Structural changes in cellular membranes induced by ionic liquids: From model to bacterial membranes

Ionic liquids (ILs) have generated considerable attention recently because of their cytotoxicity and application as antibiotics. However, the mechanism of how they damage cell membranes is not currently well understood. In this paper, the antibacterial activities of two imidazolium-based ILs, namely 1-butyl- 3-methylimidazolium tetrafluroborate ([BMIM][BF4]) and 1-ethyl- 3-methylimidazolium tetrafluroborate ([EMIM][BF4]) have been investigated. The activity of [BMIM][BF4] on gram negative bacteria E. coli is observed to be stronger compared with the short chained [EMIM][BF4]. To explain this observation, the effects of these ILs on the self-assembled structures of model cellular membranes have been investigated. The in-plane elasticity of a monolayer formed at air-water interface by 1,2-dipalmitoyl- sn-glycero- 3-phosphocholine (DPPC) lipids was reduced in the presence of the ILs. The x-ray reflectivity studies on polymer supported lipid bilayer have shown the bilayer to shrink and correspondingly exhibit an increase in electron density. The presence of a certain mol% of negatively charged lipid, 1,2-dipalmitoyl-rac-glycero-3-phospho-L-serine (DPPS), in DPPC mono- and bi-layers enhances the effect considerably.

A Clinical Study on Comparative Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Carbamazepine and Combination of Carbamazepine with Baclofen or Capsaicin in the Management of Trigeminal Neuralgia

Background:

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is characterized by recurrent attacks of lancinating pain in the trigeminal nerve distribution. Various medicinal and surgical procedures have been utilized for the treatment of TN. Over the time, several drugs other than carbamazepine have been used but none of them have shown satisfying results.

Objective:

The objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of carbamazepine and combination of carbamazepine with baclofen or capsaicin in the management of TN.

Materials and Methods:

A total of 45 patients diagnosed with TN were randomly divided into three groups. The patients were prescribed carbamazepine in Group 1, carbamazepine and baclofen in Group 2, and carbamazepine and capsaicin in Group 3. All the patients were followed on the 7^th day, 15^th day, and 1-month period to evaluate the response to the drugs. Data were subjected to statistics.

Results:

The results are composed of a total of 45 patients (15 in each group). The mean visual analogue scale scores were calculated for each group at day 0, 7^th day, 15^th day, and 30 days, and it was found that there was statistically significant reduction of pain (P < 0.001) in all the three groups at different intervals. At day 7, comparative percentage reduction of pain in both groups was not statistically significant. At 15-days and 30 days, percentage change in pain reduction in Group 1 was 42.3% and 48.0% respectively and in Group 2 it was found to be 60.3% and 83.4%, respectively. The reduction in pain percentage was found to be statistically significant. Similarly, Group 1 was compared to Group 3, significant reduction of pain was found for carbamazepine-capsaicin combination at 30-day interval but the comparative reduction of pain at 7^th day and 15^th day was not statistically significant.

Conclusion:

Carbamazepine in combination with baclofen is more efficient and effective in reducing pain in TN patients, followed by carbamazepine-capsaicin combination compared to carbamazepine alone.

Utilization of Bioinorganic Nanodrugs and Nanomaterials for the Control of Infectious Diseases Using Deep Learning

As one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality, viral infections have a major impact on the well-being and economics of every nation in the globe. The ability to predictably diagnose viral infections improves the provision of good healthcare as well as the control and prevention of these conditions. Nanomaterials have gained widespread usage in the medical industry recently due to the rapid advancement of nanotechnology and their exceptional chemical and physical qualities, such as their small size and synthesized surface properties. The utilization of nanoparticles for illness detection, surveillance, control, preventive, and therapy, such as the treatment of bacterial infections, is referred to as nanomedicine. Nanomedicine is a comprehensive discipline that is founded on the usage of nanotechnology for clinical objectives. Nanoparticles, which have a nanoscale dimension and exhibit highly controllable optical and physical characteristics as well as the ability to bind to a large variety of chemicals, are among the most popular nanomaterials in nanomedicine. A deep learning framework of autoencoder for categorization study on viral infections is built based on actual hospital patient history of viral infections from August 2015 to August 2020. The information comprises of 10,950 cases, comprising outpatients and inpatients, encompassing the infectious diseases. Of such 10,950 instances, training set made up 70% or 7665 instances, and testing data made up 30% or 3285 instances. The data processing was done using the presented recurrent neural network-artificial bee colony (RNN-ABC) method. Sparse data densifying processes are done through the autoencoder to enhance the system learning outcome. The suggested autoencoder system was also evaluated to other widely used models, including support vector machine, logistic regression, random forest, and Naïve Bayes. In comparison to other approaches, the study's findings demonstrate how well the suggested autoencoder model can predict viral diseases. The methods used for this research can aid in removing reported lags in current monitoring systems, hence reducing society's expenses.

Awareness of Dry Eyes Disease among Dental Students - A Survey

Introduction: Dry eye is a common condition that affects 85 percent of adult students worldwide, has no effective treatment, and results in significant loss of productivity at work. Aim: This study aims to assess the knowledge and awareness of dental students about dry eye disease. Materials and Methods: An online google form was used to distribute a questionnaire based study with 12 questions to 100 people. The study began with the participants being briefed on the trial's details. The study used a 100-person sample size. The information was gathered and statistically examined. Results: In this study, 96% of the students were aware that lack of sleep causes Dry Eyes Disease and 4% of the students were unaware of it. Around 83% of the students were aware that dry eye is reversible and 17% of the students were not aware of it. The overall result was positive, most of them were aware of the dry eye disease. This proves an outright positive result. Conclusion: The present study shows that the students under 75% were aware of Dry Eyes Disease but 25% were unaware of dry eye disease. There is no sufficient awareness among dental students. So, by this survey, we create more awareness among dental students.

An enhanced encryption-based security framework in the CPS Cloud

The rapid advancement of computation techniques and cloud computing has led to substantial advancements in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), particularly in the field of health care. There are a variety of ways in which CPS is used in healthcare today, including delivering intelligent feedback systems, automatically updating patient data digitally, monitoring patients passively with biosensors, etc. In recent years, cyber-physical systems have become capable of making lifesaving decisions as they are becoming more connected to the cloud. However, healthcare has become one of the most critical issues for many. A CPS network uses the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) to continuously monitor patients’ health metrics such as body temperature, heart rate, etc. Due to physical connectivity restrictions, networks are more susceptible to security threats. In spite of the fact that the data is stored in the cloud, it is necessary to provide security regardless of device security and network security. Several cyber-security vulnerabilities have been identified in cloud-based healthcare systems in particular. To give patients a reliable healthcare experience, security concerns with CPSs need to be addressed carefully. In this context, this paper proposes a Cross-Breed Blowfish and MD5 (CBM) approach to improve the security of health data in the CPS cloud. The proposed model uses the wireless sensor network, in which data acquired by the network is transmitted via the transmitting node. Using the fuzzified effective trust-based routing protocol (FET-RP), the most efficient path for data travel is selected. The best route is determined using Butter-Ant Optimization (BAO) algorithm. The proposed method conveys data throughput encryption and decryption in a decoded format. The encrypted data is then stored in the cloud database for security reasons. The route finding algorithm is the one which is sending the data from one end to other end. The data is encrypted based on the source and destination. We compare the performance metrics of our recommended technique to those of other existing techniques, such as RSA, Two fish, ICC, and FHEA, in order to ensure that it performs optimally. The values of Cross Breed Blowfish and MD5 and FET-RP with regard to the performance metrics in terms of encryption (60 ms), decryption (55 ms), latency (60 s), throughput (97 mbps), security level (98%), and execution time (57 ms) which outperforms the conventional methods by 10–15%. Also the proposed encryption shows the considerable improvement in the level of security making our model a real world solution.

Enabling trust and security between fog nodes using blockchain technology

Fog computing enables the data analysis done nearer to the place of data generated, which makes a very short response time. Trust is essential for the effective performance of the fog nodes to overcome uncertainty, vulnerability, and risk. To enhance the trusted connection in fog computing, blockchain technology is adopted as a solution. Inclusion of blockchain in fog environment ensures consistency and security among the fog nodes. Each fog node mines every transaction and stores them as block creating a chain of blocks. In this proposed work, the adaption of blockchain technology is designed as a suitable solution for establishing trusted security between fog nodes and for which a qualitative assessment is done.

Anti-diabetic and Antioxidant Activity of Pterocarpus santalinus and Stevia Herbal Formulation

Introduction: Pterocarpus santalinus have their application in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, agricultural, and food industries. Stevia​ (​Stevia rebaudiana​) is a natural, non-caloric sugar substitute that is a rich source of a pharmacologically significant glycoside. Proper diet, exercise, and pharmacological interventions contribute to overcoming diabetes. Aim: The present study aims to assess the anti-diabetic and antioxidant activity of Pterocarpus santalinus and Stevia herbal formulation. Materials and Methods: Preparation of plant extract followed by antidiabetic and antioxidant activity. Results: Results were tabulated and graphically analyzed using SPSS software. As the concentration increased the percentage of inhibition also increased in both antidiabetic and antioxidant activity. Conclusion: The present study concluded that Pterocarpus santalinus and Stevia herbal formulation has antidiabetic and antioxidant activity.

Does Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Increase the Survival in Patients with Locally Advanced Gastric Cancer Patients? – A Real‑World Evidence

Background: In locally advanced gastric cancer (LAGC), perioperative chemotherapy has shown to improve the survival to a larger extent compared to surgery alone. In India, the treatment followed for gastric carcinoma widely varies based on the type of health-care provider and treatment access. There is a paucity of data on the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on survival among LAGC patients in the Indian context. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) between neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapies among LAGC patients. Subjects and Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study involving clinical record review of LAGC patients enrolled between 2015 and 2017 from four tertiary cancer centers in South India. The date for the following events, namely diagnosis, recurrence, death, and last day of visit, was extracted in a mobile-based open-access tool. The median duration of OS and DFS between the neoadjuvant and adjuvant groups was compared using Kaplan–Meier survival curves. Results: Of the 137 patients, 70 (51%) had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery and 67 (49%) had adjuvant chemotherapy following the surgery. The mean (standard deviation) age of participants was 55.4 (11.4) years. Seventy-eight percent of the patients were diagnosed at Stage 3 or 4. Regional lymph nodes were involved in 83.9%. The median duration of follow-up was 15 months. The OS in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant groups was 18.6 months and 8.3 months, respectively. Nonregional lymph node involvement and adjacent organ involvement had independently increased the risk of death. Conclusion: Among LAGC patients, the neoadjuvant chemotherapy indicated a better median and DFS compared to the adjuvant group. However, these findings were statistically not significant. The current study has contributed an important finding to the existing evidences of clinical practice in an Indian setting. Further large-scale studies are required to validate the promising trend of using neoadjuvant chemotherapy in LAGC.

Analysis of White Blood Cell Count and Its Differential Count in Gingival and Periodontal Conditions Associated with Bleeding Gingiva

Background: Bleeding gingiva is caused primarily due to the accumulation of plaque and calculus which eventually leads to gingivitis or periodontitis. Other causes of bleeding gingiva can be due to improper flossing, over brushing of the teeth and gingiva, hormonal changes due to pregnancy, ill-fitting dentures and any other dental appliances impinging the gingiva. The bleeding gingiva can also indicate serious health problems like leukemia, scurvy, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, vitamin k deficiency and any bleeding disorder. Persistent gingival bleeding is a sign of serious medical problems like leukemia and platelet disorders. Leukemia is a group of cancer where there is an increased number of immature or abnormal white blood cells. In this study, the WBC and their differential count is analyzed in patients with bleeding gingiva to check the possibilities for the patient to get cancer. Aim: To measure and observe the WBC count and its differentials by testing the blood from patients with bleeding gingiva. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in the clinical pathology lab at Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Chennai. 100 subjects were subjected to the study. Subjects with chief complaint of bleeding gingiva, without systemic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and patients with the age of above 10 were included in the study. Results and Conclusion: This study was conducted to analyze the WBC count and differential count among the patients with bleeding gingiva. No significant correlation was found between bleeding gingiva and white blood cells & their differential count in this study.