Machine Vision based Computer-Aided Detection of Pulmonary Tuberculosis using Chest X-Ray Images

Tuberculosis (TB) is a lethal disease and developing countries are struggling to overcome this health hazard especially in rural areas and faced globally. Therefore, serious measures are required to reduce this global health hazard. Millary and pulmonary are the most common types of tuberculosis occurring globally. X-ray is the preliminary method to detect tuberculosis; however, the diagnosis is quite often subject to human error. In contrast, the chances of curing Tuberculosis depend on its timely and accurate diagnosis. Therefore, an intelligent machine learning algorithm is developed in this study to assist the clinician in an accurate TB identification in x-ray images. The proposed method pre-processes the X-ray image, enhances its quality and extracts the features of each class which are further passed on to a Deep Convolutional Neural Network-based design for the X-ray image classification, followed by the identification of the tuberculosis type i.e. Millary, Cavitary, Healthy. The classification accuracy for the developed method resulted in 88% and 89% for millary and cavitary TB diseases in x ray images.

Synthesis of Quaternary Ammonium Based New Analgesic, Anti- Inflammatory and Antipyretic Drugs

The carboxylic acid group (-COOH) present in most commercial NSAIDs is thought to be partly responsible for the gastric toxicity associated with the long-term administration of these compounds. The goal of the present research was to determine if new NSAID derivatives devoid of acidic moieties would retain the anti- inflammatory activity while exerting a lower degree of gastric toxicity compared to the corresponding parent NSAID. In this regard, we replaced the carboxylic acid group in aspirin, ibuprofen, flurbiprofen, and naproxen with a series of quaternary ammonium moieties, and the resulting water-soluble NSAID derivatives were tested for anti-inflammatory and ulcerogenic activity in vivo. Results of our investigation showed that replacement of quaternary ammonium moieties for the carboxylic acid group present in NSAIDs, yielded potent anti-inflammatory molecules without stomach ulceration when administered orally to rats. Among the new compounds, N- (2-hydroxyethyl)-2-(6-methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propan-1-aminium chloride (a naproxen derivative) was the most potent anti-inflammatory agent (65.28% inhibition of inflammation at 6.4 mg/kg); however, unlike the reference compound naproxen (ulcer index = 108.7), N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-2-(6-methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propan-1- aminium chloride did not produced gastric ulcers (Ulcer index = 0) when administered orally at equimolar doses (0.17mmol). These results suggest that the carboxylic acid group present in commercial 2-phenylpropionic acid NSAIDs is not an essential requirement for anti-inflammatory activity in vivo, and offers a new concept in drug design by using water-soluble ammonium moieties instead. Derivatives of salicylic acid were screened for analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activities, and acute toxicity. The result of this study indicated that these compounds possess dose dependent statistically significant analgesic, anti- inflammatory and antipyretic properties, compared to aspirin, without causing gastric ulceration and acute toxicity.