Search results for: drug therapy problem

Authors: Hassan Samadi, Mustapha El Jarroudi

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In this work, we consider the homogenization of a non-linear problem in periodic medium with two periodic connected media exchanging a heat flux throughout their common interface. The interfacial exchange coefficient λ is assumed to tend to zero or to infinity following a rate λ=λ(ε) when the size ε of the basic cell tends to zero. Three homogenized problems are determined according to some critical value depending of λ and ε. Our method is based on Γ-Convergence techniques.

Keywords: variational methods, epiconvergence, homogenization, convergence technique

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Authors: Tayyaba Zahra, Shehla Gul Bokhari, Asim Khalid Mahmood, Raheela Akhtar, Khizar Matloob

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In Pakistan, dogs are commonly infested with ticks, especially in summers, causing not only dermatological issues but also systemic problems. Persistence of tick infestation often leads to heavy losses. Different acaricides are locally available with variable efficacy; however, recurrence of infestation is commonly reported. The present study was thus designed to compare the efficacy of a novel drug Fluralaner and conventionally used Ivermectin against tick infestation. Dogs positive for tick infestation were randomly divided into 2 groups viz, Groups A and B having 8 dogs each. Ticks were enumerated manually from the whole body of dogs at day 0 before the administration of drugs Dogs in Group A were treated with Fluralaner at day 0, and dogs in Group B were treated with Ivermectin. Post-treatment, ticks were counted again at days 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35. At day 07 of the study, no tick was found on the dogs treated with Fluralaner, while many ticks were present on the dogs treated with Ivermectin showing an efficacy up to 50%. On the consecutive follow-up evaluations, similar results were found for Fluralaner while the efficacy of Ivermectin was further reduced to less than 50%. Furthermore, Fluralaner treated dogs had better RBC counts, PCV, Hgb concentration, LFTs, RFTs post-treatment than the dogs treated with Ivermectin. Statistically, oral Fluralaner proved a more effective drug (P≤0.05)than oral Ivermectin against tick infestation in dogs.

Keywords: fluralaner, ivermectin, dogs, tick infestations

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Authors: Jackson Ishara, Ariel Buzera, Gustave N. Mushagalusa, Ahmed R. A. Hammam, Judith Munga, Paul Karanja, John Kinyuru

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Numerous mushroom bioactive metabolites, including polysaccharides, eritadenine, lignin, chitosan, mevinolin, and astrakurkurone have been studied in life-threatening conditions and diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular, hypertension, cancer, DNA damage, hypercholesterolemia, and obesity attempting to identify natural therapies. These bioactive metabolites have shown potential as antiviral and immune system strengthener natural agents through diverse cellular and physiological pathways modulation with no toxicity evidence, widely available, and affordable. In light of the emerging literature, this paper compiles the most recent information describing the molecular mechanisms that underlie the nutraceutical potentials of these mushroom metabolites suggesting their effectiveness if combined with existing drug therapies. The findings raise hope that these mushroom bioactive metabolites may be utilized as natural therapies considering their therapeutic potential while anticipating further research designing clinical trials and developing new drug therapies while encouraging their consumption as a natural adjuvant in preventing and controlling life-threatening conditions and diseases.

Keywords: bioactive metabolites, food functionality, health-threatening conditions, mushrooms, nutraceutical

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Authors: Gionata Carmignani, Mario G. C. A. Cimino, Franco Failli

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Business Processes (BPs) are the key instrument to understand how companies operate at an organizational level, taking an as-is view of the workflow, and how to address their issues by identifying a to-be model. In last year’s, the BP Model and Notation (BPMN) has become a de-facto standard for modeling processes. However, this standard does not incorporate explicitly the Problem-Solving (PS) knowledge in the Process Modeling (PM) results. Thus, such knowledge cannot be shared or reused. To narrow this gap is today a challenging research area. In this paper we present a framework able to capture the PS knowledge and to improve a workflow. This framework extends the BPMN specification by incorporating new general-purpose elements. A pilot scenario is also presented and discussed.

Keywords: business process management, BPMN, problem solving, process mapping

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Authors: Md. Alauddin, Md. Ruhul Amin, Md. Omar Faruque, Muhammad Ali Siddiquee, Zakir Hossain Howlader, Mohammad Asaduzzaman

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Diabetes and hypertension are the major lifestyle related diseases. The α-amylase and angiotensin converting enzymes (ACE) are the key enzymes that regulate diabetes and hypertension. The aim was to develop a drug for the treatment of diabetes and hypertension. The Rice Bran (RB) sample (Oryza sativa; BRRI-Dhan-84) was collected from the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), and rice bran proteins were isolated and hydrolyzed by hydrolyzing enzyme alcalase and trypsin. In vivo experiment suggested that rice bran bioactives has an effect on regulating the expression of several key gluconeogenesis and lipogenesis-regulating genes, such as glucose-6-phosphatase, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, and fatty acid synthase. The above genes have a connection of regulating the glucose level, lipids profile as well as act as an anti-inflammatory agent. A molecular docking, bioinformatics and in vitro experiments were performed. We found rice bran protein hydrolysates significantly (<0.05) influence the peptide concentration in the case of trypsin, alcalase, and (trypsin + alcalase) digestion. The in vitro analysis found that protein hydrolysate significantly (<0.05) reduced diabetic and hypertension as well as oxidative stress. A molecular docking study showed that the YY and IP peptide have a significantly strong binding affinity to the active site of the ACE enzyme and α-amylase with -7.8Kcal/mol and -6.2Kcal/mol, respectively. The Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and Swiss ADME data analysis showed that less toxicity risk, good physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetics, and drug-likeness with drug scores 0.45 and 0.55 of YY and IP peptides, respectively. Thus, rice bran bioactive could be a good candidate for the treatment of diabetes and hypertension.

Keywords: anti-hypertensive and anti-hyperglycemic, anti-oxidative, bioinformatics, in vitro study, rice bran proteins and peptides

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Authors: Amber Dhoot, Tarush Gupta, Andrea Gurr, William Jenkins, Sandro Pietrunti, Alexis Tang

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has driven pharmacovigilance towards a new paradigm. Nowadays, more people than ever before are recognising and reporting adverse reactions from medications, treatments, and vaccines. In the modern era, with over 3.8 billion users, social media has become the most accessible medium for people to voice their opinions and so provides an opportunity to engage with more patient-centric and accessible pharmacovigilance. However, the pharmaceutical industry has been slow to incorporate social media into its modern pharmacovigilance strategy. This project aims to make social media a more effective tool in pharmacovigilance, and so reduce drug costs, improve drug safety and improve patient outcomes. This will be achieved by firstly uncovering and categorising the barriers facing the widespread adoption of social media in pharmacovigilance. Following this, the potential opportunities of social media will be explored. We will then propose realistic, practical recommendations to make social media a more effective tool for pharmacovigilance. Methodology: A comprehensive systematic literature review was conducted to produce a categorised summary of these barriers. This was followed by conducting 11 semi-structured interviews with pharmacovigilance experts to confirm the literature review findings whilst also exploring the unpublished and real-life challenges faced by those in the pharmaceutical industry. Finally, a survey of the general public (n = 112) ascertained public knowledge, perception, and opinion regarding the use of their social media data for pharmacovigilance purposes. This project stands out by offering perspectives from the public and pharmaceutical industry that fill the research gaps identified in the literature review. Results: Our results gave rise to several key analysis points. Firstly, inadequacies of current Natural Language Processing algorithms hinder effective pharmacovigilance data extraction from social media, and where data extraction is possible, there are significant questions over its quality. Social media also contains a variety of biases towards common drugs, mild adverse drug reactions, and the younger generation. Additionally, outdated regulations for social media pharmacovigilance do not align with new, modern General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), creating ethical ambiguity about data privacy and level of access. This leads to an underlying mindset of avoidance within the pharmaceutical industry, as firms are disincentivised by the legal, financial, and reputational risks associated with breaking ambiguous regulations. Conclusion: Our project uncovered several barriers that prevent effective pharmacovigilance on social media. As such, social media should be used to complement traditional sources of pharmacovigilance rather than as a sole source of pharmacovigilance data. However, this project adds further value by proposing five practical recommendations that improve the effectiveness of social media pharmacovigilance. These include: prioritising health-orientated social media; improving technical capabilities through investment and strategic partnerships; setting clear regulatory guidelines using multi-stakeholder processes; creating an adverse drug reaction reporting interface inbuilt into social media platforms; and, finally, developing educational campaigns to raise awareness of the use of social media in pharmacovigilance. Implementation of these recommendations would speed up the efficient, ethical, and systematic adoption of social media in pharmacovigilance.

Keywords: adverse drug reaction, drug safety, pharmacovigilance, social media

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Authors: Abbes Lounis, Kahina Louadj, Mohamed Aidene

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This paper presents an optimal control problem applied to a robot; the problem is to determine a command which makes it possible to reach a final state from a given initial state in record time. The approach followed to solve this optimization problem with constraints on the control starts by presenting the equations of motion of the dynamic system then by applying Pontryagin's maximum principle (PMP) to determine the optimal control, and Picard's successive approximation method combined with the shooting method to solve the resulting differential system.

Keywords: robotics, Pontryagin's Maximum Principle, PMP, Picard's method, shooting method, non-linear differential systems

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Authors: Dmitri Terzi

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The article presents the results of an algorithmic study of a special optimization problem of the transport type (traveling salesman problem): 1) To solve the problem, a new natural algorithm has been developed based on the decomposition of the initial data into convex hulls, which has a number of advantages; it is applicable for a fairly large dimension, does not require a large amount of memory, and has fairly good performance. The relevance of the algorithm lies in the fact that, in practice, programs for problems with the number of traversal points of no more than twenty are widely used. For large-scale problems, the availability of algorithms and programs of this kind is difficult. The proposed algorithm is natural because the optimal solution found by the exact algorithm is not always feasible due to the presence of many other factors that may require some additional restrictions. 2) Another inverse problem solved here is to describe a class of traveling salesman problems that have a predetermined optimal solution. The constructed algorithm 2 allows us to characterize the structure of traveling salesman problems, as well as construct test problems to evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms and other purposes. 3) The appendix presents a software implementation of Algorithm 1 (in MATLAB), which can be used to solve practical problems, as well as in the educational process on operations research and optimization methods.

Keywords: traveling salesman problem, solution construction algorithm, convex hulls, optimality verification

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Authors: Virendra Nath, Vipin Kumar

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Background: TypeII Diabetes mellitus is a foremost health problem worldwide, predisposing to increased mortality and morbidity. Undesirable effects of the current medications have prompted the researcher to develop more potential drug(s) against the disease. The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are members of the nuclear receptors family and take part in a vital role in the regulation of metabolic equilibrium. They can induce or repress genes associated with adipogenesis, lipid, and glucose metabolism. Aims: Investigation of PPARα/γ agonistic hits were screened by hierarchical virtual screening followed by molecular dynamics simulation and knowledge-based structure-activity relation (SAR) analysis using approved PPAR α/γ dual agonist. Methods: The PPARα/γ agonistic activity of compounds was searched by using Maestro through structure-based virtual screening and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation application. Virtual screening of nuclear-receptor ligands was done, and the binding modes with protein-ligand interactions of newer entity(s) were investigated. Further, binding energy prediction, Stability studies using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of PPARα and γ complex was performed with the most promising hit along with the structural comparative analysis of approved PPARα/γ agonists with screened hit was done for knowledge-based SAR. Results and Discussion: The silicone chip-based approach recognized the most capable nine hits and had better predictive binding energy as compared to the reference drug compound (Tesaglitazar). In this study, the key amino acid residues of binding pockets of both targets PPARα/γ were acknowledged as essential and were found to be associated in the key interactions with the most potential dual hit (ChemDiv-3269-0443). Stability studies using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of PPARα and γ complex was performed with the most promising hit and found root mean square deviation (RMSD) stabile around 2Å and 2.1Å, respectively. Frequency distribution data also revealed that the key residues of both proteins showed maximum contacts with a potent hit during the MD simulation of 20 nanoseconds (ns). The knowledge-based SAR studies of PPARα/γ agonists were studied using 2D structures of approved drugs like aleglitazar, tesaglitazar, etc. for successful designing and synthesis of compounds PPARγ agonistic candidates with anti-hyperlipidimic potential.

Keywords: computational, diabetes, PPAR, simulation

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Authors: Triloki Nath, R. K. Gupta, L. P. Singh

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The aim of this paper is to find the new exact solution of the blast wave problem in one-dimensional unsteady adiabatic flow for generalized geometry in a compressible, inviscid ideal gas with dust particles. The density of the undisturbed region is assumed to vary according to a power law of the distance from the point of explosion. The exact solution of the problem in form of a power in the distance and the time is obtained. Further, the behaviour of the total energy carried out by the blast wave for planar, cylindrically symmetric and spherically symmetric flow corresponding to different Mach number of the fluid flow in dusty gas is presented. It is observed that the presence of dust particles in the gas yields more complex expression as compared to the ordinary Gasdynamics.

Keywords: shock wave, blast wave, dusty gas, strong shock

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Authors: S. Reshma Reghu, Shiburaj Sugathan, T. G. Nandu, K. B. Ramesh Kumar, Mathew Dan

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Bacterial diseases are considered to be one of the most prevalent health hazards in the developing world and many bacteria are becoming resistant to existing antibiotics making the treatment ineffective. Thus, it is necessary to find novel targets and develop new antibacterial drugs with a novel mechanism of action. The process of bacterial cell division is a novel and attractive target for new antibacterial drug discovery. FtsZ, a homolog of eukaryotic tubulin, is the major protein of the bacterial cell division machinery and is considered as an important antibacterial drug target. Zingiberaceae, the Ginger family consists of aromatic herbs with creeping rhizomes. Many of these plants have antimicrobial properties.This study aimed to determine the anti-bacterial activity of selected Zingiberaceous plants by targeting bacterial cell division protein, FtsZ. Essential oils and methanol extracts of Amomum ghaticum, Alpinia galanga, Kaempferia galanga, K. rotunda, and Zingiber officinale were tested to find its antibacterial efficiency using disc diffusion method against authentic bacterial strains obtained from MTCC (India). Essential oil isolated from A.galanga and Z.officinale were further assayed for FtsZ inhibition assay following non-radioactive malachite green-phosphomolybdate assay using E. coli FtsZ protein obtained from Cytoskelton Inc., USA. Z.officinale essential oil possess FtsZ inhibitory property. A molecular docking study was conducted with the known bioactive compounds of Z. officinale as ligands with the E. coli FtsZ protein homology model. Some of the major constituents of this plant like catechin, epicatechin, and gingerol possess agreeable docking scores. The results of this study revealed that several chemical constituents in Ginger plants can be utilised as potential source of antibacterial activity and it can warrant further investigation through drug discovery studies.

Keywords: antibacterial, FtsZ, zingiberaceae, docking

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Authors: Elham Vojoudi, Marzieh Mehrafza, Ahmad Hosseini, Azadeh Raofi, Maryam Najafi

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Premature ovarian failure (POF) has become one of the main causes of infertility in women of childbearing age and the incidence of this disorder is increasing year by year. In these patients, poor ovarian response (POR) to gonadotropins reflects a diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) that gives place to few follicles despite aggressive stimulation. Up to now, egg donation is the only way to resolve infertility problems in POF patients. Therefore, some novel aspects such as activating (Akt signaling pathway) and inhibiting (Hippo-signaling) elements have been identified as IVA procedure that promotes primordial follicle activation. In this study, we used the newly developed technique (combination of in vitro activation of dormant follicles (IVA) and stem cell therapy) to promote ovarian follicle growth much more efficiently than the natural, in vivo process for women with POF. Transplantation of Warton Jelly-MSCs to the ovaries of POF patients rescued overall ovarian function. Participants (10 patients) were followed up monthly for a period of six months by hormonal (AMH, FSH, LH and E2), clinical (resuming menstruation), and US (folliculometry) outcomes after a laparoscopic operation. In summary, IVA/WJ-MSC transplantation may provide an effective treatment for POF.

Keywords: POF, in vitro activation, stem cell therapy, infertility

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Authors: Mehmet Nefes, Selman Demirel, Hasan H. Ertok, Cenk Sen

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A typical reliability engineering problem regarding communication satellites has been considered to determine redundancy allocation scheme of power amplifiers within payload transponder module, whose dominant function is to amplify power levels of the received signals from the Earth, through maximizing reliability against mass, power, and other technical limitations. Adding each redundant power amplifier component increases not only reliability but also hardware, testing, and launch cost of a satellite. This study investigates a multi-objective approach used in order to solve Redundancy Allocation Problem (RAP) for a communication satellite payload transponder, focusing on design cost due to redundancy and reliability factors. The main purpose is to find the optimum power amplifier redundancy configuration satisfying reliability and capacity thresholds simultaneously instead of analyzing respectively or independently. A mathematical model and calculation approach are instituted including objective function definitions, and then, the problem is solved analytically with different input parameters in MATLAB environment. Example results showed that payload capacity and failure rate of power amplifiers have remarkable effects on the solution and also processing time.

Keywords: communication satellite payload, multi-objective optimization, redundancy allocation problem, reliability, transponder

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Authors: Yousef Abu Nahleh, Alhasan Hakami, Arun Kumar, Fugen Daver

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This study considers the problem of calculating safety stocks in disaster situations inventory systems that face demand uncertainties. Safety stocks are essential to make the supply chain, which is controlled by forecasts of customer needs, in response to demand uncertainties and to reach predefined goal service levels. To solve the problem of uncertainties due to the disaster situations affecting the industry sector, the concept of Emergency Safety Stock (ESS) was proposed. While there exists a huge body of literature on determining safety stock levels, this literature does not address the problem arising due to the disaster and dealing with the situations. In this paper, the problem of improving the Order Quantity Model to deal with uncertainty of demand due to disasters is managed by incorporating a new idea called ESS which is based on the probability of disaster occurrence and uses probability matrix calculated from the historical data.

Keywords: Emergency Safety Stocks, safety stocks, Order Quantity Model, supply chain

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Authors: Ilqar Ramazanli

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The matrix completion problem has been studied broadly under many underlying conditions. The problem has been explored under adaptive or non-adaptive, exact or estimation, single-phase or multi-phase, and many other categories. In most of these cases, the observation cost of each entry is uniform and has the same cost across the columns. However, in many real-life scenarios, we could expect elements from distinct columns or distinct positions to have a different cost. In this paper, we explore this generalization under adaptive conditions. We approach the problem under two different cost models. The first one is that entries from different columns have different observation costs, but within the same column, each entry has a uniform cost. The second one is any two entry has different observation cost, despite being the same or different columns. We provide complexity analysis of our algorithms and provide tightness guarantees.

Keywords: matroid optimization, matrix completion, linear algebra, algorithms

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Authors: T. Marinaci, C. Venuleo

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Different conceptualizations of disease affect patient care. This study aims to address this gap. It explores how health professionals conceptualize gambling problem, addiction and the goals of recovery process. In-depth, semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with Italian psychologists, psychiatrists, general practitioners, and support staff (N= 114), working within health centres for the treatment of addiction (public health services or therapeutic communities) or medical offices. A Lexical Correspondence Analysis (LCA) was applied to the verbatim transcripts. LCA allowed to identify two main factorial dimensions, which organize similarity and dissimilarity in the discourses of the interviewed. The first dimension labelled 'Models of relationship with the problem', concerns two different models of relationship with the health problem: one related to the request for help and the process of taking charge and the other related to the identification of the psychopathology underlying the disorder. The second dimension, labelled 'Organisers of the intervention' reflects the dialectic between two ways to address the problem. On the one hand, they are the gambling dynamics and its immediate life-consequences to organize the intervention (whatever the request of the user is); on the other hand, they are the procedures and the tools which characterize the health service to organize the way the professionals deal with the user’ s problem (whatever it is and despite the specify of the user’s request). The results highlight how, despite the differences, the respondents share a central assumption: understanding gambling problem implies the reference to the gambler’s identity, more than, for instance, to the relational, social, cultural or political context where the gambler lives. A passive stance is attributed to the user, who does not play any role in the definition of the goal of the intervention. The results will be discussed to highlight the relationship between professional models and users’ ways to understand and deal with the problems related to gambling.

Keywords: cultural models, health professionals, intervention models, problem gambling

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Authors: Sanjay Singh, Swati Jaiswal, Prashant Mishra

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Nanoparticle based formulations of drug delivery systems have shown their potential in improving the performance of existing drugs and have opened avenues for new therapies. Calendula extract is a low cost, wide spectrum bioactive material that has been used for a long term therapy of various infections. Aim: The aim of this study was to develop Calendula officinalis extract based nanoformulations and to study the antibacterial activity of either Calendula extract loaded chitosan nanoparticles or Calendula extract coated silver nanoparticles for increased bioavailability and their long term effect. Methods: Chitosan nanoparticles were prepared by the process of ionotropic gelation, based on interaction between the negative groups of tri polyphosphate (TPP) and positively charged amino groups of chitosan. The size of the Calendula extract-loaded chitosan particles was determined using dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy. Antibacterial activities of these formulations were determined based on minimum inhibitory concentration and time kill studies. In addition, silver nanoparticles were also synthesized in the presence of Calendula extract and characterized by UV visible spectrum, DLS and XRD. Experiments were conducted on 96-plates against two Gram-positive bacteria; Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis two Gram-negative bacteria; Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Results: Results demonstrated time dependent antibacterial activity against different microbes studied. Both Calendula extract and Calendula extract loaded chitosan nanoparticles have shown good antimicrobial activity against both Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria. Conclusion: Calendula extract loaded chitosan nanoparticles and calendula extract coated silver nanoparticles are potential antibacterial for their long term antibacterial effects.

Keywords: antibacterial, Calendula extract, chitosan nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles

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Authors: M. Rodionov, Z. Dedovets

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This article discusses plausible reasoning use for solution to practical problems. Such reasoning is the major driver of motivation and implementation of mathematical, scientific and educational research activity. A general, practical problem solving algorithm is presented which includes an analysis of specific problem content to build, solve and interpret the underlying mathematical model. The author explores the role of practical problems such as the stimulation of students' interest, the development of their world outlook and their orientation in the modern world at the different stages of learning mathematics in secondary school. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of those problems which were systematized and presented in the conclusions.

Keywords: mathematics, motivation, secondary school, student, practical problem

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Authors: Shekoufeh Behdad, Amirhossein Yadegari, Leila Ghodrati, Saman Yadegari

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Context: Preoperative anxiety is a common psychological reaction experienced by all patients undergoing surgery. It can have negative effects on the patient's well-being and even impact surgical outcomes. Therefore, finding effective interventions to reduce preoperative anxiety is important in improving patient care. Research Aim: The aim of this study is to compare the effects of oral administration of zaleplon (5 mg) and alprazolam (0.5 mg) on preoperative anxiety levels in women undergoing gynecological abdominal surgery. Methodology: This study is a double-blind, randomized clinical trial conducted after receiving approval from the university's ethics committee and obtaining written informed consent from the patients. The night before the surgery, patients were randomly assigned to receive either 0.5 mg of alprazolam or 5 mg of zaleplon orally. Anxiety levels, measured using a 10-cm visual analog scale, and hemodynamic variables (blood pressure and heart rate) were assessed before drug administration and on the morning of the operation after the patient entered the pre-operation room. Findings: The study found that there were no significant differences in mean anxiety levels or hemodynamic variables before and after administration of either drug in both groups (P value > 0.05). This suggests that both 0.5 mg of alprazolam and 5 mg of zaleplon effectively reduce preoperative anxiety in women undergoing abdominal surgery without serious side effects. Theoretical Importance: This study contributes to the understanding of the effectiveness of alprazolam and zaleplon in reducing preoperative anxiety. It adds to the existing literature on pharmacological interventions for anxiety management, specifically in the context of gynecological abdominal surgery. Data Collection: Data for this study were collected through the assessment of anxiety levels using a visual analog scale and measuring hemodynamic variables, including systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressures, as well as heart rate. These measurements were taken before drug administration and on the morning of the surgery. Analysis Procedures: Statistical analysis was performed to compare the mean anxiety levels and hemodynamic variables before and after drug administration in the two groups. The significance of the differences was determined using appropriate statistical tests. Questions Addressed: This study aimed to answer the question of whether there are differences in the effects of alprazolam and zaleplon on preoperative anxiety levels in women undergoing gynecological abdominal surgery. Conclusion: The oral administration of both 0.5 mg of alprazolam and 5 mg of zaleplon the night before surgery effectively reduces preoperative anxiety in women undergoing abdominal surgery. These findings have important implications for the management of preoperative anxiety and can contribute to improving the overall surgical experience for patients.

Keywords: zaleplon, alprazolam, premedication, abdominal surgery

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Authors: Lilia Edit Aparicio Pico, Paulo Cesar Coronado Sánchez, Roberto Ferro Escobar

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This paper presents the implementation of telemedicine services for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy rehabilitation, utilizing telebroadcasting of audiovisual content to enhance comprehensive patient recovery in rural areas of San Vicente del Caguán municipality, characterized by high levels of social conflict in Colombia. The region faces challenges such as dysfunctional problems, physical rehabilitation needs, and a high prevalence of hearing diseases, leading to neglect and substandard health services. Limited access to healthcare due to communication barriers and transportation difficulties exacerbates these issues. To address these challenges, a research initiative was undertaken to leverage information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve healthcare quality and accessibility for this vulnerable population. The primary objective was to develop a tele-rehabilitation system to provide asynchronous online therapies and teleconsultation services for patient follow-up during the recovery process. The project comprises two components: Communication systems and human development. A technological component involving the establishment of a wireless network connecting rural centers and the development of a mobile application for video-based therapy delivery. Communications systems will be provided by a radio link that utilizes internet provided by the Colombian government, located in the municipality of San Vicente del Caguán to connect two rural centers (Pozos and Tres Esquinas) and a mobile application for managing videos for asynchronous broadcasting in sidewalks and patients' homes. This component constitutes an operational model integrating information and telecommunications technologies. The second component involves pedagogical and human development. The primary focus is on the patient, where performance indicators and the efficiency of therapy support were evaluated for the assessment and monitoring of telerehabilitation results in physical, occupational, and speech therapy. They wanted to implement a wireless network to ensure audiovisual content transmission for tele-rehabilitation, design audiovisual content for tele-rehabilitation based on services provided by the ESE Hospital San Rafael in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, develop a software application for fixed and mobile devices enabling access to tele-rehabilitation audiovisual content for healthcare personnel and patients and finally to evaluate the technological solution's contribution to the ESE Hospital San Rafael community. The research comprised four phases: wireless network implementation, audiovisual content design, software application development, and evaluation of the technological solution's impact. Key findings include the successful implementation of virtual teletherapy, both synchronously and asynchronously, and the assessment of technological performance indicators, patient evolution, timeliness, acceptance, and service quality of tele-rehabilitation therapies. The study demonstrated improved service coverage, increased care supply, enhanced access to timely therapies for patients, and positive acceptance of teletherapy modalities. Additionally, the project generated new knowledge for potential replication in other regions and proposed strategies for short- and medium-term improvement of service quality and care indicators

Keywords: e-health, medical informatics, telemedicine, telerehabilitation, virtual therapy

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Authors: Ahmed Elrewainy

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Mixing in the hyperspectral imaging occurs due to the low spatial resolutions of the used cameras. The existing pure materials “endmembers” in the scene share the spectra pixels with different amounts called “abundances”. Unmixing of the data cube is an important task to know the present endmembers in the cube for the analysis of these images. Unsupervised unmixing is done with no information about the given data cube. Sparsity is one of the recent approaches used in the source recovery or unmixing techniques. The l₁-norm optimization problem “basis pursuit” could be used as a sparsity-based approach to solve this unmixing problem where the endmembers is assumed to be sparse in an appropriate domain known as dictionary. This optimization problem is solved using proximal method “iterative thresholding”. The l₁-norm basis pursuit optimization problem as a sparsity-based unmixing technique was used to unmix real and synthetic hyperspectral data cubes.

Keywords: basis pursuit, blind source separation, hyperspectral imaging, spectral unmixing, wavelets

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Authors: Yang-Kuei Lin, Yin-Yi Chou

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In this research, we have considered operating room scheduling problem. The objective is to minimize total operating cost. The total operating cost includes idle cost and overtime cost. We have proposed a dispatching rule that can guarantee to find feasible solutions for the studied problem efficiently. We compared the proposed dispatching rule with the optimal solutions found by solving Inter Programming, and other solutions found by using modified existing dispatching rules. The computational results indicates that the proposed heuristic can find near optimal solutions efficiently.

Keywords: assignment, dispatching rule, operation rooms, scheduling

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Authors: Nantale Prossy Nabatte, Josephat Nyagero, Elizabeth Kemigisha

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Background: Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a prevalent sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the world. It is important to screen for HPV so that women found positive receive early treatment to prevent the development of cervical cancer. The broad aim of the research was to explore the types, occurrence, and associated correlates of HPV infection by genotyping Human papillomavirus among a cohort of WLHIV attending an antiretroviral therapy clinic in Mukono, Uganda. Methods: A cross-sectional study was used to collect data for socio-demographic, sexual practices, and medical history factors associated with HPV genotypes using a pretested interview guide subjected to 342 WLHIV. The respondents’ results for HPV genotypes were obtained retrospectively from respective laboratory records. Data was entered in Epidata v4.6 and analysed using STATA V14. The prevalence of hr-HPV was estimated as a proportion of the entire sample size. Analysis for the correlates of hr-HPV infection was done using a modified Poisson regression model. Results: Slightly more than a half of respondents were aged below 35 years (56.7%), married (52.6%), and with a primary level of education (51.2%). The prevalence of hr-HPV was 39.8% at a 95% confidence interval (CI: 34.40- 44.78). The hr-HPV was higher among those between 30-34 years of age (n= 41, 30.2%) than those between the age of 45-49 years (n=16, 11.8%). In terms of associated correlates, age 45-49 years (aPR: 1.95, 95% CI: 1.41- 2.69), being married (aPR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.69), use of condoms (aPR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.00 -1.71) and age of sexual debut (aPR: 1.42, 95% CI: 1.08-1.87) were significantly associated with Human papillomavirus genotypes. Conclusion and Recommendation: The prevalence of hr-HPV infection was high, indicative of a risk to the health of WLHIV in Mukono, Uganda, and worldwide at large. The correlates are age 45-49 years, being married, use of condoms, and age of sexual debut. Based on the results, it is recommended that the implementing teams in such projects put more emphasis on the diagnosis of hr-HPV infection and monitoring the treatment. More research is required to determine the effect of ART therapy on hr-HPV persistence.

Keywords: human papillomavirus genotypes, and their correlates, among women living with HIV, attending antiretroviral clinic

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Authors: V. S. S. Kumar, B. Vikram

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The development of effective decision support tools that adopted in the construction industry is vital in the world we live in today, since it can lead to substantial cost reduction and efficient resource consumption. Solving the time-cost trade off problems and its related variants is at the heart of scientific research for optimizing construction planning problems. In general, the classical optimization techniques have difficulties in dealing with TCT problems. One of the main reasons of their failure is that they can easily be entrapped in local minima. This paper presents an investigation on the application of meta-heuristic techniques to two particular variants of the time-cost trade of analysis, the time-cost trade off problem (TCT), and time-cost trade off optimization problem (TCO). In first problem, the total project cost should be minimized, and in the second problem, the total project cost and total project duration should be minimized simultaneously. Finally it is expected that, the optimization models developed in this paper will contribute significantly for efficient planning and management of construction project.

Keywords: fuzzy sets, uncertainty, optimization, time cost trade off problems

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Authors: Noawanit Songkram

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This paper is a report on the findings of a study conducted on e–learning system in virtual learning environment to develop problem solving ability and team learning for learners in higher education. The methodology of this study was R&D research. The subjects were 18 undergraduate students in Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University in the academic year of 2013. The research instruments were a problem solving ability assessment, a team learning evaluation form, and an attitude questionnaire. The data was statistically analyzed using mean, standard deviation, one way repeated measure ANOVA and t–test. The research findings discovered the e –learning system in virtual learning environment to develop problem solving ability and team learning for learners in higher education consisted of five components:(1) online collaborative tools, (2) active learning activities, (3) creative thinking, (4) knowledge sharing process, (5) evaluation and nine processes which were (1) preparing in group working, (2) identifying interested topic, (3) analysing interested topic, (4) collecting data, (5) concluding idea (6) proposing idea, (7) creating workings, (8) workings evaluation, (9) sharing knowledge from empirical experience.

Keywords: e-learning system, problem solving ability, team leaning, virtual learning environment

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Authors: Sajad Khaliq Dar, Dipanjan Goswami, Arshad H. Khuroo, Mohd. Akhtar, Pulak Kumar Metia, Sudershan Kumar

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Background: Development of modified-release oral dosage formulations (OSD) like tacrolimus in narrow therapeutic categories, together with high levels of intra-individual variability, impose greater challenges. The risk assessment for bioequivalence studies requires developing a suitable design through pilot studies involving the comparison of multiple formulations of the same product with a marketed product to understand the in-vivo behaviour. These formulations could have varying coating levels and other minor quantitative differences to achieve the desired release rate for the final product. Although small-scale studies are critical before the conduct of full-scale Pharmacokinetic (PK) studies, regulatory agencies evaluate critical bioavailability attributes (CBA) before approving the submitted dossiers. Since Tacrolimus is a BCS Class II drug, therefore developing the extended-release formulation, in addition to associated challenges, provides an opportunity to present the In vitro-in vivo correlations (IVIVC) to regulatory agencies, not only to exhibit product quality but also to reduce the burden of additional human trials and cost involved to them for bringing the product to market. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a Level-A In vitro - In vivo Correlation (IVIVC) model for Sun Pharma’s test formulation Tacrolimus ER tablet 4mg and extend its application to a widened dissolution window of 25% at 2.5 hours (critical release time) sampling time point. Experimental Procedure: Post the conduct of two in-vivo studies, a pilot study evaluating two test prototypes on 24 subjects (under fasting) and a pivotal study having 50 subjects (under fasting), the observed pharmacokinetic profile was used for IVIVC model development. The dissolution media used was 0.005% HPC + 0.25% SLS in Water 900 mL at pH 4.50 using USP II (Paddle) apparatus with alternative sinkers operated at 100 RPM. The sampling time points were chosen to mimic the drug absorption in vivo. The dissolution best fit to data was obtained using Makoid Banakar kinetics. Then deconvolution, anchoring to concepts of the single compartment by Wagner Nelson method was applied for tacrolimus slow-release formulation batch with film coating weight build-up of 5.4% (used in pilot bio study), medium release with Hypromellose (retard-release exhibit batch used in the pivotal study) and fast release formulation batch with film coating weight build-up of 5.05% (used in pilot bio study). Results and Conclusion: The results were deemed acceptable as prediction errors for internal and external validation were < 3% depicting in-vitro drug release mimics in-vivo absorption. Moreover, the prediction result for the Test/Reference ratio was <15% for all test formulations and widening dissolution (i.e., 39%-64% drug release at 2.5hrs) predictions were well within 80-125% when compared against Envarsus XR (reference drug). This IVIVC-validated model can be used in the futuristic exploration of dose titration with 1mg tacrolimus ER OSD as a surrogate for In-vivo bioequivalence trials.

Keywords: pharmacokinetics, BCS, oral dosage form, Bioavailability, intra-individual variability

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Authors: Hafida Merzouk

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Urinary tract infections are among the most serious public health issues in all age groups. Thus, the empirical therapy should based on local levels of resistance, as indicated in several studies from different countries, to effectively avoid the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains and recurrent infections. Numerous effective antibiotic treatments are available, but wouldbe ineffective for treating recurrent cystitis caused by a urinary tract infection, as well as the emergence of drug resistance. That iswhy the aim of this study was to highlight the antibacterial and the antioxidant activity of 11 medicinal plants used traditionally in Algeria against E. coli, the most responsible urinary tract infections. First, the extraction of total polyphenols with aqueous acetone showed variable yields. The highest yield was obtained by Asplenium trichomanes with 27%, followed by Petroselinum crispum and Ciannamomum cassia with an equal yield of 21%. Artemisia herba-alba gave the lowest yield (9%). The extracts of different plants showed variable contents of phenolic compounds. Reducing power and DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) scavenging activity revealed that most of the extracts studied had significant activity. The anti-free radical activity was very high in the extract of A splenium adiantum-nigrum compared with the other extracts studied, but Petroselinum crispum and Parietaria officinalis had the lowest reducing activity; Antibacterial activity was determined on E. coli strainsusing the diffusion, MICs (Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations) and MBCs (Minimum Bactericidal concentrations) methods. The strains tested were sensitive to most extracts studied, except Asplenium adiantum-nigrum extract, for which both strains showed resistance.

Keywords: E. coli, medicinal plants, phenolic compounds, urinary infections

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Authors: Merrylord Harb-Azar

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Traditionally, PTSD treatment has involved trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy (TF CBT) to consolidate traumatic memories. A piloted integrated treatment of TF CBT and eye movement desensitisation reprocessing therapy (EMDR) of eight phases will fasten the rate memory is being consolidated and enhance cognitive functioning in patients with PTSD. Patients spend a considerable amount of time in treatment managing their traumas experienced firsthand, or from aversive details ranging from war, assaults, accidents, abuse, hostage related, riots, or natural disasters. The time spent in treatment or as inpatient affects overall quality of life, relationships, cognitive functioning, and overall sense of identity. EMDR is being offered twice a week in conjunction with the standard prolonged exposure as an inpatient in a private hospital. Prolonged exposure for up to 5 hours per day elicits the affect response required for EMDR sessions in the afternoon to unlock unprocessed memories and facilitate consolidation in the amygdala and hippocampus. Results are indicating faster consolidation of memories, reduction in symptoms in a shorter period of time, reduction in admission time, which is enhancing the quality of life and relationships, and improved cognition. The impact of events scale (IES) results demonstrate a significant reduction in symptoms, trauma symptoms inventory (TSI), and posttraumatic stressor disorder check list (PCL) that demonstrates large effect sizes to date. An integrated treatment approach for PTSD achieves a faster resolution of memories, improves cognition, and reduces the amount of time spent in therapy.

Keywords: EMDR enhances cognitive functioning, faster consolidation of trauma memory, integrated treatment of TF CBT and EMDR, reduction in inpatient admission time

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Authors: P. Behera, K. K. Singh, D. K. Saini, M. De

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Implementation of 2D materials in the detection of bio analytes is highly advantageous in the field of sensing because of its high surface to volume ratio. We have designed our sensor array with different cationic two-dimensional MoS₂, where surface modification was achieved by cationic thiol ligands with different functionality. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) was chosen as signal transducers for its biocompatibility and anionic nature, which can bind to the cationic MoS₂ surface easily, followed by fluorescence quenching. The addition of bio-analyte to the sensor can decomplex the cationic MoS₂ and GFP conjugates, followed by the regeneration of GFP fluorescence. The fluorescence response pattern belongs to various analytes collected and transformed to linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for classification. At first, 15 different proteins having wide range of molecular weight and isoelectric points were successfully discriminated at 50 nM with detection limit of 1 nM. The sensor system was also executed in biofluids such as serum, where 10 different proteins at 2.5 μM were well separated. After successful discrimination of protein analytes, the sensor array was implemented for bacteria sensing. Six different bacteria were successfully classified at OD = 0.05 with a detection limit corresponding to OD = 0.005. The optimized sensor array was able to classify uropathogens from non-uropathogens in urine medium. Further, the technique was applied for discrimination of bacteria possessing resistance to different types and amounts of drugs. We found out the mechanism of sensing through optical and electrodynamic studies, which indicates the interaction between bacteria with the sensor system was mainly due to electrostatic force of interactions, but the separation of native bacteria from their drug resistant variant was due to Van der Waals forces. There are two ways bacteria can be detected, i.e., through bacterial cells and lysates. The bacterial lysates contain intracellular information and also safe to analysis as it does not contain live cells. Lysates of different drug resistant bacteria were patterned effectively from the native strain. From unknown sample analysis, we found that discrimination of bacterial cells is more sensitive than that of lysates. But the analyst can prefer bacterial lysates over live cells for safer analysis.

Keywords: array-based sensing, drug resistant bacteria, linear discriminant analysis, two-dimensional MoS₂

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Authors: Ramazan Bakir, Gizem Kayar

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It is known that Alzheimer and Dementia are the two most common types of Neurodegenerative diseases and their visibility is getting accelerated for the last couple of years. As the population sees older ages all over the world, researchers expect to see the rate of this acceleration much higher. However, unfortunately, there is no known pharmacological cure for both, although some help to reduce the rate of cognitive decline speed. This is why we encounter with non-pharmacological treatment and tracking methods more for the last five years. Many researchers, including well-known associations and hospitals, lean towards using non-pharmacological methods to support cognitive function and improve the patient’s life quality. As the dementia symptoms related to mind, learning, memory, speaking, problem-solving, social abilities and daily activities gradually worsen over the years, many researchers know that cognitive support should start from the very beginning of the symptoms in order to slow down the decline. At this point, life of a patient and caregiver can be improved with some daily activities and applications. These activities include but not limited to basic word puzzles, daily cleaning activities, taking notes. Later, these activities and their results should be observed carefully and it is only possible during patient/caregiver and M.D. in-person meetings in hospitals. These meetings can be quite time-consuming, exhausting and financially ineffective for hospitals, medical doctors, caregivers and especially for patients. On the other hand, digital support systems are showing positive results for all stakeholders of healthcare systems. This can be observed in countries that started Telemedicine systems. The biggest potential of our system is setting the inter-user communication up in the best possible way. In our project, we propose Machine Learning based digitalization of validated traditional cognitive tests (e.g. MOCA, Afazi, left-right hemisphere), their analyses for high-quality follow-up and communication systems for all stakeholders. R. Bakir and G. Kayar are with Gefeasoft, Inc, R&D – Software Development and Health Technologies company. Emails: ramazan, gizem @ gefeasoft.com This platform has a high potential not only for patient tracking but also for making all stakeholders feel safe through all stages. As the registered hospitals assign corresponding medical doctors to the system, these MDs are able to register their own patients and assign special tasks for each patient. With our integrated machine learning support, MDs are able to track the failure and success rates of each patient and also see general averages among similarly progressed patients. In addition, our platform also supports multi-player technology which helps patients play with their caregivers so that they feel much safer at any point they are uncomfortable. By also gamifying the daily household activities, the patients will be able to repeat their social tasks and we will provide non-pharmacological reminiscence therapy (RT – life review therapy). All collected data will be mined by our data scientists and analyzed meaningfully. In addition, we will also add gamification modules for caregivers based on Naomi Feil’s Validation Therapy. Both are behaving positively to the patient and keeping yourself mentally healthy is important for caregivers. We aim to provide a therapy system based on gamification for them, too. When this project accomplishes all the above-written tasks, patients will have the chance to do many tasks at home remotely and MDs will be able to follow them up very effectively. We propose a complete platform and the whole project is both time and cost-effective for supporting all stakeholders.

Keywords: alzheimer’s, dementia, cognitive functionality, cognitive tests, serious games, machine learning, artificial intelligence, digitalization, non-pharmacological, data analysis, telemedicine, e-health, health-tech, gamification

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