FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT, EVALUATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF MEDICATED LIP ROUGE CONTAINING NIOSOMAL ACYCLOVIR FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF RECURRENT HERPES LABIALIS

Objective: Aim of the study was to formulate, evaluate and optimize medicated Lip rouge containing acyclovir encapsulated inside a novel vesicular carrier, niosome so that the formulation can improve its membrane penetration. Formulating as a cosmetic Lip rouge formulation will also improve patient compliance in the treatment of herpes labialis.Methods: Acyclovir niosomes were prepared by thin film hydration method. Niosomes were evaluated and were optimized by considering the entrapment efficiency and in vitro release profile. The optimized niosomes were incorporated into lipstick, lip balm and lip rouge for selecting the best lip formulation. Based on the in vitro release profile, ease of application and properties of prepared formulations lip rouge was selected and further evaluations were carried out.Results: Among the six formulations of niosomes NF2 has showed 88.49 % entrapment efficiency and 86.97% cumulative drug release in 8 h. The formulation was optimized considering both entrapment efficiency and in vitro release. The optimized formulation of niosomes was incorporated into Lipstick, lip balm and lip rouge. The evaluation results of lipstick, lip balm and lip rouge for in vitro release suggested lip rouge as the best formulation. The percentage cumulative release of drug from optimized lip rouge at the end of 8 h was 84.77%. The percentage cumulative drug release in ex vivo studies for 8 h was 60.88 %.Conclusion: The results suggested that prepared lip rouge containing acyclovir niosomes can effectively deliver the drug than the marketed acyclovir cream and successful therapy of Recurrent Herpes labialis can be achieved

Stabilization of black cotton soil using coconut fiber

Black cotton soil is a soil with low bearing capacity, swelling and shrinkage characteristics. Due to its peculiar characteristics, it forms a very poor foundation material. As black cotton soil is an expansive soil; it creates problem for lightly loaded structure than moderately loaded structure. Through this project, we are trying to study the improvements in the properties of soil by adding coconut fiber of varying percentages. Tests will be conducted to determine liquid limit and unconfined compression strength. Stabilization of soil is an effective method for improving the properties of soil. It has great significance in the future projects. Keywords: Soil stabilization, CBR, Atterberg limit

Novel ethyl 2-(1-aminocyclobutyl)-5-(benzoyloxy)-6-hydroxy-pyrimidine-4-carboxylate derivatives: synthesis and anticancer activities

To explore the anticancer activity of 2, 4, 5, 6-substituted pyrimidines, several ethyl 2-(1-aminocyclobutyl)-5-(benzoyloxy)-6-hydroxy-pyrimidine-4-carboxylate derivatives associated with the different substituted aromatic/aliphatic carboxamides and sulfonamides were synthesized. Different groups and position on phenyl ring attached to the carboxamide and sulfonamide of the pyrimidine led to two set of compounds. Their chemical structures were confirmed by IR,1H NMR and LC/MS analysis. Cytotoxicity of all the synthesized compounds were examined on human leukemia celllines (K562 and CEM). The preliminary results showed most of the derivatives exhibited good antitumor activity. Compound with para chloro substitution among carboxamides and compound with meta dichloro substitution among sulphonamidesexhibited significant antitumor activity with IC50 value of 14.0 μM and 15.0 μM respectively against K562cell line. For comparison among electron donating groups between carboxamides and sulfonamides, compounds with para tert-butyl substitution were chosen for further studies. Cell cycle analysis suggests that both tert-butyl substituted compounds are able to induce apoptosis

A Cytogenetic Photomap from Ovarian Nurse Cell Polytene Chromosome of Anopheles Stephensi (Diptera: Culicidae) : A Comparative Study

Polytene chromosome banding patterns have long been used to infer the degree of relatedness among taxa and as a standard reference for locating genes, pufs, and inversion breakpoints of unique gene arrangements. Chromosome comparisons between the species over the time have shown organizational changes in patterns which have resulted in adaptive advantages. An attempt has been made to prepare chromosome map from the ovarian nurse cell of Anopheles (Cellia) stephensi Liston, and to re-evaluate the physical map of this species. The photomaps prepared, were compared with other available maps of the past for the same species. The images of the polytene chromosomes have been straightened and divided by numbered divisions and lettered subdivisions. Tentative inversion breakpoints occurring naturally and that recorded from diferent insecticide resistant strains of An. stephensi is described in the present map. Some of the re-arrangements acquired have been highlighted in the paper in view to provide an overview of the importance of cytogenetic maps to Anopheles biology and the concept of chromosome evolution

Real-time vibration monitoring in Android smart phone using Location Based Service

Abstract: In the present study we propose the implementation of Location Based Service for real-time vibration monitoring of a moving vehicle. The purpose of this study is to prevent damage to delicate payload being carried by trucks or trailers which occurs due to vibrations during transportation. We have first designed a vibration detector circuit by connecting a vibration detector to an Arduino-Uno printed circuit board. This board was then interfaced to an Android smart phone with the help of a Bluetooth module. The sensor reading displayed on the Android smart-phone was sent over mobile GPRS to a web-GIS server. The data stored in the GIS database was then dynamically plotted as a line-graph on a web page and also overlaid on Google Earth's satellite image in the form of a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file

RNA sequencing-based identification of candidate hypersensitive transcripts in Perna viridis

The Asian Green Lipped mussel, Perna viridis one of the widely distributed bivalves act as a source of low cost protein providing nutritious meal to the coastal population in the form of well balanced amino acids and micronutrients. The immune system produces antibodies to certain class of proteins present in shellfish meat thereby causing hypersensitive reactions in the body. The next generation integrated transcriptome sequencing approach identifies all the potential allergenic proteins expressed in an animal very effectively. The present study describes the transcriptome of P. viridis based on the sequence data generated using five tissues. Transcriptome level candidate allergens and epitopes were observed and identified that might play a role in hypersensitive reaction to shellfish proteins including certain novel candidate allergens like Ran protein and a filamin A like protein. The existence of epitope hotspots in an important protein, arginine kinase was also observed and the unigenes identified would be a valuable resource for conduct of functional studies

Symptomatic improvement with gluten restriction in irritable bowel syndrome: a prospective, randomized, double blinded placebo controlled trial

Background/AimsThe existence of non-celiac gluten sensitivity has been debated. Indeed, the intestinal and extra-intestinal symptoms of many patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but without celiac disease or wheat allergy have been shown to improve on a gluten-free diet. Therefore, this study set out to evaluate the effects of gluten on IBS symptoms.MethodsWe performed a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled rechallenge trial in a tertiary care hospital with IBS patients who fulfilled the Rome III criteria. Patients with celiac disease and wheat allergy were appropriately excluded. The participants were administered a gluten-free diet for 4 weeks and were asked to complete a symptom-based questionnaire to assess their overall symptoms, abdominal pain, bloating, wind, and tiredness on the visual analog scale (0-100) at the baseline and every week thereafter. The participants who showed improvement were randomly assigned to one of two groups to receive either a placebo (gluten-free breads) or gluten (whole cereal breads) as a rechallenge for the next 4 weeks.ResultsIn line with the protocol analysis, 60 patients completed the study. The overall symptom score on the visual analog scale was significantly different between the two groups (P<0.05). Moreover, the patients in the gluten intervention group scored significantly higher in terms of abdominal pain, bloating, and tiredness (P<0.05), and their symptoms worsened within 1 week of the rechallenge.ConclusionsA gluten diet may worsen the symptoms of IBS patients. Therefore, some form of gluten sensitivity other than celiac disease exists in some of them, and patients with IBS may benefit from gluten restrictions

Chromosomal-level assembly of the Asian Seabass genome using long sequence reads and multi-layered scaffolding

We report here the ~670 Mb genome assembly of the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer), a tropical marine teleost. We used long-read sequencing augmented by transcriptomics, optical and genetic mapping along with shared synteny from closely related fish species to derive a chromosome-level assembly with a contig N50 size over 1 Mb and scaffold N50 size over 25 Mb that span ~90% of the genome. The population structure of L. calcarifer species complex was analyzed by re-sequencing 61 individuals representing various regions across the species' native range. SNP analyses identified high levels of genetic diversity and confirmed earlier indications of a population stratification comprising three clades with signs of admixture apparent in the South-East Asian population. The quality of the Asian seabass genome assembly far exceeds that of any other fish species, and will serve as a new standard for fish genomics

Top scoring pairs for feature selection in machine learning and applications to cancer outcome prediction

&lt;b&gt;Background&lt;/b&gt; The widely used k top scoring pair (k-TSP) algorithm is a simple yet powerful parameter-free classifier. It owes its success in many cancer microarray datasets to an effective feature selection algorithm that is based on relative expression ordering of gene pairs. However, its general robustness does not extend to some difficult datasets, such as those involving cancer outcome prediction, which may be due to the relatively simple voting scheme used by the classifier. We believe that the performance can be enhanced by separating its effective feature selection component and combining it with a powerful classifier such as the support vector machine (SVM). More generally the top scoring pairs generated by the k-TSP ranking algorithm can be used as a dimensionally reduced subspace for other machine learning classifiers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Results&lt;/b&gt; We developed an approach integrating the k-TSP ranking algorithm (TSP) with other machine learning methods, allowing combination of the computationally efficient, multivariate feature ranking of k-TSP with multivariate classifiers such as SVM. We evaluated this hybrid scheme (k-TSP+SVM) in a range of simulated datasets with known data structures. As compared with other feature selection methods, such as a univariate method similar to Fisher's discriminant criterion (Fisher), or a recursive feature elimination embedded in SVM (RFE), TSP is increasingly more effective than the other two methods as the informative genes become progressively more correlated, which is demonstrated both in terms of the classification performance and the ability to recover true informative genes. We also applied this hybrid scheme to four cancer prognosis datasets, in which k-TSP+SVM outperforms k-TSP classifier in all datasets, and achieves either comparable or superior performance to that using SVM alone. In concurrence with what is observed in simulation, TSP appears to be a better feature selector than Fisher and RFE in some of the cancer datasets.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Conclusions&lt;/b&gt; The k-TSP ranking algorithm can be used as a computationally efficient, multivariate filter method for feature selection in machine learning. SVM in combination with k-TSP ranking algorithm outperforms k-TSP and SVM alone in simulated datasets and in some cancer prognosis datasets. Simulation studies suggest that as a feature selector, it is better tuned to certain data characteristics, i.e. correlations among informative genes, which is potentially interesting as an alternative feature ranking method in pathway analysis