Stability-indicating RP-HPLC method for determination of Eprosartan in pure and pharmaceutical formulation

A simple, sensitive and specific RP-HPLC method was developed for the determination of Eprosartan in pure and tablet forms. The method showed a linear response for concentrations in the range of 20-120 ?g/mL using Methanol: Acetonitrile: Buffer solution (Dissolve 0.02 M potassium di-hydrogen orthophosphate in water. Adjust pH of solution to 6.85 with orthophosphoric acid) in the ratio (45:35:20) as the mobile phase with detection at 232 nm using photodiode array (PDA) detector and a flow rate of 1 mL/min and retention time 7.1 min. The value of correlation coefficient, slope and intercept were, 0.9998, 1661.8 and 114.82, respectively. The method was validated as per ICH guidelines for precision, recovery, ruggedness and robustness. The specificity of the method was investigated under different stress conditions including acidic, basic, photochemical and thermal as recommended by ICH guidelines. The drug undergoes degradation under acidic, basic, photochemical and thermal degradation conditions. All the peaks of degraded product were resolved from the active pharmaceutical ingredient with significantly different retention time. As the method could effectively separate the drug from its degradation product, it can be employed as a stability-indicating one

WALNUT PEDUNCULAGIN A PROBABLE SERM FOR BREAST CANCER TREATMENT

Walnuts constituents have been actively used in nutrition in slowing cancer growth by its anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic mechanisms. Pedunculagin, a natural chemical constituent of walnut were performed to check for its binding with Estrogen Receptor (ER) receptor using Insilco approach. Most of current approach towards breast cancer therapies is aimed at blocking ER signaling pathway using various estrogen antagonists like synthetic estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) which down regulates the signaling cascade leading to tumor activity. This study is aimed to find the binding interactions between Pedunculagin and ER. Pedunculagin structure was extracted from CHEMSPIDER database and Estrogen Receptor (ER) 1QKN was selected, further ligand and receptor structures were minimized with steepest descent and conjugate gradient with minimized energy levels were found to be -14211.04235 Kcal/mol for ligand molecule and -12518.66882 Kcal/mol for ER. Six interacting binding sites were identified between ligand and ER and docking studies showed second active binding site of receptor showed strong affinity and interacting groups. Pedunculagin may act as SERM in modulating the ER signaling activity and may be a probable therapeutic molecule for treating breast cancer

An unusual age presentation of mature cystic teratoma: a case report

Mature cystic teratoma compromise 20-30% of all ovarian tumours. They are mostly seen in patients between 20 and 40 years of age and are mostly asymptomatic. Malignancy incidence is high in postmenopausal group. Here, we report a case of mature cystic teratoma presenting unusually in a 65 year old postmenopausal woman with pain abdomen. A 65 year old postmenopausal woman presented with lower abdominal pain of 15 days duration. Upon examination, a mass of size 7×8 cm felt on bimanual examination. CT showed the same cyst that has a focal enhancing mural nodule with fat density in it. Total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo oopherectomy done. Histopathological examination confirmed mature cystic teratoma. Although mature cystic teratoma is rare after 40 years age, especially in postmenopausal women and are usually malignant in that age group, it can have an unusual age presentation at 65 years with benign nature as in our case

UniRecSys: A Unified Framework for Personalized, Group, Package, and Package-to-Group Recommendations

Recommender systems aim to enhance the overall user experience by providing tailored recommendations for a variety of products and services. These systems help users make more informed decisions, leading to greater user satisfaction with the platform. However, the implementation of these systems largely depends on the context, which can vary from recommending an item or package to a user or a group. This requires careful exploration of several models during the deployment, as there is no comprehensive and unified approach that deals with recommendations at different levels. Furthermore, these individual models must be closely attuned to their generated recommendations depending on the context to prevent significant variation in their generated recommendations. In this paper, we propose a novel unified recommendation framework that addresses all four recommendation tasks, namely personalized, group, package, or package-to-group recommendation, filling the gap in the current research landscape. The proposed framework can be integrated with most of the traditional matrix factorization-based collaborative filtering models. The idea is to enhance the formulation of the existing approaches by incorporating components focusing on the exploitation of the group and package latent factors. These components also help in exploiting a rich latent representation of the user/item by enforcing them to align closely with their corresponding group/package representation. We consider two prominent CF techniques, Regularized Matrix Factorization and Maximum Margin Matrix factorization, as the baseline models and demonstrate their customization to various recommendation tasks. Experiment results on two publicly available datasets are reported, comparing them to other baseline approaches that consider individual rating feedback for group or package recommendations.Comment: 25 page

The neutron production rate measurement of an indigenously developed compact D-D neutron generator

One electrostatic accelerator based compact neutron generator was developed. The deuterium ions generated by the ion source were accelerated by one accelerating gap after the extraction from the ion source and bombarded to a target. Two different types of targets, the drive - in titanium target and the deuteriated titanium target were used. The neutron generator was operated at the ion source discharge potential at +Ve 1 kV that generates the deuterium ion current of 200 mA at the target while accelerated through a negative potential of 80 kV in the vacuum at 1.3×10-2 Pa filled with deuterium gas. A comparative study for the neutron yield with both the targets was carried out. The neutron flux measurement was done by the bubble detectors purchased from Bubble Technology Industries. The number of bubbles formed in the detector is the direct measurement of the total energy deposited in the detector. By counting the number of bubbles the total dose was estimated. With the help of the ICRP-74 neutron flux to dose equivalent rate conversion factors and the solid angle covered by the detector, the total neutron flux was calculated. In this presentation the operation of the generator, neutron detection by bubble detector and estimation of neutron flux has been discussed

Converting Treatment Plans From Helical Tomotherapy to L-Shape Linac: Clinical Workflow and Dosimetric Evaluation.

This work evaluated a commercial fallback planning workflow designed to provide cross-platform treatment planning and delivery. A total of 27 helical tomotherapy intensity-modulated radiotherapy plans covering 4 anatomical sites were selected, including 7 brain, 5 unilateral head and neck, 5 bilateral head and neck, 5 pelvis, and 5 prostate cases. All helical tomotherapy plans were converted to 7-field/9-field intensity-modulated radiotherapy and volumetric-modulated radiotherapy plans through fallback dose-mimicking algorithm using a 6-MV beam model. The planning target volume (PTV) coverage ( D1, D99, and homogeneity index) and organs at risk dose constraints were evaluated and compared. Overall, all 3 techniques resulted in relatively inferior target dose coverage compared to helical tomotherapy plans, with higher homogeneity index and maximum dose. The organs at risk dose ratio of fallback to helical tomotherapy plans covered a wide spectrum, from 0.87 to 1.11 on average for all sites, with fallback plans being superior for brain, pelvis, and prostate sites. The quality of fallback plans depends on the delivery technique, field numbers, and angles, as well as user selection of structures for organs at risk. In actual clinical scenario, fallback plans would typically be needed for 1 to 5 fractions of a treatment course in the event of machine breakdown. Our results suggested that <1% dose variance can be introduced in target coverage and/or organs at risk from fallback plans. The presented clinical workflow showed that the fallback plan generation typically takes 10 to 20 minutes per case. Fallback planning provides an expeditious and effective strategy for transferring patients cross platforms, and minimizing the untold risk of a patient missing treatment(s)

Project Report Australia-India Strategic Research Fund Preparing for climate change in marine system of Australia and India

Climate change is a major challenge facing governments, industries and communities and requires an inter-disciplinary approach to understand impacts and adaptation options across both the biological and human systems. Marine resources in both southern India and south-eastern Australia provide substantial social and economic benefits which flow into many rural communities. Both regions have been identified as global warming hotspots with the rate of climate warming predicted to be greater than 90 per cent of the global average. These areas are already being affected by climate change and are expected to provide case studies for developing adaptation responses across substantially different cultures. This project, based on two workshops, brought together inter-disciplinary researchers from both India and Australia with expertise in physical, biological, social, economic and governance climate change research and developed a strategic research plan for future collaborative research. The workshops identifiedthat the key physical drivers (e.g. temperature, currents) are predicted to affect species abundance and distributions, develop biological, social and economic indices that can be used to monitor impacts on species, industries and rural communities and investigate options for policy and management of marine resources.By developing a strategic and operational plan, the project focused on developing a collaborative research opportunities that can assist Governments, Industries and Communities prepare and adapt to changes in their marine resources. Society, economic and governance differences between India and Australia provided an exciting opportunity to determine generic and specific issues and to adapt concepts and methods across broad biological and socio-economic background

Immunoregulatory Potential of Exosomes Derived from Cancer Stem Cells.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are malignancies that originate in the mucosal lining of the upper aerodigestive tract. Despite advances in therapeutic interventions, survival rates among HNSCC patients have remained static for years. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are tumor-initiating cells that are highly resistant to treatment, and are hypothesized to contribute to a significant fraction of tumor recurrences. Consequently, further investigations of how CSCs mediate recurrence may provide insights into novel druggable targets. A key element of recurrence involves the tumor's ability to evade immunosurveillance. Recent published reports suggest that CSCs possess immunosuppressive properties, however, the underlying mechanism have yet to be fully elucidated. To date, most groups have focused on the role of CSC-derived secretory proteins, such as cytokines and growth factors. Here, we review the established immunoregulatory role of exosomes derived from mixed tumor cell populations, and propose further study of CSC-derived exosomes may be warranted. Such studies may yield novel insights into new druggable targets, or lay the foundation for future exosome-based diagnostics

Demographics and Histopathological Patterns of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma at a Tertiary Level Referral Hospital in Hyderabad, India: A 5-Year Retrospective Study

Background: To study the demographics and histopathological patterns of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) reported at a tertiary level referral teaching hospital in Hyderabad, India. Materials and methods: An institutional retrospective study of biopsies sent to a tertiary level referral teaching hospital, Hyderabad. The data was collected year-wise for a period of 5 years from 2007 to 2011 with reference to age, sex, site involved and final diagnosis based on the histopathological findings. Results: A total of 1,005 oral biopsies were reviewed. Of these, OSCC was seen in 234 cases (23.28%). Buccal mucosa (47.7%) was the most frequently involved site followed by tongue (27.6%). Most of the OSCC patients were in the age group of 41 to 50 years, males and histopathologically well-differentiated (62%). Conclusion: This study showed that OSCC is widespread in the patients of this region

PLY WISE FAILURE ANALYSIS OF MONO LEAF SPRING USING HYBRID C-GFRP COMPOSITES

Composite materials are a better alternative for Leaf spring material in automobiles since they have higher stiffness, high impact energy absorption, lesser stresses and also higher strength to weight ratio. The objective is to study the ply wise failure criteria in the composite leaf springs. Leaf springs are modeled and analyzed using ACP PrePost and studied for failure criteria based on four failure theories which are: maximum stress failure theory, maximum strain failure theory, Tsai-Hill failure theory and Tsai-Wu failure theory. Failure load based on these theories is calculated by conducting a parametric study. To improve the maximum failure load, hybrid composites are designed and analyzed by replacing the top, bottom and center layers of the composite laminate. The four different cross-sections which are analyzed are Eglass/epoxy, HC1, HC2 and HC3. The study shows that replacing the top, bottom and center layers does improve the maximum failure load. Although this introduces higher stresses in the component, the stresses in the Eglass/epoxy material at the same positions from the center of the laminate are reduced. HC3 shows 30.7% increment in failure load by considering only vertical loads and 20.8% increment in failure load by considering vertical, side loads and twist moment simultaneously. There is an agreeable error of 1.44 – 1.65% in the results obtained for deformation and 0.88 – 1.33% for failure load between simulation and theoretical calculations. Mechanical properties of the Eglass/epoxy material are evaluated by conducting tensile test and three-point bending test. Mono leaf spring similar to the dimensions of Maruthi 800 vehicle is made using hand layup method. The load vs deformation results of leaf spring show a good agreement between the experimental and the simulation values