Regulating Drug Release Behavior and Kinetics from Matrix Tablets Based on Fine Particle-Sized Ethyl Cellulose Ether Derivatives: An In Vitro and In Vivo Evaluation

The design and fabrication of sustained/controlled release dosage forms, employing new excipients capable of extending/controlling the release of drugs from the dosage forms over prolonged periods, has worked well in achieving optimally enhanced therapeutic levels of the drugs. In this sense, the objective of this study was to investigate the suitability of selected cellulose ether derivatives for use in direct compression (DC) and as efficient drug release controlling agents. Controlled release matrix tablets of ciprofloxacin were prepared at different drug-to-polymer (D : P) ratios by direct compression using a fine particle sized ethylcellulose ether derivative (ETHOCEL Standard Premium 7FP) as rate controlling polymer. The tablets obtained were evaluated for various physico-chemical characteristics and in-vitro drug release studies were conducted in phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) using PharmaTest dissolution apparatus at constant temperature of 37°C ± 0.1. Similarity factor f2 was employed to the release profiles of test formulations and were compared with marketed ciprofloxacin conventional tablets. Drug release mechanism and the kinetics involved were investigated by fitting the release profile data to various kinetic models. It was found that with increasing the proportion of ethylcellulose ether derivative in the matrix, the drug release was significantly extended up to 24 hours. The tablets exhibited zero order or nearly zero order drug transport mechanism. In vivo drug release performance of the developed controlled release tablets and reference conventional tablets containing ciprofloxacin were determined in rabbit serum according to randomized two-way crossover study design using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Several bioavailability parameters of both the test tablets and conventional tablets including Cmax⁡, Tmax⁡ and AUC0-t were compared which showed an optimized Cmax⁡ and Tmax⁡ (P < 0.05). A good correlation was obtained between in vitro drug release and in vivo drug absorption with correlation value (R2 = 0.934). Relative bioavailability was found to be 93%. Reproducibility of manufacturing process and accelerated stability of the developed tablets were performed in stability chamber at 40 ± 2°C and 75 ± 5% relative humidity for a period of 6 months and were found to be stable throughout the stability period

EFFECT OF BENTONITE ON FRESH AND HARDENED PROPERTY OF SELF COMPACTING CONCRETE

Self compacting concrete can be described as a high performance material which flows under its own weight without requiring vibrators to achieve consolidation by complete filling of formworks even when access is hindered by narrow gaps between reinforcement bars. Self compacting concrete required a large amount of binder (paste) and chemical admixtures. This paper presents the use of bentonite in self compacting concrete as viscosity modifying agent (VMA). Bentonite as VMA and other chemical admixture which are liquid form of VMA are compared to check the fresh and hardened properties of self compacting concrete such as, Slump flow, funnel, L-box , sieve stability tests, further compressive strength of the self compacting concrete at the age of 28 days was determined

Numerical reckoning fixed points via new faster iteration process

[EN] In this paper, we propose a new iteration process which is faster than the leading S [J. Nonlinear Convex Anal. 8, no. 1 (2007), 61-79], Thakur et al. [App. Math. Comp. 275 (2016), 147-155] and M [Filomat 32, no. 1 (2018), 187-196] iterations for numerical reckoning fixed points. Using new iteration process, some fixed point convergence results for generalized α-nonexpansive mappings in the setting of uniformly convex Banach spaces are proved. At the end of paper, we offer a numerical example to compare the rate of convergence of the proposed iteration process with the leading iteration processes.Ullah, K.; Ahmad, J.; Khan, FM. (2022). Numerical reckoning fixed points via new faster iteration process. Applied General Topology. 23(1):213-223. https://doi.org/10.4995/agt.2022.11902OJS21322323

Nigella sativa provides protection against metabolic syndrome

The seeds of Nigella sativa have been used in folk medicine all over the world. The plant has been of interest due to its low degree of toxicity and beneficial pharmacological properties like antihypertensive, hypoglycemic, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antihistaminic, antioxidant, along with significant anti-neuplastic activities. The present clinical study was undertaken to ascertain the adjuvant effect of Nigella seeds on various clinical and biochemical parameters of metabolic syndrome. After final diagnosis and considering inclusion and exclusion criteria, one hundred and fifty nine patients were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into two groups. In Group I (standard group), patients were advised to take simvastatin 10 mg once a day, metformin 500 mg twice a day, Enalapril 10 mg once a day, Atenolol 50 mg once a day and clopidagrel 75 mg once a day for a period of six weeks. In Group II (Nigella seeds group), patients were advised the above standard medication plus Nigella seeds 250 mg twice daily for a period of six weeks. Blood sugar both fasting and postprandial, fasting lipid profile and different parameters of obesity were recorded before therapy and after completion of therapy. It was found that the addition of Nigella seeds provide beneficial effects in all the clinical and biochemical parameters for the adult’s treatment panel-III of metabolic disorders especially in fasting blood sugar, low density lipoproteins and high density lipoproteins. No sign of toxicity of the plant appeared in the Group II. Improvement in all other parameters like blood pressure, circumference of waist and serum triglyceride was also observed. Thus, Nigella seeds were found to be effective as an adjuvant therapy in patients of dyslipidemia and hyperglycemia.Keywords: Nigella sativa, toxicity, hyperglycemia, adjuvant, antihistaminic, antioxidant, patient

Ontology Evolution Using Recoverable SQL Logs

Logs of SQL queries are useful for building the system design, upgrading, and checking which SQL queries are running on certain applications. These SQL queries provide us useful information and knowledge about the system operations. The existing works use SQL query logs to find patterns when the underlying data and database schema is not available. For this purpose, a knowledge-base in the form of an ontology is created which is then mined for knowledge extraction. In this paper, we have proposed an approach to create and evolve an ontology from logs of SQL queries. Furthermore, when these SQL queries are transformed into the ontology, they loose their original form/shape i.e., we do not have original SQL queries. Therefore, we have further proposed a strategy to recover these SQL queries in their original form. Experiments on real world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach