ENHANCED TRANSDERMAL PERMEABILITY OF TELMISARTAN BY A NOVEL NANOEMULSION GEL

Objective: Telmisartan is an angiotensin II type I receptor blocker antihypertensive agent with 42% oral bioavailability. The aim of the present investigation was to develop a nanoemulsion gel to enhance bioavailability of poorly water soluble Telmisartan.Methods: Different nanoemulsion components (oil, surfactant and co-surfactant) were selected on the basis of solubility and emulsification ability. Pseudotemary phase diagrams were constructed using aqueous titration method. Carbopol 934 was added as a gel matrix to convert nanoemulsion into nanoemulsion gel. Drug loaded nanoemulsions and nanoemulsion gels were characterized for particle size, viscosity, rheological behavior, thermodynamic stability studies and ex vivo permeation studies using rat skin. Transdermal permeation of Telmisartan from nanoemulsion gels was determined using Franz Diffusion cell.Results: The optimized nanoemulsion gel (NEG) contained Labrafil®M 2125 CS (14.3%) as oil, Acrysol®EL 135 (30.84%) as surfactant, Carbitol® (15.42%) as co-surfactant and (32.44%) water; 20 mg drug and 1% w/w carbopol. The ex vivo permeation profile of optimized formulation was compared to nanoemulsion and normal gel. Permeability parameters like steady-state flux (Jss), permeability coefficient (Kp), and enhancement ratio (Er) were significantly increased in nanoemulsion (NE) and nanoemulsion gel (NEG) as compared to conventional gel. There was a considerable improvement in bio availability for nanoemulsion gel compared to the conventional telemisartan gel.Conclusion: Nanoemulsion gel has significantly increased the bio-availability of the drug.Â

Assessment of genetic diversity in medicinal rices using microsatellite markers

Abstract A set of 36 microsatellite markers distributed over 12 chromosomes of rice were used to assess genetic diversity in 33 medicinal rice genotypes. A total of 169 alleles were amplified, of which 166 were polymorphic. The number of alleles detected per locus ranged from 2 to 9 with an average of 4.69 alleles per locus. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged between 0.24 and 0.956 with an average of 0.811 per locus, indicating the suitability of the microsatellite markers for detecting genetic diversity among these rice genotypes. All the rice genotypes showed the presence of multiple alleles. Genetic similarities among genotypes varied from 0.239 to 0.827 with an average of 0.5. The cluster analysis grouped all the genotypes into two major clusters at 0.43 level of genetic similarity. The first three principal coordinates explained more than 0.63 of total genetic variation. All the genotypes included in the study could be uniquely distinguished from each other. The data provides basic information on medicinal rice genotypes of India which will be useful for future reference and to protect these unique rices under Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime

Relational approaches to poverty in rural India: social, ecological and technical dynamics

Poverty is now widely recognised as multidimensional, with indicators including healthcare, housing and sanitation. Yet, relational approaches that foreground political-cultural processes remain marginalised in policy discourses. Focusing on India, we review a wide range of relational approaches to rural poverty. Beginning with early approaches that focus on structural reproduction of class, caste and to a lesser extent gender inequality, we examine new relational approaches developed in the last two decades. The new approaches examine diverse ways in which poverty is experienced and shapes mobilisations against deprivation. They draw attention to poor people’s own articulations of deprivation and alternate conceptions of well-being. They also show how intersecting inequalities of class, caste and gender shape governance practices and political movements. Despite these important contributions, the new relational approaches pay limited attention to technologies and ecologies in shaping the experience of poverty. Reviewing studies on the Green Revolution and wider agrarian transformations in India, we then sketch the outlines of a hybrid relational approach to poverty that combines socio-technical and -ecological dynamics. We argue that such an approach is crucial to challenge narrow economising discourses on poverty and to bridge the policy silos of poverty alleviation and (environmentally) sustainable development

A bibliography of parasites and diseases of marine and freshwater fishes of India

With the increasing demand for fish as human food, aquaculture both in freshwater and salt water is rapidly developing over the world. In the developing countries, fishes are being raised as food. In many countries fish farming is a very important economic activity. The most recent branch, mariculture, has shown advances in raising fishes in brackish, estuarine and bay waters, in which marine, anadromous and catadromous fishes have successfully been grown and maintained

Gravitational Lensing By Spiral Galaxies

We study gravitational lensing by spiral galaxies, using realistic models consisting of halo, disk, and bulge components combined to produce a flat rotation curve. Proper dynamical normalization of the models is critical because a disk requires less mass than a spherical halo to produce the same rotation curve---a face-on Mestel disk has a lensing cross section only 41% as large as a singular isothermal sphere with the same rotation curve. The cross section is sensitive to inclination and dominated by edge-on galaxies, which produce lenses with an unobserved 2-image geometry and a smaller number of standard 5-image lenses. Unless the disk is unreasonably massive, disk+halo models averaged over inclination predict \lesssim 10% more lenses than pure halo models. Finally, models with an exponential disk and a central bulge are sensitive to the properties of the bulge. In particular, an exponential disk model normalized to our Galaxy cannot produce multiple images without a bulge, and including a bulge reduces the net flattening of edge-on galaxies. The dependence of the lensing properties on the masses and shapes of the halo, disk, and bulge means that a sample of spiral galaxy lenses would provide useful constraints on galactic structure.Comment: 27 pages, 7 postscript figures, submitted to Ap

Gravitational Lensing at Millimeter Wavelengths

With today's millimeter and submillimeter instruments observers use gravitational lensing mostly as a tool to boost the sensitivity when observing distant objects. This is evident through the dominance of gravitationally lensed objects among those detected in CO rotational lines at z>1. It is also evident in the use of lensing magnification by galaxy clusters in order to reach faint submm/mm continuum sources. There are, however, a few cases where millimeter lines have been directly involved in understanding lensing configurations. Future mm/submm instruments, such as the ALMA interferometer, will have both the sensitivity and the angular resolution to allow detailed observations of gravitational lenses. The almost constant sensitivity to dust emission over the redshift range z=1-10 means that the likelihood for strong lensing of dust continuum sources is much higher than for optically selected sources. A large number of new strong lenses are therefore likely to be discovered with ALMA, allowing a direct assessment of cosmological parameters through lens statistics. Combined with an angular resolution <0.1", ALMA will also be efficient for probing the gravitational potential of galaxy clusters, where we will be able to study both the sources and the lenses themselves, free of obscuration and extinction corrections, derive rotation curves for the lenses, their orientation and, thus, greatly constrain lens models.Comment: 69 pages, Review on quasar lensing. Part of a LNP Topical Volume on "Dark matter and gravitational lensing", eds. F. Courbin, D. Minniti. To be published by Springer-Verlag 2002. Paper with full resolution figures can be found at ftp://oden.oso.chalmers.se/pub/tommy/mmviews.ps.g

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700