Wound healing suppressant effect of vincristine reversed by vitamin A: an experimental study

Background: Use of antineoplastic drugs pre and postoperatively have shown to adversely affect the healing of surgical wounds. Vincristine is an antineoplastic drug with a wide range of antitumor activity. Prior studies have demonstrated that vincristine impairs skin wound healing.Methods: In this study we investigated the effect of vitamin A on vincristine induced suppression of healing in two wound models, viz: incision and dead space in rats. Hydroxyproline (measure of collagen) was estimated colorimetrically and breaking strength of the wound and granulation tissue was measured.Results: Vincristine (60 mcg/Kg intraperitoneally, on the 3rd wounding day) significantly reduced breaking strength in both incision and dead space wound models. Vitamin A (5000 I.U, Subcutaneously on alternate days) by itself did not alter any of the parameters studied but reversed the suppressant effects of vincristine on wound healing.Conclusions: Vitamin A by itself produced little effect on healing except a modest increase in granulation mass. But it significantly reversed the healing suppressant effects of vincristine

To investigate the role of Memantine as anxiolytic in elevated plus maze test and as antidepressant in tail suspension test in Swiss albino mice

Background: The magnitude of improvement seen with present conventional medicines for anxiety and depression remain disappointing thereby providing a scope for the study of newer drugs. In the literature, there is evidence demonstrating the modulation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)receptors in anxiety and depression. The present study is undertaken to evaluate the antianxiety effect of memantine in elevated plus maze (EPZ) test and its antidepressant effect in tail suspension test (TST)in Swiss albino mice.Methods: Animals were divided into six groups (n=6). First group mice were given normal saline (10 ml/kg), second group were administered lorazepam (0.5 mg/kg), third group with memantine (3 mg/kg) and fourth group with memantine plus lorazepam, fifth group was administered amitriptyline (10 mg/kg)and sixth group received memantine plus amitriptyline. All drugs were administered by intraperitoneal route daily for 7 consecutive days. Results were analyzed by one-way ANOVA followed by post-hoc Tukey’s test.Results: Memantine treated mice showed significant increase (p<0.001)in time spent and number of entries in open arm and significant decrease in time spent and number of entries in closed arm in EPZ when compared to control group. Duration of immobility was significantly (p<0.001)reduced in animals treated with memantine when compared to the control group in TST.Conclusions: NMDA antagonist, memantine has showed significant antianxiety effect in EPZ test and antidepressant effect in TST

Drug utilization pattern in geriatric inpatients of medicine department in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Background: The objective of present study was to assess the drug utilization pattern among the geriatric patients.Methods: Totally, 150 prescriptions of patients’ ≥65 years admitted in the medicine inpatient department of MVJ Medical College and Research Hospital, Hoskote were noted from September 2013 to March 2014 and demographic profile, drug utilization pattern, commonly used drugs as per anatomical therapeutic chemical classification (ATC) and WHO core indicators were assessed after taking informed consent from the patients.Results: Out of 150 patients, average age of geriatric patients was 66.83 years with female preponderance (59%). Maximum number of patients were having respiratory disorders (66.67%) followed by diabetes mellitus (35.3%), and cardiovascular diseases (32.67%). 76% patients had co-morbid diseases like diabetes mellitus (n=53), hypertension (n=49), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n=41). A total of 849 drug formulations, containing 1050 active ingredients, were prescribed with average number of 7 (1050/150) drugs per prescription. Only 70 formulations were prescribed by their generic names, which is less than that prescribed by their brand names 779 and total of 146 (17.19%) drugs were prescribed as fixed dose combinations. Only 45.47% drugs were according to WHO Essential Medicines List. Drugs acting on respiratory system (n=189) were the most commonly used drugs in our study followed by drugs acting on the gastrointestinal system (n=130), antimicrobials (n=113), cardiovascular system (n=112), endocrine (n=83), and nutritional supplements (n=72). Polypharmacy was prevalent in 62% and about 22.67% of patients received <5 drugs. Pantoprazole was most frequently prescribed drug followed by aspirin 75 mg, adrenergic, and anticholinergic bronchodilators.Conclusion: Thus, irrational prescribing and polypharmacy were prevalent among elderly. Drug utilization data can help in assessing the quality of care given to the geriatric patients and promote rational use of medicines

Effects of ramped wall temperature and concentration on viscoelastic Jeffrey’s fluid flows from a vertical permeable cone

In thermo-fluid dynamics, free convection flows external to different geometries such as cylinders, ellipses, spheres, curved walls, wavy plates, cones etc. play major role in various industrial and process engineering systems. The thermal buoyancy force associated with natural convection flows can exert a critical role in determining skin friction and heat transfer rates at the boundary. In thermal engineering, natural convection flows from cones has gained exceptional interest. A theoretical analysis is developed to investigate the nonlinear, steady-state, laminar, non-isothermal convection boundary layer flows of viscoelastic fluid from a vertical permeable cone with a power-law variation in both temperature and concentration. The Jeffery’s viscoelastic model simulates the non-Newtonian characteristics of polymers, which constitutes the novelty of the present work. The transformed conservation equations for linear momentum, energy and concentration are solved numerically under physically viable boundary conditions using the finite-differences Keller-Box scheme. The impact of Deborah number (De), ratio of relaxation to retardation time (λ), surface suction/injection parameter (fw), power-law exponent (n), buoyancy ratio parameter (N) and dimensionless tangential coordinate (Ѯ) on velocity, surface temperature, concentration, local skin friction, heat transfer rate and mass transfer rate in the boundary layer regime are presented graphically. It is observed that increasing values of De reduces velocity whereas the temperature and concentration are increased slightly. Increasing λ enhance velocity however reduces temperature and concentration slightly. The heat and mass transfer rate are found to decrease with increasing De and increase with increasing values of λ. The skin friction is found to decrease with a rise in De whereas it is elevated with increasing values of λ. Increasing values of fw and n, decelerates the flow and also cools the boundary layer i.e. reduces temperature and also concentration. The study is relevant to chemical engineering systems, solvent and polymeric processes

Radiative and magnetohydrodynamics flow of third grade viscoelastic fluid past an isothermal inverted cone in the presence of heat generation/absorption

A mathematical analysis is presented to investigate the nonlinear, isothermal, steady-state, free convection boundary layer flow of an incompressible third grade viscoelastic fluid past an isothermal inverted cone in the presence of magnetohydrodynamic, thermal radiation and heat generation/absorption. The transformed conservation equations for linear momentum, heat and mass are solved numerically subject to the realistic boundary conditions using the second-order accurate implicit finite-difference Keller Box Method. The numerical code is validated with previous studies. Detailed interpretation of the computations is included. The present simulations are of interest in chemical engineering systems and solvent and low-density polymer materials processing

The Peripheral Blood Transcriptome Identifies the Presence and Extent of Disease in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

<div><h3>Rationale</h3><p>Peripheral blood biomarkers are needed to identify and determine the extent of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Current physiologic and radiographic prognostic indicators diagnose IPF too late in the course of disease. We hypothesize that peripheral blood biomarkers will identify disease in its early stages, and facilitate monitoring for disease progression.</p> <h3>Methods</h3><p>Gene expression profiles of peripheral blood RNA from 130 IPF patients were collected on Agilent microarrays. Significance analysis of microarrays (SAM) with a false discovery rate (FDR) of 1% was utilized to identify genes that were differentially-expressed in samples categorized based on percent predicted D_LCO and FVC.</p> <h3>Main Measurements and Results</h3><p>At 1% FDR, 1428 genes were differentially-expressed in mild IPF (D_LCO >65%) compared to controls and 2790 transcripts were differentially- expressed in severe IPF (D_LCO >35%) compared to controls. When categorized by percent predicted D_LCO, SAM demonstrated 13 differentially-expressed transcripts between mild and severe IPF (< 5% FDR). These include CAMP, CEACAM6, CTSG, DEFA3 and A4, OLFM4, HLTF, PACSIN1, GABBR1, IGHM, and 3 unknown genes. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to determine outliers based on severity of disease, and demonstrated 1 mild case to be clinically misclassified as a severe case of IPF. No differentially-expressed transcripts were identified between mild and severe IPF when categorized by percent predicted FVC.</p> <h3>Conclusions</h3><p>These results demonstrate that the peripheral blood transcriptome has the potential to distinguish normal individuals from patients with IPF, as well as extent of disease when samples were classified by percent predicted D_LCO, but not FVC.</p> </div

Wound healing suppressant effect of vincristine reversed by vitamin A: an experimental study

Background: Use of antineoplastic drugs pre and postoperatively have shown to adversely affect the healing of surgical wounds. Vincristine is an antineoplastic drug with a wide range of antitumor activity. Prior studies have demonstrated that vincristine impairs skin wound healing.Methods: In this study we investigated the effect of vitamin A on vincristine induced suppression of healing in two wound models, viz: incision and dead space in rats. Hydroxyproline (measure of collagen) was estimated colorimetrically and breaking strength of the wound and granulation tissue was measured.Results: Vincristine (60 mcg/Kg intraperitoneally, on the 3rd wounding day) significantly reduced breaking strength in both incision and dead space wound models. Vitamin A (5000 I.U, Subcutaneously on alternate days) by itself did not alter any of the parameters studied but reversed the suppressant effects of vincristine on wound healing.Conclusions: Vitamin A by itself produced little effect on healing except a modest increase in granulation mass. But it significantly reversed the healing suppressant effects of vincristine

Churn prediction in Turkey's telecommunications sector: A proposed multiobjective–cost-sensitive ant colony optimization

© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Players in the telecommunications sector struggle against the competition to keep customers, and therefore they need effective churn management. Most classification algorithms either ignore misclassification cost or assume that the costs of all incorrect classification errors are equal. But as in real life, many classification problems have different misclassification costs and this difference cannot be ignored. For this reason, studies on cost-sensitive classification approaches have gained importance in recent years. The characteristics of telecommunications datasets such as high dimensionality and imbalance are making it difficult to achieve the desired performance for churn prediction. By taking this into consideration, we propose a multiobjective–cost-sensitive ant colony optimization (MOC-ACO-Miner) approach which integrates the cost-based nondominated sorted genetic algorithm feature selection and multiobjective ACO based cost-sensitive learning. MOC-ACO-Miner is applied to one of Turkey's top 100 information technology companies for customer churn-prediction. Finally, experiments find out that the model performs quite well with the area under receiver operating characteristic curve values of 0.9998 for predicting churners and therefore it can be beneficial for the highly competitive telecommunications sector. This article is categorized under: Algorithmic Development > Association Rules Application Areas > Industry Specific Applications Technologies > Prediction Technologies > Data Preprocessing