Pefloxacin in leprosy

Fluoroquinolones, a new class of compounds characterised by broad antimicrobial spectrum including mycobacteria together with limited toxicity, have recently been introduced in the chemotherapy of various human infectious diseases. Pefloxacin, one of the members of this class, was recently demonstrated to be bactericidal against M.leprae in the mouse foot-pad model and clinically beneficial in lepromatous leprosy patients. Clinical response to standard MDT with added pefloxacin in ten previously untreated (both PB and MB) was compared with that in ten similar patients on MDT alone in the present trial. The results of chemotherapy were quantified by a method of clinical scoring. This pilot study showed that addition of pefloxacin led to significant and rapid clinical improvement. There were no side effects attributable to pefloxacin.     

Design of an Ultra-Compact and Highly-Sensitive Temperature Sensor Using Photonic Crystal Based Single Micro-Ring Resonator and Cascaded Micro-Ring Resonator

Silicon - In the present report, a photonic crystal based micro-ring resonator (MRR) structure is proposed which is very compact in size and has very fast response and is employed for temperature...     

Spatio-temporal polygonal clustering with space and time as first-class citizens

Detecting spatio-temporal clusters, i.e. clusters of objects similar to each other occurring together across space and time, has important real-world applications such as climate change, drought analysis, detection of outbreak of epidemics (e.g. bird flu), bioterrorist attacks (e.g. anthrax release), and detection of increased military activity. Research in spatio-temporal clustering has focused on grouping individual objects with similar trajectories, detecting moving clusters, or discovering convoys of objects. However, most of these solutions are based on using a piece-meal approach where snapshot clusters are formed at each time stamp and then the series of snapshot clusters are analyzed to discover moving clusters. This approach has two fundamental limitations. First, it is point-based and is not readily applicable to polygonal datasets. Second, its static analysis approach at each time slice is susceptible to inaccurate tracking of dynamic cluster especially when clusters change over both time and space. In this paper we present a spatio-temporal polygonal clustering algorithm known as the Spatio-Temporal Polygonal Clustering (STPC) algorithm. STPC clusters spatial polygons taking into account their spatial and topological properties, treating time as a first-class citizen, and integrating density-based clustering with moving cluster analysis. Our experiments on the drought analysis application, flu spread analysis and crime cluster detection show the validity and robustness of our algorithm in an important geospatial application.     

Adaptive state-based multi-radio multi-channel multi-path routing in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are envisioned to seamlessly extend the network connectivity to end users by forming a wireless backbone that requires minimal infrastructure. Unfortunately for WMNs, frequent link quality fluctuations, excessive load on selective links, congestion, and limited capacity due to the half-duplex nature of radios are some key limiting factors that hinder their deployment. To address these problems, we propose a novel Adaptive State-based Multi-path Routing Protocol (ASMRP), which constructs Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) from each Mesh Router (MR) to Internet Gateways (IGWs) and effectively discovers multiple optimal path set between any given MR-IGW pair. A congestion aware traffic splitting algorithm to balance traffic over these multiple paths is presented which synergistically improves the overall performance of the WMNs. We design a novel Neighbor State Maintenance module that innovatively employs a state machine at each MR to monitor the quality of links connecting its neighbors in order to cope with unreliable wireless links. We also employ a 4-radio architecture for MRs, which allows them to communicate over multiple radios tuned to non-overlapping channels and better utilize the available spectrum. Through extensive simulations using ns-2, we observe that ASMRP substantially improves the achieved throughput (～5 times gain in comparison to AODV), and significantly minimizes end-to-end latencies. We also show that ASMRP ensures fairness in the network under varying traffic load conditions.     

Effect of SO<Subscript>4</Subscript> <Superscript>2-</Superscript>, Cl<Superscript>–</Superscript> and NO<Subscript>3</Subscript> <Superscript>-</Superscript> anions on the formation of iron oxide nanoparticles via microwave synthesis

In the present work iron oxide nanoparticles have been prepared by microwave assisted synthesis with the influence of different precursor salts and synthesis of magnetite, hematite, Iron oxide hydroxide and maghemite nanoparticles. Synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles were characterized with Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), and Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX). XRD measurements show that the peaks of diffractogram are in agreement with the theoretical data of magnetite, hematite, FeO(OH) (Iron oxide hydroxide) and maghemite. Crystallite size of the particles was found to be 33, 45, 36 and 43.5 nm for Fe₃O₄, α-Fe₂O₃, FeO(OH) and γ-Fe₂O₃. FESEM studies indicated that size of the particles is observed in the range of about 19.4 to 46.7 nm (Fig. 2a, average 32 nm), 29.1 to 67.6 nm (Fig. 2b average 45 nm), 29.1 to 40.8 (Fig. 2c average 36.6 nm), 29.1 to 80 nm (Fig. 2d average 43.5) for Fe₃O₄, α-Fe₂O₃, FeO(OH) and γ-Fe₂O₃ respectively. EDX spectral analysis reveals the presence of carbon, oxygen, iron in the synthesized nanoparticles. The FTIR graphs indicated absorption bands due to O–H stretching, C–O bending, C–H stretching and Fe–O stretching vibrations.     

Voltammetric Response and Determination of an Anti-Inflammatory Drug at a Cationic Surfactant-Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode

Electrochemical oxidation of thiosalicylic acid in the presence of cationic surfactant, cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), at a glassy carbon electrode was investigated. The electrochemical response of a modified sensor towards thiosalicylic acid determination was studied by the means of cyclic voltammetry, linear sweep voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The liquid phase oxidation of thiosalicylic acid in the presence of CTAB leads to a notable enhancement in the peak current and a lowering of the peak potential. The electrochemical process was observed to be adsorption-controlled, irreversible and involves oxidation of one electron. Effects of anodic peak potential (E _p), anodic peak current (I _pa) and heterogeneous rate constant (k ⁰) were calculated. The linear response was obtained in the range of 1.0 µM–1.0 mM with a detection limit of 113 nM.     

An Instant,Green, Microwave Irradiated Process for the Preparation of Advanced,Hybrid, Nanoflower of Thorium Oxide and Thorium Oxalate Hydrate Useful for Broad Application Spectrum

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - We report a facile and reproducible method to synthesize advanced, homogenized, hybrid, nanoflower of thorium oxide and thorium oxalate...     

Powder Compaction Dies and Compressibility of Various Materials

Powder Metallurgy and Metal Ceramics - Powder compaction is the most crucial process in powder metallurgy since almost all the desired properties of a material, such as a shape, size, density,...