An Open-label Prospective Noncomparative Clinical Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Beliv: An Ayurvedic Medicine in Improving Liver Function

An open-label prospective noncomparative study was conducted to examine the efficacy and safety of Beliv tablet, a polyherbal Ayurvedic medicine, in 30 adult patients suffering from liver disorders. Two tablets were administered daily for 56 days. Patients were evaluated at Day 0, Day 21, Day 42 and at Day 56. The primary end point of the study was a change in liver function test parameters measured by the levels of serum glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), serum glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) and total bilirubin at all assessment points. Results showed a significant reduction in the serum levels of SGOT, SGPT and total bilirubin from baseline to 21 days, 42 days and 56 days. The total icterus symptom score was also significantly reduced from 5.17 ± 2.26 (baseline) to 2.6 ± 1.48, 1.37 ± 1.13 and 0.77 ± 0.73 at Days 21, 42 and 56, respectively. The Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) decreased significantly from 3.33 ± 1.16 (Day 21) to 2.33 ± 1.16 and 1.80 ± 0.76 at Days 42 and 56, respectively. The Physician Global Assessment (PGA) score was also significantly reduced from 3.0 ± 1.02 (Day 21) to 2.07 ± 0.83 and 1.70 ± 0.79 at Days 42 and 56, respectively. A significant reduction in serum creatinine level was observed at Day 56. No adverse effects or serious adverse effects were observed during the study period. The study concluded that Beliv tablet was highly effective for the treatment of liver disorders, as evidenced by the reduction in serum levels of SGOT, SGPT, total bilirubin, icterus symptoms and PGA and SGA scores. No treatment-related side effects were reported by any of the study participants suggesting that it was safe for clinical use in humans for the treatment of liver disorders

Altruistic Surrogacy Contracts: Legal Analysis of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 and its Legal Implications

In India, the most recent development in the field of surrogacy is the passing of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 by the Lok Shaba in August, 2019, which is yet to be passed in the Rajya Sabha. This Bill bans commercial surrogacy and only legalizes surrogacy that is altruistic in nature. This leads us to a question whether a contract between a surrogate mother and the intended parents is required even in the case of altruistic surrogacy. The paper is a detailed study of the altruistic surrogacy contract and highlights the need and the nature of such a contract. This paper questions the legality of an altruistic surrogacy contract and also emphasizes on the consequences that could be faced by either party in case of absence of a contract. As there is no current law which governs altruistic surrogacy or surrogacy agreements in particular, it would be appropriate to examine altruistic surrogacy in the light of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, Law Commission Report and Indian Council of Medical Research Guidelines

Glycerol Transformation to Value-Added 1,3-Propanediol Production: A Paradigm for a Sustainable Biorefinery Process

The impact of diminishing fossil fuel resources, rising environmental issues as well as the global demand for energy, fuels and chemicals has significantly directed to the use of renewable biomass for sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. Glycerol, a three carbon feedstock, is one of the most promising biomass resources which at present is obtained as a by-product in large quantities during the biodiesel production. This stimulated a lot of interest in developing new valorization technologies to produce high-value tonnage chemicals from glycerol by sustainable processes such as oxidation, dehydration, hydrogenolysis, steam reforming, carboxylation, acetalization, esterification and chlorination. In this chapter, we intend to focus on the hydrogenolysis of glycerol which produces important commodity chemicals such as propanediols, propanols and ethylene glycol. In particular, the selective hydrogenolysis of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol performed in both liquid phase and vapor phase reaction processes is described. Furthermore, the most significant progress in the development of the catalytic materials for glycerol hydrogenolysis including the reaction pathways is herein summarized

Alumina waveguide characterization and SPARROW biosensor modeling

Sensors based on evanescent wave techniques have the potential to detect minute change in refractive index arising from surface modifications. The biosensor device architecture evaluated in this work is the SPARROW (Stacked Planar Affinity Regulated Resonant Optical Waveguide) structure. This architecture can operate as a biosensor through the change in the coupled optical power resulted from antigen bonding to the bio-layer. Its stacked film arrangement with no lateral patterning offers a potentially less complex structure for fabrication. This thesis describes the process developed to optically characterize the alumina waveguides of the SPARROW device and investigates waveguide film quality as a function of fabrication parameters. Parameters include e-beam deposition drive current and oxygen flow rate. Losses of 1-3 dB/cm have been measured for usable guiding films using the scattered power measurement technique. Microfluidic channel hybrid integration with the SPARROW device and flow cell experiments are discussed. Coupled power and coupling length variation with top waveguide thickness and index is also evaluated and discussed

Integrating lattice space-time codes of highest rank and multiplexing over rayleigh fading channels

In this thesis, we consider the problem of finding an optimal combination of multiplexing and space-time coding over a MIMO array when a transmitter has a prior knowledge about correlation. Some existing work in this area used multiplexing and space-time coding methods as a technique to achieve capacity over a MIMO wireless channel. In this work, we consider a 2x2 lattice space-time code of highest rank and multiplex it over a MIMO system to improve the bit error rate performance. The main focus of this thesis is to address the problem of switching between spatial multiplexing and space-time coding to enhance the performance of a MIMO system. The data rate over wireless links is improved by using a MIMO system. For this type of system, the spatial dimension is exploited by using spatial multiplexing and space-time coding with diversity oriented transmission. Spatial multiplexing uses spatial degrees of freedom and space-time coding uses the antennas. To integrate them the system has to compromise to some extent in performance criterion. This thesis investigates the need to switch between the spatial multiplexing and space-time coding over space by making the instantaneous channel feedback available at transmitter. This thesis also indicates that the bit-error rate of the combination of lattice space-time code and multiplexing can be reduced when compared with the combination of Alamouti scheme and spatial multiplexing

Removal of hydrogen sulfide using bio filter

Malodorous gases emitted from many environmental and industrial facilities are not a nuisance, but also cause significant health problems for workers and even nearby residents it can be treated using physical, chemical, and biological methods, but among these, biological treatment surpasses the physicochemical methods in that it costs the least and is easy to maintain. The gases are passed through biofilters packed with carriers into which deodorizing microorganisms are immobilized. Such techniques have been developed and are commonly used in various countries. In our present work, various biofilters such as in the gas-phase anaerobic bio removal of H2S for coal gasification fuel cell feed streams, removal of H2S by sulfate resistant Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans AZ11,Deodorization of H2S using porous lava as a carrier of Thiobacillus thioxides, H2S adsorption on a waste material used in bioreactors etc are analyzed. Based on the analysis of these biofilters, a design of horizontal bio trickling filter based on biological activated carbon is advocated. The bio trickling filter performance and its modeling is then discussed. The design of the filter is made on the basis of effluent gases in the IOCL Haldia refinery. A design of conventional H2S scrubber is designed next and the operating conditions and cost of filter and scrubber are compared

Meditation Experience Associated with Structural Neuroplasticity

The intention of the review is to evaluate several studies regarding meditation and its association with structural neuroplasticity. The analysis of the studies would be evaluated based on its methods and results, with respect to the implications of various physiological findings as well as the different ways in which neuroplasticity is measured. Sources were gathered from numerous journals and literature posted online. Databases at the Alvin Sherman Library were utilized to further the research process. To synthesize ideas, a holistic approach was taken to the research process, and studies regarding meditation\u27s effects on the chemical, molecular, and genetic aspects of the body were taken into consideration. Analysis of the studies showed meditation\u27s impact on increased gray matter in various regions of the brain as well as microscopic structural changes in white matter. Several regions in the brain showed evidence of plasticity, which shows the extent to which meditation has an impact on the brain and its functions. For future studies, it suggested that different types of meditation are compared in order to clearly evaluate the approach to meditation and its impact on the structure of the brain

A comprehensive analysis of 40 blind protein structure predictions

BACKGROUND: We thoroughly analyse the results of 40 blind predictions for which an experimental answer was made available at the fourth meeting on the critical assessment of protein structure methods (CASP4). Using our comparative modelling and fold recognition methodologies, we made 29 predictions for targets that had sequence identities ranging from 50% to 10% to the nearest related protein with known structure. Using our ab initio methodologies, we made eleven predictions for targets that had no detectable sequence relationships. RESULTS: For 23 of these proteins, we produced models ranging from 1.0 to 6.0 Å root mean square deviation (RMSD) for the C(α) atoms between the model and the corresponding experimental structure for all or large parts of the protein, with model accuracies scaling fairly linearly with respect to sequence identity (i.e., the higher the sequence identity, the better the prediction). We produced nine models with accuracies ranging from 4.0 to 6.0 Å C(α) RMSD for 60–100 residue proteins (or large fragments of a protein), with a prediction accuracy of 4.0 Å C(α) RMSD for residues 1–80 for T110/rbfa. CONCLUSIONS: The areas of protein structure prediction that work well, and areas that need improvement, are discernable by examining how our methods have performed over the past four CASP experiments. These results have implications for modelling the structure of all tractable proteins encoded by the genome of an organism