Pattern of drug use in the management of psoriasis in a tertiary care hospital: a prospective study

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease, characterized by chronic and recurrent scaly plaques with itching. The treatment modalities for psoriasis include topical, systemic, and phototherapy (PT). The pattern of therapy may vary depending upon the type, severity, and duration of the disease. As there are few reports in the Indian literature regarding the pattern of drug use in psoriasis and evaluating the efficacy and patient compliance to treatment, the present study was conducted.Methods: This was a prospective, observational study conducted on121 newly diagnosed and untreated patients with psoriasis, who attended Dermatology outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital. The severity of the disease was assessed by baseline psoriasis area severity index (PASI) score. Most of the patients were treated with topical therapy consisting of glucocorticoids (GC) monotherapy or combination with, salicylic acid, calcitriol and coal tar. Systemic therapy and PT were considered only for severe cases of psoriasis with baseline PASI score >4. The patients were monitored every 2 weeks for 3 months.Results: The topical medications induced effective resolution of lesions in most of the patients, along with adequate symptomatic relief. The response to GC monotherapy was found significant (90.47%; p4. Regular follow-up is required not only to monitor the treatment response, but also to ensure good patient compliance by proper counseling

Geopolymer Bricks Using Iron Ore Tailings, Slag Sand, Ground Granular Blast Furnace Slag and Fly Ash

World is pound with million tonnes of industrial wastes such as ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), flyash and mine tailings as a various industrial waste. The best way to make use of these wastes is to incorporate these materials as structural elements, which in turn minimizes the carbon foot print. In this contest, this study focuses on using iron ore tailings and slag sand as a replacement for clay or natural sand for the production of stabilized geopolymer blocks. Also, in this study geopolymer is used as a stabilizer instead of cement. Development of geopolymer binder based bricks using flyash and ground granulated blast furnace slag has been carried out in this research. The study includes mechanical properties of the geopolymer bricks. Sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution have been used as alkaline activators. The ratio of alkaline liquid to aluminosilicate solid ratio and percentage of binder had major influence on the strength of brick. The bricks were casted and cured at ambient temperature. The compressive strength was carried out at 7, 14 and 28 days

Device uncertainty propagation in low-ductility RC frames retrofitted with BRBs for seismic risk mitigation

Passive control systems, such as buckling-restrained braces (BRBs), have emerged as efficient tools for seismic response control of new and existing structures by imparting strength and stiffness to buildings, while providing additional high and stable energy dissipation capacity. Systems equipped with BRBs have been widely investigated in literature; however, only a deterministic description of the BRBs’ properties is typically considered. These properties are provided by the manufacturer and are successively validated by qualification control tests according to code-based tolerance limits. Therefore, the device properties introduced within the structure could differ from their nominal design estimates, potentially leading to an undesired seismic performance. This study proposes a probabilistic assessment framework to evaluate the influence of BRBs’ uncertainty on the seismic response of a retrofitted RC frame. For the case study, a benchmark three-story RC moment-resisting frame is considered where BRBs’ uncertainty is defined compatible to the standardized tolerance limits of devices’ quality control tests. This uncertainty is implemented through a two-level factorial design strategy and Latin hypercube sampling technique. Cloud analysis and probabilistic seismic demand models are used to develop fragility functions for the bare and retrofitted frame for four damage states while also accounting for the uncertainty in the property of BRBs. Risk estimates are successively evaluated for three case study regions. The results show that, for the considered case study structure, these uncertainties could lead to an increase of fragility up to 21% and a variation in seismic risk estimates up to 56%