Archives-June... 

Treatments with biologics drugs have become the order of the day for many diseases and ailments including cancer. Unlike the availability of small molecule generics at lower costs, generic versions of biologics are not available at costs that are affordable to the patients in the developing countries. This is mainly due to factors such as immunogenicity, interchangeability, and difficulties in the manufacturing and characterisation of these biosimilars. These factors also raise a question on the conductance of pharmacovigilance programme, since each version of biologic is different. In this review, we analyse the major issues and the regulatory mandates concerning biosimilars and discuss some recommendations for the pharmacovigilance programme.

This study is aimed to observe the effect of mix proportion of Sylhet and locally available river sand on the compressive strengths of concrete. A series of laboratory tests is carried out for six different mix proportions 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4 and 0:5 of Sylhet sand and local river sand. For all of the mix ratios, compressive strengths are determined at 28 days. The compressive strengths increase by designing the appropriate gradation of sand mix, which is determined by fineness modulus of both types of sand and their mixes. The results indicate that the best of the corresponding six mix proportions of Sylhet and local sand is 3:2.

Ad Hoc Network provides quick communication among knob to convey the packets from one knob to other. These networks are independent of any fixed infrastructure or central entity like cellular networks [10] which requires fixed infrastructure to operate. Any malicious knob in the network can disturb the whole process or can even stop it. Several attacks like Replay attack, black hole, wormhole, rushing etc [13], in which legitimate knob behaves like malicious knob and disturbed whole the network. To define and detect the malicious behavior of a knob, it becomes obligatory to define the regular and malicious behavior of a knob. Whenever a knob exhibits a malicious behavior under any attack, it assures the breach of security principles like availability, integrity, confidentiality etc [13].

Investigations on the production of xanthan with a locally isolated strain have been emphasized. We can isolate the strain by diluting serially the extract of infected banana petioles. By considering the cost-effective aspects of the xanthan fermentation process, agro industrial substrate sugarcane molasses was exploited. The effect of initial concentration of carbon source for the substrate was studied by varying the glucose concentration in the range of 2% to 6% (glucose equivalent). The time course of cell mass, xanthan production and substrate utilization were recorded in order to facilitate the kinetics of fermentation. The substrate chosen for study, sugarcane molasses resulted the xanthan gum yield of 27.2 g/l at a fermentation period of 96 h with the initial glucose concentration of 4%. The study confirmed that the logistic equation for growth kinetics and Luedeking-Piret model for substrate utilization and product formation model fits well with the experimental data

The Third Medium Term Plan is an implementation programme for the Vision 2030 running from 2018 to 2022. It outlines the sectors which the winning party in the August 2018 General Election will focus on for the next 5 years in addition to its manifesto. The projects that were not completed in the Second Medium Term Plan will be carried forward in the Third Medium Term Plan. The primary focus on the Third Medium Term Plan will be to expand the sectors of export, manufacturing and mining. It purposes to achieve a 10% economic growth by the end of the Third Medium Term Plan. The implementation of the Third Medium Term Plan comes at a time when Kenya has committed to implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and African Union Agenda 2063. The implementation of the MTP 3 faces multiple challenges such as a climate change sensitive economy that is necessitating the government of Kenya to adopt supplementary budget to counter food shortage and deal with national emergencies. The implementation of the Medium-Term Plan is also facing a rising foreign debt to GDP ratio as the government is forced to borrow externally to finance the MTP 3. The implementation of the MTP 3 faces multiple legal challenges such as lack of coherence in laws dealing with manufacturing, disputes in the acquisition and transfer of land, legal lacuna in the prosecution of corruption cases that pave way for rampant corruption in Kenya. The lack of a comprehensive legislation on Agriculture and a policy on reducing post-harvest loses is one of the main challenges facing the Third Medium Term Plan. The paper will explore the legal challenges facing he implementation of the MTP 3 and offer recommendations on how to streamline the implementation of the MTP 3.

Increased number of old population recently raises various social, economic and health issues. The various kinds of health hazards among old people include low mental health, depression, dementia and morbidity. There are several factors which affects the overall mental health of a senior citizen (people above 60 years). The primary objective of the present study was to identify the predictors of loneliness and depression among old people. The study included a sample of 60 old individual above age 60 from different old age homes. We interviewed each participant individually for a period of 30 minutes-1 hour to know about their internal self and overall psychological functioning. Qualitative analysis showed that social support and harmony in family life plays a crucial role for loneliness and depression among old people.

Electrical properties of sugarcane stalks were studied in order to develop a rapid and non-destructive assessment technique and to determine the mass of sugarcane stalks. A 5 V sine wave AC power supply and a rectangular parallel plate capacitor sample were used to span the difference in capacitance caused by the insertion of sugarcane stalks between the plates. To remove the effect of air gap between the plates, an equivalent capacitor was derived. The correlation between mass of sugarcane stalks and output voltage from the device for each sample was investigated. Experiments indicated a high correlation between mass and output voltage for each sample of sugarcane stalks and a quadratic trend line was best fitted to the data. The coef?cient of determination (R2) between actual mass and presented voltage was 0.955. For testing results, the coef?cient of determination (R2) of mass prediction was obtained as 0.969. This method can con?dently predict the mass of sugarcane stalks and it can be used in different machines and agricultural mechanism.

Modelling is an important part of any large scale decision making process in a system. There are large numbers of factors that affect the performance of the system. It is not possible for the human brain to keep track of the all the players in the system, their interactions and interrelationships at a time. Therefore, to get the solution of the complex theoretical problems, one resort to the techniques, which are simple to use. Also, these techniques should be capable to reproduce all the essential and important relationships of the reality. Mathematical modelling is one such basic technique. This paper presents a literature review of the work done by several researchers to study the problems faced by industries, using mathematical modelling; particularly in the field of Diffusion innovation, Inventory Control and Production function.

Sensing and controlling of humidity and temperature is a major issue in various industries. This paper presents the design, fabrication and complete characterization of a Micro Cantilever based Humidity sensor integrated with a temperature sensor. A Si Cantilever based Humidity Sensor on capacitive principle is designed and various analyses were performed on the sensor. Platinum heater used in the humidity sensor is used for the vaporization of the moisture absorbed. The heater along with two gold electrodes can act as a temperature sensor so that the temperature variations can be easily detected. The temperature sensor was designed using Platinum and is of Resistance Temperature Detector {RTD} type. The temperature sensor is provided with two gold electrodes on each side. One of the electrodes is maintained at 5V DC and the other at 0V DC, enabling a current flow through the Platinum layer. When the temperature changes, the resistivity of the Platinum changes accordingly. This causes a change in the current flow through the temperature sensor. The sensor is designed in a structure that can tolerate the harsh environmental variations like pressure, temperature.

One of the serious and persistent environmental problem globally is heavy metal pollution. Therefore, a special concern has been given on how to minimize, if not complete removal of their effect in environment. Since waste water is one of the major source of heavy metals, various studies have been conducted over the years on how to remove them from the waste water. This paper reviews some of the important methods that have been used to treat heavy metal waste water. These methods include chemical precipitation, ion-exchange, adsorption, membrane filtration, coagulation flocculation, flotation and electrochemical methods. Their Advantages and Limitations in applications are also evaluated.