A REVIEW ON POLYCORIA

The presence of multiple iris holes is most commonly called pseudopolycoria, because only the central pupil has a sphincter muscle and can constrict. Iris holes without muscle tissue arise as congenital defects or develop from ocular trauma, inflammation, or degeneration and are thus not considered to be true accessory pupils. Multiple pupils, also known as true polycoria, are distinguished by the presence of a sphincter muscle around each iris hole, permitting synchronous constriction and dilation of the 2 pupils. One presumed mechanism for polycoria is a snaring or pinching off from the margin of another pupil. This patient had a small, oval-shaped accessory pupil, which may have separated from the temporal margin of the central pupil, leaving a thin bridge of no sphincter connecting tissue. The outlook for polycoria is generally good. You may not require any treatment if your visual impairment is minimal and doesn’t interfere with your daily life. However, if treatment is needed, pupilloplasty has so far shown positive results. If you have polycoria, it’s important to have regular check-ups with an eye doctor to monitor your vision and any changes your eyes may have. Having your eye checked regularly is also beneficial for your eyesight as a whole

Marine pollution - its effects on living resources with special reference to aquaculture

Due to large scale industrialisation and indiscriminate discharge of effluents with high BOD, toxic chemicals and particulate matter reach the aquatic environment, either directly or indirectly. Enrichment of the coastal waters through nutrients and minerals lead to immediate and long term effects on the biota and fishery resources causing severe eutrophication or mass mortality. Among a large variety of pollutants which reach the aquatic environment, the domestic sewage, agricultural pesticides, industrial wastes, oil and oil dispersants, radioactive wastes and the polluted water from the coconut retting zones causes deleterious effects in the inshore and fish fanning areas

IMPACT OF PHARMACIST LED ANTICOAGULATION MONITORING AND PATIENT EDUCATION ON ORAL ANTICOAGULATION THERAPY WITH ACENOCOUMAROL

  Objective: Acenocoumarol is anoral anticoagulant with narrow therapeutic index, and the ideal dose of anticoagulation lies between International normalized ratio (INR) values of 2.0 and 3.5. Lack of monitoring and knowledge on acenocoumarol therapy may compromise patient's safety resulting in under- or over-anticoagulation. A study was conducted to monitor for the safety of anticoagulation therapy, achievement of goal INR levels and to assess the impact of pharmacist led anticoagulation monitoring and patient education on the rational use of acenocoumarol in patients admitted in cardiology wards with thromboembolic disorders.Methods: The study was conducted in 70 patients; data collection was done, prescriptions were analyzed for drug-drug interactions and adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Patients' knowledge on acenocoumarol therapy was assessed using a self-developed questionnaire at the baseline, then were subjected to a detailed patient education and on an average each patient received three sessions of education. They were again made to answer the same questionnaire on the day of discharge. The mean score of the responses before and after education was compared statistically using Wilcoxon signed rank test and McNemar test.Results: There were 60% patients under anticoagulated with the INR range of >2.0. 123 drug interactions were observed in 58 patients, on an average of 2 interactions per prescription, but no ADRs were observed. 59 patients (84.3%) showed significant overall improvement in knowledge on anticoagulation therapy following education.Conclusion: This study implies the role of clinical pharmacists in achieving better clinical outcomes in patients receiving oral anticoagulation therapy with acenocoumarol

Genetic Characterization of Aeromonas hydrophila using Protein Profiling and RAPD PCR

Genetic relationship among Aeromonas hydrophila isolates from fish and traditional brackishwater farms were evaluated through Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis as well as Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate-Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (SDS PAGE) profile of cellular proteins. PCR amplification of the DNA from the bacterial isolates using five random primers (OPA-01, 03, 04, 05 and 10) produced 46 amplicons, which were scorable as distinct bands on agarose gel electrophoresis. Absolute polymorphism of RAPD profile was evident with a unique pattern for each isolate, indicating its usefulness as an ideal tool for evaluation of genetic heterogeneity within the species, which are not revealed by other methods like morphological and biochemical characterization and cellular protein profile. Cellular protein profile did not reveal significant polymorphism as all the isolates revealed uniform pattern indicating its usefulness as a tool for species level identification. Four protein bands of molecular size viz., 19.5 kDa, 25.6 kDa, 29 kDa and 65.6 kDa were shared by all the isolates in the study

Bioactivity in marine algae

Marine algae have been reponed to possess a wide range of bio active properties (Hashimoto 1979, Baslow 1969, Hoppe, et al. 1979, Hoppe et al. 1984, Blunden et al. 1981, Cocamese et al. 1981, Ramamurthy et al. 1967, Mc Lachan 1964, Byrkholder and Sharma 1969. Conover and Sieburth 1964, Garber et al. 1958). Quite recently, Naqvi et al. (1980) studied the bioactivities of 25 species of marine algae and sea grasses collected mainly from the North Eastern coast of India and a few from the coast of Tamil Nadu

Packages of Practices for Sustainable, Ecofriendly Mariculture (Land-based Saline Aquaculture and Seafarming)

The problems of fast growing human population and protein deficit, particularly in the developing countries continue to exert pressure on the fisheries resources available for exploitation in the wild water bodies. The increasingly limited opportunities in the capture fisheries sector have generated considerable interest in aquaculture

Detection and quantification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in vegetables and environmental samples at farm level

The purpose of this study was to detect and quantify total and pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus from vegetables and environmental samples at the farm level in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. Most Probable Number (MPN) – Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method was used to detect toxR, tdh and trh genes and to quantify their concentration in samples. Samples obtained were cabbage (20), carrot (10), cucumber (10), lettuce (31), tomato (18), manure (10), soil (12), surface swab (21) and water (14), with a total of 146 samples. Sampling locations involved were three vegetable farms, two packing houses and one loading bay. Based on the results, overall, 13.7% of samples were present with V. parahaemolyticus toxR (maximum concentration 1100 MPN/g), with the highest detection in cabbage (6%). Vibrio parahaemolyticus tdh was detected in 1.4% samples (maximum concentration 7.3 MPN/g), and V. parahaemolyticus trh could not be detected in any samples. No tdh and trh genes could be detected from the recovered isolates. This finding highlighted that vegetables and environmental samples could potentially be contaminated with V. parahaemolyticus which poses risk to consumers. This study could be useful in future food safety risk communication and management programmes

Human protein reference database—2006 update

Human Protein Reference Database (HPRD) () was developed to serve as a comprehensive collection of protein features, post-translational modifications (PTMs) and protein–protein interactions. Since the original report, this database has increased to >20 000 proteins entries and has become the largest database for literature-derived protein–protein interactions (>30 000) and PTMs (>8000) for human proteins. We have also introduced several new features in HPRD including: (i) protein isoforms, (ii) enhanced search options, (iii) linking of pathway annotations and (iv) integration of a novel browser, GenProt Viewer (), developed by us that allows integration of genomic and proteomic information. With the continued support and active participation by the biomedical community, we expect HPRD to become a unique source of curated information for the human proteome and spur biomedical discoveries based on integration of genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic data