Formulation and Evaluation of Pregabalin Loaded Eudragit S100 Nanoparticles

In this work, polymeric nanoparticles containing Pregabalin was prepared and optimized the ideal concentration of polymer based on its in vitro release profile for a period of 24hrs.The nanoparticles were prepared by solvent displacement method using various concentrations of Eudragit S100 (EPNP1-EPNP5). The prepared nanoparticles were characterized for its particle size, zeta potential, drug content, entrapment efficiency and invitro drug release profile. The preformulation study results confirmed the compatibility between the drug and other excipients used in the formulation. The optimized formulation was selected based on its particle size, entrapment efficiency and in vitro drug release profile. The formulation which contains 300mg of Eudragit S100 (EPNP5) was selected as optimized concentration for the controlled release of Pregabalin for a period of 24hrs

A system-wide approach to explaining variation in potentially avoidable emergency admissions: national ecological study

Background Some emergency admissions can be avoided if acute exacerbations of health problems are managed by the range of health services providing emergency and urgent care. Aim To identify system-wide factors explaining variation in age sex adjusted admission rates for conditions rich in avoidable admissions. Design National ecological study. Setting 152 emergency and urgent care systems in England. Methods Hospital Episode Statistics data on emergency admissions were used to calculate an age sex adjusted admission rate for conditions rich in avoidable admissions for each emergency and urgent care system in England for 2008–2011. Results There were 3 273 395 relevant admissions in 2008–2011, accounting for 22% of all emergency admissions. The mean age sex adjusted admission rate was 2258 per year per 100 000 population, with a 3.4-fold variation between systems (1268 and 4359). Factors beyond the control of health services explained the majority of variation: unemployment rates explained 72%, with urban/rural status explaining further variation (R2=75%). Factors related to emergency departments, hospitals, emergency ambulance services and general practice explained further variation (R2=85%): the attendance rate at emergency departments, percentage of emergency department attendances converted to admissions, percentage of emergency admissions staying less than a day, percentage of emergency ambulance calls not transported to hospital and perceived access to general practice within 48 h. Conclusions Interventions to reduce avoidable admissions should be targeted at deprived communities. Better use of emergency departments, ambulance services and primary care could further reduce avoidable emergency admissions

MINIO : an I/O benchmark for investigating high level parallel libraries

Input/output (I/O) operations are one of the biggest challenges facing scientific computing as it transitions to exascale. The traditional software stack – com- prising of parallel file systems, middlewares and high level libraries – has evolved to enable applications to better cope with the demands of enormous datasets. This software stack makes high performance parallel I/O easily accessible to application engineers, however it is important to ensure best performance is not compromised through attempts to enrich these libraries. We present MINIO, a benchmark for the investigation of I/O behaviour focusing on understanding overheads and inefficiencies in high level library usage. MINIO uses HDF5 and TyphonIO to explore I/O at scale using different application behavioural pat- terns. A case study is performed using MINIO to identify performance limiting characteristics present in the TyphonIO library as an example of performance discrepancies in the I/O stack

Enabling portable I/O analysis of commercially sensitive HPC applications through workload replication

Benchmarking and analyzing I/O performance across high performance computing (HPC) platforms is necessary to identify performance bottlenecks and guide effective use of new and existing storage systems. Doing this with large production applications, which can often be commercially sensitive and lack portability, is not a straightforward task and the availability of a representative proxy for I/O workloads can help to provide a solution. We use Darshan I/O characterization and the MACSio proxy application to replicate five production workloads, showing how these can be used effectively to investigate I/O performance when migrating between HPC systems ranging from small local clusters to leadership scale machines. Preliminary results indicate that it is possible to generate datasets that match the target application with a good degree of accuracy. This enables a predictive performance analysis study of a representative workload to be conducted on five different systems. The results of this analysis are used to identify how workloads exhibit different I/O footprints on a file system and what effect file system configuration can have on performance

XMM-Newton X-ray study of early type stars in the Carina OB1 association

<p><b>Aims:</b> X-ray properties of the stellar population in the Carina OB1 association are examined with special emphasis on early-type stars. Their spectral characteristics provide some clues to understanding the nature of X-ray formation mechanisms in the winds of single and binary early-type stars.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> A timing and spectral analysis of five observations with XMM-Newton is performed using various statistical tests and thermal spectral models.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> 235 point sources have been detected within the field of view. Several of these sources are probably pre-main sequence stars with characteristic short-term variability. Seven sources are possible background AGNs. Spectral analysis of twenty four sources of type OB and WR 25 was performed. We derived spectral parameters of the sources and their fluxes in three energy bands. Estimating the interstellar absorption for every source and the distance to the nebula, we derived X-ray luminosities of these stars and compared them to their bolometric luminosities. We discuss possible reasons for the fact that, on average, the observed X-ray properties of binary and single early type stars are not very different, and give several possible explanations.</p&gt

Uptake, Accuracy, Safety, and Linkage into Care over Two Years of Promoting Annual Self-Testing for HIV in Blantyre, Malawi: A Community-Based Prospective Study

Background Home-based HIV testing and counselling (HTC) achieves high uptake, but is difficult and expensive to implement and sustain. We investigated a novel alternative based on HIV self-testing (HIVST). The aim was to evaluate the uptake of testing, accuracy, linkage into care, and health outcomes when highly convenient and flexible but supported access to HIVST kits was provided to a well-defined and closely monitored population. Methods and Findings Following enumeration of 14 neighbourhoods in urban Blantyre, Malawi, trained resident volunteer-counsellors offered oral HIVST kits (OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test) to adult (≥16 y old) residents (n = 16,660) and reported community events, with all deaths investigated by verbal autopsy. Written and demonstrated instructions, pre- and post-test counselling, and facilitated HIV care assessment were provided, with a request to return kits and a self-completed questionnaire. Accuracy, residency, and a study-imposed requirement to limit HIVST to one test per year were monitored by home visits in a systematic quality assurance (QA) sample. Overall, 14,004 (crude uptake 83.8%, revised to 76.5% to account for population turnover) residents self-tested during months 1–12, with adolescents (16–19 y) most likely to test. 10,614/14,004 (75.8%) participants shared results with volunteer-counsellors. Of 1,257 (11.8%) HIV-positive participants, 26.0% were already on antiretroviral therapy, and 524 (linkage 56.3%) newly accessed care with a median CD4 count of 250 cells/μl (interquartile range 159–426). HIVST uptake in months 13–24 was more rapid (70.9% uptake by 6 mo), with fewer (7.3%, 95% CI 6.8%–7.8%) positive participants. Being “forced to test”, usually by a main partner, was reported by 2.9% (95% CI 2.6%–3.2%) of 10,017 questionnaire respondents in months 1–12, but satisfaction with HIVST (94.4%) remained high. No HIVST-related partner violence or suicides were reported. HIVST and repeat HTC results agreed in 1,639/1,649 systematically selected (1 in 20) QA participants (99.4%), giving a sensitivity of 93.6% (95% CI 88.2%–97.0%) and a specificity of 99.9% (95% CI 99.6%–100%). Key limitations included use of aggregate data to report uptake of HIVST and being unable to adjust for population turnover. Conclusions Community-based HIVST achieved high coverage in two successive years and was safe, accurate, and acceptable. Proactive HIVST strategies, supported and monitored by communities, could substantially complement existing approaches to providing early HIV diagnosis and periodic repeat testing to adolescents and adults in high-HIV settings

Effect of Delta Operator on Umbral Composition in Finite Operator calculus

The main objective of this paper is to propose the matrix representation of umbral composition and investigate the effect of delta operator on umbral composition by using the sequential representation of delta operator in finite operator calculus

Social deprivation and exposure to health promotion. A study of the distribution of health promotion resources to schools in England

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund and is available from the specified link - Copyright @ 2010 Chivu and ReidpathBACKGROUND: Area deprivation is a known determinant of health. It is also known that area deprivation is associated with lower impact health promotion. It is less well known, however, whether deprived areas are less responsive to health promotion, or whether they are less exposed. Using data from a national, school-based campaign to promote vaccination against the human papilloma virus (HPV), the relationship between area deprivation and exposure was examined. METHODS: Taking advantage of a health promotion campaign to provide information to schools about HPV vaccination, a cross sectional study was conducted to examine the relationship between area level, social deprivation, and take-up of (i.e., exposure to) available health promotion material. The sample was 4,750 schools across England, including government maintained and independent schools. The relationship between area deprivation and exposure was examined using bi- and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: It was found that schools in the least deprived quintile had 1.32 times the odds of requesting health promotion materials than schools in the most deprived areas (p = .01). This effect was independent of the school size, the type of school, and the geographic region. Conclusion The relationship between area deprivation and the impact of health promotion may be due, at least in part, to differential levels of exposure. The study was limited in scope, pointing to the need for more research, but also points to potentially important policy implications

Analytical method development and validation for simultaneous estimation of Moxifloxacin Hydrochloride and Ketorolac Tromethamine by using RP-HPLC

The main objectives of the present research were to develop the new method for the simultaneous estimation and validation of Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine in pure form and in pharmaceutical dosage form by RP-HPLC. The chromatogram of Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine was developed through column (Inertsil ODS C18), UV detection at 304 nm at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min with Buffer (pH 4.0):Acetonitrile:Methanol (50:30:20) V/V as mobile phase. The method was validated by various validation parameters such as accuracy, precision, linearity, specificity as per the ICH guidelines. A linearity range of Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine was found to be 60 to 140 µg/ml and 48 to 112 µg/ml respectively. The retention time of Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine was found to be 2.07 min and 4.06 min respectively. % RSD of retention time and peak areas obtained in system precision for Moxifloxacin HCl was 0.21 and 0.80 respectively and for Ketorolac Tromethamine were 0.90 and 1.06 respectively. The % recovery of standard Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine was found to be 100.18 to 100.08% and 99.97 to 99.93% respectively. The % recovery of Moxifloxacin HCl and Ketorolac Tromethamine in dosage form was found to be 98.73 to 100.92% and 98.10 to 100.77% respectively. This method was simple, accurate, precise, and sensitive. Hence, the developed method was employed for the routine analysis of Tenofovir in the pharmaceutical dosage form

Social Enterprise Intention of Non-STEM University Students: Experimental Evidence

The concept of social enterprise is an imperative facet of modern entrepreneurship that emphasizes the potential for businesses to generate profits while promoting societal well-being. However, this dual objective presents a significant challenge for entrepreneurs as it demands a strong commitment to social responsibility. Our study aimed to investigate the emerging trend of anti-social decisions made by young people in response to complex socio-economic constraints. The inquiry involved a series of classroom experiment conducted on 240 undergraduates in a hypothetical environment. The experiments presented the participants with opportunities to make prosocial or anti-social decisions regarding their occupational choices under four different socio-economic conditions and also in a structured coordination game. The results suggest that prospective employees may be more likely to make choices that benefit themselves, rather than others, when faced with difficult social and economic situations. However, those who opt to be self-employed expressed the highest prosocial motivation, indicating a strong desire to contribute to society. It is important to take these findings into account when creating educational policies and adjusting economic policies, such as tax policies. We need to encourage and educate young people in Sri Lanka to develop and express their desire to create positive social change, by promoting pro-social values and behaviors