scholarly journals An Improved In Vitro Pyrogen Test To Detect The Presence of Endotoxin Containing Bacteria Using Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate Assay From Pharmaceutical Raw Product

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-79
Author(s):  
Tanvir Bashar ◽  
Khondokar Mahzebin Shurovi ◽  
Sanjida Dilshad

Most of the environmental organism possess endotoxin which presence indicates the organisms are much lethal and for the purposes bacteriological quality of pharmaceutical raw products is much important. In these current study, 2 raw materials out of 10 were found to containing pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas species in the culture medium, that indicates the raw materials were contaminated with the deadly organism. These two raw materials checked for the presence of Endotoxin and both provided positive gel clot by Limulas amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay. Quality maintenance and assurance is the essential need of Drug preparation in pharmaceutical sector. The result ensure that Pharmaceutical industry should need to follow GMP and HACCP to minimize the contamination for improving the biological safety of the product in a cost-effective manner. Key Word: Limulas amoebocyte lysate (LAL) assay, Gram negative bacteria, endotoxin. doi:10.3329/sjps.v1i1.1812    S. J. Pharm. Sci. 1(1&2): 76-79

Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1635
Author(s):  
Sweeny Chauhan ◽  
Alish Kerr ◽  
Brian Keogh ◽  
Stephanie Nolan ◽  
Rory Casey ◽  
...  

The prevalence of prediabetes is rapidly increasing, and this can lead to an increased risk for individuals to develop type 2 diabetes and associated diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to develop nutritional strategies to maintain healthy glucose levels and prevent glucose metabolism dysregulation in the general population. Functional ingredients offer great potential for the prevention of various health conditions, including blood glucose regulation, in a cost-effective manner. Using an artificial intelligence (AI) approach, a functional ingredient, NRT_N0G5IJ, was predicted and produced from Pisum sativum (pea) protein by hydrolysis and then validated. Treatment of human skeletal muscle cells with NRT_N0G5IJ significantly increased glucose uptake, indicating efficacy of this ingredient in vitro. When db/db diabetic mice were treated with NRT_N0G5IJ, we observed a significant reduction in glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and a concomitant benefit on fasting glucose. A pilot double-blinded, placebo controlled human trial in a population of healthy individuals with elevated HbA1c (5.6% to 6.4%) showed that HbA1c percentage was significantly reduced when NRT_N0G5IJ was supplemented in the diet over a 12-week period. Here, we provide evidence of an AI approach to discovery and demonstrate that a functional ingredient identified using this technology could be used as a supplement to maintain healthy glucose regulation.


Author(s):  
Kaewta Rattanapisit ◽  
Balamurugan Shanmugaraj ◽  
Suwimon Manopwisedjaroen ◽  
Priyo Budi Purwono ◽  
Konlavat Siriwattananon ◽  
...  

Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 is responsible for an ongoing global outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and represents a significant public health threat. The rapid spread of COVID-19 necessitates the development of cost-effective technology platforms for the production of diagnostic reagents/biopharmaceuticals for COVID-19. We explored the possibility of producing an anti-SARS-CoV monoclonal antibody (mAb) CR3022 and the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 in Nicotiana benthamiana. Both RBD and the mAb were transiently expressed with the expression of 8μg/g and 130μg/g leaf fresh weight respectively. The plant-purified mAb binds to SARS-CoV-2, but fails to neutralize it in vitro. This is the first report showing the functional characterization of an anti- SARS-CoV mAb CR3022 in plants. Overall these findings showed that plants are a promising platform to produce anti-SARS-CoV mAb to use as a research reagent or a biotherapeutic in a cost-effective manner, which is especially important to developing economies during epidemics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eirini Tsiropoulou ◽  
George Kousis ◽  
Athina Thanou ◽  
Ioanna Lykourentzou ◽  
Symeon Papavassiliou

This paper addresses the problem of museum visitors’ Quality of Experience (QoE) optimization by viewing and treating the museum environment as a cyber-physical social system. To achieve this goal, we harness visitors’ internal ability to intelligently sense their environment and make choices that improve their QoE in terms of which the museum touring option is the best for them and how much time to spend on their visit. We model the museum setting as a distributed non-cooperative game where visitors selfishly maximize their own QoE. In this setting, we formulate the problem of Recommendation Selection and Visiting Time Management (RSVTM) and propose a two-stage distributed algorithm based on game theory and reinforcement learning, which learns from visitor behavior to make on-the-fly recommendation selections that maximize visitor QoE. The proposed framework enables autonomic visitor-centric management in a personalized manner and enables visitors themselves to decide on the best visiting strategies. Experimental results evaluating the performance of the proposed RSVTM algorithm under realistic simulation conditions indicate the high operational effectiveness and superior performance when compared to other recommendation approaches. Our results constitute a practical alternative for museums and exhibition spaces meant to enhance visitor QoE in a flexible, efficient, and cost-effective manner.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Bochnak-Niedźwiecka ◽  
Michał Świeca

This study evaluates nutrients and health-promoting compounds responsible for antioxidant capacity in eight novel formulations based on lyophilized fruit and vegetable powders. The composition contained lyophilized carrot, pumpkin, lentil sprouts, raspberry, strawberry, and apple. The effect of functional additives on the antioxidant, nutritional, and functional characteristics of powdered beverages was determined in the powders and after rehydration followed by in vitro digestion. The antioxidant activity, phenols, vitamin C, and reducing power were significantly higher in the powders enriched with additives having potential functional properties. Furthermore, the analyses indicated that all the powdered formulations may be potential sources of total starch (100–112 mg/100 mL) and proteins (125–139 mg/100 mL). The designed powdered beverages after reconstitution exhibited high antioxidant content, reasonable consumer acceptance, and good in vitro bioaccessibility. The best results of antioxidant capacity were obtained for beverages enriched with raspberry, i.e., 10.4 mg Trolox equivalent (TE)/100 mL and 12.1 mg TE/100 mL rehydrated at 20 °C and 80 °C, respectively. Additionally, color characteristics were used as indicators of the quality of the powdered beverages. This research promotes the reduction of food waste, since whole plant tissues are used, thus allowing maximum exploitation of food raw materials; moreover, drying provides stable shelf life.


Author(s):  
Samir Kumar Sadhukhan ◽  
Swarup Mandal

It is an established fact that cost of churning is a common concern for being profitable in the cellular network service provider’s space. Service providers can view this problem as a service management problem and can have a solution to enhance the stickiness of subscribers by managing the quality of user experience. Quality of Experience (QoE) is important in contrast to Quality of Service (QoS). Three basic components of service management are stage, prop, and user experience. In this cellular network service context, network infrastructure acts as prop. Prop needs to be flexible to enable the personalization in providing the service. In reality the major challenge for a service provider is keep the fitment between prop and the dynamic changes in subscriber profile in a cost effective manner. To define the problem more precisely, the authors take the conventional UMTS cellular network. Here, operators have considered single-homing of RNCs to MSCs/SGSNs (i.e., many-to-one mapping) with an objective to generate service at lower cost over a fixed period of time. However, a single-homing network does not remain cost-effective and flexible anymore when subscribers later begin to show specific inter-MSC/SGSN mobility patterns over time. This necessitates post-deployment topological extension of the network in which some specific RNCs are connected to two MSCs/SGSNs via direct links resulting in a more complex many-to-two mapping structure in parts of the network. The authors formulate the scenario as a combinatorial optimization problem and solve the NP-Complete problem using three meta-heuristic techniques, namely Simulated Annealing (SA), Tabu search (TS), and Ant colony optimization (ACO). They then compare these techniques with a novel optimal heuristic search method that the authors propose typically to solve the problem. The comparative results reveal that the search-based method is more efficient than meta-heuristic techniques in finding optimal solutions quickly.


Author(s):  
Deepak T. Mohan ◽  
Jeffrey Birt ◽  
Can Saygin ◽  
Jaganathan Sarangapani

Fastening operations are extensively used in the aerospace industry and constitute for more than a quarter of the total cost. Inspection of fasteners is another factor that adds cost and complexity to the overall process. Inspection is usually carried out on a sampling-basis as a stand-alone process after the fastening process is completed. Lack of capability to inspect all fasteners in a cost effective manner and the need to remove non-value added activities, such as inspection by itself, in order to reduce the manufacturing lead time have been the motivation behind this study. This paper presents a novel diagnostics scheme based on Mahalanobis-Taguchi System (MTS) for monitoring the quality of rotary-type fastening operations in real-time. This approach encompasses (1) integrating a torque sensor, a pressure sensor, and an optical encoder on a hand-held rotary-type fastening tool; (2) obtaining process parameters via the embedded sensors and generating process signatures in real-time; and (3) detecting anomalies on the tool using a wireless mote that communicates the decision with a base station. The anomalies investigated in this study are the grip length variations as under grip and normal grip, and presence of re-used fasteners. The proposed scheme has been implemented on prototype rotary tool for bolt-nut type of fasteners and tested under a variety of experimental settings. The experimental results have shown that the proposed approach is successful, with an accuracy of over 95% in detecting grip lengths of fasteners in real-time during the process.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eung Seok Lee ◽  
Ryan Wolbert

<p>Acid mine drainage (AMD) is considered as one of the most prevalent environmental problems worldwide and remediation of AMD-affected streams remains a major challenge due to the large affected areas, large volume of polluted water, poor accessibility, and lack of financial supports. Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been widely investigated as potential remedial options for contaminated water bodies of variety of settings, such as groundwater and waste discharges. This study presents a novel cost-effective approach for utilizing AOPs on improving quality of AMD-affected streams. Slow-release cylinders and pellets were created using polymeric binder and reagent salts that release strong oxidant and alkalinity upon dissolution in water. Results of column tests demonstrated that release durations were over 29 days and up to 100% iron removal was achieved within 20 minutes. Field-scale slow-release forms were manufactured and applied to an AMD site in southeast Ohio, USA for a 29-day demonstration study. Narrow channels were constructed for installation of slow-release forms and characterization of quality and flow of mine seeps and AMD stream during low subsurface flow periods. Results of field investigations suggest that the slow-release forms can be used to rapidly remove metals from AMD, as well as improve water parameters such as pH and minimize ecological impacts of remediation within the system in cost-effective manner.</p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
S. Priyanka ◽  
S. Rangaiah ◽  
R. Pavan

An effective and durable genetic resistance in black gram genotypes against powdery mildew provides a cost effective and reliable strategy to reduce the yield losses and save quality of the harvest. The identification of potential resistant source(s) is the most crucial step in disease resistance breeding. In the present study, out of 116 genotypes screened, genotype LBG-645 recorded lowest per cent disease severity of 0.77 and was found to be highly resistant to powdery mildew under green house condition. Under in vitro condition also, LBG-645 which was found to be highly resistant with 3.33×103 conidia colony, 0.94 per cent of leaf area covered by powdery mildew and 1.00 colony per leaflet was recorded. Hence, resistant genotype LBG-645 must be used in further breeding programme for the development of resistant varieties of black gram against powdery mildew.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 73-78
Author(s):  
Mohammad Kamil

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising consumers to stop using multiple weight-loss products that contain the undeclared drug ingredients e.g. sibutramine, which was removed from the market in 2010 for safety reasons and may present significant risks for those with coronary artery disease and other heart issues. Sibutramine and similar undeclared ingredients in herbal medicines are a real challenge for the public health and safety. In recent years, the need for quality assurance tools to ensure the identity, purity, and quality of botanical material has risen dramatically. HPTLC has emerged as a versatile, high throughput, and cost-effective technology, that is uniquely suited to meet these requirements. Most separation techniques do not allow parallel analysis of numerous samples at the same time and they often face problems in separating complex mixtures of substances. However, visual evaluation of HPTLC plates allows for convenient comparison of many samples side by side, where similarities and differences can clearly be seen. The quality of raw materials is rapidly and easily determined by HPTLC. For the identification of herbal drugs and other naturally derived materials standardized HPTLC is the method of choice and recommended by pharmacopoeias worldwide, furthermore adulterated samples are reliably identified. The main objective of the present study is to check pharmaceutical analogue adulteration of nonprescription and prescription slimming products in the laboratory using chromatographic techniques and to discuss its side effects in the interest of consumers and public health safety. Since intentional adulteration of “natural herbalmedicines” with unknown synthetic drugs or chemicals is a common and dangerous phenomenon of alternative medicine, it is important to modify and validate analytical tools to monitor and evaluate these herbal drugs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
U Butt ◽  
A Whiteman ◽  
J Wilson ◽  
E Paul ◽  
B Roy

Introduction There has been a significant rise in the volume of subacromial decompression surgery performed in the UK. This study aimed to determine whether arthroscopic subacromial decompression improves health related quality of life in a cost effective manner. Methods Patients undergoing arthroscopic subacromial decompression surgery for impingement were enrolled between 2012 and 2014. The Oxford shoulder score and the EQ-5D™ instruments were completed prior to and following surgery. A cost–utility analysis was performed. Results Eighty-three patients were eligible for the study with a mean follow-up duration of 15 months (range: 4–27 months). The mean Oxford shoulder score improved by 13 points (95% confidence interval [CI]: 11–15 points). The mean health utility gain extrapolated from the EQ-5D™ questionnaire improved by 0.23 (95% CI: 0.16–0.30), translating to a minimum cost per QALY of £5,683. Conclusions Subacromial decompression leads to significant improvement in function and quality of life in a cost effective manner. This provides justification for its ongoing practice by appropriately trained shoulder surgeons in correctly selected patients.


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