FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF HERBAL OIL-BASED ITRACONAZOLE CREAM FOR FUNGAL INFECTION

Objective: The current study was to formulate and to evaluate itraconazole herbal oil-based cream for fungal infection. Methods: Six herbal oils were used for the formulation of itraconazole creams, namely, mustard oil (MO), olive oil (OO), wheat germ oil (WGO), jojoba oil (JO), tea tree oil (TTO), and combined oil (CO). Creams were formulated by the trituration method. Each herbal oils containing three different formulations of different concentrations of oils. Results: All the prepared formulation was evaluated successfully. Out of all the formulations from each herbal oils the best two formulations were finalized, that is, MO2 and CO2 which show the greater in vitro diffusion rate among all. Formulation MO2 shows 55.45±0.10% and CO2 showed 59.43±1.18% within 480 min, respectively. Optimized formulations were also compared with the marketed formulation, which results in formulation CO2 as the best formulation among all. Conclusion: It can be concluded that herbal oil-based cream proved better alternate than oral preparation and improve patient compliance, ease of administration, local bioavailability, and better proves for fungal infected patients

A PSO Optimized Model for Identifying Spatio Temporal Hotspots of Terrorist Incidents in India

Terrorism is a global issue that prevails throughout the world on all scales. As the distribution of terrorist activities does not follow a random pattern in space and time, its spatiotemporal analysis has drawn considerable attention in recent years. Further, timely identification of Spatio-temporal terrorist activity hotspots is vital to prioritize the security efforts put by a country’s security enforcement agencies. The state-of-the-art methods for Spatiotemporal hotspot detection are based on scan statistics, which enumerates many Spatio-temporal cylinders, making it a computationally expensive approach. Therefore, this paper presents a time-efficient Particle Swarm Optimizer (PSO) based algorithm to detect the most significant Spatio-temporal hotspots. We formulated an optimization model for the problem and applied three variants of PSO viz. conventional PSO, HCL-PSO, and Ensemble PSO. Finally, these schemes have been used to detect spatio-temporal hotspots of different terrorist attacks in India. The results obtained by PSO-based methods have been compared with SaTScan over two parameters: the time required to detect the hotspot and its quality. All the PSO-based schemes significantly outperformed SaTScan in the timely identification of the hotspots. In addition, the quality of hotspots detected by HCL-PSO is at par with SaTScan, whereas the quality of hotspots detected by the other two approaches is slightly lesser than SaTScan. However, the quality of hotspots detected by the other two variants of PSO is slightly lesser than SaTScan. The results are statistically validated using Friedman’s statistical test

Fewer means, bigger hearts

Ankita Thakur is a class XII student in a private English-medium school in the Pussore Tehsil of Raigarh district in Chhattisgarh. She is a second- generation school-goer. Her mother, whose parents were daily wage labourers, went on to complete her B Ed in Special Education and is now a Block Resource Person for Special Education. Her father is a graduate and works as a daily wager in a private company

Role of intrauterine instillation of levobupivacaine as a local anaesthetic for outpatient gynaecological procedures: a randomized controlled study

Background: Procedures such as intrauterine device (IUD) insertion and endometrial biopsy, are routinely performed in the outpatient setting for various indications. Satisfactory pain control for women undergoing outpatient gynecological procedures is critical for both patient comfort and procedure success. The perception of pain during gynecological procedures originates from manipulation of the cervix and/or uterus.Methods: This study evaluated the role of intrauterine instillation of 0.5% levobupivacaine as local anesthetic in terms of pain score during and post outpatient gynecological procedures (endometrial aspiration biopsy and IUD insertion), reduction in need for post procedural analgesia and allowance of early return to normal activity. The trial medication was intrauterine anesthesia, either 5 mL 0.5% levobupivacaine or 5 mL 0.9% saline (control group) on 100 patients. Primary outcome was self-reported pain scores on numerical pain scale at various points of procedure, point (0) was a grade for as no pain and the worst pain was graded as ten point (10) in this scale. During the procedure, degree of pain was specified by study subjects at 4 steps. These steps were 1) immediately after tenaculum application, 2) during the solution instillation and 3) IUD insertion or EB and 4) 15 minutes after the procedure and 24 hours later.Results: Pain scores of the intrauterine levobupivacaine groups were found to be significantly lower than the control group also there was reduced need for additional analgesia and also, they had early return to normal activity.Conclusions: Study sought to reduce pain during OPD procedures which might lead to better patient experience, reduce anxiety and produce an overall better outcome

Feed Forward Artificial Neural Network: Tool for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer

Pathological changes in an organ or tissue may be reflected in proteomic patterns in serum. The early detection of cancer is crucial for successful treatment. Some cancers affect the concentration of certain molecules in the blood, which allows early diagnosis by analyzing the blood mass spectrum. It is possible that exclusive serum proteomic patterns could be used to differentiate cancer samples from non-cancer ones. Several techniques have been developed for the analysis of mass-spectrum curve, and use them for the detection of prostate, ovarian, breast, bladder, pancreatic, kidney, liver, and colon cancers. In present study, we applied data mining to the diagnosis of ovarian cancer and identified the most informative points of the mass-spectrum curve, then used student t-test and neural networks to determine the differences between the curves of cancer patients and healthy people. Two serum SELDI MS data sets were used in this research to identify serum proteomic patterns that distinguish the serum of ovarian cancer cases from non-cancer controls. Statistical testing and genetic algorithm-based methods are used for feature selection respectively. The results showed that (1) data mining techniques can be successfully applied to ovarian cancer detection with a reasonably high performance; (2) the discriminatory features (proteomic patterns) can be very different from one selection method to another

Clinico-radiological and pathological correlation of interstitial lung diseases: a prospective single centre study

Background: Current investigation was done to study the role of HRCT chest in the diagnosis and characterization of interstitial lung diseases, yield of transbronchial lung biopsy and role of multidisciplinary approach of diagnosis.Methods: We prospectively analyzed clinical features and radiological findings in 38 patients of ILD. Radiological diagnosis on HRCT was made in every case depending on type of predominant abnormality and pattern of involvement. Following this, TBLB was done in every case.Results: ILD was diagnosed in all cases on HRCT. Most common ILD type was UIP (31.5%) followed by sarcoidosis (21%) and NSIP (15.7%). Other ILD subtypes encountered were, RB-ILD, AIP and acute silicosis. In 68.4% cases, there was definitive diagnosis on TBLB. Out of which in 15.7% cases, HRCT and TBLB diagnosis were different. In 15.3% cases, TBLB gave diagnosis of only non- specific ILD.Conclusions: HRCT can detect ILD in 100% cases & can characterize ILD into various patterns. But, HRCT alone without clinical correlation and pathology can cause diagnostic confusion in many cases. However, multidisciplinary approach by engaging clinician, radiologist and pathologist can lead to accurate diagnosis in many cases of ILD. TBLB is a safe, minimally invasive procedure which can establish correct diagnosis in many cases especially in broncho-centric diseases

CONCEPT AND SIGNIFICANCE OF AGNI IN AYURVEDA

Agni in Ayurveda has a significant role to maintain body homeostasis, body functioning, metabolism of body and proper functioning of body. Agni in Ayurveda is correlated with digestive power of the body. There are many reasons behind the maintenance of Agni (digestive power of body) in Ayurveda. The main reason behind its maintenance is that it helps in growth and development of the body. Agni is basically divided in three types which have further types and the main three types which maintain body balance are Jhataragni (digestive fire), Bhutagni and Dhatuvagni (metabolism at cellular level). They work together to maintain the balance in the body as Jhataragni is maintaining metabolism and Bhutagni and Dhatuagni is maintaining the cellular metabolism. Imbalance in the physiology of Agni is the main cause for the formation of Ama which is the main reason for many diseases. So Agni is important for every function of body. This article shows the importance of Agni and significance of Agni in Ayurveda

Novel Topical Drug Delivery Systems in Ophthalmic Applications

The eye is the utmost attention-grabbing organ owed to its drug disposition characteristics. Generally, topical application (90% are eye drops) is the method of choice because of its patient compliance and safety. Transcorneal penetration is the major route for ophthalmic drug absorption. However, corneal absorption has been observed to be slower process as compared to elimination. Therefore, conventional dosage forms are associated with rapid precorneal drug loss. Thus, to improve ocular drug bioavailability, there is a substantial effort directed toward the development of novel topical drug delivery systems for ophthalmic administration. These novel delivery systems (Contact lenses, In situ gels, Microemulsions, Niosomes, Liposomes, Implants, Microspheres, and Micelles) provide the controlled release behaviour for treating the chronic ailments, and help patients and doctors to curtail the dosing frequency and invasive method of treatment. Hence, the current chapter discusses the progress of novel topical ocular drug delivery systems in the pharmaceutical industry

IMPORTANCE OF NANOCARRIERS AND PROBIOTICS IN THE TREATMENT OF ULCERATIVE COLITIS

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory chronic disease primarily affecting the colonic mucosa; the extent and severity of colon involvement are variable. Ulcerative colitis is identified by mucus diarrhea, tenesmus, bowel distension, and anemia. 5-aminosalicylic acid drugs, steroids, and immune suppressants are used for the therapy of ulcerative colitis. The mainchallenges in the management of thediseaseare drug-related side-effects and local targeting. To overcome these challengesprobiotics and micro and Nanoparticulate systemauspiciousapproaches to overcome drug-related adverse side effects and local targeting.Upon ingestion, the probiotics can result in beneficial health effects. Probiotics and micro and nanoparticulate approaches for suitable targeting and overcome the drug-associated side effect. Probiotics are mainly used as gut modulators but are also nowadays explored for their use in ulcerative colitis.The current therapeutic goals are to achieve clinical remission along with mucosal healing, avoidance of complications such as side effects of the drug and to improve the quality of life. The use of probiotics to increase the health of the intestine and used to block or manage intestinal disorders. They may prevent the induction of inflammatory reactions. Probiotics must be inspected for efficacy in the prevention and management of a wide spectrum of gastrointestinal diseases, like antibiotic-associated diarrhea.Micro and Nanoparticulate drug delivery system has been achieving huge importance for targeting of the drug to colon locally at a controlled and sustained rate

Promoter-proximal transcription factor binding is transcriptionally active when coupled with nucleosome repositioning in immediate vicinity

Previous studies have analyzed patterns of transcription, Transcription Factor (TF) binding or mapped nucleosome occupancy across the genome. These suggest that the three aspects are genetically connected but the cause and effect relationships are still unknown. For example, physiologic TF binding studies involve many TFs, consequently, it is difficult to assign nucleosome reorganization to the binding site occupancy of any particular TF. Therefore, several aspects remain unclear: does TF binding influence nucleosome (re)organizations locally or impact the chromatin landscape at a more global level; are all or only a fraction of TF binding a result of reorganization in nucleosome occupancy and do all TF binding and associated changes in nucleosome occupancy result in altered gene expression? With these in mind, following characterization of two states (before and after induction of a single TF of choice) we determined: (i) genomic binding sites of the TF, (ii) promoter nucleosome occupancy and (iii) transcriptome profiles. Results demonstrated that promoter-proximal TF binding influenced expression of the target gene when it was coupled to nucleosome repositioning at or close to its binding site in most cases. In contrast, only in few cases change in target gene expression was found when TF binding occurred without local nucleosome reorganization