Formulation Tissue Distribution and Pharmacokinetic Evaluation of Salbutamol Sulphate Niosomes

Salbutamol is a relatively selective beta-2-adrenoreceptor stimulant. After parenteral administration, stimulation of the beta receptors in the body, both beta-1 and beta-2, occurs because (a) beta-2 selectivity is not absolute, and (b) higher concentrations of salbutamol occur in the regions of these receptors with parentral mode of administration. This results in the beta-1 effect of cardiac stimulation, and beta-2 effects of peripheral vasodilatation and hypotension, skeletal muscle tremor and uterine muscle relaxation. In order to reduce the uptake of salbutamol by beta-1 receptor and to increase the drug concentration in lungs with minimum dose through niosomes was tried in this study to formulate and optimize Salbutamol Sulphate niosomes for targeting lungs to reduce the dose level and dosing frequency of Salbutamol Sulphate by sustained release niosome formulation. To determine the stability of Salbutamol Sulphate niosome formulation with and without stabilizing agent on storage. To determine the stability of salbutamol sulphate niosomes as per ICH guidelines. To compare the bio-distribution nature of niosomal formulation and drug in solution to different organs in mice when administered via intravenous route. To evaluate the altered pharmacokinetics and metabolism of Salbutamol Sulphate niosomal formulation in rabbits. Stable noisome formulation were prepared by thin film hydration technique using Tween 20, 40, 60, 80 and Span 20, 40, 60, 80 in the ratio of 20:90 (cholesterol:surfactant). Drug entrapment was found to be high in Span 60 and Tween 60 formulations. Good in vitro release was found to be in Tween 80+CHOL and Span 60+DCP+CHOL formulations. Tween 80 formulation shows three fold increased drug concentration in lungs and found to have higher plasma concentration as well as mean residence time

Intraoperative Monitoring of patients during Neurosurgical Procedures: A Biochemical and Electrophysiological study

Intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring of the nervous system is used to prevent complications arising during the course of neurosurgical procedures. Various electrophysiological monitoring techniques such as EEG (Electroencephalogram), EP (evoked potentials), EMG (Electromyography) and NCV (Nerve conduction velocity) are used during the course of surgery. The principal goal of intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring is prompt identification of nervous system impairment during surgery and prevent permanent postoperative deficits provide relative reassurance to the surgeon that no identifiable complication has been detected up to that point, allowing the surgeon to proceed further and provide a more thorough or careful surgical intervention than would have been provided in the absence of monitoring modify surgical strategy when any change occurs in the recordings. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that intraoperative neurophysiologial monitoring needed specific care and attention during the course of surgery to avoid the permanent postoperative neurological deteriorations. The study also concludes that (1) Usage of multipulse stimulation and multiple sweeps of stimulation (0.7Hz) is very effective in eliciting iMEPs. More studies need to be done to understand this phenomenon. (2) Averaging of these responses can used for more consistent responses. (3) Intravenous anaesthesia (propofol) is more ideal than inhalational anaesthesia (isoflurane) for iMEPs. (4) It is important to monitor more than one muscle to predict postoperative outcome. (5) Pain is the main cause for intraoperative hypertension and it is mediated by increased norepinephrine levels in the circulation. (6) Intraoperative maintenance of stable haemodynamics by pre-emptive therapy with lisinopril (angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor) would be beneficial and prevent the intraoperative associated postoperative neurological complications. This is particularly important if the patient requires intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring

Genetic diversity in cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) plus trees in Tamil Nadu by simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers

The range of polymorphism of about 27 cocoa plus trees screened in the major cocoa growing regions of Tamil Nadu were assessed using 10 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The gene diversity, genetic differentiation and genetic similarities were analyzed for the cocoa trees. The number of alleles detected by different primers ranged from 0 to 3 and the level of polymorphism was 0 to 100%. The polymorphism information content (PIC) value ranged from 0.000 to 0.677. The higher the PIC value, the more informative was the SSR marker. Hence, primer mTcCIR33 was found to be highly informative. The Jaccard’s similarity coefficient for the SSR data set varied from 0.39 to 1.00. The SSR marker profiles resulted in nine clusters at nearly 54% similarity. From this study, it could be inferred that the diversity exists in cocoa plantations in Tamil Nadu and can be exploited in crop improvement research.Keywords: Cocoa, simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, polymorphism, genetic diversity, breeding.African Journal of BiotechnologyVol. 12(30), pp. 4747-475

High Ionic Conductivities of Ionic Materials as Potential Electrolytes

Acknowledgments We sincerely acknowledge Dr. Kousaalya Bakthavatchalam for critically reading and making insightful suggestions for the improvement of the article. TSV acknowledges the Ministry of Higher Education under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme [FRGS/1/2018/STG07/UM/02/6] for the financial support. AMF would like to thank the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, for the Research Incentive Grant RIG008586, the Royal Society and Specac Ltd. for the Research Grant RGS\R1\201397, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government for one Sapphire project, and the Royal Society of Chemistry for the award of a mobility grant (M19-0000). UB thanks the School of Engineering (University of Aberdeen) for the award of one Summer Scholarship.Publisher PD

p-Methoxy Azobenzene Terpolymer as a Promising Energy-Storage Liquid Crystal System

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OKAZ, JH, and ARI would like to acknowledge the Sultan Qaboos University for its support through His Majesty’s Trust Fund for Strategic Research (SR/SCI/CHEM/18/01) and Internal Grant (IG/SCI/CHEM/21/03). SMA and NFKA would like to acknowledge Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education for the grant number 600-IRMI/FRGS 5/3 (374/2019). AMF would like to acknowledge the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, for the Research Incentive Grant RIG008586, the Royal Society and Specac Ltd., for the Research Grant GS\R1\201397, the Royal Society of Chemistry for the award of a mobility grant (M19-0000), and the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government, for the award of a SAPHIRE project.Peer reviewedPostprin

Soil Information System: Web-Based Solution for Agricultural Land-use Planning

The soil-forming factors, especially climate, vegetation and topography, act on a range of rock formations and parent materials leading to the development of different kinds of soils. Through concerted efforts, soil datasets generated earlier are used to develop maps and soil information systems at different scales. Progress in basic and fundamental research on the formation of Indian soils as related to climate, relief, organisms, parent materials and time has helped in developing the soil information system

Artificial tongues and leaves

The objective with synthetic multifunctional nanoarchitecture is to create large suprastructures with interesting functions. For this purpose, lipid bilayer membranes or conducting surfaces have been used as platforms and rigid-rod molecules as shape-persistent scaffolds. Examples for functions obtained by this approach include pores that can act as multicomponent sensors in complex matrices or rigid-rod π-stack architecture for artificial photosynthesis and photovoltaic

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Not AvailableArunachal Pradesh, the largest mountainous state of India, is situated in the northeastern part of the Himalayan region and characterized by high annual rainfall, forest vegetation and diversity in soils. Information on the soils of the state is essential for scientific land use planning and sustainable production. A soil resource inventory and subsequent database creation for thematic mapping using a Geographical Information System (GIS) is presented in this paper. Physiographically, Arunachal Pradesh can be divided into four distinct zones: snow-capped mountains (5500 m amsl); lower Himalayan ranges (3500 m amsl); the sub-Himalayan Siwalik hills (700 m amsl); and the eastern Assam plains. Soils occurring in these physiographic zones are lnceptisols (37 percent), Entisols (35 per- cent), Ultisols (14 percent) and Alfisols (0.5 percent). The remaining soils can be classed as miscellaneous. Soil resource inventory studies show that the soils of the warm perhumid eastern Himalayan ecosystem, with a ‘thermic’ temperature regime, are lnceptisols and Entisols; and that they are highly acidic in nature. Soils of the warm perhumid Siwalik hill ecosystem, with a ‘hyperthermic’ temperature regime, are also Entisols and lnceptisols with a high to moderate acidic condition. The dominant soils of the northeastern Purvachal hill ecosystem, with ‘hyperthermic’ and ‘thermic’ temperature regimes, are Ultisols and Inceptisols. lnceptisols and Entisols are the dominant soils in the hot and humid plain ecosystem. Steeply sloping landform and high rainfall are mainly responsible for a high erosion hazard in the state. The soil erosion map indicates that very severe (20 percent of TGA) to severe (25 percent of TGA) soil erosion takes place in the warm per-humid zone, whereas, moderate erosion takes place in the Siwalik hills and hot, humid plain areas. This is evident from the soil depth class distribution of Arunachal Pradesh, which shows that shallow soils cover 20 percent of the TGA of the state. Most of the the state is covered by hills and agri- cultural practices are limited to valley regions, However, the soils of other physiographic zones (lower altitudinal, moderately hilly terrain) provide scope for plantations, such as orange, banana and tea plantations.Not Availabl

Effects of a Mathematics Cognitive Acceleration Program on Student Achievement and Motivation

This paper presents the effects of a cognitive acceleration program in mathematics classes on Tongan students’ achievements, motivation and self-regulation. Cognitive Acceleration in Mathematics Education (CAME) is a program developed at King’s College and implemented worldwide with the aim of improving students’ thinking skills, mathematics performance and attitudes. The first author adapted the program materials to Tongan educational context and provided support to participating teachers for 8 months. This study employed a quasi-experimental design with 219 Year 8 students as the experimental group and 119 Year 8 students as the comparison group. There were a significant differences in the mean scores between the pre-test and post-test of the three instruments that were employed in the study, indicating that learning mathematics under the CAME program had a positive effect on levels of students’ self-regulation, motivation and mathematics achievement. Students also reported changes to the ways they learn mathematics