26 research outputs found
Development of biodegradable polymer based tamoxifen citrate loaded nanoparticles and effect of some manufacturing process parameters on them: a physicochemical and in-vitro evaluation
No full textBasudev Sahana, Kousik Santra, Sumit Basu, Biswajit MukherjeeDepartment of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, IndiaAbstract: The aim of the present study was to develop nanoparticles of tamoxifen citrate, a non-steroidal antiestrogenic drug used for the treatment of breast cancer. Biodegradable poly (D, L- lactide-co-glycolide)-85:15 (PLGA) was used to develop nanoparticles of tamoxifen citrate by multiple emulsification (w/o/w) and solvent evaporation technique. Drug-polymer ratio, polyvinyl alcohol concentrations, and homogenizing speeds were varied at different stages of preparation to optimize the desired size and release profile of drug. The characterization of particle morphology and shape was performed by field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and particle size distribution patterns were studied by direct light scattering method using zeta sizer. In vitro drug release study showed that release profile of tamoxifen from biodegradable nanoparticles varied due to the change in speed of centrifugation for separation. Drug loading efficiency varied from 18.60% to 71.98%. The FE-SEM study showed that biodegradable nanoparticles were smooth and spherical in shape. The stability studies of tamoxifen citrate in the experimental nanoparticles showed the structural integrity of tamoxifen citrate in PLGA nanoparticles up to 60°C in the tested temperatures. Nanoparticles containing tamoxifen citrate could be useful for the controlled delivery of the drug for a prolonged period.Keywords: biodegradable, nanoparticles, PLGA, stability, tamoxifen citrat
Pharmaceutical Formulation Development Based on the Polymers Obtained from Edible Plants: An Excellent Approach for the Betterment in Health-Care Services
No full textA global collaboration to deploy help to China
No full textA firsthand account of an international team effort to install the Sahana disaster-management system in Chengdu, Sichuan after an earthquake.
On Monday May 12, 2008, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck in Sichuan Province in southwestern China, destroying homes, schools, hospitals, roads, and vital power and communication infrastructure. More than 45 million people were affected---tens of thousands were killed, hundreds of thousands injured, millions of people were evacuated and left homeless, and millions of buildings were destroyed.
When the earthquake hit, several members of what became an international, volunteer, disaster-management IT team were attending a workshop in Washington, D.C. The workshop was organized by the IBM Office of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs department to train IBM personnel and others in the use and deployment of Sahana, a free and open source software (FOSS) disaster management system.
Sahana, which means
relief
in Sinhalese, is a Web-based collaboration tool that helps manage information resources during a disaster recovery effort. It supports a wide range of relief efforts from finding missing persons, to managing volunteers, tracking resources, and coordinating refugee camps. Sahana enables government groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the victims themselves to work together during a disaster recovery effort.
Over the next several weeks, the team members, distributed among several cities (Beijing and Chengdu in China, Hartford and New York in the U.S., and Colombo in Sri Lanka), worked together over global communication channels to configure and deploy Sahana in Chengdu, in order to support the disaster recovery effort there.
The organizations involved in the collaboration included:
•
The Lanka Software Foundation
(LSF), developers of the Sahana system. Three LSF members, led by the second author, were conducting the training workshop.
•
Various departments of IBM
, including Business Continuity and Resiliency Services. Ten employees led by the fourth author, who organized the workshop, were receiving instruction in how to deploy and use Sahana.
•
The Humanitarian FOSS Project
(H-FOSS), an NSF-funded effort aimed at revitalizing undergraduate computing education. Four students and their mentors, the first and third authors, were attending the workshop as developers and undergraduate members of the Sahana community.
•
IBM China
. Initially, local teams in Beijing and Chengdu consisting of corporate citizenship, government relations, and technical professionals led in demonstrating Sahana to local officials, securing buy-in, and establishing channels to proceed. Then a large team of developers, language specialists, and others, including a team based in Chengdu, Sichuan, eventually took charge of the deployment effort in Chengdu. The fifth author was a member of the China development team.
Almost immediately after the earthquake, discussions were held between IBM, IBM China, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the Chengdu city government in Sichuan province. Once the Chengdu government expressed real interest in deploying Sahana, a team was formed to begin the process of localizing Sahana---that is, translating its user interface into simplified Chinese. The team was led by executives and software developers from IBM-China and assisted by Sahana team members in Colombo and student H-FOSS volunteers in Hartford.
The team's organizational structure followed the normal procedure involved in previous Sahana deployments---a local group in close proximity to the incident supported by volunteers from the global Sahana community. In this case IBM-China, including some who were directly affected by the disaster, took the lead in deploying Sahana over an intensive three-week period.
The decision by the Chengdu government to proceed with the deployment was taken on May 21, 2008 and a revised and localized version of Sahana was deployed in Chengdu on May 25. On June 12 we learned that 42 families had been reunited with the help of Sahana.
This article provides an inside look at the deployment effort. It describes how a diverse, multidisciplinary team---professional programmers, software engineers, executives from a large global enterprise, students, faculty, and humanitarian IT specialists from a global FOSS community---worked together to assist the earthquake recovery effort. The success of the collaboration illustrates the power of virtual communities working across international boundaries using a variety of electronic communication software. It also demonstrates that the Internet has truly made us all neighbors and is constantly forcing us to redefine our concept of community.</jats:p
Learnings from IPAT Assessments that can be used for improving future infrastructure projects: IPAT- Infrastructure Project Assessment Tool
No full textMost of the large infrastructure projects (LIPs) are characterized with significant time delays and cost overruns. In order to be able to deploy the LIPs more effectively, make optimal use of the resources and investments and timely deliver the projects NETLIPSE was set up. NETLIPSE developed a project assessment tool called the Infrastructure Project Assessment Tool (IPAT) which helps in evaluating and assessing the LIPs to identify the vulnerabilities present and measure the capability of the project at all stages of its development and delivery. The IPAT assessments provide valuable insights to client organizations to improve their project performance. With the IPAT tool, several infrastructure projects in Europe were assessed. Since the data of the individual IPATs is owned by different clients, no thorough comparisons were made so far. The goal of the research was to identify learnings from assessment reports that can be used for improving future infrastructure projects by thoroughly comparing the data obtained from individual IPATs. Additionally, the effectiveness of the tool and the theoretical basis of the assessment tool was evaluated.Five common elements were identified i.e., themes and scores, the context of the project, learning environment, knowledge exchange and the significance of reflection. The IPAT includes all these elements which were also deemed vital in the project assessment tools that were researched. Thus, the elements identified served as an essential basis on which project performance was measured.The IPAT assessments aid in the exchange of knowledge in the form of best practices and lessons learned in the field of project management in order to efficiently deploy LIPs. The research identified five main learnings from the IPAT assessments that can be used for improving future large infrastructure projects. They are-• The best practices and lessons learned in the field of project management are continuously evolving with time. Being aware of these evolvements is vital for the execution of projects.• The best practices in the field of project management have broadened to include the overall context of the project and not just focus on the technical aspects.• The opportunity to improve the project’s performance, progress, the processes involved, and outcomes/deliverables exist in all project phases.• The IPAT assessments promote knowledge exchange. This gives the project management team an opportunity to adopt some of the best practices and customize them according to the requirements of their respective projects.• The IPAT assessments gives the project team an opportunity to take a step back, review the project and learn from it. Continuous learning from projects facilitates better execution of the upcoming phases or future projects.Civil Engineering | Construction Management and Engineerin
Studies on extraction, evaluation and application of selected herbs.
No full textThis Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page
Development of Bio Coagulants for Waste Water Treatment
No full textThis Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page
Therapeutic effects of a novel extract of Nerium Oleander in the Transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's Disease
No full textThe author has granted permission for their work to be available to the general public.Alzheimer's disease (AD) can be characterized by the formation and progressive cerebral deposition of Amyloid beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, leading to loss of synapses and neuronal loss. Though the exact mechanism or cause of the disease is still unknown, constant efforts have been made to identify drugs that alleviate the symptoms and eliminate the progression of the disease. PBI-05204, the botanical extract of Nerium oleander and an anti-cancer drug has been previously reported to display neuroprotective activity and is mediated through the neurotrophic factor, BDNF (Brain derived neurotrophic factor) The suggested neuroprotective effects of PBI-05204 may potentially be mediated through Oleandrin, a component of PBI and exhibits anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Giving the advantage of being a blood brain barrier penetrant among the other drugs that provide neuroprotection, it could be a potential therapeutic option for AD. The goal of this study is to analyze the therapeutic effects of PBI on neuropathological, neuroanatomical and neurochemical markers of Alzheimer's disease. The hallmarks of AD to be analyzed include the formation and progressive cerebral deposition of the amyloid β-protein (Aβ), activation of the glial cells surrounding amyloid, neuroinflammatory status and the antioxidant response. For this study, we use the APP/PSEN1 double transgenic mouse which expresses mutant human APP and mutant human PSEN1 (APPswe, PSEN1dE9). After administration of PBI-05204 or saline for four months to four-month-old APP/PSEN1 transgenic, the brain tissue were collected for further analysis. By methods of immunohistochemistry and western blotting, we found that on treatment with PBI-05204, there was an overall significant decline in the amyloid plaque accumulation and the expression of neuroinflammatory cell types, specifically microglia and astrocytes. The treatment with PBI-05204 also decreased the levels of Hemeoxygenase-1 antioxidant and induced protection to the cells against cell death and antioxidant stress. Hence PBI-05204 exhibits anti-inflammatory properties and aid decrease of the amyloid plaque pathology.Integrative Biolog
Studies On Microbial Degradation Of Methyl Parathion
No full textThis Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page
Spring Operated Wearable Enhancer for Upper Limb Rehabilitation
No full textStroke commonly results in abnormal muscle synergy, spasticity, muscle weakness and neural couplings. Stroke patients often present with movement deficits with respect to range of motion (ROM), joint coordination, and movement smoothness in the affected arm and hand. Our previous work showed that HandSOME, a spring-powered hand exoskeleton that compensates for flexor tone in the fingers and thumb, improves ROM and function while worn. This study aims to 1) investigate if an independent home therapy program using HandSOME can improve unassisted ROM and functional grasp of the affected hand, and 2) to design a portable and light-weight exoskeleton suitable for home based arm rehabilitation. This dissertation was broken into four components. 1) Individuals with chronic stroke completed a 4-week home intervention using HandSOME. Outcome measures were collected before and after the intervention and in a 3-month follow up. Changes in Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) and Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) were used as primary outcome measures. Kinematic data were also collected to evaluate changes in ROM of the fingers and thumb, and hand movement efficiency (measure of proximal arm control). Seven individuals with chronic stroke completed the home therapy program. Five responded well to the intervention with gains of 6 or more on the ARAT or the FMA. The five responders had significant improvements in hand movement efficiency (p = 0.038). At the 3-month follow up, ROM gains were no longer significant and clinical score improvements were partially lost. 2) While the HandSOME enabled adequate range of motion at the fingers, some subjects had difficulty supinating the forearm enough to properly grasp objects and finger extension ability would degrade as the arm was lifted against gravity. A five-degree-of-freedom (DOF) spring operated movement enhancer for arm rehabilitation (SpringWear) was designed to address these issues. A list of prototypes were fabricated to refine the design. The current version SpringWear 1.0 uses the same spring technology used in HandSOME to provide assistance in three DOFs: forearm supination or pronation, elbow extension, and shoulder elevation.3) A preliminary study was conducted to evaluate SpringWear 1.0 usability when chronic stroke patients perform ROM and functional tasks. Maximum angles in shoulder elevation, forearm supination or pronation, elbow extension and shoulder elevation, are all significantly increased when wearing this device, whereas only ROM in elbow flexion extension is significantly increased (p < 0.001). The initial starting positions of all three assisted joints shifted with assistance, which prevented an increase in ROM even though the maximum joint position increased in all joints. The hand aperture and finger joint angle didn't increase significantly with assistance. However, subjects who were tested with further increased assistance load in shoulder elevation, showed further increased hand aperture and finger joint angles. 4) Currently the development of HandSOME R3 and SpringWear 2.0 is under way. The design of HandSOME R3 focuses on improving the sensor and datalogger technology, and refining the structure. The design of SpringWear 2.0 focuses on incorporating gear systems in ROM measurement, reducing the deformation shoulder elevation mechanism under heavy load.Biomedical engineeringBiomechanicsMechanical engineeringChronic Stroke, HandSOME, Range of Motion, Rehabilitation, SpringWearBiomedical EngineeringDegree Awarded: Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering. The Catholic University of Americ
