Self injection of Dichlorvos, an Organophosphorus Compound

We report two patients who injected themselves a strong organophosphate compound, dichlorvas, and showed the typical clinical picture of organophosphate intoxication. There are very few case reports of parenteral organophosphorous poisoning. With the appropriate therapy, their symptoms disappeared in a few days. The cases are reported because of unusual and interesting way of intoxication

Giant intra-abdominal hydatid cysts with multivisceral locations

The disseminated intra-peritoneal hydatid disease is a very rare finding. A case of disseminated intra abdominal hydatid disease is presented along with a review of literature and various therapeutic modalitie

The Forecasting of 3G Market in India Based on Revised Technology Acceptance Model

3G, processor of 2G services, is a family of standards for mobile telecommunications defined by the International Telecommunication Union [1]. 3G services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data, all in a mobile environment. It allows simultaneous use of speech and data services and higher data rates.3G is defined to facilitate growth, increased bandwidth and support more diverse applications. The focus of this study is to examine the factors affecting the adoption of 3G services among Indian people. The study adopts the revised Technology Acceptance Model by adding five antecedents-perceived risks, cost of adoption, perceived service quality, subjective norms, and perceived lack of knowledge. Data have collected from more than 400 school/college/Institution students & employees of various Government/Private sectors using interviews & various convenience sampling procedures and analyzed using MS excel and MATLAB. Result shows that perceived usefulness has the most significant influence on attitude towards using 3G services, which is consistent with prior studies. Of the five antecedents, perceived risk and cost of adoption are found to be significantly influencing attitude towards use. The outcome of this study would be beneficial to private and public telecommunication organizations, various service providers, business community, banking services and people of India. Research findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.Comment: 8 Page

Physical Learning Environment Challenges in the Digital Divide: How to Design Effective Instruction during COVID-19?

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the way we work, learn, and interact with others in society. Academic institutions have responded to the pandemic by shifting face-to-face teaching to online instruction. However, whether online instruction succeeds also depends on students’ social and physical learning environment, particularly in developing countries. In this paper, we discuss how learning space challenges exacerbate the digital divide. We argue that weak digital infrastructure, combined with family and social dynamics, create learning space inequality that negatively influence learning outcomes. We provide recommendations on how academic institutions can reimagine content delivery, evaluation, and student support to mitigate learning space inequalities

An effective method for extraction and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of DNA from formalin preserved tissue samples of snow leopard

Formalin-preserved biological samples obtained from endangered species are valuable in assessing genetic diversity. To make use of snow leopard samples preserved in formalin over a period of two to seven years, we optimized the method of extracting DNA from these samples. We used (a) phenol chloroform : isoamyl alcohol, (b) the Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (Qiagen, Germany), (c) the Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit after treating the samples with NaOH for three days and (d) the Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit after treating the samples with phosphate buffered saline (PBS) for three days. The usefulness of the extracted DNA was assessed on the basis of mitochondrial (150 to 550 bp) and nuclear (95 to 229 bp) markers. There was no PCR amplification with the first two methods. The PCR amplification with the NaOH and PBS treatment had a success rate of 30 to 100% for both mitochondrial and nuclear markers. The PBS method is the best method for extraction of DNA from formalin-preserved samples of longer period (two to seven years) because of higher success rate in amplifying mitochondrial gene of ca. 550 bp (60%) than the NaOH method (28%). The overall amplification of microsatellite markers in such samples was also higher in samples treated with PBS (43 to 100%) than NaOH (0 to 100%). The PCR products obtained were confirmed through DNA sequencing to be of snow leopard origin. The optimized protocol will enable genetic studies to be conducted on tissue samples of other species that have been preserved in formalin. The protocol will be particularly useful for species that are elusive and from which it is difficult to collect fresh tissue samples.Keywords: Formalin, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), mtDNA, microsatellites, snow leopardAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(22), pp. 3399-340

Assessment of prescription completeness and antibiotic consumption at a rural health and training centre, Delhi

Background: The prescription audit is a useful method to assess the doctors’ contribution to the rational use of drugs in a country. A prescription is considered complete when it covers all the parts of the prescription. The polypharmacy increased the risk of drug interaction, dispensing errors and confused the patients for dosage schedules. A prescription with the minimum number of drugs per prescription helps in rational pharmacotherapeutics. The objectives of this study were to describe the pattern and completeness of prescription at rural health and training center and to estimate antibiotic consumption at rural health and training center.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the current prescribing practice at RHTC. Data were collected in the two pharmacies of the rural hospital. A total of 612 prescriptions with the last refill were considered for the assessment.Results: The average number of drugs prescribed per prescription 3.53. The percentage of prescriptions in which an antibiotic was prescribed was 20%. The percentage of drugs prescribed by generic name and from an essential drug list was 71.5% and 98.7% respectively. The most commonly prescribed form of antibiotics was extended-spectrum penicillin.Conclusions: All the prescriptions were complete covered parts of prescriptions. The dosing errors were present in maximum prescriptions. The WHO prescribing indicators were within the limits, an average number of drugs per prescription suggests a practice of polypharmacy. The peak of the use of antibiotics was observed in September followed by January and November. The least use of antibiotics was in December followed by June.

COMPARING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ORAL ISOTRETINOIN AND CYPROTERONE COMPOUND IN ACNE TREATMENT AMONG ADULT FEMALES WITH CUTANEOUS HYPERANDROGENISM: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY.

Background: Acne is a complex illness caused by androgenic stimulation of the sebaceous glands. As a result, combined oral contraceptives (COCs) including anti-androgenic progestogens are good candidates for acne treatment. The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of oral isotretinoin and cyproterone compound in the treatment of nodulocystic acne, in adult females with signs of cutaneous hyperandrogenism. Materials and Methods: Thirty female patients with SAHA syndrome were randomly assigned into two groups of fifteen each. Group A got cyproterone compound (35 μg ethinyl estradiol and 2mg cyproterone acetate) starting day 5 of the menstrual cycle. Group B got isotretinoin at a dose of 0.5mg/kg daily. All recruited patients got topical benzoyl peroxide 3.5% gel regularly. SPSS was used to do statistical analysis. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant. Results: Despite a consistent reduction in ASI score in both groups, according to both physician (P = 0.63) and patient (P = 0.25) assessment, the cyproterone compound was not statistically more successful than traditional treatment of nodulocystic acne at the end of the trial. Patients in both groups reported minor and acceptable side effects, except in two cases. Conclusion: This study found that cyproterone compound is not more effective than isotretinoin in the treatment of nodulocystic acne in patients with SAHA syndrome or cutaneous hyperandrogenism. Indeed, additional research is needed to assess the efficacy of cyproterone molecules (independent of testosterone level) and isotretinoin in people with just nodulocystic acne. Recommendation: Oral isotretinoin is recommended for treating nodulocystic acne in patients with cutaneous hyperandrogenism due to its comparable efficacy to cyproterone compound and established effectiveness in reducing acne lesions. Further research should compare these treatments regardless of androgen levels in nodulocystic acne patients

Antimicrobial Profiling of three Famous Indian Spices on S. aureus & S. epidermidis

Abstract: In order to study the antimicrobial activity of Cold Water, Hot Water, Methanol, Acetone, Chloroform, Diethyl ether, Xylene and Petroleum ether extract of three Indian spices such as Piper nigrum L., was tested against infectious disease causing bacterial pathogens Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis using the Agar Well diffusion method. It was observed that hot water, cold water, Methanol, Acetone, Chloroform, xylene, Diethyl ether and Petroleum ether showed activity against both Bacteria. The extract of Pimenta dioicas in different solvents showed maximum activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The results confirmed presence of antibacterial activity in the selected Indian spices against the human pathogenic organisms

Cellular interaction of folic acid conjugated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and its use as contrast agent for targeted magnetic imaging of tumor cells

The purpose of the study was to develop tumor specific, water dispersible superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) and evaluate their efficacy as a contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We have developed SPIONs capped with citric acid/2-bromo-2-methylpropionic acid which are compact, water dispersible, biocompatible having narrow range of size dispersity (8–10 nm), and relatively high T2 relaxivity (R2 = 222L · mmol−1 · sec−l). The targeting efficacy of unconjugated and folic acid-conjugated SPIONs (FA-SPIONS) was evaluated in a folic acid receptor overexpressing and negative tumor cell lines. Folic acid receptor-positive cells incubated with FA-SPIONs showed much higher intracellular iron content without any cytotoxicity. Ultrastructurally, SPIONs were seen as clustered inside the various stages of endocytic pathways without damaging cellular organelles and possible mechanism for their entry is via receptor mediated endocytosis. In vitro MRI studies on tumor cells showed better T2-weighted images in FA-SPIONs. These findings indicate that FA-SPIONs possess high colloidal stability with excellent sensitivity of imaging and can be a useful MRI contrast agent for the detection of cancer