Evaluation of Anticonvulsant and Analgesic properties of Ethanolic extract of Elettaria cardamomum Seeds in Wistar Albino rats

BACKGROUND : Central and peripheral oxidative stress are important factors implicated in the pathogenesis of convulsions and pain respectively. Antioxidant potential of Elettaria cardamomum (cardamom) seeds has been proven by several studies. Phytochemical analysis of cardamom seeds have revealed the presence of phenolic compounds like flavonoids and tannins which are effective hydrogen donors capable of reducing oxidative stress. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES : To evaluate the anticonvulsant and analgesic properties of ethanolic extract of Elettaria cardamomum seeds in Wistar albino rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS : A total of 72 healthy Wistar albino rats (180-250 g) of either sex were included in the study and divided into 12 groups consisting of 6 animals each. The ethanolic extract of Elettaria cardamomum seeds was prepared using cold maceration method and was tested at two graded doses (200 mg/kg BW and 400 mg/kg BW) given orally. Anticonvulsant property was evaluated using Maximal Electroshock [MES] model (standard - Phenytoin 10 mg/kg BW; i.p.) and Pentelenetetrazole [PTZ] model (standard - Sodium valproate 400 mg/kg BW i.p.). Analgesic property was evaluated using tail warm water immersion method and writing test (standard - Morphine 5 mg/kg BW i.p.). The results were expressed as Mean±SD. Statistical significance among study groups were carried out by using SPSS-16.0 version software, by applying One-way ANOVA followed by Dunnet's post hoc test. RESULTS : The ethanolic extract of cardamom seeds showed significant (p<0.05) decrease in the mean scores of MES induced seizures at 400 mg/kg BW. 100% protection against Tonic Hind Limb Extension (THLE) was shown by both graded doses of the test drug. The onset of PTZ induced convulsions were delayed and the severity, number and scores of seizures were significantly reduced by cardamom extract at 400 mg/kg BW. At 400 mg/kg BW, there was a significant increase in the reaction time in tail warm water immersion test. There was also significant reduction in total number of writhes and the and the percentage inhibition of writhes [90.28%] was comparable to the standard drugs. CONCLUSION : The ethanolic extract of Elettaria cardamomum seeds possess significant anticonvulsant and analgesic properties in Wistar albino rats at the dose of 400 mg/kg BW

Implementation of the IWA River Water Quality Model no. 1 in US EPA WASP 5.0

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-94).by Arjun Ayillath Nair.M.Eng

FAST DISSOLVING SUBLINGUAL PATCH OF PHENOBARBITAL SODIUM: FORMULATION AND IN VITRO EVALUATION

Objective: To formulate and characterize. Phenobarbital sodium loaded sublingual patch using biodegradable, mucoadhesive, fast-dissolving natural polymer pullulan for immediate management of epileptic seizures. Methods: Phenobarbital sodium loaded sublingual patches were prepared by the solvent casting method and were subjected to various physicochemical evaluation parameters to find the optimized sublingual patch. The&nbsp;in vitro&nbsp;drug release study and&nbsp;kinetic model of the optimized formulation was also carried out. The stability study of the optimized Phenobarbital sodium loaded sublingual patch was also done. Results: From in vitro drug release study, it was found that Phenobarbital sodium loaded sublingual patch (S4) exhibited a maximum drug release of 96.24±1.27% at the end of 60 min compared to other formulations indicating a faster drug release from the formulation with release kinetics as Higuchi diffusion model. In fact, a notable release data was obtained between 0.5 to 8 min by all formulations, specifically S4 formulation (20.84±1.97% and 77.22±2.41% drug release at the end of 0.5 min and 8 min respectively) showed a better percentage release profile in comparison with other formulations. Such a trend is vital to deliver the drug at a faster rate to promote immediate effect for managing the fatal and complicated seizure. Considering the physicochemical property and in vitro drug release data, S4 formulation was regarded as an optimized one. The stability study also confirmed that S4 formulation is stable at refrigeration conditions. Conclusion: The formulated Phenobarbital sodium loaded sublingual patch is an effective drug delivery carrier which enables faster drug release to manage epileptic seizure

NOVASOME: A PIONEERING ADVANCEMENTIN VESICULAR DRUG DELIVERY

Pharmaceutical research has developed various new types of innovative forms of drug delivery. Advancement in current drug delivery methods has led to the development of numerous new revolutionary technologies that support safe and efficient formulations over existing ones. Novasome technology is one of the latest liposome developments that have overcome many of the liposomal drug delivery system-related problems. This provides a seven bilayer membrane which is capable of absorbing water-soluble as well as insoluble drugs. The improved efficiency of entrapping drugs with good encapsulation features enables better frequency of dosing, which can be accomplished through the high shear system. These find their applications in diverse fields such as cosmetics, chemicals, personal care, food, pharmacy, and agrochemicals. Several products have already been launched into the market using this technology with an additional launch plan. Due to its depth of penetration, novasomes have been one of the most popular derma cosmetics. It is being studied continuously to obtain improved release characteristics. The prospect of drug delivery and targeting using novasomes is an important area of research and development. This review pinpoints the various aspect of the novasome and will be a milestone for the researchers in the area of drug delivery

STRUDEL: Structured Dialogue Summarization for Dialogue Comprehension

Abstractive dialogue summarization has long been viewed as an important standalone task in natural language processing, but no previous work has explored the possibility of whether abstractive dialogue summarization can also be used as a means to boost an NLP system's performance on other important dialogue comprehension tasks. In this paper, we propose a novel type of dialogue summarization task - STRUctured DiaLoguE Summarization - that can help pre-trained language models to better understand dialogues and improve their performance on important dialogue comprehension tasks. We further collect human annotations of STRUDEL summaries over 400 dialogues and introduce a new STRUDEL dialogue comprehension modeling framework that integrates STRUDEL into a graph-neural-network-based dialogue reasoning module over transformer encoder language models to improve their dialogue comprehension abilities. In our empirical experiments on two important downstream dialogue comprehension tasks - dialogue question answering and dialogue response prediction - we show that our STRUDEL dialogue comprehension model can significantly improve the dialogue comprehension performance of transformer encoder language models.Comment: EMNLP 202

Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Associated Chronic Lung Disease in Children and Adolescents in Zimbabwe: Chest Radiographic and High-Resolution Computed Tomographic Findings.

Background: Chronic respiratory symptoms are common among children living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). We investigated the radiological features of chronic lung disease in children aged 6-16 years receiving antiretroviral therapy for ≥6 months in Harare, Zimbabwe. Methods: Consecutive participants from a HIV clinic underwent clinical assessment and chest radiography. Participants with an abnormal chest radiograph (assessed by a clinician) and/or those meeting a clinical case definition for chronic lung disease underwent high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). Radiological studies were scored independently and blindly by 2 thoracic radiologists. Relationships between radiological abnormalities and lung function were examined. Results: Among 193 participants (46% female; median age, 11.2 years; interquartile range, 9.0-12.8 years), the median CD4 cell count was 720/µL (473-947/µL), and 79% had a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) load of <400 copies/mL. The most common chest radiographic finding was ring/tramline opacities (55 of 193 participants; 29%). HRCT scans were evaluated in 84 participants (69%); decreased attenuation (present in 43%) was the dominant abnormality seen. The extent of decreased attenuation was strongly correlated with both the severity and extent of bronchiectasis (rs = 0.68 and P < .001 for both). The extent of decreased attenuation was also negatively correlated with forced expiratory volume in first second of expiration (rs = -0.52), forced vital capacity (rs = -0.42), and forced expiratory flow, midexpiratory phase (rs = -0.42) (P < .001 for all). Conclusions: The HRCT findings strongly suggest that obliterative bronchiolitis may be the major cause of chronic lung disease in our cohort. Further studies to understand the pathogenesis and natural history are urgently needed

FTIR analysis of plant-based cellulose as adsorbents for water remediation

Finding an effective, green adsorbent for removal of heavy metals is one of the main problems in water purification field. Cellulose has gain tremendous attention for its variability of purposes including heavy metal removal via adsorption. As a preliminary material study, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) would be a good step in analyzing the removal potential of an adsorbent. In this study, cellulose-based adsorbent extracted from Pandan leaves was subjected to acid hydrolysis after being pre-treated with alkali and bleaching treatment. The output material was then analyzed in this research using FTIR. The result showed that some components were removed after the treatments and the material has potential for future development as adsorbent for heavy metal removal due to presence of carboxyl group in the backbone

Pretreatment with Naltrindole exhibits robust cardioprotection in an isolated rat heart model of ischemia-reperfusion injury

Previously, a novel three-amino acid peptide (tripeptide) that is structurally similar to other amino acid-based delta and kappa-opioid receptor agonists (the predominant opioid receptor subtypes in heart tissue) demonstrated a significant reduction in infarct size and improved cardiac function when administered during preconditioning in isolated rat hearts using the Langendorf model. The cardioprotective effects of tripeptide were blocked by naloxone (NX, broad-spectrum opioid antagonist) and nor-binaltorphine (BNI, kappa-opioid receptor antagonist), whereas naltrindole (NTI, delta-opioid receptor antagonist) seemed to augment the effects of tripeptide. To determine whether the cardioprotective effects of the combination were due to tripeptide or NTI, the effects of NTI and other opioid antagonists were evaluated individually in the same model. Therefore, the goal was to evaluate the effects of NTI, BNI, and NX independently. Hearts isolated from male Sprague-Dawley rats (~300g) were subjected to global ischemia (I, 30min)/reperfusion (R, 50min). NX (10 μM, n=6), BNI (5 μM, n=7), NTI (5 μM, n=8), or Krebs’ buffer control (control n=10) were given to the hearts 5 min prior to ischemia and during the first 5 min of reperfusion in a Langendorf model, perfused at a constant pressure of 80mmHg. Left ventricular (LV) functional indices were measured using an indwelling pressure transducer-tipped catheter. At the end of reperfusion (50min), hearts were frozen, sectioned (2 mm), and stained with 1% triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC). To determine infarct size, the weight of infarcted tissue was compared to total tissue at risk. All data were evaluated using ANOVA Student-Newman-Keuls post-hoc analysis. Control (untreated) hearts showed an elevated final LV end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) of 60 ± 5 mmHg compared to an average initial baseline of 8 ± 1 mmHg (similar in all groups) and a mean infarct size of 36 ± 3% at 50 min post-reperfusion. NX and BNI demonstrated no significant cardioprotective effects compared to control with final LVEDP measures of 64 ± 8 mmHg and 61 ± 2 mmHg, respectively. Infarct size for NX (35 ± 5%) and BNI (36 ± 5%) treated hearts were similar to control hearts. By contrast, NTI significantly improved final LVEDP (17 ± 3mmHg) to near baseline values and reduced infarct size to 7 ± 2% compared to all groups (p\u3c 0.01). The results indicate that pretreatment with NTI can prevent I/R injury and restore post-reperfused heart function to near pre-ischemic levels. In future studies, we will evaluate the cardioprotective effects of NTI in an acute in vivo heart I/R model. In separate studies, we will attempt to determine the mechanism of action of NTI preconditioning, specifically whether cardioprotection is indeed mediated via delta receptor antagonism or via some other mechanism