Studies on novel palladiums alone and in combination with phytochemicals in tumour models

Although platinum drugs cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin are routinely used in the clinic to treat various cancers including testicular, ovarian, head and neck, and colorectal cancers, problems of drug resistance and side effects would limit their use. Thus thousands of cisplatin analogues have been prepared by changing nature of the leaving groups and carrier ligands with the aim of reducing the side effects and widening the spectrum of activity. It has been possible to reduce side effects by changing the nature of the leaving groups e.g. carboplatin that has bicarboxylate leaving group as against chloride in cisplatin is less toxic than cisplatin. Changing the carrier ligands has impacted activity to the compounds and types of cancer that is successfully targeted. For example, oxaliplatin which has DACH (1R, 2R)-(-)-1, 2-diaminecyclohexane) carrier ligand as against ammonia in cisplatin, is active against colorectal cancer while cisplatin and carboplatin are not. Substantial resemblance between chemistry of palladium (II) and platinum (II) has prompted studies of Pd(II) complexes as potential anticancer drugs. Combining drugs with different modes of action can synergize their effects, where a combination therapy comprised of different mechanisms often provide distinct advantages over monotherapy. Much research is currently done on the combination of targeted therapy with phytochemicals. In this study, six novel palladium compounds (NH1, NH2, NH3, NH4, NH5 and NH6) have been synthesized using bulky planaramine ligands: quinoline, benzimidazole, 8-hydroxyquinoline and imidazo(1,2-α)pyridine. Moreover five tumour active phytochemicals: curcumin, EGCG, emetine, patulin and 6-shogaol have been combined with commonly used Pt based drugs as well as designed palladium compounds with the aim of providing a means of overcoming cisplatin resistance in ovarian and colorectal cancers. All of the designed palladiums have been characterized by elemental microanalysis, IR spectroscopy, 1H-NMR spectroscopy, Mass spectroscopy. Moreover, three of the compounds (NH3, NH4 and NH6) have been characterized by single x-ray crystallography. Anticancer activity of the compounds were tested against eight different human cancer cell lines (ovarian cancer: A2780, A2780cisR and A2780ZDO473R; colorectal cancer: HT-29 and CACO-2; breast cancer: MCF-7; cervical cancer: Hela) by MTT reduction assay. NH3 has shown 10 to 96 times greater activity than cisplatin against all tested cell lines while NH1 has shown comparable activity. In binary combination with curcumin and EGCG, NH3 has shown sequence and concentration dependent synergism against ovarian and colorectal cancer models. 6-shogaol and curcumin in combination with NH1 have also shown synergism in many instances. Cisplatin in combination with emetine and patulin shows strong synergistic effect in A2780 and A2780cisR cell lines. Similarly oxaliplatin in combination with patulin has produced synergism in HT-29 cell line. DNA damage, cellular accumulation and metalDNA binding study have provided mechanistic insight on the antitumour activity of palladiums/platinums administered alone and in combination with selected phytochemicals. Finally, proteomic study was conducted to identify the proteins that underwent changes in expression due to drug treatments in A2780, A2780cisR, HT-29 and CACO-2 cell lines. 47 such proteins were identified. In conclusion it can be said that designed palladiums NH3 and NH1 have the potential to be novel anticancer drug candidates if found to be active and safe during in vivo animal model study and clinical trial

Investigation of Jet Formation Following Droplet Impact on Microholed Hydrophilic Substrate

Droplet impingement on solid hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces produces diverse phenomena, including spreading, splashing, jetting, receding, and rebounding. In microholed surfaces, downward jets through the hole can be caused by high impact inertia and the cavity collapse formed during the droplet's recoiling. With enough impact inertia, the jets can pinch off the substrate and eventually form a smaller droplet or break up into several satellite droplets. In this work, the dynamics of downward jets through the micro-holes that form during the impact of water droplets impinging upon hydrophilic substrates were investigated experimentally. The small circular holes of ~600 µm diameter were created in the 200-µm thick plastic film substrates using a 0.5 mm diameter punch. A 10µL-pipette tip with a syringe pump was used to produce the millimeter-sized droplets. Great care has been taken to ensure that the microscopic droplets can directly impact over the micro-holes. The entire process of water droplets impacting micro-holed substrate was studied in detail using two high-speed video photography cameras. A MATLAB code has been developed to quickly process a large number of captured images from experiments to characterize the droplet impact and jet dynamics, such as the spreading factor, jet formation, jet length, breakup time, and satellite droplet volume. We found the jetting mechanism and volume penetrating through the microhole are directly influenced by the impact velocity of the droplet. When the impact velocity is lower than a threshold value, the jet driven by the impact inertia will not be able to pinch off from the substrate. Above the threshold velocity, the jet pinches off to form single or multiple droplets. The pinch-off time was closely related to the capillary-inertial time scale. For relatively high impact velocity, the jet stretched longer and broke up into multiple droplets due to Plateau–Rayleigh instability.We found the maximum length of the jet before its breakup is related to the impact velocity and Weber Number. A regime map has been produced to introduce the relation between Weber numbers and jet breakup conditions. The volume of the 1st satellite droplet was independent of the Weber number with an average normalized value of 0.018. We also found that the total volume of the ejected jet depends on the Weber Number differently for different ranges of We. Moreover, the maximum spreading factor (βm), maximum jet length (Lm), and necking radius were found to follow scaling laws as βm ~We0.22, Lm ~ 7.44 Ui, and rn/lc ~ τα, respectively. Also, the maximum and average speeds of the jet were found to vary linearly with the impact speed of the droplet. Significantly, this study has reported an upward jetting for a specific range of Weber Numbers. The upward jet speed, width, and time required to form the jet follow the particular trend with Weber Number. However, the top droplet speed and diameter require further investigation to determine the trend they follow

Impacts of capital structure on performance of banks in a developing economy: Evidence from Bangladesh

The capital structure decision plays an important role in the performance of a firm. Therefore, there have been many studies inspecting the rapport of capital structure with the performance of firms, although the findings of these studies are inconclusive. In addition, there is a relative deficiency of empirical studies examining the link between capital structure and the performance of banks in Bangladesh. This study attempts to fill this gap. Using the panel data of 22 banks for the period of 2005-2014, this study empirically examined the impacts of capital structure on the performance of Bangladeshi banks assessed by return on equity, return on assets and earnings per share. The results of the pooled ordinary least square analysis showed that capital structure inversely affects bank performance. The findings of this empirical study are of greater significance for the developing countries like Bangladesh because it calls for the concentration of the bank management and the policy makers to pursue the policies that reduce reliance on debt to achieve the optimal level of capital structure. The results of this study are also analysed in the light of earlier studies

Does Financial Inclusion Promote Women Empowerment? Evidence from Bangladesh

Financial inclusion empowers individuals and families, especially women and the poor, and well-functioning financial systems enrich whole countries. While a plethora of literature exists in connection between the financial inclusion and women empowerment most of those are cross country studies and findings are mixed. And there is relative dearth of studies examining the nexus of financial inclusion and women empowerment of developing economy, particularly Bangladesh. This study attempted to fill this gap. In order to achieve the objective, a survey, by means of structured questionnaire, has been conducted on 500 rural women living in the Kurigram and Gaibandha district of Bangladesh during January to February 2017. Study reveals that financial inclusion increases women income, purchasing power, living standard and position in the family. Study also reveals that after availing financial inclusion progrmmes, rural women become able to meet their emergencies, give child better education, get better medical facility, reduce dependency on local money lenders which means that financial inclusion programmes promotes women’s economic empowerment. Findings of the study is of greater importance to the academicians, practitioners and policy makers of the country to design such packages as to foster financial inclusion which will lead to more women empowerment which in turn will lead to the inclusive development of the country

Exact traveling wave solutions to the Klein–Gordon equation using the novel (G′/G)-expansion method

AbstractThe novel (G′/G)-expansion method is one of the powerful methods that appeared in recent times for establishing exact traveling wave solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations. Exact traveling wave solutions in terms of hyperbolic, trigonometric and rational functions to the cubic nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation via this method are obtained in this article. The efficiency of this method for finding exact solutions and traveling wave solutions has been demonstrated. It is shown that the novel (G′/G)-expansion method is a simple and valuable mathematical tool for solving nonlinear evolution equations (NLEEs) in applied mathematics, mathematical physics and engineering

(R1496) Impact of Electronic States of Conical Shape of Indium Arsenide/Gallium Arsenide Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have unique atom-like properties. In this work, the electronic states of quantum dot grown on a GaAs substrate has been studied. The analytical expressions of electron wave function for cone-like quantum dot on the semiconductor surface has been obtained and the governing eigen value equation has been solved, thereby obtaining the dependence of ground state energy on radius and height of the cone-shaped -dots. In addition, the energy of eigenvalues is computed for various length and thickness of the wetting layer (WL). We discovered that the eigen functions and energies are nearly associated with the GaAs potential

Bank Selection Influencing Factors: A Study on Customer Preferences with Reference to Rajshahi City

This study analyses the factors considered important by customer in selection a private commercial bank and nationalized commercial bank in Bangladesh. It is based on a survey of 600 customers of private commercial banks (PCBs) and nationalized commercial banks (NCBs) located in the city of Rajshahi in Bangladesh. This study relied on 30 selection factors extracted from relevant literature, personal experience, and interviews with the some bank officials and customers. The findings reveal that the most important factors influencing customers for selecting a private commercial bank are effective and efficient customer services, speed and quality services; image of the bank, online banking, and well management. On the other hand, the most important factors for choosing a nationalized commercial bank are low interest rate on loan, convenient branch location, safe investment (accountability of the govt.), variety of services offered and low eservice charges. Findings also suggest that there are some of significant statistical differences between responses of PCB and NCB customers related to factors considered important in selection a bank

Intelligent System for Vehicles Number Plate Detection and Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Vehicles on the road are rising in extensive numbers, particularly in proportion to the industrial revolution and growing economy. The significant use of vehicles has increased the probability of traffic rules violation, causing unexpected accidents, and triggering traffic crimes. In order to overcome these problems, an intelligent traffic monitoring system is required. The intelligent system can play a vital role in traffic control through the number plate detection of the vehicles. In this research work, a system is developed for detecting and recognizing of vehicle number plates using a convolutional neural network (CNN), a deep learning technique. This system comprises of two parts: number plate detection and number plate recognition. In the detection part, a vehicle’s image is captured through a digital camera. Then the system segments the number plate region from the image frame. After extracting the number plate region, a super resolution method is applied to convert the low-resolution image into a high-resolution image. The super resolution technique is used with the convolutional layer of CNN to reconstruct the pixel quality of the input image. Each character of the number plate is segmented using a bounding box method. In the recognition part, features are extracted and classified using the CNN technique. The novelty of this research is the development of an intelligent system employing CNN to recognize number plates, which have less resolution, and are written in the Bengali language.</jats:p

Enzyme-Accelerated Acid Hydrolysis of Untanned Proteinaceous Wastes from Tanning Industry

Traditionally, tanning industry has been producing considerable amounts of solid wastes, which raises serious concerns on account of their environmental impact. Out of these, untanned raw trimmings account for about 5-7% of the total quantity of raw materials processed. This waste could be a value-added cheap source of collagen, which has numerous industrial applications if properly and scientifically utilized. This research work deals with the utilization of raw trimmings of solid waste from tanneries in the process of enzymatic hydrolysis, performed by using acetic acid and protease, in order to obtain protein hydrolysate. The hydrolysis was carried out with varying acid concentrations, acid solutions, temperatures and times. The maximum obtained protein hydrolysate was about 88% at 1.5 M acid concentration, 4% enzyme ratio, and 60 °

Lack of Knowledge Is the Leading Key for the Growing Cervical Cancer Incidents in Bangladesh: A Population Based, Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction Cervical cancer is the second most common gynecological cancer in Bangladesh. Lack of awareness of screening methods, risk factors, and symptoms may lead to presenting most cervical cancers at an advanced stage. We investigated knowledge and awareness of cervical cancer (CCa) among females at the Sheikh Hasina Medical College (SHMC) of Tangail district in Bangladesh. Methods A cross sectional survey was conducted to collect data via a structured questionnaire from SHMC during the period of February 2019 to January 2020. Data on socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge of cervical cancer were collected. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with having heard and knowledge of cervical cancer. A p-value \u3c 0.05 was considered significant. Result Of all the interviews conducted, only 45.2% (493/1090) had heard of cervical cancer as a disease. Women were more likely to be aware of CCa if they were lived in urban areas, had higher education (university level education) and belong to high income families. The study revealed evidence of significant association between marital, literacy, residence and socio-economic status with women’s knowledge on cervical cancer (p\u3c 0.05). Conclusion This study serves to highlight that there was impoverished knowledge about cervical cancer among Bangladeshi women. Hence, this indicates the government should take proper steps to raise awareness and knowledge levels via educational programs and health counseling