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Baseline Widal titre among healthy adult males from the greater Mymensingh division of Bangladesh

Khan A, Ashher F, Khanam F, Rahman M, Khan M, Paul SK, et al.

Infect Disord Drug Targets, 2018 Apr 05.
PMID: 29621969 DOI: 10.2174/1871526518666180405154337

Widal agglutination test is arguably the most widely used laboratory investigation for diagnosis of Typhoid, especially in developing countries where blood culture is often inaccessible. However, the interpretation of the test still remains a controversial topic particularly in the context of endemic regions such as Bangladesh, as agglutination test is often found positive in varied and higher titrations among a large percentage of healthy population. Paired Widal tests are often not feasible, hence single unpaired test has to be used for screening and diagnosis. Even specific chemotherapy is administered frequently based on single Widal test. Therefore it is very important to establish baseline value of Widal test and re-evaluate in regular intervals to ensure standard cutoff points are as accurate and updated as possible in particular demographics Objective: The study aimed at investigating the normal range of baseline titre for Anti TO, TH, AO, AH, BO agglutinins among healthy participants, with a view to inform policy makers and clinicians on the updated cut off values for screening and diagnosis of typhoid fever in the context of Bangladesh.
METHODS: A cross sectional study was carried out in the Department of Microbiology of Mymensing Medical College, Mymensingh, Bangladesh in two time points, one was from February 2013 to September2013 and another was from March to April, 2015 . A total of 3161 adult (18-45 years) male job seekers to Malaysia attending for health check up were invited to the study and out of them 2925 could be finally enrolled. A single blood sample was collected and Widal test was carried out according to kit manufacturer's instructions and interpreted using standard guidelines.
RESULTS: The significant baseline titers for Anti TO, TH, AO, AH, BO agglutinins among the participants were found to be 1:80 for each respectively. A titer of 1: 40 was observed for BH antigen Conclusion: In case of singular Widal test, base line values for normal range should be revised and set 1:80 for all the antigens (TO, TH, AO, AH, BO, BH), except BH, for which it should be 1:40. Further studies in different geological and demographic groups are required to ascertain the use of right context and cut off values for screening and diagnostic purposes.
Fulltext Routing Protocols for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks: Taxonomy, Research Challenges, Routing Strategies and Future Directions

Khan A, Ali I, Ghani A, Khan N, Alsaqer M, Rahman AU, et al.

Sensors (Basel), 2018 May 18;18(5).
PMID: 29783686 DOI: 10.3390/s18051619

Recent research in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) has gained the attention of researchers in academia and industry for a number of applications. They include disaster and earthquake prediction, water quality and environment monitoring, leakage and mine detection, military surveillance and underwater navigation. However, the aquatic medium is associated with a number of limitations and challenges: long multipath delay, high interference and noise, harsh environment, low bandwidth and limited battery life of the sensor nodes. These challenges demand research techniques and strategies to be overcome in an efficient and effective fashion. The design of routing protocols for UWSNs is one of the promising solutions to cope with these challenges. This paper presents a survey of the routing protocols for UWSNs. For the ease of description, the addressed routing protocols are classified into two groups: localization-based and localization-free protocols. These groups are further subdivided according to the problems they address or the major parameters they consider during routing. Unlike the existing surveys, this survey considers only the latest and state-of-the-art routing protocols. In addition, every protocol is described in terms of its routing strategy and the problem it addresses and solves. The merit(s) of each protocol is (are) highlighted along with the cost. A description of the protocols in this fashion has a number of advantages for researchers, as compared to the existing surveys. Firstly, the description of the routing strategy of each protocol makes its routing operation easily understandable. Secondly, the demerit(s) of a protocol provides (provide) insight into overcoming its flaw(s) in future investigation. This, in turn, leads to the foundation of new protocols that are more intelligent, robust and efficient with respect to the desired parameters. Thirdly, a protocol can be selected for the appropriate application based on its described merit(s). Finally, open challenges and research directions are presented for future investigation.
Fulltext Hypertension control among euvolemic hypertensive hemodialysis patients in Malaysia: a prospective follow-up study

Khan A, Khan AH, Adnan AS, Sulaiman SAS, Mushtaq S, Ahmad N, et al.

J Pharm Policy Pract, 2019;12:10.
PMID: 31114693 DOI: 10.1186/s40545-019-0169-y

Objectives: Existing literature does not provide enough information on evaluation of factors associated with pre-dialysis controlled hypertension among euvolemic hemodialysis (HD) patients. We conducted a study to evaluate the rate and factors influencing pre-dialysis controlled hypertension among euvolemic HD patients.
Design: A multicenter prospective follow-up study.
Setting: Tertiary care teaching hospital and its associated private dialysis centers.
Participants: This study included 145 euvolemic eligible hypertensive patients. Various sociodemographic, clinical factors and drugs were investigated and analyzed by using appropriate statistical methods to determine the factors influencing hypertension control among the study participants.
Results: On baseline visit, the mean pre-dialysis systolic and diastolic BP (mmHg) of study participants was 161.2 ± 24. and 79.21 ± 11.8 retrospectively, and 30 (20.6%) patients were on pre-dialysis goal BP. At the end of the 6-months follow-up, the mean pre-dialysis systolic BP and diastolic BP (mmHg) of the patients was 154.6 ± 18.3 and 79.2 ± 11.8 respectively, and 42 (28.9%) were on pre-dialysis goal BP. In multivariate analysis, the use of calcium channel blockers (CCBs) was the only variable which had statistically significant association with pre-dialysis controlled hypertension at baseline (OR = 7.530, p-value = 0.001) and final (OR = 8.988, p-value
Fulltext CoSiM-RPO: Cooperative Routing with Sink Mobility for Reliable and Persistent Operation in Underwater Acoustic Wireless Sensor Networks

Ali M, Khan A, Aurangzeb K, Ali I, Mahmood H, Haider SI, et al.

Sensors (Basel), 2019 Mar 04;19(5).
PMID: 30836710 DOI: 10.3390/s19051101

An efficient algorithm for the persistence operation of data routing is crucial due to the uniqueness and challenges of the aqueous medium of the underwater acoustic wireless sensor networks (UA-WSNs). The existing multi-hop algorithms have a high energy cost, data loss, and less stability due to many forwarders for a single-packet delivery. In order to tackle these constraints and limitations, two algorithms using sink mobility and cooperative technique for UA-WSNs are devised. The first one is sink mobility for reliable and persistence operation (SiM-RPO) in UA-WSNs, and the second is the enhanced version of the SiM-RPO named CoSiM-RPO, which utilizes the cooperative technique for better exchanging of the information and minimizes data loss probability. To cover all of the network through mobile sinks (MSs), the division of the network into small portions is accomplished. The path pattern is determined for MSs in a manner to receive data even from a single node in the network. The MSs pick the data directly from the nodes and check them for the errors. When erroneous data are received at the MS, then the relay cooperates to receive correct data. The proposed algorithm boosts the network lifespan, throughput, delay, and stability more than the existing counterpart schemes.
Fulltext Movie Review Summarization Using Supervised Learning and Graph-Based Ranking Algorithm

Khan A, Gul MA, Zareei M, Biswal RR, Zeb A, Naeem M, et al.

Comput Intell Neurosci, 2020;2020:7526580.
PMID: 32565772 DOI: 10.1155/2020/7526580

With the growing information on web, online movie review is becoming a significant information resource for Internet users. However, online users post thousands of movie reviews on daily basis and it is hard for them to manually summarize the reviews. Movie review mining and summarization is one of the challenging tasks in natural language processing. Therefore, an automatic approach is desirable to summarize the lengthy movie reviews, and it will allow users to quickly recognize the positive and negative aspects of a movie. This study employs a feature extraction technique called bag of words (BoW) to extract features from movie reviews and represent the reviews as a vector space model or feature vector. The next phase uses Naïve Bayes machine learning algorithm to classify the movie reviews (represented as feature vector) into positive and negative. Next, an undirected weighted graph is constructed from the pairwise semantic similarities between classified review sentences in such a way that the graph nodes represent review sentences, while the edges of graph indicate semantic similarity weight. The weighted graph-based ranking algorithm (WGRA) is applied to compute the rank score for each review sentence in the graph. Finally, the top ranked sentences (graph nodes) are chosen based on highest rank scores to produce the extractive summary. Experimental results reveal that the proposed approach is superior to other state-of-the-art approaches.
Comparative efficacy assessment of antiviral alone and antiviral-antibiotic combination in prevention of influenza-B infection associated complications

Ishaqui A, Hayat Khan A, Sulaiman SAS, Taher Alsultan M, Khan I

Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther, 2021 09;19(9):1165-1173.
PMID: 33567928 DOI: 10.1080/14787210.2021.1889369

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to compare the efficacy of antiviral drug alone and antiviral-antibiotic combination therapy in prevention of complications associated with influenza B hospitalized patients.
METHOD: Laboratory confirmed influenza B hospitalized patients presented in emergency room after 48 hours of symptoms onset were identified and divided into two groups; Group-1 patients were initiated on Antiviral drug (oseltamivir) alone while Group-2 patients were initiated on Antiviral drug (oseltamivir) in combination with Antibiotic for at least 3 days. Patients were evaluated for different clinical outcomes among both treatment group.
RESULTS: A total of 153 and 131 patients were identified for Group-1 and Group-2, respectively. Clinical outcomes such as secondary bacterial infections (20.9%-vs-9.1%; P = 0.031), need of respiratory support (28.7%-vs-12.9%; P = 0.002), length of hospitalization stay (6.57-vs-4.95 days; P = <0.001), incidences of ICU admission (15.7%-vs-7.6%; P = 0.036), early clinical failure (32.6%-vs-16.1%; P = 0.01), and time to clinical stability (4.83-vs-4.1 days; P = 0.001) were found to be statistically less significant (P-value <0.05) for Group-2 patients.
CONCLUSION: Early initiation of antibiotic therapy in combination with oseltamivir was found to be more efficacious than oseltamivir alone in prevention of influenza B-associated complications especially in high-risk influenza patients.
Efficient Synthesis and Characterization of Polyaniline@Aluminium-Succinate Metal-Organic Frameworks Nanocomposite and Its Application for Zn(II) Ion Sensing

Alsafrani AE, Adeosun WA, Marwani HM, Khan I, Jawaid M, Asiri AM, et al.

Polymers (Basel), 2021 Sep 30;13(19).
PMID: 34641198 DOI: 10.3390/polym13193383

A new class of conductive metal-organic framework (MOF), polyaniline- aluminum succinate (PANI@Al-SA) nanocomposite was prepared by oxidative polymerization of aniline monomer using potassium persulfate as an oxidant. Several analytical techniques such as FTIR, FE-SEM, EDX, XRD, XPS and TGA-DTA were utilized to characterize the obtained MOFs nanocomposite. DC electrical conductivity of polymer-MOFs was determined by four probe method. A bare glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified by nafion/PANI@Al-SA, and examined for Zn (II) ion detection. Modified electrode showed improved efficiency by 91.9%. The modified electrode (PANI@Al-SA/nafion/GCE) exhibited good catalytic property and highly selectivity towards Zn(II) ion. A linear dynamic range of 2.8-228.6 µM was obtained with detection limit of LOD 0.59 µM and excellent sensitivity of 7.14 µA µM-1 cm-2. The designed procedure for Zn (II) ion detection in real sample exhibited good stability in terms of repeatability, reproducibility and not affected by likely interferents. Therefore, the developed procedure is promising for quantification of Zn(II) ion in real samples.
Micro and nanorobot-based drug delivery: an overview

Suhail M, Khan A, Rahim MA, Naeem A, Fahad M, Badshah SF, et al.

J Drug Target, 2021 Nov 09.
PMID: 34706620 DOI: 10.1080/1061186X.2021.1999962

Progress in the drug delivery system in the last few decades has led to many advancements for efficient drug delivery. Both micro and nanorobots, are regarded as superior drug delivery systems to deliver drugs efficiently by altering other forms of energy into propulsion and movements. Furthermore, it can be advantageous as it is directed to targeted sites beneath physiological environments and conditions. They have been validated to possess the capability to encapsulate, transport, and supply therapeutic contents directly to the disease sites, thus enhancing the therapeutic efficiency and decreasing systemic side effects of the toxic drugs. This review discusses about the microand nanorobots for the diagnostics and management of diseases, types of micro, and nanorobots, role of robots in drug delivery, and its biomedical applications.
Fulltext A computational classification method of breast cancer images using the VGGNet model

Khan A, Khan A, Ullah M, Alam MM, Bangash JI, Suud MM

Front Comput Neurosci, 2022;16:1001803.
PMID: 36405784 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.1001803

Cancer is one of the most prevalent diseases worldwide. The most prevalent condition in women when aberrant cells develop out of control is breast cancer. Breast cancer detection and classification are exceedingly difficult tasks. As a result, several computational techniques, including k-nearest neighbor (KNN), support vector machine (SVM), multilayer perceptron (MLP), decision tree (DT), and genetic algorithms, have been applied in the current computing world for the diagnosis and classification of breast cancer. However, each method has its own limitations to how accurately it can be utilized. A novel convolutional neural network (CNN) model based on the Visual Geometry Group network (VGGNet) was also suggested in this study. The 16 layers in the current VGGNet-16 model lead to overfitting on the training and test data. We, thus, propose the VGGNet-12 model for breast cancer classification. The VGGNet-16 model has the problem of overfitting the breast cancer classification dataset. Based on the overfitting issues in the existing model, this research reduced the number of different layers in the VGGNet-16 model to solve the overfitting problem in this model. Because various models of the VGGNet, such as VGGNet-13 and VGGNet-19, were developed, this study proposed a new version of the VGGNet model, that is, the VGGNet-12 model. The performance of this model is checked using the breast cancer dataset, as compared to the CNN and LeNet models. From the simulation result, it can be seen that the proposed VGGNet-12 model enhances the simulation result as compared to the model used in this study. Overall, the experimental findings indicate that the suggested VGGNet-12 model did well in classifying breast cancer in terms of several characteristics.
Nanotechnological Advances in the Treatment of Epilepsy

Ali OAMA, Shaikh MF, Hasnain MS, Sami F, Khan A, Ansari MT

CNS Neurol Disord Drug Targets, 2021 Dec 21.
PMID: 34939554 DOI: 10.2174/1871527321666211221162104

Epilepsy is known as one of the major challenges for medical science. The sudden appearance of a seizure has been a significant health emergency as it may lead to further complications. Although key advancement have been achieved in terms of pharmacological approaches for epilepsy, many issues remain uncertain. Lipid carriers have been at the forefront, especially in neurodegenerative diseases such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's, dementia, etc. The blood-brain barrier still appears to be a major impediment in the successful treatment of epileptic seizures. This is mainly due to the limited bioavailability of most anti-convulsant drugs. The present review encompasses the issues underlying the current approach for epilepsy drug treatment and highlights the newer, novel, and more precise drug delivery system to manage seizures. The advantage of using a lipid-based delivery system is its superior absorption in the brain cells. Ample evidence shows that reducing the particle size also infuses the drug easily through the blood-brain barrier. The application of liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, metallic nanoparticles, and solid lipid nanoparticles for the treatment and management of epilepsy has been highlighted in the present review. This review will provide an overview of the current status of the treatment and recent advances in the treatment of epilepsy.
Fulltext Development and Characterization of Calcium-Alginate Beads of Apigenin: In Vitro Antitumor, Antibacterial, and Antioxidant Activities

Aldawsari MF, Ahmed MM, Fatima F, Anwer MK, Katakam P, Khan A

Mar Drugs, 2021 Aug 20;19(8).
PMID: 34436306 DOI: 10.3390/md19080467

The objective of this work was to develop sustained-release Ca-alginate beads of apigenin using sodium alginate, a natural polysaccharide. Six batches were prepared by applying the ionotropic gelation technique, wherein calcium chloride was used as a crosslinking agent. The beads were evaluated for particle size, drug loading, percentage yield, and in vitro drug release. Particle size was found to decrease, and drug entrapment efficiency was enhanced with an increase in the polymer concentration. The dissolution study showed sustained drug release from the apigenin-loaded alginate beads with an increase in the polymer proportion. Based on the dissolution profiles, BD6 formulation was optimized and characterized for FTIR, DSC, XRD, and SEM, results of which indicated successful development of apigenin-loaded Ca alginate beads. MTT assay demonstrated a potential anticancer effect against the breast cancer MCF-7 cell lines. The antimicrobial activity exhibited effective inhibition in the bacterial and fungal growth rate. The DPPH measurement revealed that the formulation had substantial antioxidant activity, with EC50 value slightly lowered compared to pure apigenin. A stability study demonstrated that the BD6 was stable with similar (f2) drug release profiles in harsh condition. In conclusion, alginate-based beads could be used for sustaining the drug release of poorly water-soluble apigenin while also improving in vitro antitumor, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activity.
Fulltext Antimicrobial resistance in India

Patel I, Hussain R, Khan A, Ahmad A, Khan MU, Hassalai MAA

J Pharm Policy Pract, 2017;10:27.
PMID: 28878929 DOI: 10.1186/s40545-017-0118-6
Synthesis and evaluation on pH- and temperature-responsive chitosan-p(MAA-co-NIPAM) hydrogels

Rasib SZM, Ahmad Z, Khan A, Akil HM, Othman MBH, Hamid ZAA, et al.

Int J Biol Macromol, 2018 Mar;108:367-375.
PMID: 29222015 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2017.12.021

In this study, chitosan-poly(methacrylic acid-co-N-isopropylacrylamide) [chitosan-p(MAA-co-NIPAM)] hydrogels were synthesized by emulsion polymerization. In order to be used as a carrier for drug delivery systems, the hydrogels had to be biocompatible, biodegradable and multi-responsive. The polymerization was performed by copolymerize MAA and NIPAM with chitosan polymer to produce a chitosan-based hydrogel. Due to instability during synthesis and complexity of components to produce the hydrogel, further study at different times of reaction is important to observe the synthesis process, the effect of end product on swelling behaviour and the most important is to find the best way to control the hydrogel synthesis in order to have an optimal swelling behaviour for drug release application. Studied by using Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy found that, the synthesized was successfully produced stable chitosan-based hydrogel with PNIPAM continuously covered the outer surface of hydrogel which influenced much on the stability during synthesis. The chitosan and PMAA increased the zeta potential of the hydrogel and the chitosan capable to control shrinkage above human body temperature. The chitosan-p(MAA-co-NIPAM) hydrogels also responses to pH and temperature thus improved the ability to performance as a drug carrier.
Synthesis and functionalization of chitosan built hydrogel with induced hydrophilicity for extended release of sparingly soluble drugs

Ullah F, Javed F, Othman MBH, Khan A, Gul R, Ahmad Z, et al.

J Biomater Sci Polym Ed, 2018 03;29(4):376-396.
PMID: 29285989 DOI: 10.1080/09205063.2017.1421347

Addressing the functional biomaterials as next-generation therapeutics, chitosan and alginic acid were copolymerized in the form of chemically crosslinked interpenetrating networks (IPNs). The native hydrogel was functionalized via carbodiimide (EDC), catalyzed coupling of soft ligand (1,2-Ethylenediamine) and hard ligand (4-aminophenol) to replace -OH groups in alginic acid units for extended hydrogel- interfaces with the aqueous and sparingly soluble drug solutions. The chemical structure, Lower solution critical temperature (LCST ≈ 37.88 °C), particle size (Zh,app ≈ 150-200 nm), grain size (160-360 nm), surface roughness (85-250 nm), conductivity (37-74 mv) and zeta potential (16-32 mv) of native and functionalized hydrogel were investigated by using FT-IR, solid state-13C-NMR, TGA, DSC, FESEM, AFM and dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements. The effective swelling, drug loading (47-78%) and drug release (53-86%) profiles were adjusted based on selective functionalization of hydrophobic IPNs due to electrostatic complexation and extended interactions of hydrophilic ligands with the aqueous and drug solutions. Drug release from the hydrogel matrices with diffusion coefficient n ≈ 0.7 was established by Non- Fickian diffusion mechanism. In vitro degradation trials of the hydrogel with a 20% loss of wet mass in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and 38% loss of wet mass in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF), were investigated for 400 h through bulk erosion. Consequently, a slower rate of drug loading and release was observed for native hydrogel, due to stronger H-bonding, interlocking and entanglement within the IPNs, which was finely tuned and extended by the induced hydrophilic and functional ligands. In the light of induced hydrophilicity, such functional hydrogel could be highly attractive for extended release of sparingly soluble drugs.
Effect of socio-demographic factors on endogenous biomarkers (cystatin C and creatinine) among elderly chronic kidney disease patients: a cross-sectional study

Khan I, Khan AH, Adnan AS, Sulaiman SAS, Hamzah ABA, Ahmed N, et al.

Int Urol Nephrol, 2018 Jun;50(6):1113-1121.
PMID: 29536424 DOI: 10.1007/s11255-018-1834-9

PURPOSE: Creatinine is normally used to evaluate kidney function among elderly patients in clinical practice, which has been reported to be affected by socio-demographic factors like BMI and age. Cystatin C a newly introduced biomarker may be more efficient in identifying kidney function in obese and aged CKD patients. The aim of the current study was to assess the effect of BMI on endogenous biomarkers (cystatin C and creatinine) among elderly CKD patients in Malaysia, a first such study in the country.
METHODS: The current study was conducted at the Hospital University Sains Malaysia, Kelantan. A total of 300 elderly Malay participants ≥ 65 years, with CKD, were taken in study. Demographic data, blood pressure, weight, and height were documented. Serum creatinine was assayed by Chemistry Analyzer Model Architect-C8000 (Jaffe Method), while serum cystatin C was examined by Human cystatin C ELISA kit (Sigma-Aldrich) using Thermo Scientific Varioskan Flash ELISA reader.
RESULTS: The study participants were divided into three groups on the basis of age. There was a statistically significant difference at the p value
Fulltext Forensic characterization of 15 autosomal STRs in four populations from Xinjiang, China, and genetic relationships with neighboring populations

Zhan X, Adnan A, Zhou Y, Khan A, Kasim K, McNevin D

Sci Rep, 2018 03 16;8(1):4673.
PMID: 29549272 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-22975-6

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (XUARC) harbors 47 ethnic groups including the Manchu (MCH: 0.11%), Mongols (MGL: 0.81%), Kyrgyz (KGZ: 0.86%) and Uzbek (UZK: 0.066%). To establish DNA databases for these populations, allele frequency distributions for 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were determined using the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR amplification kit. There was no evidence of departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in any of the four populations and minimal departure from linkage equilibrium (LE) for a very small number of pairwise combinations of loci. The probabilities of identity for the different populations ranged from 1 in 1.51 × 1017 (MCH) to 1 in 9.94 × 1018 (MGL), the combined powers of discrimination ranged from 0.99999999999999999824 (UZK) to 0.9999999999999999848 (MCH) and the combined probabilities of paternal exclusion ranged from 0.9999979323 (UZK) to 0.9999994839 (MCH). Genetic distances, a phylogenetic tree and principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the MCH, KGZ and UZK are genetically closer to the Han population of Liaoning and the Mongol population of Mongolia while the MGL are closer to Han, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Hong Kong Han and Russians living in China.
Fulltext Development and Evaluation of Self-Emulsifying Drug-Delivery System-Based Tablets for Simvastatin, a BCS Class II Drug

Bashir MA, Khan A, Shah SI, Ullah M, Khuda F, Abbas M, et al.

Drug Des Devel Ther, 2023;17:261-272.
PMID: 36726738 DOI: 10.2147/DDDT.S377686

BACKGROUND: Self-emulsifying drug-delivery systems (SEDDSs) are designed to improve the oral bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs. This study aimed at formulating and characterization of SEDDS-based tablets for simvastatin using castor and olive oils as solvents and Tween 60 as surfactant.
METHODS: The liquids were adsorbed on microcrystalline cellulose, and all developed formulations were compressed using 10.5 mm shallow concave round punches.
RESULTS: The resulting tablets were evaluated for different quality-control parameters at pre- and postcompression levels. Simvastatin showed better solubility in a mixture of oils and Tween 60 (10:1). All the developed formulations showed lower self-emulsification time (˂200 seconds) and higher cloud point (˃60°C). They were free of physical defects and had drug content within the acceptable range (98.5%-101%). The crushing strength of all formulations was in the range of 58-96 N, and the results of the friability test were within the range of USP (≤1). Disintegration time was within the official limits (NMT 15 min), and complete drug release was achieved within 30 min.
CONCLUSION: Using commonly available excipients and machinery, SEDDS-based tablets with better dissolution profile and bioavailability can be prepared by direct compression. These S-SEDDSs could be a better alternative to conventional tablets of simvastatin.
The effects of total factor of productivity, natural resources and green taxation on CO2 emissions in Malaysia

Loganathan N, Mursitama TN, Pillai LLK, Khan A, Taha R

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2020 Dec;27(36):45121-45132.
PMID: 32776215 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-10291-4

This study attempts to investigate the environment cleanness between the total factor productivity, natural resources and green taxation on Malaysia's clean environment. Using the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, this study employs the bootstrap quantile estimates based on the annual data series covering the period of 1970-2018 to analyse the quantile effect factors affecting environment cleanness in Malaysia. The empirical estimates of this study reject the EKC hypothesis throughout the quantile levels, while the green taxation shows a negative sign which indicated government fiscal policies are reducing carbon emission in the upper quantiles. There is also homogeneity slope equality effect between total factor of productivity and green taxation on carbon emissions in the middle and upper quantile levels, while natural resources are indication heterogeneity effect on all quantile levels. From the policy point of view, if Malaysia wants to get environment cleanness, there is a need for comprehensive policies of total factor of productivity with environment innovation-friendly and technological improvement in all major economic sectors of the country.
Access to clean technologies, energy, finance, and food: environmental sustainability agenda and its implications on Sub-Saharan African countries

Hishan SS, Sasmoko, Khan A, Ahmad J, Hassan ZB, Zaman K, et al.

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2019 Jun;26(16):16503-16518.
PMID: 30980369 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-019-05056-7

The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is far lag behind the sustainable targets that set out in the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is highly needed to embark the priorities by their member countries to devise sustainable policies for accessing clean technologies, energy demand, finance, and food production to mitigate high-mass carbon emissions and conserve environmental agenda in the national policy agenda. The study evaluated United Nation's SDGs for environmental conservation and emission reduction in the panel of 35 selected SSA countries, during a period of 1995-2016. The study further analyzed the variable's relationship in inter-temporal forecasting framework for the next 10 years' time period, i.e., 2017-2026. The parameter estimates for the two models, i.e., CO2 model and PM2.5 models are analyzed by Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimator that handle possible endogeneity issue from the given models. The results rejected the inverted U-shaped Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for CO2 emissions, while it supported for PM2.5 emissions with a turning point of US$5540 GDP per capita in constant 2010 US$. The results supported the "pollution haven hypothesis" for CO2 emissions, while this hypothesis is not verified for PM2.5 emissions. The major detrimental factors are technologies, FDI inflows, and food deficit that largely increase carbon emissions in a panel of SSA countries. The IPAT hypothesis is not verified in both the emissions; however, population density will largely influenced CO2 emissions in the next 10 years' time period. The PM2.5 emissions will largely be influenced by high per capita income, followed by trade openness, and technologies, over a time horizon. Thus, the United Nation's sustainable development agenda is highly influenced by socio-economic and environmental factors that need sound action plans by their member countries to coordinate and collaborate with each other and work for Africa's green growth agenda.
Natural disasters and economic losses: controlling external migration, energy and environmental resources, water demand, and financial development for global prosperity

Abbas Khan K, Zaman K, Shoukry AM, Sharkawy A, Gani S, Sasmoko, et al.

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2019 May;26(14):14287-14299.
PMID: 30864039 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-019-04755-5

The objective of the study is to examine the impact of natural disasters on external migration, price level, poverty incidence, health expenditures, energy and environmental resources, water demand, financial development, and economic growth in a panel of selected Asian countries for a period of 2005-2017. The results confirm that natural disasters in the form of storm and flood largely increase migration, price level, and poverty incidence, which negatively influenced country's economic resources, including enlarge healthcare expenditures, high energy demand, and low economic growth. The study further presented the following results: i) natural resource depletion increases external migration, ii) FDI inflows increase price level, iii) increase healthcare spending and energy demand decreases poverty headcount, iv) poverty incidence and mortality rate negatively influenced healthcare expenditures, v) industrialization increases energy demand, and vi) agriculture value added, fertilizer, and cereal yields required more water supply to produce greater yield. The study emphasized the need to magnify the intensity of natural disasters and create natural disaster mitigation unit to access the human and infrastructure cost and attempt quick recovery for global prosperity.

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