Assessment of epidemiological factors and clinical profiles of cerebral infarction cases in tertiary health center in southern Maharashtra and hence evaluating computed tomography as its diagnostic modality: a prospective study

Background: Cerebrovascular accidents are one of the leading causes of death in developed countries. The advent of CT in early 1970s greatly facilitated the diagnosis and management of stroke. The present study aims at assessing epidemiological factors and clinical presentation of cerebral infarction cases and hence to evaluate computed tomography as a diagnostic tool for cerebral infarction.Methods: A prospective study was carried out among cases of Cerebral infarction. Every patient was interviewed personally, and detailed history was taken followed by clinical, systemic and neurological examination. Results were analysed comparing clinical diagnosis, sites of lesions, nature of lesions and CT scan findings.Results: Cases showed male predominance with 69% cases and 31% were females. 19% cases presented with headache, 17% with convulsions and 9% with vomiting. Upon eliciting past history of cases, we found that 48% were known cases of hypertension, 23% were having past history of cerebrovascular episodes, 20% cases were smokers and tobacco chewers whereas 15% were known cases of diabetes mellitus.Conclusions: Currently India is facing double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and now a day’s cases of non-communicable diseases have started increasing, following iceberg phenomenon. So, diagnosing these conditions in its initial stage and halting the disease progress will be the priority. The present study recommends a comprehensive model for non-communicable disease prevention and control based on current healthcare needs and disease scenario

ENANTIOMERIC SEPARATION OF RIVAROXABAN BY A CHIRAL LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHIC METHOD

Objective: To develop a novel,simple, selective and enantiomeric separation of rivaroxaban by a chiral liquid chromatographic method as per ICH guidelines.Methods: An enantioselective reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated. The enantiomers of rivaroxaban was resolved on a Chiralcel OD-H (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 5 mm) column using a mobile phase system containing n-hexane –isopropanol (50: 50 v/v/) and column temperature at 35°C. The resolution between the enantiomers was not less than 2.0. The developed method was validated according to ICH guidelines.Results: The calibration curve was found to be linear over the concentration range of 0.075–1.2µg/mL (r2= 0.9996). The limit of detection and limit of quantification of the (R)-enantiomer were found to be 0.025 and 0.075µg/mL, respectively, for 20 mL injection volume. The percentage recovery of the (R)-enantiomer ranged from 92.06 to 105.9 in bulk drug samples of rivaroxaban. The final optimized method was successfully applied to separate the (R)-enantiomer from rivaroxaban and was proved to be reproducible, accurate and robust for the quantitative determination of the (R)-enantiomer in Rivaroxaban.Conclusion: A novel, simple, selective and simple, selective and enantiomeric separation of rivaroxaban by a chiral liquid chromatographic method was developed as per ICH guidelines.Hence, the method can be used for routine analysis in pharmaceutical industry.Â

InteractE: Improving Convolution-based Knowledge Graph Embeddings by Increasing Feature Interactions

Most existing knowledge graphs suffer from incompleteness, which can be alleviated by inferring missing links based on known facts. One popular way to accomplish this is to generate low-dimensional embeddings of entities and relations, and use these to make inferences. ConvE, a recently proposed approach, applies convolutional filters on 2D reshapings of entity and relation embeddings in order to capture rich interactions between their components. However, the number of interactions that ConvE can capture is limited. In this paper, we analyze how increasing the number of these interactions affects link prediction performance, and utilize our observations to propose InteractE. InteractE is based on three key ideas -- feature permutation, a novel feature reshaping, and circular convolution. Through extensive experiments, we find that InteractE outperforms state-of-the-art convolutional link prediction baselines on FB15k-237. Further, InteractE achieves an MRR score that is 9%, 7.5%, and 23% better than ConvE on the FB15k-237, WN18RR and YAGO3-10 datasets respectively. The results validate our central hypothesis -- that increasing feature interaction is beneficial to link prediction performance. We make the source code of InteractE available to encourage reproducible research.Comment: Accepted at AAAI 202

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF FLOATING-MUCOADHESIVE MICROSPHERES OF NOVEL NATURAL POLYSACCHARIDE FOR SITE SPECIFIC DELIVERY OF RANITIDINE HYDROCHLORIDE

Objective: Localization of ranitidine hydrochloride (RH) into the upper part of the intestinal tract is beneficial for better drug bioavailability. Present work described the method of preparation of novel plant polysaccharide based floating microspheres for delivery of the drug into the stomach. Methods: Polysaccharide was extracted from the seeds of plant Tamarindus indica (TI). Extracted polysaccharide was evaluated for some physicochemical parameters. Floating-mucoadhesive microspheres were prepared by using extracted polysaccharide as mucoadhesive excipients while eudragit as a release controlling polymers by using emulsion crosslinking method. Chemical crosslinking was done by using epichlorohydrin. Prepared microspheres were evaluated for their drug-polymer compatibility study by using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Further characterization such as size, surface properties, swelling index, percentage encapsulation, in vitro buoyancy and drug release was performed. Results: FT-IR study confirms the chemical crosslinking of extracted polysaccharide and also drug stability during processing of microspheres. The size of microspheres was in the range of 5.38 to 7.84 µm. SEM images revealed that all batches were of spherical in size and smooth surface. The swelling index showed better swelling in the range of 158-257 percentages. Encapsulation efficiency was found to be decreased by decreasing the concentration of polysaccharide. In vitro buoyancy study possesses that formulation F1 showed better floating ability as compared to the others. Finally, in vitro drug release study revealed that prepared microspheres were able to release the 100% drug within 8-12 h, indicating sustain release behavior. Conclusion: Present study concludes that polysaccharide of TI may be used as excipients for the preparation of floating-mucoadhesive microspheres

Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection: to treat or not to treat

Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infected individuals can either be due to the disease itself or due to associated infections/malignancies. The treatment for HLH requires immunosuppressive therapy but administering immunosuppressive therapy to an already immunosuppressed patient (HIV infection) is complex. We present two such cases of HLH in patients infected with HIV. In the first case, no alternate cause for HLH was found even after extensive investigations and it was attributed to the uncontrolled HIV replication. Patient was started on dexamethasone for the same but succumbed to hospital acquired pneumonia. The second patient was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma but he succumbed to his illness before initiating immunosuppressive therapy for HLH. We report these cases to highlight the dilemma and a need for further research in this direction

Hemoglobin receptor in Leishmania is a hexokinase located in the flagellar pocket

Hb endocytosis in Leishmania is mediated through a 46-kDa protein located in the flagellar pocket. To understand the nature of the Hb receptor (HbR), we have purified the 46-kDa protein to homogeneity from Leishmania promastigote membrane. Purified HbR specifically binds Hb. The gene for HbR was cloned, and sequence analysis of the full-length HbR gene indicates the presence of hexokinase (HK) signature sequences, ATP-binding domain, and PTS-II motif. Four lines of evidence indicate that HbR in Leishmania is a hexokinase: 1) the recombinant HbR binds Hb, and the Hb-binding domain resides in the N terminus of the protein; 2) recombinant proteins and cell lysate prepared from HbR-overexpressing Leishmania promastigotes show enhanced HK activity in comparison with untransfected cells; 3) immunolocalization studies using antibodies against the N-terminal fragment (Ld-HbR-ΔC) of Ld-HbR indicate that this protein is located in the flagellar pocket of Leishmania; and 4) binding and uptake of 125I-Hb by Leishmania is significantly inhibited by anti-Ld-HbR-ΔC antibody and Ld-HbR-ΔC, respectively. Taken together, these results indicate that HK present in the flagellar pocket of Leishmania is involved in Hb endocytosis

Properties of Humic Acid Substances and Their Effect in Soil Quality and Plant Health

During aerobic and anaerobic decomposition of plant and animal reside a complex aggregate of brown to dark coloured amorphous substances is obtained which is called as Humus. It includes humic substances and resynthesizes products of microorganisms. These products are stable and a part of the soil. Humus is categorised according to their molecular weights and solubility into humus, humic acids and fulvic acids. Humic substances are the organic material naturally present in soil. Humic substances positively effect’s soil quality and fertility by increasing its water holding capacity, stabilisation of soil structure, soil microbial activity, plant physiology. It also influence nutrient uptake and root architecture act like phytohormones for phosphorus acquisition, and improving plant adaptation to saline condition. Humus is the primary microhabitat for microorganism such as dictyostelids, myxomycetes, some species of protostelids, members of the genus Copromyxella etc. Other than that auxin like activity of Humic Substances has also been demonstrated in recent studies. The research suggested that it could be the main biological factor that exhibits positive effect on plant physiology. Based on that fertiliser factory also trying to produce are bio- stimulants, based on humic substances and other organic compounds