Ethical Observations on the Choice of Parenteral Solvents

The parenteral administration of insoluble drugs leads to the use of biologically active solvents inducing effects associated with ethical cause of concern including pain and pharmacological interactions. Selected vehicles currently used were ethically and scientifically reviewed. Our investigations allowed reinforcing the formulation decision tree with an ethical point of view. The last generation of cyclodextrin appears to be the safest solvent. Second choice could be lipidic emulsions, third choice being co-solvents, and finally non-ionic surfactants because of their hypersensitivity reactions. Screening tests including pH, osmolality measurements, cytotoxicity, and hemotoxicity, should allow to check the formulation tolerance before the animals' administration.     

Investigation of Strongly Hydrophobic and Thick Porous Silicon Stain Films Properties

Silicon - Porous silicon (PSi) structures with strong hydrophobicity have been achieved by chemical etching of p-type silicon substrates in a solution based on hydrofluoric acid solution (HF) and...     

High-performance glucose sensor based on glucose oxidase encapsulated in new synthesized platinum nanoparticles supported on carbon Vulcan/Nafion composite deposited on glassy carbon

In this study we synthesized Pt nanoparticles supported on carbon Vulcan (Pt/C), a cheap and high surface area carbon. Compared to the commercialized Pt/C, which showed a moderate activity towards the oxidation of H₂O₂ and a high catalytic activity to the interferences specially AP; the synthesized Pt/C illustrated a high activity towards the oxidation of H₂O₂ and negligible response towards the oxidation of the interferences at high applied potentials (>0.6 V). This difference in the catalytic behavior was attributed to the homogenous distribution of the synthesized Pt nanoparticles in the supporting carbon Vulcan as well as, to their relatively bigger size (8-9 nm) compared to (1-2 nm) estimated for the commercialized Pt/C. This particular and interesting behavior of the synthesized Pt/C was used to encapsulate glucose oxidase along with a small amount of Nafion for the manufacturing of a glucose sensor. The resulting glucose sensor has a high sensitivity of 1.25 μA/mM mm², which compares very well with other glucose sensors based on precious metal nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes, an extended linear range up to 45 mM without using any outer polymer layer, low interference from endogenous species, short response time (<5 s), was stable for at least 1 month and, found to be dependable for glucose determination in human serum.     

Nonlinear output control scheme for general decay synchronization of delayed neural networks with inertial term

This study is mainly concerned with the general decay synchronization (GDS) problem of a class of inertial neural networks (INNs) with time‐varying delay. First, unlike the methods used in previous relevant literature where both of the master and slave systems were transferred into the first‐order differential equations, only error dynamical system is transferred into the reduced‐order differential equation. Then, by designing a novel nonlinear output feedback controller and constructing suitable Lyapunov functionals, some simple and useful sufficient conditions ensuring the GDS of considered INNs are established via employing useful analysis techniques and linear matrix inequality approach. In addition, two examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the established theoretical results.     

pH sensor based on the crown heteropolyanion K28Li5H7P8W48O184·92H2O immobilized using a layer by layer assembly process

A new sensitive pH sensor based on immobilization of the crown heteropolyanion K₂₈Li₅H₇P₈W₄₈O₁₈₄·92H₂O (P₈W₄₈) on a electrode surface through a layer by layer assembly process is described. The immobilization is based on the electrostatic adsorption of the complex in layers of charged polyelectrolyte poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH). The deposited P₈W₄₈/LBL film was investigated by cyclic voltammetry, potentiometry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Compared to the electrochemical behavior of dissolved P₈W₄₈, a slight shift in the redox peak towards negative potentials is observed, which have been attributed to a slight decrease in the acidity of the interior of the P₈W₄₈/LBL film compared to the testing buffer solution. The relationship between the peak currents of the deposited P₈W₄₈/LBL film and the number of layers is shown to be linear, which demonstrates that equal amounts of P₈W₄₈ are adsorbed in each deposition layer. The P₈W₄₈/LBL modified electrode showed high sensitivities toward pH. Therefore, such electrodes were tested as pH sensors using the titration method. The resulting pH sensor has a detection range of pH 1–13, a sensitivity of 69 ± 2 mV/pH, high repeatability (<3 mV), fast response time (<7 s), low sensitivity toward change in ionic strength and nature of the supporting electrolyte, low internal resistance and a working life time of at least 3 months. Moreover, the sensor is easy to manufacture and can be easily miniaturized for measurements in micro- and nano-systems.     

New efficient M2C and M2M mutual authentication protocols for IoT-based healthcare applications

Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications - With the rapid advancement of heterogeneous wireless technologies and their proliferation in ambient connected objects, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a...     

Intelligent System for Robotic Navigation Using ANFIS and ACOr

In this article we propose an intelligent system for mobile robot navigation in different environments, using ANFIS and ACOr. This system is capable of ensuring to mobile robot to navigate by reacting to the various situations encountered in different environments. In a first step, we use the ANFIS controller (Adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system) in which the contribution of the fuzzy logic of TAKAJI-SUGENO is added to that of the neural networks in a suitable way. In the second step, the ant colony method in a continuous environment ACOr (Ant colony optimization for continuous domains) is grafted into the second layer of the ANFIS network for hybridization. Simulations of the movements of the robot and the graphic interfaces are realized under the C ++ language.     

Speaker-independent ASR for Modern Standard Arabic: effect of regional accents

This paper deals with speaker-independent Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system for continuous speech. This ASR system has been developed for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) using recordings of six regions taken from ALGerian Arabic Speech Database (ALGASD), and has been designed by using Hidden Markov Models. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of regional accent on speech recognition rates. First, the experiment assessed the general performance of the model for the data speech of six regions, details of the recognition results are performed to observe the deterioration of the performance of the ASR according to the regional variation included in the speech material. The results have shown that the ASR performance is clearly impacted by the regional accents of the speakers.     

Anticorrosive Coatings Based on Few-Layer Graphene

In this paper the anticorrosive properties of the few-layer graphene nanostructures were investigated. On the surface ofcopper and nickel plates the few-layer g...     

Percutaneous Absorption of Metopimazine and Effect of Cyclodextrins

Metopimazine (MPZ) is used to prevent emesis during chemotherapies. A transdermal delivery system of MPZ may present a great advantage in patients to improve compliance. Hydroxypropyl β cyclodextrin (HPβCD) and partially methylated β cyclodextrin (PMβCD) were tested to enhance the percutaneous absorption of MPZ through pig skin using Franz's cells. The MPZ hydrochloride flux was low with 0.176 ± 0.054 μg/h/cm² and no flux was detected with a suspension of MPZ (base). The used characterization analyses demonstrated the formation of an inclusion complex with cyclodextrin and this complex improved percutaneous absorption of MPZ. Flux was increased to 0.240 ± 0.032 μg/h/cm² and 0.566 ± 0.057 μg/h/cm² for HPβCD and PMβCD, respectively, with a concentration of 20%. This study has shown that HPβCD and PMβCD improved the percutaneous penetration of MPZ. Cyclodextrin complexes increased MPZ bioavailability at the skin surface and PMβCD was also able to extract cutaneous fatty acids.