Emission source microscopy for electromagnetic interference source localization

For complex and large systems with multiple sources, it is often difficult to localize the sources of radiation. Near-field electromagnetic scanning is used often for root-cause diagnosis by determining field distribution close to the PCB. In the near-field, the evanescent waves are dominant, which may lead to the misinterpretation of them being the dominant sources contributing to the far-field. Another limitation of near-field scanning is that the probe may not be able to access all locations near the PCB due to the complex geometry and high component density. Two-dimensional synthetic aperture radar is a well-known technique used for antenna diagnostic and alignment of phase array antennas. Using a technique which is derived from the synthetic aperture radar we present emission source microscopy to localize the sources of active radiation on a PCB. After obtaining the location of sources, using near field to far-field transformation, it is shown that the far-field radiation patterns and the total radiated power can be estimated. Using masking algorithms the contribution of individual sources to far-field can be determined. The source localization methodology is presented along with simulation and measurement results on real-DUTs. The results show that the proposed method is capable of detecting multiple active sources on a complex PCB. Different phase measurement methods are presented along with the measurement results. Also, methods to reduce the scanning time for source localization are presented --Abstract, page iii

Study of Seismic Base Isolation of Bridge Considering Soil Structure Interaction

In this paper, a comprehensive study of seismic response of base isolated bridge is made by varying different parameters such as soil stiffness, embedment depth, hydrodynamic pressure and earthquake response spectrum. The object is to determine effect of soil-structure interaction on seismic response when isolation by elastomeric bearing is provided between superstructure and substructure. Elastomeric bearing is seen to be effective in reducing seismic response of substructure on rocky site. The increase in embedment depth also causes reduction in bending moments and shear forces in the substructure. The use of elastomeric bearing in place of Rocker-Roller bearing is seen to be beneficial from seismic considerations

Safety of deferasirox as an oral iron chelator in thalassemic children

Background: Thalassemia major patients require frequent blood transfusion leading to iron overload. Iron overload is characterized by excessive iron deposition and consequent injury and dysfunction of the heart, liver, anterior pituitary, pancreas, and joints. Because physiologic mechanisms to excrete iron are very limited, patients with iron overload and its complications need safe, effective therapy that is compatible with their coexisting medical conditions. Current prospective, observational study is done to assess the safety of deferasirox as an oral iron chelator, with specific reference to rise in serum creatinine level, alanine aminotransferase level (SGPT), urine albumin level in 50 multi-transfused thalassemia major children receiving deferasirox (DFX) therapy at registered thalassemia society Raipur, India.Methods: DFX was administered in an initial dose of 20 mg/kg/day and increased to a maximum of 40 mg/kg/day. Serum creatinine, alanine aminotransferase level (SGPT), urine albumin level were estimated in pretransfusion samples at time of registration and at 3 monthly intervals (4 times). The primary end point of the study was completion of 12 months of therapy (January 2013 to December 2013).Results: Prior to DFX therapy the mean serum creatinine, SGPT, urine albumin of all cases were 0.4617 mg/dl, 20.78 U/L and nil respectively. After 12 months of DFX therapy of mean dose 38 mg/kg/day, the mean serum creatinine was. 0.4624 mg/dL. SGPT was 20.81 U/L, and urine albumin was nil.Conclusions: Deferasirox monotherapy has a good safety profile and effectively chelates total body iron. 

Formulation and development of vaginal films of poorly water soluble drug, metronidazole, using mixed solvency concept and their evaluations

Aim: To deliver antibacterial therapy in an efficacious way, film dosage form has been proposed for drug delivery in vagina which can overcome bioavailability issues of poorly water soluble drugs. The present research work is aimed to explore the application of mixed solvency concept to increase solubility of poorly water soluble drug, metronidazole. Materials and Methods: Metronidazole, a slightly soluble drug in water was tried to be solubilized by employing the combination of solubilizers like niacinamide, sodium benzoate, sodium caprylate, caffeine and urea to endeavour its fast dissolving film formulations. The procured sample of drug was characterized by UV, IR and DSC studies. The formulations were evaluated for various properties of film such as thickness, folding endurance, surface pH, disintegration time and thin layer chromatography. Stability studies of vaginal films of metronidazole were performed for ten weeks at room temperature, and refrigerated conditions. Results and Discussion: It was found that 97.54% and 97.58% of drug was remaining after stability study at respective temperatures in batch F1 and 98.53% and 96.57% in batch F4.Conclusion: It was concluded that the approach of mixed solvency concept is novel, safe, cost-effective and user friendly. It also eliminates the problem of toxicity associated with high concentration of water-soluble solubilizers. So, it may be employed in dosage form development of drugs with poor solubility to overcome bioavailability issues. Keywords: Solubility, metronidazole, vaginal films, mixed solvency concept

Escherichia coli as uropathogen: antibiotic susceptibility profiling

Background: Empirically chosen antibiotics based on the local resistance pattern of uropathogens remain the principle treatment of urinary tract infections (UTI).Methods: Antibiogram of most frequent uropathogen was determined. Based on the antibiogram result, authors compared effectiveness of drugs recommended for UTI by National centre for disease control (NCDC), India, and assessed age and gender based variability in the effectiveness of these drugs.Results: 1278 urine samples were accounted, of which 405 samples showed significant growth. E. coli was the most common uropathogen (n=146, 36%) followed by enterococcus species (31%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (10%). Using McNemar’s test authors found that nitrofurantoin (90% sensitivity) was statistically the most effective drug among drugs recommended by NCDC for uncomplicated cystitis. Furthermore, authors used Fisher’s exact test on adults and paediatrics and found that significant difference in effectiveness was observed for nitrofurantoin (p-value <0.001) and cotrimoxazole (p-value 0.034). Using logistic regression, authors found that with age, effectiveness of ciprofloxacin and cotrimoxazole deteriorate significantly (p-value 0.021 and 0.002 respectively). Additionally, authors observed that cotrimoxazole has significantly better efficacy in males compared to females (p-value 0.022).Conclusions: In accordance with present study, nitrofurantoin can be used as first line treatment for uncomplicated cystitis. Age and gender should be considered while prescribing empirical treatment for UTI. Periodic surveillance should be carried out to identify the on-going pattern of antibiogram to update the guideline for empirical therapy

SOLID AS SOLVENT: NOVEL SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUE FOR QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF TINIDAZOLE IN TABLETS USING SOLIDS (EUTECTIC LIQUID OF PHENOL AND LIGNOCAINE HYDROCHLORIDE) AS SOLUBILIZING AGENTS (MIXED SOLVENCY CONCEPT)

As per the mixed solvency concept, every substance present in this universe has got solubilizing power. The substance may be a gas, liquid or solid. The present research work is an attempt to demonstrate the solubilizing property of solids. Also, the present research work is one of the examples which prove that solids can also be employed for spectrophotometric analysis of poorly soluble drugs in place of organic solvents. Tinidazole has got poor solubility in distilled water, while, significantly high solubility in a eutectic liquid of two solids, namely, phenol and lignocaine hydrochloride. Phenol and lignocaine hydrochloride were employed in 4:1 ratio to give eutectic liquid (PL 41). This eutectic liquid was employed to act as solvent to extract out the drug, tinidazole, from the fine powder of its tablets for spectrophotometric estimation at 318 nm. Necessary dilutions were done using distilled water. The solubility of tinidazole in distilled water is 5.38 mg/ml at room temperature while the approximate solubility in PL 41 is more than 200 mg/ml. Proposed method is novel, accurate, rapid and free from toxicity of organic solvents and reproducible. Recovery studies and statistical data proved the accuracy, reproducibility and precision of the analytical method employed. Tablet excipients together with phenol and lignocaine hydrochloride did not interfere at 318 nm. Keywords - Spectrophotometric analysis, mixed-solvency concept, tinidazole, phenol – lignocaine hydrochloride eutectic liqui

Clinicopathological features and the value of differential Cytokeratin 7 and 20 expression in resolving diagnostic dilemmas of ovarian involvement by colorectal adenocarcinoma and vice-versa

The distinction between metastasis from a colorectal adenocarcinoma into the ovary and an ovarian adenocarcinoma is vital, but challenging at times, due to overlapping morphological features. Similarly, a distinction between an ovarian metastasis into the colorectum and a colorectal adenocarcinoma, although rare; is important and can be daunting. We report an analysis of 20 cases of ovarian involvement by metastatic colorectal adenocarcinomas and colorectal involvement by metastatic ovarian adenocarcinomas, including the value of differential expression of cytokeratins 7 & 20 by immunohistochemistry (IHC), in these cases. Nine cases (45%) were identified as colorectal adenocarcinomas metastatic to the ovary. On biopsy, all these cases showed a 'garland-like' tumor necrosis, with desmoplasia and predominantly exhibited a tubuloalveolar pattern (67% cases). On IHC, all 8 of 9 such cases, where staining for cytokeratin 20 was performed, displayed strong positivity and 7 cases, where staining for carcinoembryogenic antigen (CEA) was performed, revealed positivity for this marker (100%). Other 11 cases (55%) were ovarian adenocarcinomas, metastatic to the colorectum. These showed metachronous presentations, with the ovarian tumor preceding the colorectal tumor deposits. Morphologically, psammomatous calcification was noted in 73% of these cases, whereas 'garland-like' necrosis was absent in all. The chief morphological subtype was serous papillary cystadenocarcinoma (55% cases). On IHC, CK7 and CA 125 were positive in all 6 of 11 such cases, whereas CK 20 was negative in all these cases

Data Congestion Prediction in Sensors Based IoT Network

1091-1095Internet of Things (IoT) becoming the major part of human life and make the life simpler. IoT uses sensor nodes to monitors certain phenomena and transmitting the collected information to the IoT gateway. The size of the network is increase rapidly and causing congestion in the network and results in network delay, loss of data packets, a decrease in throughput, and poor energy efficiency. It is important to predict the congestion and mitigate the data accordingly. To resolve the problem of congestion, our focus is on predicting the congested node effectively. We propose an optimized deep neural network - Restricted Boltzmann machine (DNN-RBM) based data congestion prediction approach which is used for analyzing and predicting the congested node in the sensors based IoT environment. To enhance the performance of DNN, the weight parameters of DNN are optimized using the Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM)-algorithm. The dataset is used to train the model and enable the prediction to find the congested nodes in the network with more accuracy to enhance the performance of the network. The performance factors congestion window, throughput, propagation delay, RTT, number of packets sent, and packet loss are given as input by using DNN-RBM. Predicted results show that the proposed DNN-RBM model predicts congestion with more than 95% accuracy as compared with other models like ANN, DNN-GA

Knowledge, attitude and practice toward adverse drug reaction reporting among practicing clinicians at a tertiary care hospital

Background: Pharmacovigilance has evolved as an important tool for dealing with Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) both in pre-marketing and post-marketing scenario. Underreporting of ADRs at our Adverse drug reaction Monitoring Centre (AMC) led us to conduct this study to assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) of the practicing clinicians at our tertiary care Pt. J.N.M. Medical College associated Dr. B.R.A.M. Hospital, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India, towards ADRs reporting.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study using pretested questionnaires consisting of 29 questions related to KAP of the practicing clinicians at Pt. J.N.M. Medical College associated Dr. B.R.A.M.  Hospital, Raipur towards ADRs reporting. The percentage of responders for each question was calculated. All statistical analysis was performed in Microsoft Office Excel 2007.Results: Out of 135 questionnaires distributed only 100 were considered for analysis, so the overall response rate was 74.07%. We calculated the result from the 100 responders. Overall 77% responders were aware of existence of ADR monitoring system in India, while only 40% were aware of its existence at their hospital. Only 8% responders had reported ADRs to the National Pharmacovigilance Centre and 10% to the Adverse drug reaction Monitoring Centre (AMC) at their hospital. Lack of knowledge about where, how and whom to report ADRs, lack of time, inability to decide what to report (known or unknown ADRs) and unavailability of ADR reporting form were the important factors discouraging them reporting ADRs.Conclusions: Creating awareness regarding ADR reporting through CMEs among practicing clinicians and early sensitization at medical undergraduate level for medical students may improve the current ADR reporting rate. 

Mitigating effects of vildagliptin in experimental diabetes with metabolic syndrome

Background: Vildagliptin has multiple beneficial effects reported in isolated studies like anti-diabetic, cardio protective, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. However, there is no experimental evidence presently available with regard to the possible beneficial effects of vildagliptin on attenuating changes observed in metabolic syndrome co-existing with diabetes in experimental rats. Thus, the present study was designed to evaluate potential effects of vildagliptin on various components of metabolic syndrome. Also to elucidate the underlying mechanisms: DPP-IV, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant pathways were studied.Methods: A combination of high fat diet (HFD) and low dose of streptozotocin (STZ) 40 mg/kg was used to induce metabolic syndrome co-existing with diabetes mellitus in wistar rats. The HFD were fed to rats for 10 weeks to induce metabolic syndrome. At the end of 3 weeks, diabetes was induced by a single STZ injection (40 mg/kg body weight). Vildagliptin (10 mg/kg) was administered to rat from 5th to 10th weeks daily and various parameters of Diabetes and metabolic syndrome were studied. Also to understand the mechanisms; DPP-IV pathway, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant parameters were studied. Biochemical indices of injury (pancreatic, liver and renal function) and histopathological assessment of injury was evaluated in experimental groups. Immunohistochemistry of pancreas was done to assess beta cell mass.Results: The vildagliptin treatment ameliorated the deleterious effects associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes. The beneficial effects demonstrated by vildagliptin on various parameters include: anti-diabetic (reduced blood glucose, HbA1c, HOMA-IR, increased serum insulin, HOMA-β and restoration of pancreatic function), central obesity (reduced body weight, abdominal circumference (AC), thoracic circumference (TC), AC/TC ratio) and hypolipidemic (favourable lipid profile, artherogenic index) activity. A significant restoration of cardiac injury as indicated by CPK-MB levels was observed. In addition, DPP-IV pathway (reduced serum DPP-IV), anti-inflammatory (reduced hs-CRP levels), and antioxidant (reduced MDA) contributed its beneficial effects in diabetes with metabolic syndrome model. The protective effects on heart, pancreas, liver and kidney were confirmed by histopathological report. The immunohistochemical report of pancreas showed preservation of beta cell mass in vildagliptin treated rats.Conclusions: Vildagliptin treatment ameliorates deleterious changes of diabetes with metabolic syndrome. Beneficial effects of vildagliptin can be attributed to hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic, antioxidant, cardioprotective and anti-inflammatory effects