A cross sectional study of behavioral problems of secondary school children and related socio-demographic factors

Background: School-going children form an important vulnerable segment of the nation’s population. Children in the school-going age group of 5 to 16 years constitute a total of 30% of the total population. School age is a dynamic period of physical growth and development, when the child undergoes rapid mental, emotional, and social changes. Therefore, school-going children are susceptible groups for psychiatric disorders especially behavioural problems. The present research was carried out with an objective to study the behavioural problems of secondary school children and its relation to the various socio-demographic and socio-economic factors.Methods: This cross sectional observational study was conducted on 304 secondary school children studying in 8th and 9th standard in the regarding socio-demographic profile and Strength and difficulties questionnaire. The analysis was done using Microsoft Excel and SPSS software.Results: In this study, the prevalence of abnormal behavioral according to self-rated SDQ was found to be 1.6% while prevalence of borderline abnormal behavior was 11.2% and majority 87.2% of study subjects were normal having no behavioral problem. The combined borderline and abnormal behavioral problems were more prevalent in the age group of 12-13year (64.1%) and 13-14 years (30.8%), also more prevalent among girls (69.2%) compared to boys (30.8%). The prevalence of behavioral problems was higher among students studying in 9th standard (74.4%, 29/39) and studying in Hindi medium (61.5%). The incidence was found to be more in students who belongs to nuclear families (79.5%) and also was more among those who were first born compared to middle born and last born children. Majority of fathers were working as semiskilled (41.4%) and skilled (32.9%) workers, among the father’s alcohol users (45.06%) were high compared to the tobacco users (31.9%).Conclusions: Socio-demographic factors and occupation of father and alcohol consumption among them was found to be significantly associated with the behavioural problems of the study subjects

AN EXHAUSTIVE REVIEW ON EMERGING DRUG TARGETS OF TUBERCULOSIS WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON CELL WALL SYNTHESIS

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the top 10 causes of mortality and morbidity. Worldwide, yet, it has been over 60 years since a novel drug was introduced in market to treat the disease exclusively. Increased number of drug resistant TB cases has prompted the search for novel potent anti-TB drug. Mycobacterial cell wall has unique structure which provides integrity to the cell. The future development of new potent anti-TB drug targets is associated with the synthesis of various cell wall constituents; the structural and genetic information about mycobacterial cell wall envelope is now available. In the present review, we have focused on prospective drug targets that can be optimum triumph for successful drug candidate

THERMOSENSITIVE IN SITU GEL OF TINIDAZOLE IN TREATMENT OF BACTERIAL VAGINOSIS: FORMULATION AND EVALUATION

Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) is the leading cause of vaginal discharge. Because of its big surface area, wealthy blood supply, avoidance of the first-pass effect and high permeability to many drugs, the vagina offers a promising location for local impact as well as systemic drug delivery. In situ gels give several benefits, such as ease of administration in the respective body cavities, elevated spreadability at certain temperatures, reduced administration frequency, improved patient compliance and comfort compared to standard dosage forms. Tinidazole (TNZ) can give effective treatment over the BV. In situ gel of TNZ containing polaxomer 407 and HPMC E100 or carbopol 941NF was optimized on the basis of various evaluation parameters. Gelation temperature (Tgel) and pH of all batches was found in range of 36.6 to 38.0 ºC and 4.20 to 5.03, viscosity was found in range of 1100-2050 cps at 25ºC and 4800-6530 cps at 37ºC. The Spredability was found in range of 16-20 cm. From these evaluation parameters we selected best combination for the mucoadhesive property, antimicrobial study, in vitro drug release and for HET CAM irritation study. The optimized formulation gives satisfactory results. In this study we also compare the performance of two mucoadhesive polymer. Based on maximum desirability and cost effectiveness, in situ vaginal gel containing 20% polaxomer and 0.5% HPMC E100 could be considered as a highly promising treatment for bacterial vaginosis

Evaluation of lipid lowering ability of atorvastatin and ezetimibe combination as compared with atorvastatin monotherapy

Background: Many patients on statin therapy do not achieve recommended LDL cholesterol goals. They require either high dose statin regimen or combination of statins with other lipid modifying agents. Ezetimibe is a novel drug when added to statins, will provide additional reduction in LDL-C level.Methods: Total 100 patients with CHD or hypertension and having serum LDL-C levels of ≥100 mg/dl were enrolled for the study and were randomly allocated to two groups. Baseline investigations done. Patients from Group I received Atorvastatin (10mg) per day orally and patients from group II received combination of Atorvastatin (10mg) and Ezetimibe (10mg) per day orally. Study treatment was started on the day of randomization and continued for 12 weeks and follow up visits were scheduled at 4, 8, and 12 weeks. During each follow up investigations repeated and patients were interviewed and examined for occurrence of any adverse effect.Results: There was greater reduction in levels of LDL-C, Total cholesterol and serum triglycerides in patients treated with Atorvastatin plus Ezetimibe combination as compared to those patients treated with Atorvastatin alone. This difference in percentage reduction in LDL-C, Total cholesterol and serum triglycerides levels in two groups was highly significant at 4, 8 and 12 weeks (p100mg/dl as it significantly lowers the LDL-C along with total cholesterol and triglycerides

STABILITY INDICATING RP-HPLC-PDA METHOD FOR DETERMINATION OF ABIRATERONE ACETATE AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ITS BASE CATALYZED DEGRADATION PRODUCT BY LC-MS

Objective: The present work describes stability indicating (SI) RP-HPLC-PDA method for determination of abiraterone acetate (ABA) and characterization of its base catalyzed degradation product by LC-MS.Methods: The separation was achieved by using column Kromasil C18 (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 4.0 µ) using acetonitrile (ACN): ammonium acetate buffer 10 mM, pH adjusted to 3.5 with acetic acid (AA) in the ratio of 10:90 % v/v as eluent. The Mobile phase flow rate was 0.6 ml/min and data integration was achieved at 235 nm.Results: The retention time of ABA was 5.4±0.01 min. Linearity was found to be in the range of 5–30 μg/ml. The limit of detection and quantitation were 0.25 μg/ml and 0.75 μg/ml respectively, and percentage recovery of ABA was found to be 99.52 to 100.13 %. Mass spectral data of base degraded product of ABA shows a prominent molecular ion peak at m/z-391.5. Major fragmentation leads to formation of 10–Methyl 2,3,4,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15-dodecanhydro-1H cyclopenta (α)phenanthren-3-ol as a degradant (D2) at m/z-257.81, due to corresponding loss of C8H12ON. All the analytical validation parameters were determined and found in the limit as per ICH guidelines.Conclusion: The results of the various validation studies showed that the LC method is fast, specific, accurate, reproducible, possessed significant linearity and precision. The drug was found to be stable under all the stress conditions except basic stress. Thus developed method reported first time is novel with a very short run time of 6 min.Â

Performance of a UV-A LED system for degradation of aflatoxins B1 and M1 in pure water: kinetics and cytotoxicity study

The efficacy of a UV-A light emitting diode system (LED) to reduce the concentrations of aflatoxin B1, aflatoxin M1 (AFB1, AFM1) in pure water was studied. This work investigates and reveals the kinetics and main mechanism(s) responsible for the destruction of aflatoxins in pure water and assesses the cytotoxicity in liver hepatocellular cells. Irradiation experiments were conducted using an LED system operating at 365 nm (monochromatic wave-length). Known concentrations of aflatoxins were spiked in water and irradiated at UV-A doses ranging from 0 to 1,200 mJ/cm2. The concentration of AFB1 and AFM1 was determined by HPLC with fluorescence detection. LC–MS/MS product ion scans were used to identify and semi-quantify degraded products of AFB1 and AFM1. It was observed that UV-A irradiation significantly reduced aflatoxins in pure water. In comparison to control, at dose of 1,200 mJ/cm2 UV-A irradiation reduced AFB1 and AFM1 concentrations by 70 ± 0.27 and 84 ± 1.95%, respectively. We hypothesize that the formation of reactive species initiated by UV-A light may have caused photolysis of AFB1 and AFM1 molecules in water. In cell culture studies, our results demonstrated that the increase of UV-A dosage decreased the aflatoxins-induced cytotoxicity in HepG2 cells, and no significant aflatoxin-induced cytotoxicity was observed at UV-A dose of 1,200 mJ/cm2. Further results from this study will be used to compare aflatoxins detoxification kinetics and mechanisms involved in liquid foods such as milk and vegetable oils

A bandwidth enhanced multilayer electromagnetic bandgap structure to reduce the simultaneous switching noise

A bandwidth enhanced multilayer Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) structure to reduce the simultaneous switching noise (SSN) in high frequency operating circuits, which useful for the satellite communication application, is presented in this paper. A proposed stack structure is mathematically analyzed by the dispersion method and transmission matrix method. Simulation results show good mitigation of SSN in scattering parameters and signal integrity in terms of eye diagrams. We have also checked for power integrity analysis using self-impedance. The proposed structure gives a good SSN suppression at -30 dB from 817 MHz to 26.32 GHz, around 25.50 GHz bandwidth and also reduces the cavity mode resonance within the stopband range. The proposed multilayer structure is compared with planar EBG plane and reference board. It is also compared with published results