Rupinder Kaur

Characterization of solvatomorphs of methotrexate using thermoanalytical and other techniques

Characterization of solvatomorphs of methotrexate using thermoanalytical and other techniques Identification and characterization of different forms of methotrexate were carried out by crystallization from different solvents. Five different forms of the drug were obtained. Appearance of a desolvation endotherm in the DSC accompanied by mass loss in TGA for forms I, II, IV and V showed these forms to be acetonitrile solvate hydrate (form I), trihydrate (forms II and IV) and dimethylformamide solvate (form V), respectively. However, the desolvation peak was absent in form III (obtained from methanol) indicating the absence of any solvent of crystallization. This form was found to be partially crystalline by its XRPD pattern. Solution calorimetry was further used to differentiate between the forms as they differ in lattice energy, resulting in different enthalpies of solution. The dissolution and solubility profiles were correlated with the enthalpy of solution and subsequently with crystallinity of all the forms; the least endothermic form (form III) had the highest dissolution rate. Karakterizacija solvatomorfa metotreksata pomoću termoanalitičkih i drugih metoda U radu je provedena identifikacija i karakterizacija pet različitih formi metotreksata dobivenih kristalizacijom iz različitih otapala. Desolvatacijska izoterma u DSC popraćena gubitkom mase u TGA za forme I, II, IV i V ukazuje da su te forme solvati s acetonitrilom: hidrat (forma I), trihidrat (forma II i IV) i solvat s dimetilformamidom (forma V). Međutim, desolvatacijski pik je odsutan u formi III (dobivenoj iz metanola) što ukazuje na odsutnost otapala u kristalnoj formi. Ta forma je parcijalno kristalna i pokazuje odgovarajući XRPD uzorak. Energija kristalne ćelije je za različite forme različita, što ima za posljedicu različite entalpije otapanja te omogućava primjenu kalorimetrije otopine za diferencijaciju formi. Topljivost je korelirana s entalpijom otopine i kristaliničnosti svih formi. Najmanje endotermna forma (forma III) je najbolje topljiva.

Evaluation of in vitro and in vivo antileishmanial potential of bergenin rich Bergenia ligulata (Wall.) Engl. root extract against visceral leishmaniasis in inbred BALB/c mice through immunomodulation

Background Medicinal plants with immunomodulatory properties can provide good alternative therapeutics for curing visceral leishmaniasis. Bergenia ligulata (Wall.) Engl. is an interesting plant with strong antioxidant, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory and hepatoprotective properties. Aim The present study was planned to determine the antileishmanial activity of plant extract by modulating the immune responses of inbred BALB/c mice. Methodology Bergenin, the principle active component of B. ligulata, was quantitated in crude extract by performing RP-HPLC. The therapeutic potential was assessed through in vitro antileishmanial activity and in mice model through parasite load, cytokine assays, IgG antibody levels, DTH responses, histopathology and biochemical enzyme assays. Results B. ligulata showed the presence of glycosides, saponins, carbohydrates, tannins, flavonoids and bergenin which contributed to the antileishmanial activity of extract with IC50 of 22.70 μg/mL. Furthermore, the higher dose significantly reduced the parasite load by 95.56 %. The reduction was further associated with significant enhancement of IL-12 and IFN-γ levels in comparison to IL-10 and IL-4 cytokines. The switching towards Th1 type of immune response was also confirmed by elevated antibody levels of IgG2a isotype as compared to IgG1 as well as increased DTH responses. The histology of liver and kidney further complimented the non toxic nature of plant extract in addition to its negligible toxicity on HeLa cells. Conclusions The current study revealed the significant antileishmanial and immunomodulatory properties of this plant extract against murine visceral leishmaniasis. Further, the bioactive components will be explored to assess their efficacy for the development of safe and cost effective drug.

Algorithms for Task Consolidation Problem in a Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing has recently emerged as a new paradigm for hosting and delivering services over the Internet. Task consolidation problem in cloud computing systems became an important approach to streamline resource usage which improves energy efficiency. The task consolidation is also known as workload consolidation problem which is the process of assigning set of tasks to set of resources without violating time constraints. Three existing energy conscious heuristics such as ECTC (Energy-Conscious Task Consolidation) Task Consolidation Algorithm and MaxUtil (Maximum rate Utilization) Task Consolidation Algorithm and Bi-objective Task Consolidation algorithm offering different energy saving possibilities were analyzed in this study. The cost functions incorporated effectively capture energy saving possibilities and their capability has been verified by evaluation study. The Bi-objective Task Consolidation algorithm combines the two heuristics to construct the corresponding bi-objective search space. The efficiency of proposed algorithm was proved thought evaluation study consisting of different simulations carried out.

Protective efficacy of Chlorophytum borivilianum root extract against murine visceral leishmaniasis by immunomodulating the host responses

Background The available drugs for treating visceral leishmaniasis are limited. Moreover, the disease is associated with suppression of immune function. Therefore, therapies with effective immunomodulatory agents are needed which can decrease parasitic burden and enhance adaptive immunity. Objectives The present study was planned to evaluate the antileishmanial efficacy of crude ethanolic extract of roots of Chlorophytum borivilianum (CBREE) against murine visceral leishmaniasis through immunomodulation. Materials and methods The in vitro studies were carried out to check leishmanicidal activity against promastigote form and cytotoxicity against HeLa cells. The parasite load in liver smears, immunological and biochemical changes induced by 500 and 1000 mg/kg b.wt. of CBREE were assessed on 1, 7, 14 and 21 post treatment days in infected and treated BALB/c mice. Results CBREE showed inhibitory effect on growth of promastigotes with IC50 of 28.25 μg/mL and negligible cytotoxicity. The extract was toxicologically safe in BALB/c mice when administered orally with 5 g/kg b.wt. of extract. A significant reduction in parasite load was observed along with active immunomodulation through enhanced Th1 type of immune responses and suppressed Th2 type of immune responses. Conclusion The treatment with both doses showed no toxic effect as evidenced by normal liver and kidney function tests and normal histological observations of liver and kidney. Therefore, it should be further explored for its active components in pursuit of the new effective antileishmanial agents in the plant kingdom.

A GLIMPSE OF INFECTION AND RESISTANCE: A REVIEW

Antibiotic resistance is a global phenomenon with ancient origins antibiotic resistance which is regarded as a priority threat by WHO. in fact antibiotic resistance is a an inevitable consequence of antibiotic use irrational use enhances the rate of antibiotic resistance the irrational use has made conventional methods for combating antibiotic resistance nonresponsive and had led to emergence of multiple drug resistant infections. This led to exploration of novel ways to fight antibiotic resistance. In spite of all these efforts antibiotic resistance is till a global threat and could be managed by rational use of drugs and methods weather conventional or novel methods. This review gives a glimpse of antibiotic resistance and the conventional and novel methods

A Survey on Image Fusion Techniques for Image Enhancement in Digital Image Processing

Image fusion procedure is helpful to attain a single output image that contains required data or information by merging two distorted input images. Image fusion is done by pulling out all the necessary information from two images or more than two images after which the extorted information is combined into a distinct fused image. This fused image has improved superiority as compare to the input images. Image fusion is prepared by implementing particular techniques. Those particular schemes for image fusion are introduced in this paper. This paper offers an overview to the work that has been done by in past.

Chloroquine diphosphate bearing dextran nanoparticles augmented drug delivery and overwhelmed drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum parasites

Chloroquine diphosphate (CHQ) is primarily used for the treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria at the dose of 500mg orally or 10mg/kg parenterally. However, point mutations in Plasmodiumfalciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) protein and Plasmodium falciparum multidrug resistance protein 1 (Pfmdr1) localized in digestive vacuole membrane, are responsible for CHQ resistance. Therefore, in present investigation, dextran nanoparticles bearing chloroquine diphosphate (CHQ-DEX-NPs) were formulated by solvent diffusion method of size below 70nm with zeta-potential of -20.1±3.2mV. FT-IR, DSC and PXRD techniques confirmed the successful loading of drug in nanomatrix system with amorphous attributes. In vitro drug release analysis indicated the Higuchi pattern with diffusion controlled drug release. The IC50 of CHQ-DEX-NPs in sensitive (3D7) and resistant (RKL9) Plasmodium falciparum strains was estimated to be 0.031-μg/ml and 0.13-μg/ml significantly lower than 0.059-μg/ml and 0.36-μg/ml of CHQ. The augmented therapeutic efficacy of CHQ-DEX-NPs may be credited to deposition of tailored nanoparticles in food vacuoles of malaria parasites owing to the affinity of parasite towards DEX that consequently lower the drug resistance and improved the therapeutic index. In conclusion, CHQ-DEX-NPs must be evaluated under a set of stringent in vivo parameters to establish its therapeutic efficacy in preclinical model.

An Efficient Approach for Event based Clustering for Wireless Sensor Network

The wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is one of the highly adopted field of research in recent years of scientific world. A WSN consists of sensors also known as motes which are distributed over a geographical area to monitor physical or environmental conditions and to transfer their sensed data cooperatively through multi-hops to the Base Station (BS). The critical fact about sensor nodes is their limited energy. Sensor nodes die due to run out of energy quickly because of the small size of the sensor nodes. Many energy efficient routing protocols and techniques have been developed to solve this problem and to increase the lifetime of the network. For energy conservation in wireless sensor network an Event Driven Hierarchical Cluster based Routing Protocol is proposed. Whenever there is an occurrence of event in the area of interest, then the information gathered from this event is passed to the sink through different cluster head which has high energy and smallest distance to the sink Simulation results show that routing of event data through different clusters improve the lifetime of the network compared to other clustering scheme and shows significant performance increase.

Dimension Reduction of Multispectral Data using Canonical Analysis

Remotely Sensed Images are composite images consisting of large number of spectral bands, from electromagnetic spectrum. Analysis and Implementation of such images is much complex processing and takes lot of time. Therefore, dimension of these images must be reduced before any complex operation is performed. Selecting bands, which have higher capability to discriminate between classes, is a process of reducing number of bands with minimum loss of information [1]. In this paper, Canonical Analysis (CA) is used for band selection based on its discriminating power for classification of various classes. CA is based on Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Analysis which maximizes the distance of pixels between classes and simultaneously minimizes the distance between pixels in the same class [5]. It computes eigenvalues and eigenvectors of each band for all the classes. Based on these values, loading factor matrix is computed and the band with highest discriminating power is given highest priority. Band with less priority are not selected leading to reduction of size of the image. Results show that spectral bands 1, 3, 5 are selected using Canonical Analysis whereas bands 4, 3, 2 are selected using Principal Component Analysis from the same LANDSAT image.