130,411 research outputs found

    Phase II Non-Randomized Clinical study on “Bala Karappan (Atopic Dermatitis)” with Evaluation of Siddha Trial Drug “Sengathari Pattai Kudineer” (Internal) and “Murungai Pushpam Ennai” (External)

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    The clinical study was conducted with the trial drug SENGATHARIPATTAI KUDINEER as internal and MURUNGAIPUSHPAM ENNAI as external medicine for the disease BALAKARAPPAN through Pre-clinical and Clinical study methods. The trial drug was selected from the Siddha Literature “Sengathari pattai kudineer” from Theraiyar Kudineer-100 and “Murungai pushpam ennai” from Aathma Ratchamirdham Ennum Vaidhiya Saranga Sangiragam. The study was conducted after being screened by the screening committee and approved by the INSTITUTIONAL ETHICS COMMITTEE(IEC) of Govt Siddha Medical College, Chennai. The results of Pre-clinical and Clinical studies of trial drug stated whether to reject or accept the null hypothesis. The standards of Preclinical studies carried as per PLIM guidelines, the values of the results of physiochemical, phytochemical, biochemical analysis shows below the limits of AYUSH guidelines. There is no abnormality detected in aflatoxin, pesticide residue and microbial study. Heavy metal analysis revealed the absence of heavy metal present in the trial drug. Animal study reported the safety of the trial drug in both acute and sub-acute toxicity studies. Histopathology reports result that no pathological report present in the result. The Pre-clinical studies proven the safety of the drug Sengathari pattai kudineer (Internal) and Murungai pushpam ennai (external). The Clinical Study followed the methodologies for selection of study participants and the study got approval by IEC and IAEC clearance. The clinical study was registered in CTRI as per the regulation. The efficacy of the trial drug is proven by reducing the severity score in EASI scale during follow-up and the results was statistically proven significance of (p<0.000). The significance of the disease was reduced after 28 days treatment. Sengathari pattai kudineer (Internal) and Murungai pushpam ennai (external) was proven that it is clinically effective for Balakarappan. Regarding Siddha diagnostic methods, the essential diagnostic tools had been used for the diagnosis of Balakarappan. The adverse effect of the drug was not reported by the study participants during the full study. Totally 46 children with Karappan diagnosed clinically treated with outpatient department of Arignar Anna Hospital of Indian Medicine Chennai -106. 6 patients were withdrawing from the study. The outcome measures proven the safety and efficacy of the trial drug in Balakarappan and the null hypothesis was rejected with significance value of (p<0.000) CONCLUSION BALA KARAPPAN is a common skin condition in children and mainly caused by derangement of Kaba kuttram followed by vatham and pitham .In this clinical study ‘SENGATHARIPATTAI KUDINEER’ as internal and ‘MURUNGAI PUSHPAM ENNAI’ as external respectively .The deranged kuttram is settled down by the Kaippu suvai the trial drug sengatharipattai kudineer (milagu-kaippu suvai, chinni illai- kaippu suvai, sengatharipattai – kaippu suvai) present in the trial medicine settled down the disease thereby the medicine acts as Ethirurai Maruthuvam to cure the skin condition. No adverse effects were noticed on or after the treatment period. The clinical trial conducted in selected patients was satisfactory and inspiring. The trial medicine is safe and effective for Bala karappan in children. Through this study, the effectiveness of trial drug is confirmed and re-established by the author. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY: The clinical study conducted with minimum study participants. The study followed a non-randomized study method; it will not minimize the error of the study. The pharmacological study was limited due to the short period of time. RECOMMENDATION: This study conducted with minimum study participants to prove the efficacy. In the future study may elaborate with a greater number of study participants. Randomized technique is to minimize the errors in the clinical study, the RCT technique, The blinding methodology will reduce the error of the future studies

    MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations

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    Information overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    "Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"

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    Both spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.

    A. D. Fricke, author

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    Black and white photograph of author, A. D. Fricke

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #11: The ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund

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    At the May 2014 talk, you will learn about the ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund--what it is, why we do it, how it works, and how the program is going so far

    The R&D Tax Incentives

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    This article sets out some background information and reflections of the author on the R&amp;D tax incentive schemes included in the Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB) Proposal. In particular the author analyzes the stimulus to private R&amp;D through ad hoc tax incentives included in the CCTB Proposal and dives into the actual provisions included in the Proposal highlighting the most relevant issues connected with their design and interpretation. Moreover, the author explores the interaction between the CCTB Proposal and the granting by Member States of domestic R&amp;D tax incentives

    Morphologic and functional correlates of synaptic pathology in the cathepsin D knockout mouse model of congenital neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis

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    Mutations in the cathepsin D (CTSD) gene cause an aggressive neurodegenerative disease (congenital neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis) that leads to early death. Recent evidence suggests that presynaptic abnormalities play a major role in the pathogenesis of CTSD deficiencies. To identify the early events that lead to synaptic alterations, we investigated synaptic ultrastructure and function in presymptomatic CTSD knockout (Ctsd) mice. Electron microscopy revealed that there were significantly greater numbers of readily releasable synaptic vesicles present in Ctsd mice than in wild-type control mice as early as postnatal day 16. The size of this synaptic vesicle pool continued to increase with disease progression in the hippocampus and thalamus of the Ctsd mice. Electrophysiology revealed a markedly decreased frequency of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) with no effect on paired-pulse modulation of the evoked excitatory post synaptic potentials in the hippocampus of Ctsd mice. The reduced mEPSCs frequency was observed before the appearance of epilepsy or any morphologic sign of synaptic degeneration. Taken together, these data indicate that CTSD is required for normal synaptic function and that a failure in synaptic trafficking or recycling may bean early and important pathologic mechanism in Ctsd mice; these presynaptic abnormalities may initiate synaptic degeneration in advance of subsequent neuronal loss
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