Soft Legged Wheel-Based Robot with Terrestrial Locomotion Abilities

In recent years robotics has been influenced by a new approach, soft-robotics, bringing the idea that safe interaction with user and more adaptation to the environment can be achieved by exploiting easily deformable materials and flexible components in the structure of robots. In 2016, the soft-robotics community has promoted a new robotics challenge, named RoboSoft Grand Challenge, with the aim of bringing together different opinions on the usefulness and applicability of softness and compliancy in robotics. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a terrestrial robot based on two soft legged wheels. The tasks predefined by the challenge were set as targets in the robot design, which finally succeeded to accomplish all the tasks. The wheels of the robot can passively climb over stairs and adapt to slippery grounds using two soft legs embedded in their structure. The soft legs, fabricated by integration of soft and rigid materials and mounted on the circumference of a conventional wheel, succeed to enhance its functionality and easily adapt to unknown grounds. The robot has a semi stiff tail that helps in the stabilization and climbing of stairs. An active wheel is embedded at the extremity of the tail in order to increase the robot maneuverability in narrow environments. Moreover two parallelogram linkages let the robot to reconfigure and shrink its size allowing entering inside gates smaller than its initial dimensions

SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF PROPAFENONE AND ITS TWO METABOLITES IN HUMAN PLASMA BY LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY/TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY LC-MS/MS

Objective: A simple, sensitive and rapid performance liquid chromatography/positive ion electrospray tandem mass spectrometry method was to be developed and validated for quantification of propafenone (PPF) and its two major metabolite 5-hydroxy propafenone (5-OHP) and N-depropyl propafenone (NDP) in human plasma.Methods: Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with ethyl acetate was used of extraction of plasma samples. The analytes were separated using an isocratic mixture of 0.1% formic acid/acetonitrile (20:80 v/v) on a reversed-phase column Hypurity Advance C18 50 x2.1 mm, 5µ and analysed by mass spectrometry in the multiple reaction monitoring mode using the respective [M+H] Ions. The m/z was 342.20/116.10 for propafenone, m/z 299.80/74.10 for N depropyl propafenone and m/z 358.30/98.10 for 5-hydroxy propfenone along with m/z 409.2/238.0 for Amlodipine as internal standard respectively.Results: The method had a short chromatographic run time of 1.5 min. The method exhibited a linear dynamic range over 5.11 to 1000.73 ng/ml for propafenone, 0.51 to 100.06 ng/ml for N-depropyl propafenone and 5.11 to 1001.64 ng/ml for 5-hydroxy propafenone respectively, in human plasma.Conclusion: The validated method has been successfully used to analyze human plasma samples for application in pharmacokinetics, bioavailability and bioequivalence studies

Breech presentation and neonatal fracture shaft femur – A rare case presentation

The breech extraction of the fetus through the vagina has a greater risk of hip fracture compared with the extraction by abdominalroute. A 2980 g male infant was delivered at 39 weeks by elective cesarean section for breech presentation. The newborn sustaineda fracture of the right femur. A simple immobilization of the limb in extension led to a complete healing of the fracture withoutsequelae. This case highlights that fact that cesarean delivery reduces the risk of causing a traumatic injury of the newborn comparedto vaginal delivery; especially, with breech presentation but does not eliminate this possible accidental complication

New Oral Anticoagulants: An Overview

Oral anticoagulant therapy is used in the prevention and treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE), prevention of stroke and other systemic emboli in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and artificial heart valves

Development and Validation of Static HS-GC Method for the Determination and Quantification of Residual Solvents of Bromhexine Hydrochloride (BHX)

The determination of residual solvents in drug substances is the mandatory requirement by various health authorities in the world. There are no analytical methods available in the literature that can simultaneously separate and quantitate residual solvents in bromhexine hydrochloride (BHX) active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). This paper describes the development and validation of a simple, efficient, accurate, and robust static headspace gas chromatography method for the determination of residual solvents, namely methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate, monochlorobenzene, and benzene, in BHXAPI. This new method has been demonstrated to be accurate, linear, precise, reproducible, specific, and robust for its intended purpose. The method gives very good sensitivities viz. detection limits for benzene is 0.4 ppm, ethyl acetate 2 ppm and for others solvents 5 ppm and precision (below 9.0 % RSD) for all solvents. The results of this evaluation strongly indicate that this method can be readily used to determine residual solvents in BHX.   Most searchable keywords gc validations, shimadzu gc validations, gc method development, gc method validation, gc validation,gc headspace method development, headspace validations, gc method validation protocol, ich guidelines for gc method validation, gc headspace parameters,&nbsp

Theranostics: New Era in Nuclear Medicine and Radiopharmaceuticals

Malignancy and many inflammatory diseases have become a major concern for mankind over the years. The conventional therapy of these diseases lacks the effectiveness of the better diagnosis and targeted treatment of these diseases, but nuclear medicine can be regarded as a savior in the current scenario. Over the years, radioactivity of radioisotopes has been employed for treatment of many diseases. Nuclear medicines came up with radiopharmaceuticals that impart the ability to destroy specific diseased cells with high-energy-emitting radionuclides. Moreover, the emergence of theranostics, which is a combination of single drug used both for diagnostic as well as therapeutic purpose, has added a new feather in the field of nuclear medicines for providing a specific and personalized treatment to the patient. The current chapter discusses about techniques used for imaging of these radionuclides for better therapy and diagnosis of the root cause of the concerned disease by positron emission tomography (PET)/CT and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT as well as the advantages and disadvantages associated with them. It also describes about applications of theranostics and nuclear imaging in cancer treatment and their future perspective

W8 - Curvature Tensor in Generalized Sasakian Space Forms

The generalized Sasakian-space-forms and their properties have been examined by various researchers such as Alegre and Carriazo [2008], Prakasha [2012], Sarkar and Akbar [2014], Shanmukha et al. [2018], Sarkar and Sen [2012], Rajan and Singh [2020] and Sarkar and Sen [2012]. Motivated by the results of these works, we have proposed the idea of the W8−curvature tensor in generalized Sasakian-space- forms. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the curvature properties of generalized Sasakian-space-forms that satisfy the conditions ξ − W8− flatness, ϕ − W8−semi-symmetric, W8 · Q = 0, W8 · R = 0 and to prove some interesting results

Surgery for Grave’s Disease

Graves’ disease (GD) is the commonest cause of hyperthyroidism followed by toxic nodular goitre. Patients presenting as goitre with clinical features of hyperthyroidism are to be carefully evaluated with biochemically with thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (fT4) and radionuclide scan (Technitium-99/Iodine-123). Those with GD also have raised thyroid receptor stimulating antibody levels. Patients are simultaneously evaluated for eye disease and managed accordingly. Initial treatment is rendering patient euthyroid using anti thyroid drugs (ATD) and if remission does not occur either continue medical therapy or proceed for definitive therapy by radioactive iodine ablation (RAI) or surgery. In last decades there is ample literature preferring surgery as preferred definitive therapy. Surgery in thyroid disease has become safer with development of many intra-operative adjuncts but it should be performed by high volume thyroid surgeon. The procedure of choice is near total or total thyroidectomy as it avoids recurrences. Patients who are not eligible or willing for surgery can be managed with RAI

Human health risk assessment of temporal and spatial variations of ground water quality at a densely industrialized commercial complex at Haridwar, India

The observations of present investigation revealed that the groundwater regime at State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (SIDCUL) Industrial Estate (IE) was highly responsive to the anthropogenic stress of recharge and discharge parameters concerning the distressing industrial activities. The present study on groundwater characteristics of SIDCUL-IE, Haridwar in year 2013-2014 showed that the water of Sampling station-D (SSD) had relatively poor quality in comparison to the groundwater collected from Sampling station-A (SSA), Sampling station-B (SSB) and Sampling station-C (SSC). The samples had a high mineral load with relatively wider pH range. The physico-chemical parameters like pH (6.35 in October) at SSA, TDS (553.5 mg/l in November) at SSC, TH (600.0 mg/l in July) at SSB and alkalinity (525.0 mg/l in October) at SSD were beyond the prescribed limits of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The Karl Pearson correlation matrix showed moderate to significantly positive correlation between various parameters like COD-phosphorus (r=0.629), temperature-DO (r=-0.477) at SSA; pH and bicarbonate (r=0.668) at SSB; pH-temperature (r=-0.551),turbidity-BOD (r=0.467), BOD-phosphorus (r=0.518), bicarbonate-acidity (r=-0.833) at SSC and TSS-turbidity (r=0.616), BOD-COD (r=0.6771) at SSD and temperature-DO (r=-0.666), hardness-acidity (r=-0.6542) BOD-COD (r=0.654) at control site. The overall quality of groundwater, though hard, was found acceptable for drinking purpose. The divergence in the results of groundwater samples taken from SIDCUL-IE and the Control site, 2 km away from SIDCUL-IE, indicated that groundwater pollution is increasing alarmingly which may have serious threats to human health in near future