The study was undertaken to evaluate various aspects of self-medication in medical students. A prospective, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was carried out among 488 medical students selected by simple random sampling from January 2013 to June 2013. Data was collected and analyzed for counts and percentage. Students reported self-medication in the preceding one year was 71.7 % and the prevalence was more in final year students. Fever and headache were the most frequently reported illnesses, commonly used drugs were antipyretics and analgesics, obtained information through reading material, and reasons quoted were minor ailments and quick relief. Majority students agreed that medical knowledge is necessary for administration of medicine by self. Self-medication is highly prevalent in medical students, which is quite alarming.

Abstract.A promising approach to managing business operations is based on business entities with lifecycles (BEL's) (a.k.a. business artifacts), i.e., key conceptual entities that are central to guiding the operations of a business, and whose content changes as they move through those operations. A BEL type includes both an information model that captures, in either materialized or virtual form, all of the business-relevant data about entities of that type, and a lifecycle model, that specifies the possible ways an entity of that type might progress through the business by responding to events and invoking services, including human activities. Most previous work on BEL's has focused on the use of lifecycle models based on variants of finite state machines. This paper introduces the Guard-StageMilestone (GSM) meta-model for lifecycles, which is an evolution of the previous work on BEL's. GSM lifecycles are substantially more declarative than the finite state machine variants, and support hierarchy and parallelism within a single entity instance. The GSM operational semantics are based on a form of EventCondition-Action (ECA) rules, and provide a basis for formal verification and reasoning. This paper provides an informal, preliminary introduction to the GSM approach, and briefly overviews selected research directions.

A comprehensive review of several aspects of fermion mixing phenomenon and texture specific mass matrices have been presented. Regarding fermion mixings, implications of unitarity and certain new developments for the CKM paradigm have been discussed. In the leptonic sector, the question of possibility of CP violation has been discussed in detail from the unitarity triangle perspective. In the case of texture specific mass matrices, the issues of viability of Fritzsch-like as well as non Fritzsch-like mass matrices have been detailed for both the quark and leptonic sectors. The relationship of textures, naturalness and weak basis rotations has also been looked into. The issue of the compatibility of texture specific mass matrices with the SO(10) based GUT mass matrices has also been discussed.

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The effects of SU(3) symmetry breaking and configuration mixing have been investigated for the weak vector and axial-vector form factors in the chiral constituent quark model (χCQM) for the strangeness changing as well as strangeness conserving semi-leptonic octet baryon decays in the nonperturbative regime. The results are in good agreement with existing experimental data and also show improvement over other phenomenological models.

Introduction:Alopecia in male is considered as a genetically determined disorder characterized by increased level of local androgen metabolite and increase androgen receptor binding in balding areas. Frequent deviations of hormones from normal values have been reported in men diagnosed with premature androgenetic alopecia (AGA) especially for androgens, gonadotropins and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). Different studies in the past have inferred that premature baldness before the age of thirty in males could be considered equivalent to the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in female.Materials and Methods:Hormonal profile of 50 men with severe premature balding before 30 years of age were compared with same numbers of age matched controls. The serum concentrations of total testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, SHBG, insulin and fasting blood sugar were estimated. Statistical analysis was performed with paired Student's t-test for cases and controls.Results:Decreased levels of SHBG with high free androgen index were found in cases when compared with the controls.Conclusion:Though altered hormonal profile may coexist in some of men with premature AGA it can’t be considered as male equivalent to PCOS in female or the metabolic syndrome.

Summary:Purpose: Melatonin has been shown to exhibit antioxidant, antiexcitotoxic, and free radical-scavenging properties in various animal models. The study was designed to assess its effects on the blood levels of antioxidant enzymes in children with epilepsy receiving carbamazepine (CBZ).Methods: In a double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial, we assessed the effect of add-on melatonin (6-9 mg/day for 14 days) on the antioxidant enzymes glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GRd) in 31 children with epilepsy receiving CBZ monotherapy, who were seizure free at least for the last 6 months. The interaction of melatonin with CBZ and its active metabolite, carbamazepine-10, 11-epoxide (CBZ-E), also was studied.Results: An increase in GRd activity was noted in the melatonin group as compared with a decrease of the same enzyme in the placebo group. Changes in GPx activity failed to reach statistical significance. No significant changes were found in the serum levels of CBZ and CBZ-E in either group.Conclusions: The study suggests that melatonin exerts antioxidant activity in patients with epilepsy receiving CBZ therapy. Key Words: Melatonin-Carbamazepine-Carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide-Antioxidant enzymes.Evidence has accumulated about the involvement of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in epilepsy (1). The free radicals generated cause a cascade of neurochemical events leading to neurodegeneration and cell death. Free radicals also are produced by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) like carbamazepine (CBZ) (2).The neuromodulator melatonin has been shown to reduce oxidative stress in various animal models, because of its antioxidant as well as free radical-scavenging properties (3), and to antagonize a mutagenic effect of CBZ in some systems (4). Melatonin also exhibits anticonvulsant activity in different seizure models (5), and at least No randomized controlled trials have assessed the effect of add-on melatonin on antioxidant enzymes in pediatric epilepsy. The objectives of the present study were (a) to compare the effect of add-on melatonin with placebo on antioxidant enzymes in children with epilepsy receiving CBZ monotherapy; and (b) to study the pharmacokinetic interaction between melatonin and CBZ and its active metabolite carbamazepine-10,11-epoxide (CBZ-E).

This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study in epileptic children, aged 3 to 12 years, evaluated the effect of add-on melatonin on the sleep behavior of these children on sodium valproate monotherapy using a parental questionnaire. Of the 31 patients, 16 randomly received add-on melatonin, whereas 15 received add-on placebo. The questionnaire showed good internal consistency in our patient population (Cronbach's alpha = .83). The percentage decrease in the median total sleep score was 24.4 (range 0.0-34.9) in the valproate + melatonin group compared with 14.0 (range -2.2-18.8) in the valproate + placebo group, the difference being statistically significant (P < .05). The median percentage decrease in the parasomnias score was 60 (range 0.0-70.8) in the valproate + melatonin group compared with 36.4 (range 0.0-63.2) in the valproate + placebo group, the difference being statistically significant (P < .05). There was no significant difference between the percentage decrease in the daytime drowsiness scores and sleep fragmentation scores. Parent-child interaction subscale scores were not significantly different between age groups. The age at onset of seizures and the type of seizures did not correlate significantly to the total sleep scores. Given that sleep problems are known to complicate epilepsy, add-on melatonin, which has a wide safety window, can be of promise in the pharmacotherapy of pediatric epilepsy.