A nanocrystal technology: to enhance solubility of poorly water soluble drugs

Most of the recently developed new chemical entities are poorly water soluble and they create major problems during formulation and development of new dosage form and due to poor solubility and poor bioavailability. The drugs belong to BCS class II and class IV has problem of solubility, to overcome the solubility problem nanotechnology is most useful technique. In this review article the main focus on Nanocrystals and various techniques used for preparation of Nanocrystals. Drug nanocrystals consists pure poorly water soluble drugs without any matrix material which means that it is carrier free drug delivery. Nanocrystals technologies have been introduced as advantageous, universal formulation approaches for the BCS class II and IV drugs. Nanocrystals, with greater surface to volume ratio, can effectively increase both the dissolution rate and saturation solubility of active ingredients The Nanocrystals is suitable drug delivery system for all commonly used routes of administration such as oral, IV, SC, and IM and topical application. Nanocrystals can also be incorporated into the tablets, capsules, fast-melts and lyophilized for sterile product applications. There are no of techniques which are used for production including precipitation, milling, high pressure homogenization and combination methods such as Nano-Edge, SmartCrystal and Precipitation-lyophilization-homogenization (PLH) technology

Designing Robust Monetary Policy Using Prediction Pools

How should a forward-looking policy maker conduct monetary policy when she has a finite set of models at her disposal, none of which are believed to be the true data generating process? In our approach, the policy makerfirst assigns weights to models based on relative forecasting performance rather than in-sample fit, consistent with her forward-looking objective. These weights are then used to solve a policy design prob- lem that selects the optimized Taylor-type interest-rate rule that is robust to model uncertainty across a set of well-established DSGE models with and without financial frictions. We find that the choice of weights has a significant impact on the robust optimized rule which is more inertial and aggressive than either the non-robust single model counterparts or the optimal robust rule based on backward-looking weights as in the common alternative Bayesian Model Averaging. Importantly, we show that a price-level rule has excellent welfare and robustness properties, and therefore should be viewed as a key instrument for policy makers facing uncertainty over the nature of financial frictions

Transcendence over Diversity: black women in the academy

Universities, like many major public institutions have embraced the notion of ‘diversity’ virtually uncritically- it is seen as a moral ‘good in itself’. But what happens to those who come to represent ‘diversity’- the black and minority ethnic groups targeted to increase the institutions thirst for global markets and aversion to accusations of institutional racism? Drawing on existing literature which analyses the process of marginalization in higher education, this paper explores the individual costs to black and female academic staff regardless of the discourse on diversity. However despite the exclusion of staff, black and minority ethnic women are also entering higher education in relatively large numbers as students. Such ‘grassroots’ educational urgency transcends the dominant discourse on diversity and challenges presumptions inherent in top down initiatives such as ‘widening participation’. Such a collective movement from the bottom up shows the importance of understanding black female agency when unpacking the complex dynamics of gendered and racialised exclusion. Black women’s desire for education and learning makes possible a reclaiming of higher education from creeping instrumentalism and reinstates it as a radical site of resistance and refutation

Expansion of epidemic dengue viral infections to Pakistan

Objectives: Antibodies to dengue viruses have occasionally been reported in individuals in Pakistan, but the frequency of occurrence of dengue infection in Pakistan is unclear. The first confirmed dengue hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Pakistan occurred in 1994. In October 1995, the authors investigated an outbreak of a febrile illness among employees of a construction contractor at a power generation plant in Baluchistan, Pakistan, to determine the cause of illness and recommend appropriate preventive measures.Methods: The work site and living arrangements were inspected, a questionnaire was administered, and serum samples were collected from all consenting contractor employees and their families if they lived at the camp. Sera were analyzed for IgM against dengue virus, using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Results: Interviews were conducted with 76 persons (mean age, 42y); 95% were men. Forty-two persons (55%) reported having experienced fever, headache, or myalgia in the preceding 6 weeks. Fifty-seven subjects (75%) had IgM antibodies against at least one dengue serotype; 45 subjects (59%) had IgM antibodies against dengue serotype 2.CONCLUSION: This was an outbreak of dengue fever due to multiple serotypes of dengue virus. This confirms that epidemic dengue infection was present in southern Pakistan for 2 consecutive years

A comprehensive research agenda for zero leprosy

BACKGROUND: Leprosy control achieved dramatic success in the 1980s-1990s with the implementation of short course multidrug therapy, which reduced the global prevalence of leprosy to less than 1 in 10 000 population. However, a period of relative stagnation in leprosy control followed this achievement, and only limited further declines in the global number of new cases reported have been achieved over the past decade. MAIN TEXT: In 2016, major stakeholders called for the development of an innovative and comprehensive leprosy strategy aimed at reducing the incidence of leprosy, lowering the burden of disability and discrimination, and interrupting transmission. This led to the establishment of the Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy (GPZL) in 2018, with partners aligned around a shared Action Framework committed to achieving the WHO targets by 2030 through national leprosy program capacity-building, resource mobilisation and an enabling research agenda. GPZL convened over 140 experts from more than 20 countries to develop a research agenda to achieve zero leprosy. The result is a detailed research agenda focusing on diagnostics, mapping, digital technology and innovation, disability, epidemiological modelling and investment case, implementation research, stigma, post exposure prophylaxis and transmission, and vaccines. This research agenda is aligned with the research priorities identified by other stakeholders. CONCLUSIONS: Developing and achieving consensus on the research agenda for zero leprosy is a significant step forward for the leprosy community. In a next step, research programmes must be developed, with individual components of the research agenda requiring distinct expertise, varying in resource needs, and operating over different timescales. Moving toward zero leprosy now requires partner alignment and new investments at all stages of the research process, from discovery to implementation

A qualitative optimization technique for biophysical neuron models with many parameters

We present a novel computational technique that enables more efficient optimization of qualitative features in biophysical neural models