Macro-to-micro porous special bioactive glass and ceftriaxone-sulbactam composite drug delivery system for treatment of chronic osteomyelitis: an investigation through in vitro and in vivo animal trial

A systematic and extensive approach incorporating in vitro and in vivo experimentation to treat chronic osteomyelitis in animal model were made using antibiotic loaded special bioactive glass porous scaffolds. After thorough characterization for porosity, distribution, surface charge, a novel drug composite were infiltrated by using vacuum infiltration and freeze-drying method which was subsequently analyzed by SEM-EDAX and studied for in vitro drug elution in PBS and SBF. Osteomyelitis in rabbit was induced by inoculation of Staphylococcus aureus and optimum drug-scaffold were checked for its efficacy over control and parenteral treated animals in terms of histopathology, radiology, in vivo drug concentration in bone and serum and implant-bone interface by SEM. It was optimized that 60P samples with 60-65% porosity (bimodal distribution of macro- to micropore) with average pore size ~60 μm and higher interconnectivity, moderately high antibiotic adsorption efficiency (~49%) was ideal. Results after 42 days showed antibiotic released higher than MIC against S. aureus compared to parenteral treatment (2 injections a day for 6 weeks). In vivo drug pharmacokinetics and SEM on bone-defect interface proved superiority of CFS loaded porous bioactive glass implants over parenteral group based on infection eradication and new bone formation.     

Cryptanalysis and improvement of ‘a robust smart‐card‐based remote user password authentication scheme’

With the use of smart card in user authentication mechanisms, the concept of two‐factor authentication came into existence. This was a forward move towards more secure and reliable user authentication systems. It elevated the security level by requiring a user to possess something in addition to know something. In 2010, Sood et al. and Song independently examined a smart‐card‐based authentication scheme proposed by Xu et al. They showed that in the scheme of Xu et al., an internal user of the system can turn hostile to impersonate other users of the system. Both of them also proposed schemes to improve the scheme of Xu et al. Recently, Chen et al. identified some security problems in the improved schemes proposed by Sood et al. and Song. To fix these problems, Chen et al. presented another scheme, which they claimed to provide mutual authentication and withstand lost smart card attack. Undoubtedly, in their scheme, a user can also verify the legitimacy of server, but we find that the scheme fails to resist impersonation attacks and privileged insider attack. We also show that the scheme does not provide important features such as user anonymity, confidentiality to air messages, and revocation of lost/stolen smart card. Besides, the scheme defies the very purpose of two‐factor security. Furthermore, an attacker can guess a user's password from his or her lost/stolen smart card. To meet these challenges, we propose a user authentication method with user anonymity. We show through analysis and comparison that the proposed scheme exhibits enhanced efficiency in contrast to related schemes, including the scheme of Chen et al. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unsteady laminar incompressible second-order boundary-layer flow at a three-dimensional stagnation point

Summary The unsteadely laminar incompressible second-order boundary-layer flow at the stagnation point of a three-dimensional body has been studied for both nodal and saddle point regions. The effects of mass transfer and Prandtl number have been taken into account. The equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using an implicit finite-difference scheme. It has been found that the parameter characterizing the unsteadiness in the velocity of the free stream, the nature of the stagnation point, the mass transfer and Prandtl number strongly affect the second-order skin friction and heat transfer. The overall skin friction becomes less due to second-order effects but the heat transfer has the opposite behaviour. For large injection, the second-order skin-friction and heat-transfer results prevail over the first-order boundary layer results whereas for the case of large suction the behaviour is just the opposite.With 14 Figures     

Preparation, characterization and dielectric properties of Ba3Ln3Ti5Nb5O30 (Ln=La, Nd) ceramics

Ba₃Ln₃Ti₅Nb₅O₃₀ (Ln=La, Nd) ceramics were prepared by the conventional solid-state ceramic route. The sintered samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) methods. They have high dielectric constants, 141 and 203 at 13 MHz for La-based and Nd-based ceramics, respectively. The loss factor of the ceramics increases with frequency.     

Unsteady incompressible boundary layer flow of a micropolar fluid at a stagnation point

The flow, heat and mass transfer on the unsteady laminar incompressible boundary layer in micropolar fluid at the stagnation point of a 2-dimensional and an axisymmetric body have been studied when the free stream velocity and the wall temperature vary arbitrarily with time. The partial defferential equations governing the flow have been solved numerically using a quasilinear finite-difference scheme. The skin friction, microrotation gradient and heat transfer parameters are found to be strongly dependent on the coupling parameter, mass transfer and time, whereas the effect of the microrotation parameter on the skin friction and heat transfer is rather weak, but microrotation gradient is strongly affected by it. The Prandtl number and the variation of the wall temperature with time affect the heat-transfer very significantly but the skin friction and micrortation gradient are unaffected by them.     

Induction of ovulation in the human with centchroman: a preliminary report

After burn or resection of one submandibular salivary gland the contralateral gland responded by an increase of proliferation. The maximal mitotic index was observed 48 hours after the resection and 72 hours after the burn. Burn of the salivary gland initiated a stable, but weak compensatory hypertrophy of the contralateral gland. Hypertrophy of the gland was accompanied by an increase in the size of the cells and the nuclei whose area enlarged by 10 and 17%, respectively. Resection of the salivary gland caused an increase in the weight of the intact contralateral gland only at the early periods of the experiment. By the 30th and the 45th day after the operation the weight of the intact contralateral gland failed to differ from control. The detected differences in the compensatory growth of the intact glands in two types of action on the contralateral salivary gland depended on the quantity of the tissue degeneration products and on the period of their stay in the organism.     

On the sintering kinetics of titania doped ceramic lanthanum chromite

The sintering behaviour of lanthanum chromite with the addition of 1 to 3 wt% TiO₂ was studied. Densification was examined as a function of sintering temperature and TiO₂ concentration. The results showed that pure LaCrO₃ could not be densified to >75% of the theoretical density, while the densities exceeding 90% of the theoretical were achieved with 3 wt% titania addition at 1600° C. Metallographic study reveals a normal grain growth following the rate equationD ²−D ₀ ² =kt. Activation energies both for densification and grain growth have been estimated to be ≈ (80±5) k cal/mole in case of 3 wt% TiO₂ addition.