respectively, at an ideal pH of 6-7. The experimental values were compared with the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models to understand the extent of influence of the sorption of the particles onto the S. potatorum seed powder. Better results with respect to concordance of experimental data were observed with Langmuir isotherm model, indicating a monolayer sorption of particles onto the S. potatorum seed powder. It was observed from the isotherm study that the sorption may also be influenced in the removal of turbidity to some extent from the washing machine discharge and synthetic water. The prepared material can be effectively utilized for the removal of turbidity from the water

Modeling a IF double sampling bandpass switched capacitor ΣΔ ADC with a symmetric noise transfer function for WiMAX/WLAN

4G technology aims to revolutionize private and professional communication with its ubiquity and high-speed transmission (averaging 100Mbps). WiMAX and WLAN are two of the high speed access technologies to be used in the 4G mobile communication. Apropos to their high bandwidths, oversampling converters, e.g.ΣΔ ADCs, used for these standards would entail high levels of power consumption. Double sampling technique used in ΣΔ ADCs help in reducing the power consumption, since the actual sampling rate is only half the sampling frequency required to achieve a target resolution. But for conventional modulators, with low pass noise transfer functions (NTF), this benefit is hampered by the introduction of folded noise due to the mismatch of sampling capacitances. This paper presents a novel method of designing IF bandpass switched capacitor (SC)ΣΔ modulators with symmetric NTFs. Such a bandpass NTF is formulated with its center frequency at one-fourth the effective sampling frequency. The symmetricity ensures that the folded noise is `noise-shaped' along with the quantization noise. The idea is verified with a discrete time bandpass ΣΔ modulator modeled using Simulink®, including various nonlinearities, viz. clock jitter, opampnonidealities, and capacitive mismatch effects owing to double sampling and use of a multibitquantizer. Behavioral simulations of the proposed non-ideal model for WiMAX and WLAN, with a bandwith of 10MHz and 11MHz, respectively, achieved a peak resolution greater than 10 bits for each of the standards

STRUCTURAL AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF ZnS NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIZED BY MICROWAVE IRRADIATION METHOD

ZnS nanoparticles were synthesized by Microwave assisted irradiation method. The obtained ZnS nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, SEM and UV-Vis spectroscopy. XRD characterization of the samples were taken which verify the crystalline form of the samples and also the average size of the nanocrystallites were measured by DebyeScherrer formula as per the XRD spectrum, which was found to be around 6 nm. The surface morphology of the ZnS nanocrystallites was taken by Scanning Electron Microscopy. The UV-Visible absorption spectra of the nanocrystallites were taken and the optical bandgap of the ZnS nanocrystals were found to be 3.76 eV

Disruption of Skin Stem Cell Homeostasis following Transplacental Arsenicosis; Alleviation by Combined Intake of Selenium and Curcumin

Of late, a consirable interest has grown in literature on early development of arsenicosis and untimely death in humans after exposure to iAs in drinking water in utero or during the childhood. The mechanism of this kind of intrauterine arsenic poisoning is not known; however it is often suggested to involve stem cells. We looked into this possibility by investigating in mice the influence of chronic in utero exposure to arsenical drinking water preliminarily on multipotent adult stem cell and progenitor cell counts at the beginning of neonatal age. We found that repeated intake of 42.5 or 85ppm iAs in drinking water by pregnant BALB/c mice substantially changed the counts of EpASCs, the progenitor cells, and the differentiated cells in epidermis of their zero day old neonates. EpASCs counts decreased considerably and the differentiated / apoptosed cell counts increased extensively whereas the counts of progenitor cell displayed a biphasic effect. The observed trend of response was dose-dependent and statistically significant. These observations signified a disruption in stem cell homeostasis. The disorder was in parallel with changes in expression of biomarkers of stem cell and progenitor (TA) cell besides changes in expression of pro-inflammatory and antioxidant molecules namely Nrf2, NFkB, TNF-α, and GSH. The biological monitoring of exposure to iAs and the ensuing transplacental toxicity was verifiable correspondingly by the increase in iAs burden in hair, kidney, skin, liver of nulliparous female mice and the onset of chromosomal aberrations in neonate bone marrow cells. The combined intake of selenite and curcumin in utero was found to prevent the disruption of homeostasis and associated biochemical changes to a great extent. The mechanism of prevention seemed possibly to involve (a) curcumin and Keap-1 interaction, (b) consequent escalated de novo GSH biosynthesis, and (c) the resultant toxicant disposition. These observations are important with respect to the development of vulnerability to arsenicosis and other morbidities later in life after repeated in utero or postnatal exposure to iAs in drinking water that may occur speculatively through impairment of adult stem cell dependent innate tissue repair mechanism