In vivo evaluation of a mucoadhesive polymeric caplet for intravaginal anti-HIV-1 delivery and development of a molecular mechanistic model for thermochemical characterization

Context and objective: The aim of this study was to develop, characterize and evaluate a mucoadhesive caplet resulting from a polymeric blend (polymeric caplet) for intravaginal anti-HIV-1 delivery.

Materials and methods: Poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid, ethylcellulose, poly(vinylalcohol), polyacrylic acid and modified polyamide 6, 10 polymers were blended and compressed to a caplet-shaped device, with and without two model drugs 3′-azido-3′-deoxythymidine (AZT) and polystyrene sulfonate (PSS). Thermal analysis, infrared spectroscopy and microscopic analysis were carried out on the caplets employing temperature-modulated DSC (TMDSC), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectrometer and scanning electron microscope, respectively. In vitro and in vivo drug release analyses as well as the histopathological toxicity studies were carried out on the drug-loaded caplets. Furthermore, molecular mechanics (MM) simulations were carried out on the drug-loaded caplets to corroborate the experimental findings.

Results and discussion: There was a big deviation between the T_g of the polymeric caplet from the T_g's of the constituent polymers indicating a strong interaction between constituent polymers. FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the presence of specific ionic and non-ionic interactions within the caplet. A controlled near zero-order drug release was obtained for AZT (20 d) and PSS (28 d). In vivo results, i.e. the drug concentration in plasma ranged between 0.012–0.332?mg/mL and 0.009–0.256?mg/mL for AZT and PSS over 1–28 d.

Conclusion: The obtained results, which were corroborated by MM simulations, attested that the developed system has the potential for effective delivery of anti-HIV-agents.     

Selection of optimized features for fusion of palm print and finger knuckle‐based person authentication

The impact of digital technology in biometrics is much more efficient at interpreting data than humans, which results in completely replacement of manual identification procedures in forensic science. Because the single modality‐based biometric frameworks limit performance in terms of accuracy and anti‐spoofing capabilities due to the presence of low quality data, therefore, information fusion of more than one biometric characteristic in pursuit of high recognition results can be beneficial. In this article, we present a multimodal biometric system based on information fusion of palm print and finger knuckle traits, which are least associated to any criminal investigation as evidence yet. The proposed multimodal biometric system might be useful to identify the suspects in case of physical beating or kidnapping and establish supportive scientific evidences, when no fingerprint or face information is present in photographs. The first step in our work is data preprocessing, in which region of interest of palm and finger knuckle images have been extracted. To minimize nonuniform illumination effects, we first normalize the detected circular palm or finger knuckle and then apply line ordinal pattern (LOP)‐based encoding scheme for texture enrichment. The nondecimated quaternion wavelet provides denser feature representation at multiple scales and orientations when extracted over proposed LOP encoding and increases the discrimination power of line and ridge features. To best of our knowledge, this first attempt is a combination of backtracking search algorithm and 2D²LDA has been employed to select the dominant palm and knuckle features for classification. The classifiers output for two modalities are combined at unsupervised rank level fusion rule through Borda count method, which shows an increase in performance in terms of recognition and verification, that is, 100% (correct recognition rate), 0.26% (equal error rate), 3.52 (discriminative index), and 1,262 m (speed).     

Design of an Ultra-Compact and Highly-Sensitive Temperature Sensor Using Photonic Crystal Based Single Micro-Ring Resonator and Cascaded Micro-Ring Resonator

Silicon - In the present report, a photonic crystal based micro-ring resonator (MRR) structure is proposed which is very compact in size and has very fast response and is employed for temperature...     

CONCENTRATION POLARIZATION OCCURRING INSIDE THE MEMBRANE DURING STEADY STATE PERVAPORATION

Experimental profiles of a single penetrant (water) across the membrane have been established at different downstream pressures during steady state pervaporation. The profiles ofacetic acid-water binary penetrant system across the membrane were also measured at different downstream pressures, temperatures and compositions during steady state pervaporation. A stack of identical pre-characterized symmetric aromatic polyamide membranes was used for the profile study. The theoretical prediction of concentration polarization from mathematical equations has been confirmed by the experimental profile data for a binary penetrant system.     

Formation of Nanocrystalline Calcia by the Decomposition of Calcite

Formation of nanocrystalline calcia from calcite has been studied in situ via transmission electron microscopy. The crystallographic transformation occurred via two mechanisms: the first is by distortion of the cleaved rhombohedron of calcite, formed by {104} planes in hexagonal coordinates, into a cube. This produced a microstructure of oriented, elongated nanocrystals of calcia with planar boundaries. In the second mechanism, the micrometer-sized parent calcite particles broke up into nano-sized grains as the decomposition began, leading to irregularly shaped, randomly oriented nanocrystals of calcia.     

A class of discontinuous dynamical systems IV. A laboratory air-water system

An air-water experimental system consisting of two inlets and one outlet is constructed and characterised. It reaches the state of sliding mode, or equivalently, two phase slug flow. The linear hydraulic model proposed in the literature is adequate to describe it. Experimental data are used to tune this model. The resistance to the flow of air through the outlet valve during the two phase flow is much larger than that when air alone flows out. At the operating range, the resistance to water flow is not affected by the presence of air.     

Electrostatic capillary collector for in-situ spectroscopic analysis of aerosols

Identification of particulate matter is important in assessing an individual’s exposure to potentially harmful particles, such as aeroallergens, toxins, and emissions from combustion sources, which can contribute to cardio-pulmonary diseases. Efficient collection of aerosols is essential for aerosol exposure studies such as analysis of chemical and biological components. We present the design and evaluation of a capillary collector that collects PM_2.5 onto the outer surface of a capillary for in-situ spectroscopic analysis. The capillary collector uses a needle-to-ring corona generator to charge particles; the electric field between a cylinder and a wire inserted into the bore of a capillary is used to collect the charged particles. Corona and repelling voltages are optimized for maximum collection of ambient PM_2.5 particles and fluorescent polystyrene latex microspheres in the PM_2.5 size range, on the capillary. The capillary collection efficiency of ambient PM_2.5 at 3 slpm operating flow rate and optimal operating voltages is 63%. Fluorescence spectroscopy is used to quantify the collection of polystyrene latex microspheres. The fluorescence-based capillary collection efficiency is in close agreement with the capillary collection efficiency of ambient PM_2.5. The collection and analysis methodology can be used to develop a compact, low-cost sensor for in-situ spectroscopic analysis of aerosols to determine their chemical composition for source apportionment.

Copyright © 2019 American Association for Aerosol Research     

Mutual spectral residual approach for multifocus image fusion

Multifocus image fusion is the process of obtaining a single image from multiple partially focused images such that the newly formed image consists of the well-defined information extracted from each source image. This paper proposes the use of saliency of the source images based on Mutual Spectral Residual. Spectral Residual brings out the unique/salient features of an image in frequency domain. The idea of proposed mutual spectral residual is to emphasize the relative unique features of a source image with respect to the other source images. The relative unique features are utilized to form saliency maps for each source image. These saliency maps can clearly indicate the focused and defocused parts of an image. Based on the saliency maps obtained, the image fusion takes place in spatial domain. Visual inspection and quantitative evaluation of the fused images obtained by the proposed method, using different evaluation metrics, demonstrate its effectiveness over several existing image fusion methods.     

An Improved Multifactor User Authentication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are used to collect and transmitted the data in various applications from normal to those which requires significant security...