Chukrasia velutina is a local medicinal plant commonly known as chikrassy in Bangladesh, India, China, and other South Asian countries. The leaves, bark, and seeds are vastly used as herbal medicine for fever and diarrhea, and its leaves essential oils are used for antimicrobial purposes. In this study, we discuss the neuropsychiatric properties of C. velutina leaves through several animal models, quantitative and qualitative phytochemical analysis, and computational approaches. Neuropsychiatric effects were performed in rodents on the methanolic extract of C. velutina leaves (MECVL). Antidepressant, anxiolytic, and sedative effects experimented through these rodent models were used such as the force swimming test (FST), tail suspension test (TST), hole board test (HBT), elevated plus maze test (EPMT), light/dark box test (LDBT), open field test (OFT), and hole cross test (HCT). In these rodent models, 200 and 400 mg/kg doses were used which exhibited a significant result in the force swimming and tail suspension test (p < 0.001) for the antidepressant effect. In the anxiolytic study, the results were significant in the hole board, elevated plus maze, and light/dark box test (p < 0.001) for doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg. The result was also significant in the open field and hole cross test (p < 0.001) for sedative action in the sake of similar doses. Moreover, qualitative and quantitative studies were also performed through phytochemical screening and GC-MS analysis, and fifty-seven phytochemical compounds were found. These compounds were analyzed for pharmacokinetics properties using the SwissADME tool and from them, thirty-five compounds were considered for the molecular docking analysis. These phytoconstituents were docking against the human serotonin receptor, potassium channel receptor, and crystal structure of human beta-receptor, where eight of the compounds showed a good binding affinity towards the respective receptors considered to the reference standard drugs. After all of these analyses, it can be said that the secondary metabolite of C. velutina leaves (MECVL) could be a good source for inhibiting the neuropsychiatric disorders which were found on animal models as well as in computational studies.

Introduction: Gradual total health expenditure (THE) has become a major concern. It is not only the increased THE, but also its unequal growth in overall economy, found among the developing countries. If increased life expectancy is considered as a leverage for an individual's investment in health services, it can be expected that as the life expectancy increases, tendency of health care investment will also experience a boost up.

This paper empirically examines a corporate community involvement (CCI) initiative in Bangladesh. Drawing on a conceptual framework of 'collaborative betterment' and 'collaborative empowerment' and by using focus group discussions and interviews, it assesses the initiative to examine the extent to which it meets expectations of the community where it operates. Some of the key findings of the paper include: (i) although the initiative provides vital healthcare services to some of the most vulnerable and desperately poor communities, the level of actual engagement of the local peoplethe main stakeholdershas been marginal; (ii) when the principles of collaborative betterment and empowerment are considered, it can be concluded that the initiative struggles even as a 'betterment' process; and (iii) notwithstanding the rhetoric and high-blown statements, corporate role in terms of practical efforts in the field has been mostly superficial and limited.

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Nanogels based materials have high drug loading capacity, biocompatibility, and biodegradability which are the key points to design a drug delivery system effectively. The pursuit of this review article is to concisely describe the recent development of nanogel drug delivery system in terms of drug loading and swelling of drug from nanogels. Furthermore, biomedical application and current clinical trial studies of nanogel are summarized briefly. Here, different types of nanogels along with the synthetic procedure and mechanism of drug release from nanogel carrier are mainly focused. An intensive study of clinical trial in future will confirm nanogel as a suitable carrier for drug delivery.

Dhaka Stock Exchange has experienced two market crashes since its inception (November 1996 and December 2010). The regulator tried to reform the market as an efficient market by taking various measures. This study is designed to measure market efficiency level of DSE; Market efficiency is used to explain the relationship between information and share price in capital market, following whether or not returns in a market follow a random walk process over a longer period of time. For testing of market efficiency, we conducted normality test along with serial dependencies of stock return from one period to another. The Result of the study indicates that the DSE is not 'Weak form of Efficient' and not follow 'Random Walk model'.

Background: Bangladesh continues to be one of the top ten countries with the highest burden of neonatal mortality. While, most of the neonatal deaths are preventable; health system delays, delayed identification of newborn danger signs, late diagnosis and initiation of treatment are claimed to be the main challenges.Objective: 1) to determine the level of knowledge among the recently delivered women (RDW) about newborn danger signs and 2) to distinguish the factors associated with ability of identifying the danger signs.Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted in three sub-district hospitals of Bangladesh among 135 RDW between 1 January 2015 and 30 April 2015. Seven key danger signs were identified, and responses were categorized accordingly. Bivariable logistic regression was conducted to determine the likelihood of the association of factors with danger signs identification.Results: About 51% of RDW could identify one key danger sign. Knowledge on “fever’’ was the most commonly known danger sign (65%). Middle age (OR 1.67, 95% CI: 1.09 - 2.18), high education (OR 2.37, 95% CI: 1.46 - 2.77), increased parity (OR 1.91, 95% CI: 1.17 - 2.89), and previous hospital delivery (OR 1.79, 95% CI: 1.14 - 2.68) were found associated with the knowl­edge of the danger signs.Conclusion: The findings indicate the immediate need to enhance health education among the RDW about newborn danger signs before their hospital discharge. Community based health education programs can be a cost effective intervention to increase awareness and early recognition of neonatal danger signs.

The methanolic extract of Duabanga grandiflora (Roxb. ex DC.) Walpers leaves was investigated to explore in-vitro anti-arthritic, thrombolytic and antioxidant potential and subsequent detection of preliminary phytochemicals. It is used for treating various diseases by folk practitioners and rural people. Initially, BSA protein denaturation method was employed to evaluate in-vitro anti-arthritic potency, where the extract exhibited potent anti-arthritic activity with 73.52±1.01% inhibition of BSA denaturation at a dose of 1000 μg/ml compared to the standard dichlofenac sodium (83.66±1.03% inhibition at 1000 μg/ml dose). In-vitro thrombolytic efficacy was determined using streptokinase (positive control) and water (negative control), and the average lysis of blood clot was found to be 31.12±1.09%, which is indicative towards the thrombolytic effect of the extract. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by the DPPH radical scavenging method followed by the total phenolic and flavonoid content determination. The crude methanolic extract revealed the IC50 value of 129.31μg/ml and 204.89μg/ml against DPPH and standard ascorbic acid, respectively. The total phenolic content and total flavonoid content of the plant leaves were observed to be 52.81±1.74μg/ml and 25.77±1.01μg/ml, respectively. The results indicate that the leaves of D. grandiflora possess favorable anti-arthritic activity, moderate thrombolytic and excellent antioxidant activity, which is demonstrating the presence of alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids and many other biologically important phyto-constituents that needs further exploration. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Journal 23(1): 54-60, 2020