In-Vitro Release and Permeation Kinetics of Pentazociwe From Matrix-Dispersion Type Trawsdwul Drug Delivery Systw

A matrix-dispersion type Transdermal Drug Delivery System (TDS) of Pentazocine (PZ) was fabricated, using combinations of rate controlling polymers, namely Eudragits RS100 (RS), RL100 (RL), Ethylcellulose (EC) and Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), with the objective of examining the effects of formulation variables on drug-permeation profiles. In depth in-vitro drug release and skin-permeation kinetics with three different loads, and also the effects of combination of isopropyl Myristate (IPM), as permeation enhancer, were studied using male albino mice abdominal skin. The release of PZ over a 12 hour period followed Higuchi kinetics, while in-vitro mice-skin permeation of PZ followed an apparent Zero-order kinetics over a period of 24 hours.     

Concurrent runtime monitoring of formally specified programs

A methodology for continuously monitoring a program for specification consistency during program execution is described. Prior development of the formal specification and program is assumed. The program is annotated with constructs from a formal specification language, and the formal specification constructs are transformed into checking code, which is then inserted into the underlying program. Calls to this checking code are inserted into underlying program wherever it can potentially become inconsistent with its specification. If an inconsistency does in fact occur, diagnostic information is provided. The implementation of such a system for Anna (annotated Ada) subtype annotations is presented     

Automatic detection of sleep apnea and hypopnea events from single channel measurement of respiration signal employing ensemble binary SVM classifiers

This paper presents a novel method for automatic detection of apnea and hypopnea events as well as mean duration of events from the recording of single channel oronasal airflow signal, moreover the automated algorithm has been implemented with PC based low cost Data Acquisition System (DAS). The method divides the respiration signal into overlapping segments of typical 8 s duration and then categorize the segments with the help of ensemble binary Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers, according to the origin of the segments, i.e. ‘N’ if the segment originates from normal respiration signal during sleep, ‘A’ if it originates from apnea and ‘H’ for hypopnea event related breathing signal. Finally, it uses a heuristically derived rule based system to identify the apnea or hypopnea events by combining the time sequenced decisions of the classifiers. Automatic identification of events helps to provide the direct estimation of Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI) and thus severity. The overall correlation coefficients between the automatic model predicted indexes and the PSG based manual indexes were 0.970, 0.986 and 0.982 for HI, AI, and AHI respectively.     

New copper phthalocyanine oligomers for high dielectric constant polymer films

We report here the synthesis of two new oligomeric copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) derivatives by esterification of the corresponding carboxylic acids with tri(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether. The solubility of these derivatives in N,N′‐dimethylformamide (DMF) enabled us to perform dielectric studies with poly(vinylidene fluoride‐trifluoroethylene) P(VDF‐TrFE), acting as the host polymer matrix. The highest room temperature dielectric constant achieved is 94 at 100 Hz, compared with 12 for the base polymer host matrix. Thermogravimetric analyzes of the polymer films showed that they are thermostable at 100°C for a long period of time. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the films have also been analyzed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

A Study of Scrap Heating By Burners. Part I: Experiments

A furnace, approximately 1 m³ in capacity, was built to measure the efficiency of heat transfer from a propane-oxygen burner to different types of industrial steel scrap. Supplementary measurements were undertaken to measure the scrap density, size, and void fraction to insure complete combustion of the propane and to measure the extent of scrap oxidation. Local values of temperature in the scrap bed were measured along with the exit temperature of the off gas. The off gas temperature was a direct measurement of the overall efficiency of heating. It was found that smaller and denser scrap was heated more effectively. Configurations that increased the path length of the gas also increased the efficiency of heating. In Part II, a mathematical model is developed to compare with the measured temperatures.     

Effect of dietary level of methionine on growth performance and immune response in Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

BACKGROUND: Methionine (Met) being the first limiting amino acid in maize/soybean‐based quail diets, its supplementation provides scope for improvement of protein quality and reduction of dietary protein concentration. The question remains to what extent it can be incorporated in the diet of genetically improved quails. Therefore the effect of dietary Met level was assessed on growth performance and immune response in growing Japanese quails (n = 400) divided equally into 20 groups. Five dietary treatments (～230 g kg^?1 crude protein and 12.14 MJ kg^?1 metabolisable energy) were formulated with 3.5, 4.5, 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 g kg^?1 Met respectively, and each was offered to four groups of birds from 0 to 35 days of age. RESULTS: Live weight at day 35 increased (P < 0.0001) up to 5.0 g kg^?1 dietary Met level but did not improve further at higher Met levels (5.5 and 6.0 g kg^?1). Improved (P < 0.039) feed conversion ratio was achieved at 5.5 g kg^?1 Met level, which was statistically similar to that at 5.0 g kg^?1 Met level during 0–14 days of age. Cellular (phytohaemagglutinin from Phaseolus vulgaris) immune response increased (P < 0.0001) with increasing dietary Met concentration, whereas humoral (sheep red blood cells) immune response did not differ. CONCLUSION: The optimal requirement of Met was 5.0 g kg^?1 for growth and 5.5 g kg^?1 for maximum cellular immune response. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

Studies on new chemically deposited photoconducting antimony trisulphide thin films

A new room temperature chemical deposition technique has been developed to deposit semiconducting antimony trisulphide thin films on conducting and ordinary glass substrates. The method is based on aqueous ammonia bath containing potassium antimonyl tartarate (PAT), triethanolamine (TEA) and thioacetamide (TAM). It has been found that the proper control of deposition bath compasitions significantly influences the quality and the thickness of the Sb₂S₃ films. Moreover, addition of a small amount (10⁻⁵ M) of silicotungstic acid (STA) in the deposition bath enhanced the rate of deposition and improves significantly the photoactivity of the films. The deposited films were characterized by X-ray, SEM and neutronic activation analysis. The effect of the annealing and STA on the change of the optical bandgap (E_g) of the films was determined at 300 K. The influence of the STA on the resistivity, carrier concentrations and mobility of the films was determined by the resistivity and Hall effect measurements on the annealed samples. A very small (≈ 5%) change in the electrical resistivity has been observed for the films in which STA is incorporated. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic (XPS) studies were carried out to determine the surface and the bulk compositions of the films. The photoconductivity studies revealed that the deposited films were highly photoconducting in nature.     

Measurement of liquid droplet parameters using optical fiber

The measurement of liquid droplet parameters such as size, number, concentration, viscosity, and refractive index is reported. The droplets are sprayed either from a pressure nozzle or a gas atomizing nozzle. The parameters are measured by detecting the clad mode power in the leaky ray zone of a three-region fiber by a new clad-probing technique, using normal core-clad fiber. The refractive index of the liquid is close to that of cladding. Taking the loss characteristics into account, the variation of output power with the deposition of droplets on the fiber is analyzed and compared with experimental results. The measurement sensitivity for different probing conditions is shown experimentally and verified by theoretical analysis. The change in bound power with the number of liquid droplets depositing on unclad fiber is also shown     

Studies of microstructural,dielectric, and impedance spectroscopic properties of Bi0.617Y0.05Cu3Ti4O12 ceramic synthesized through semi-wet route

Bi_0.617Y_0.05Cu₃Ti₄O₁₂(BYCTO) was successfully synthesized through an economically semi-wet route using metals nitrates, acetate, and TiO₂ precursor and sintered at 1173 K for 8 h. The single phase of ceramic was authorized by XRD analysis. The crystallite size of BYCTO ceramic was calculated to be 62.3 nm through XRD measurement. The particle size obtained by TEM analysis was to be in the range of 55?±?7 nm. The average grain size observed through the SEM technique was 0.783 μm. The route means square roughness, as well as average roughness, were determined to be 0.224 μm and 0.179 μm by atomic force microscope. The dielectric constant (?′) of BYCTO was measured to be 1481 at 307 K and 100 Hz. The tangent loss (tan δ) was observed to be in the range of 0.13–0.29 at all selected temperatures (307–487 K) and 10 kHz which is lower than that of Bi_2/3Cu₃Ti₄O₁₂. The oxidation state of all metal present in the ceramic material was verified by XPS analysis.

     

A new hybridized backtracking search optimization algorithm with differential evolution for sidelobe suppression of uniformly excited concentric circular antenna arrays

In this work, a hybridized combination of backtracking search algorithm (BSA) with differential evolution (DE) is proposed and applied on sidelobe suppression problem of uniformly excited concentric circular antenna arrays (CCAA). Each array is assumed to have isotropic elements and be placed on x‐y plane and has one center element. A search for optimal setting of ring radius and number of elements in each ring is carried out so as to achieve low sidelobe performance on overall azimuth plane. Care has been taken so that directivity does not get degraded as far as possible. Before applying this algorithm to CCAA design problem, BSA and the hybridized algorithm BSA‐DE are tested on five complex benchmark functions. Based on 30‐independent runs for each benchmark function, Wilcoxon's pairwise signed ranks test is utilized to judge the relative search performance of these two algorithms. The hybridized algorithm proves its superiority on almost all the considered benchmark functions. For the CCAA design problem dealt with in this work, BSA‐DE shows its superiority on one or both pattern parameters as well as structural parameters. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:262–268, 2015.