Evaluation of Antioxidant Activity of Two Indian Medicinal Plants

Adhatoda vasica Nees and Sesbania grandiflora (L.) Pers are the two important medicinal plants native to India. The aqueous leaf extracts of these two plants have been analysed for their free radical-scavenging activity in different in vitro systems, e.g. DPPH radical-scavenging activity, hydroxyl radical-scavenging activity in Fe3+/ascorbate/EDTA/H2O2 system, inhibition of lipid peroxidation induced by FeSO4 in egg yolk, metal chelating activity. The free radical scavenging activities were compared with standard antioxidants like butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT), ascorbic acid and EDTA. Total antioxidant activity was measured, based on the reduction of Mo (VI) to Mo(V) by the extract and subsequent formation of green phosphate/Mo(V) complex at acid pH and reducing power by Fe3+ - Fe2+ transformation in the presence of extracts. The content of total phenolics (expressed as mg of gallic acid equivalents/gm) and total flavonoids (expressed as mg of quercetin equivalent/gm) and ascorbic acid were determined along with antioxidant enzymes. The results indicated that A. vasica and S. grandiflora showed significant antioxidant activity in vitro. The enzymatic and non enzymatic antioxidants in A. vasica were found to be more than that of S. grandiflora, similarly the antioxidant and radical scavenging activities of A. vasica were found to be more significant than S. grandiflora

Lime Pretreatment Associated Compositional and Ultrastructural Changes in Selected Root and Vegetable Processing Residues

The study aimed at exploring the suitability of processing residues from selected root and vegetables for bioethanol production, which are otherwise environmental pollutants. The effect of lime pretreatment at high (HT), low (LT) or room (RT) temperatures on compositional and ultrastructural changes in peels of root crops (sweet potato, elephant foot yam and tannia) and vegetable processing residues (peels from ash gourd and mixed vegetable waste) was studied. Pretreatment resulted in the removal of very little polysaccharides, including starch from these biomasses. Hemicellulose was removed to a higher extent in 24 h RT pretreatment (11.6-12.3%) compared to 7.3-8.5% removal in HT pretreatment. Maximum lignin removal (ca. 33-38%) occurred in RT pretreated (24 h) samples. Approximately 22-25.7% lignin was removed during HT pretreatment (121 °C) for 30 min. which increased to 28-31% when prolonged to 60 min. Pretreatment Efficiency (PE) was low (4.2-14.7%) in HT pretreatment, while 5.7-13.5% and 5.2-14.2% PE was observed in LT and RT pretreatments respectively. Scanning electron micrographs of lime pretreated biomass indicated that starch being a major ingredient of the biomass under study, preferential saccharification of starch by amylases might be necessary to expose the cellulose and hemicellulose for their subsequent saccharification to release fermentable sugars

Comparative Alterations in the Compositional Profile of Selected Root and Vegetable Peels Subjected to Three Pretreatments for Enhanced Saccharification

Lignocellulosic feedstocks have gained worldwide interest as alternative biofuel source in the context of squeezing petroleum resources, enhanced environmental pollution from greenhouse gases and resulting climate change. The potential of agricultural processing residues such as root and vegetable peels (beet root, greater yam, pumpkin and vegetable banana) for bioethanol production was investigated through an understanding of their compositional profile and efficacy of three pretreatments in altering their composition and reducing biomass recalcitrance. Starch was the major polysaccharide in the residues (range: 25-37%), followed by cellulose (18-22%) and hemicellulose (15-20%). While dilute sulfuric acid (DSA; 121°C ; 0.102 MPa) hydrolyzed starch and hemicellulose to a high extent, steam pretreatment of moist residues (40 % and 50 % MC) at 100 °C also facilitated hemicellulose and starch solubilization. On the contrary, lime pretreatment retained most of the cellulose, hemicellulose and starch in the pretreated residues. Delignification was the highest (28- 37%) in steam pretreated residues, with minimal effect in DSA and lime pretreatments, necessitating lignin binding surfactants during saccharification in the latter. Reducing sugar content in pretreated liquors and Pretreatment Efficiency (%) were the highest (40-45 g L-1 and 57-64% respectively) in the DSA pretreatment. The study showed that as the pretreated liquor DSA and steam pretreatment was rich in fermentable sugars, whole slurry saccharification would be beneficial for maximizing the bioethanol yield

STABILITY-INDICATING REVERSED-PHASE HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY METHOD FOR SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF METHYLCOBALAMIN, ALPHA-LIPOIC ACID, PYRIDOXINE HCL, AND FOLIC ACID IN BULK AND COMBINED DOSAGE FORM

Objectives: The purpose of the research is to develop a simple, precise, economical, accurate, reproducible, and sensitive method for the estimation of methylcobalamin, alpha-lipoic acid, pyridoxine hydrochloride, and folic acid drug product by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method.Methods: New analytical method was developed for the estimation of methylcobalamin, alpha-lipoic acid, pyridoxine hydrochloride, and folic acid in drug product by RP-HPLC. The chromatographic separation was achieved on the Inertsil C18, 250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 μm at ambient temperature. The separation achieved employing a mobile phase consists of buffer (added 5.05 g hexane-1-sulfonic acid is dissolved into 1000 mL of distilled water):acetonitrile in the ratio of 10:90% v/v. The flow rate was 1 mL/min and UV-visible spectrophotometer at 285 nm. The average retention time for methylcobalamin, alpha-lipoic acid, pyridoxine hydrochloride, and folic acid was found to be 3.5, 6.7, 8.5, and 9.3, respectively.Results: The developed method was validated as per ICH guidelines. All validation parameters were within the acceptable ranges. The assay methods were found to be linear from 0 to 2130 μg/mL for methylcobalamin, 0 to 142.5 μg/mL for alpha-lipoic acid, 0–4.54 μg/mL for pyridoxine hydrochloride, and 0–2 μg/mL for folic acid. The correlation coefficient was 0.999 for all drugs, respectively. The mean percentage values for the developed method were found to be within the range of 98–100.6%. The developed method was also found to be robust.Conclusion: It is concluded that developed method was accurate, precise, linear, reproducible, robust, and sensitive

Evaluation of efficacy and safety of terbinafine and itraconazole in superficial mycoses: a prospective, randomized, controlled and cost-effective analysis study

Background: Superficial mycoses are common worldwide. Dermatophytic infections can greatly affect quality of life. Several newer antimycotic agents, have been reported effective and safe. Hence this study was planned to analyse effectiveness as well as cost effectiveness of these treatments.Methods: It were a prospective, randomized, parallel, open label, comparative study. Fifty patients were included in the study and divided into 2 groups. They were randomized to receive either oral terbinafine 250 mg or itraconazole 100 mg once daily for 4 weeks. Scaling, erythema and pruritus were rated as clinical score 0 to 3: 0 - absent, 1 - mild, 2 - moderate, and 3 - severe for the above three target symptoms. Total symptom score was assessed. Pruritus was also graded on visual analogue scale (VAS). Mycological cure was assessed by skin scraping with KOH mounts and fungal culture. Clinical efficacy scoring and VAS were assessed before the study and at each follow up visit at 2 and 4 weeks. Patients were followed up for another 4 weeks after completion of the treatment.Results: There was highly significant decrease p<000.1 in the mean total symptoms scores in both the study groups from baseline. No significant difference in the mean total symptoms score was observed when compared between groups. ADRs were more in terbinafine group.Conclusions: Both terbinafine and itraconazole are effective and safe against superficial mycoses, but adverse effects are more with terbinafine. Itraconazole was found to be cost effective compared to terbinafine

Deep Neural Network based Anomaly Detection for Real Time Video Surveillance

One of the main concerns across all kinds of domains has always been security. With the crime rates increasing every year the need to control has become crucial. Among the various methods present to monitor crime or any anomalous behavior is through video surveillance. Nowadays security cameras capture incidents in almost all public and private place if desired. Even though we have abundance of data in the form of videos they need to be analyzed manually. This results in long hours of manual labour and even small human discrepancies may have huge consequences negatively. For this purpose, a Convolution Neural Network (CNN) based model is built to detect any form of abnormal activities or anomalies in the video footages. This model converts the input video into frames and detects the anomalous frames. To increase the efficiency of the model, the data is de-noised with Gaussian blur feature. The avenue dataset is used in this work to detect and predict various kinds of anomalies. The performance of the model is measured using classification accuracy and the results are reported

STABILITY INDICATING RP-HPLC METHOD FOR ESTIMATION OF RABEPRAZOLE SODIUM AND MOSAPRIDE CITRATE IN BULK AND FORMULATION

Objective: Development and validation of reversed phase liquid chromatographic method for the quantitative determination of Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate in bulk and combined dosage form. Methods: A thermo Inert sil, C18 (250 x 4.6 mm i. d., 5 µ) column with mobile phase containing methanol: buffer (ammonium acetate pH 6.5): acetonitrile in the ratio of (50:20:30 %) was used. The flow rate was 1.0 ml/min, column temperature was 25 °C and effluents were monitored at 245 nm. Results: The retention times of Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate were 2.951 min and 4.195 min, respectively. Correlation co-efficient for Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate was found to be 0.9999 and 0.9999, respectively. The proposed method was validated with respect to linearity, accuracy, precision, specificity, and robustness. Recovery of Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate in formulations was found to be in the range of 97-103 % and 98-102 %, respectively confirms the non-interferences of the excipients in the formulation. Conclusion: The proposed HPLC method was found to be simple, precise, accurate and sensitive for the simultaneous estimation of Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate in pharmaceutical dosage forms. Due to its simplicity, rapidness and high precision, the method was successfully applied to the estimation of Rabeprazole sodium and Mosapride citrate in combined dosage form

Underreported injection drug use and its potential contribution to reported increase in sexual transmission of HIV in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Background We conducted a cross-sectional integrated bio-behavioral survey among sex partners of persons who inject drugs (PWID) to explore reasons for reported increase in reporting of heterosexually transmitted HIV in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Methods Sexual partners of PWID were recruited through PWID. Behavioral data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Dried blood spots were obtained and tested for HIV and hepatitis C virus antibodies (HCVAb). Descriptive univariate and bivariate analyses, and multivariate analyses using logistic regression modeling were performed to identify factors associated with HIV and HCV infections. Results Among 1982 sex partners of PWID, overall HIV prevalence was 6.4%; 5.1% and 12.9% among those reported never and ever injecting drugs, respectively (p < 0.001). Overall, HCVAb prevalence was 21.3%; 15.0% and 53.9% among those reported never and ever injecting drugs, respectively (p < 0.001). Of HCV-positive participants, 58% and 34% (p < 0.001) reported prior history of injecting drug use among men and women, respectively. HIV prevalence was lower among HCV-negative (4.2%) compared to HCV-positive participants (14.4%) (p < 0.001). HIV prevalence was 3.5% (95%CI = 2.4–4.6) in a subset of female participants with no reported prior injecting drug use history and who were HCVAb-negative and did not report having an HIV-positive sex partner. Participant sex and number of sex partners as well as use of condoms in the past 12 months were not associated with HIV seropositivity. Conclusions High prevalence of HCV among sex partners of PWID who denied ever injecting drugs suggests underreporting of injecting practices. The increased attribution of HIV infection to sexual transmission based on self-report may be partly explained by underreporting of injection drug use due to stigmatization of this behavior

Optical absorption and fluorescent behaviour of selenium in ternary silicate glasses

Optical absorption and fluorescent behaviour of selenium in the ternary soda-lime-silica, soda-strontia-silica and soda-baria-silica glasses having molar composition 20Na2O-10RO-70SiO2 (where R = Ca, Sr and Ba) were studied systematically. Selenium in its elemental form was found to produce a variety of pink colour shades in soda-lime-siliea and soda-strontia-silica glasses by optical absorption measurements whereas the infrared transmission studies detected the presence of selenium as selenite (SeO3 2-) and selenate (SeO4 2-) ions which did not produce any color in glass. The results of optical measurements in the glass containing Se ⇌ SeO3 2- ⇌ SeO4 2- species were discussed in the light of the general principles of spectroscopy. The molar extinetion coefficient of selenium was calculated and found to be around 20 and 80 1 ∙ mol-1 ∙ cm-1 respectively, in soda-lime-siliea and soda-strontia-silica glasses at their wavelength maxima at around 485 and 500 nm, whieh dictated the intensity of the broad absorption bands marked due to selenium in the glass. However, the selenium was found to produce a golden yellow color in soda-baria-silica glass. This is due to the shift of the valence state of selenium towards the selenite (SeO3 2-) and selenate (SeO4 2-) state with increasing basicity of the glass. The values of the emission cross-section obtained for selenium based on the fluorescence spectral studies showed that the soda-lime-siliea glass emitted more intense fluorescence than the rest of the silicate glasses

Correlation of serum lithium levels and thyroid function tests in subjects of bipolar affective disorder: a prospective hospital-based study

Background: Lithium is used in the prophylaxis of long-term therapy of bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) as a mood-stabilizing agent. Thyroid function abnormality is very commonly seen adverse effect, more common in females than males. This study aimed to correlate lithium levels and thyroid function abnormalities associated with it.Methods: Evaluation of medical records of 150 patients in Father Muller Medical College with BPAD, who were treated for 6 months with lithium, carried out from February, 12 2014 to July, 20 2014. Serum lithium levels done by ion selective electrode method in ilyte analyzer and thyroid function test (TFT) by electrochemiluminescence. Data are analyzed by Karl Pearson correlation coefficient.Results: Correlation of lithium levels and TFT in BPAD patients according to Karl Pearson correlation coefficient was negative with significant p&lt;0.002. Among 150 enrolled candidates, 52 (34.67%) were females and 98 (65.4%) were males, 4% (6) patients (3 males and 3 females) had thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) value &lt;0.27 with an average lithium value of 1.35 mEq/L, 6% (9) patients (5 males and 4 females) had TSH value &gt;4.2 with an average lithium levels of 0.44 mEq/L and 90% of the patients with an average lithium levels 0.66 mEq/L had no thyroid function abnormalities.Conclusions: As already known, Lithium is a drug of narrow therapeutic index and females are more prone for thyroid function abnormalities. Appropriate monitoring of serum lithium levels will aid in necessary dose adjustment and ensure proper utilization of drug