Pharmacokinetics and metabolic disposition of 14C-metronidazole-derived radioactivity in rat after intravenous and intravaginal administration

Urinary metabolites and the pharmacokinetics of radioactivity derived from 14C-metronidazole (14C-MTZ) were determined after intravenous (iv) or intravaginal (ivg) administration of 10 mg/kg to adult rats. Following iv or ivg administration, the disappearance of 14C from blood followed the kinetics of a two-compartment open-system model. The blood half-lives of 14C during the beta-phase were 10.9 +/- 1.6 and 13.6 +/- 4.2 hr, after iv and ivg administration, respectively. After ivg application, the MTZ-derived radioactivity was detected in tail blood at 5 min, peaked at 1 hr, declined rapidly to 6 hr and more slowly thereafter. The vaginal absorption half-life of 14C-MTZ was 0.28 +/- 0.09 hr. About 12% of the administered dose remained in the vagina after 1 hr and 1.5% after 24 hr. At 24 hr, the tissue distribution and concentration of 14C were similar in iv and ivg dosed rats, the highest 14C concentration being present in the kidneys and lowest in the fat. The percentages of the dose excreted in 24 hr in the urine and feces were 58 and 15 after iv administration, compared to 37 and 40 after the ivg route, respectively. Unchanged 14C-MTZ and five of its metabolites were detected in the urine irrespective of the route of administration. The results show that metronidazole is rapidly absorbed through the vaginal mucosa of the rat and the metabolism and excretion of this chemotherapeutic agent are influenced by the route of administration.     

Power Law Velocity Profile in Fully Developed Turbulent Pipe and Channel Flows

The power law velocity profile has been analyzed in terms of the envelope of the friction factor which gives the friction factor log law. The power law index α and prefactor C are shown as the function of the friction Reynolds number, as well as the function of the alternate variable the nondimensional friction velocity. The fully developed turbulent superpipe flow data of McKeon et al. and fully developed channel flow data of Zanoun et al. have been analyzed and the power law index α and prefactor C data have been estimated, first as a function of the friction Reynolds number and second as function of the nondimensional friction velocity. Based on analysis, several correlations have been proposed that have been supported by the data.     

Speaker recognition utilizing distributed DCT-II based Mel frequency cepstral coefficients and fuzzy vector quantization

In this paper, a new and novel Automatic Speaker Recognition (ASR) system is presented. The new ASR system includes novel feature extraction and vector classification steps utilizing distributed Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT-II) based Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Fuzzy Vector Quantization (FVQ). The ASR algorithm utilizes an approach based on MFCC to identify dynamic features that are used for Speaker Recognition (SR). A series of experiments were performed utilizing three different feature extraction methods: (1) conventional MFCC; (2) Delta-Delta MFCC (DDMFCC); and (3) DCT-II based DDMFCC. The experiments were then expanded to include four classifiers: (1) FVQ; (2) K-means Vector Quantization (VQ); (3) Linde, Buzo and Gray VQ; and (4) Gaussian Mixed Model (GMM). The combination of DCT-II based MFCC, DMFCC and DDMFCC with FVQ was found to have the lowest Equal Error Rate for the VQ based classifiers. The results found were an improvement over previously reported non-GMM methods and approached the results achieved for the computationally expensive GMM based method. Speaker verification tests carried out highlighted the overall performance improvement for the new ASR system. The National Institute of Standards and Technology Speaker Recognition Evaluation corpora was used to provide speaker source data for the experiments.     

Kinetic modeling of pyrolysis of three Iranian waste oils in a micro-fluidized bed

Different approaches have been used to convert the waste materials into a clean syngas or other chemicals such as methanol. Among them, pyrolysis is a good candidate to produce the synthesis gas and volatile matters for industrial and refinery applications. In this work, we studied the kinetic and chemical behavior of three Iranian waste oils through a kinetic model and an experimental study. The experiments carried out in a micro-FB reactor, which is a good option for low emissions. Results showed that the reaction temperature and reaction rate are two of the most important factors for maximum conversion level of fuel. Results also showed an optimum value for reaction rate. The modeling results validated against the experimental measurements and found to be in good agreements.     

Sargassum swartzii extracts ameliorate memory functions by neurochemical modulation in a rat model

Food Science and Biotechnology - Recently, considerable attention has been paid to drug exploration from natural sources for treating memory loss, a major manifestation of various neurodegenerative...     

Kigelia pinnata Seed Oil – A Moderate Source of Vernolic Acid

Vernolic acid represents 22.3% of the constituent fatty acids of the speed oil of an additional hitherto unexamined species of Bignoniaceae Kigelia pinnata. Its identification is based on comparative informations from thin-layer chromatography, infrared analysis, gas liquid chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy with that of reference sample of Vernonia anthelmintica seed oil. The other fatty acids in this oil are: 14:0 (0.4), 16:0 (25.4), 18:0(0.9), 18:1 (8.9) and 18:2 (42.0%). K. pinnata is the first species of Bignoniaceae to be reported to contain vernolic acid in moderate amount.     

SOME FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF FAR INFRARED RADIATION DRYING OF POTATO

Drying experiments were carried out using a far infrared heater to examine the drying characteristics of potato slices. The effect of several parameters e.g. radiation intensity, inlet air velocity and relative humidity on moisture and temperature history are presented. FIR drying of potato was observed to be a falling rate process. Drying rates were negatively correlated with air velocity. Relative humidity did not influence the drying rate. It was found that the modified exponential law describes the moisture removal of potato within an acceptable range.     

Oxidase-Peroxidase sequential polymerization for removal of a dye from contaminated water by horseradish peroxidase (HRP)/glucose oxidase (GOx)/polyurethane hybrid catalyst

Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and glucose oxidase (GOx) were co-immobilized on polyurethane, and the resulting HRP/GOx/polyurethane biocatalyst was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDAX) mapping techniques. The prepared biocatalyst was used for removal of acid orange 7 as model azo dye. The required H₂O₂ for activation of HRP was in-situ produced using GOx to prevent deactivation of HRP in the presence of excess chemical H₂O₂. Central composite design (CCD) was applied for modeling and optimization of parameters affecting the activity of prepared biocatalyst. Under the optimum conditions, removal efficiency of the azo dye was predicted to be 87.47%, which was in good agreement with the experimental value (89.69%). In addition, the performance of the prepared biocatalyst for removal of two other dyes with different structure was investigated at the optimum conditions, and a removal efficiency of 91.56% and 95.25% was obtained for removal of methylene blue and malachite green, respectively. The results demonstrated that the resultant HRP/GOx/Polyurethane biocatalyst was able to decrease the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of a textile effluent from 740mg/L to 96mg/L, indicating that the prepared biocatalyst is an effective enzymatic system for treatment of real wastewater.     

A General Correlation for Heat Transfer During Dispersed-Flow Film Boiling in Tubes

A general correlation for heat transfer during film boiling in tubes is presented. It is based on the two-step model. It has been verified with data for nine fluids flowing up in tubes. The fluids include water, cryogens, refrigerants, and chemicals. The range of data includes pressures from 1 to 215 bar, reduced pressures from 0.0046 to 0.97, mass velocities from 4 to 5,176 kg/m² s, tube diameters from 1.1 to 24.3 mm, and qualities from 0.1 to 2.4. The 546 data points are predicted with a mean deviation of 15.2%. Deviation is defined as the difference between the measured and predicted heat transfer coefficients divided by the measured heat transfer coefficient, the heat transfer coefficients being based on the saturation temperature. Three other well-known correlations are also compared to the same data and found to have much larger deviations. The correlation is also compared with a limited amount of data from horizontal tubes; the results are encouraging.     

A framework to explore results in multiple media information aggregated search

On web information exists in the form of text, audio, image, and video objects often referred to multiple media objects. Vertical web search provides the search of multiple media information usually via keyword-based queries. The search results in different media formats usually presented in separate panels/tabs; integration is mostly non-blended. Therefore, results exploration via vertical web search engines require the selection of a source and scrolling of a linear ranked list of results. Relationships in the results presented in separate panels/tabs are mostly not considered. Search aggregations unify results from several vertical web sources via blended integration, but exploration still requires scrolling of a linear ranked list. Multimedia search frameworks provide the exploration of results in different media formats but more focused towards the retrieval issues. We proposed a multiple media information search framework to address issues, particularly in aggregated search. Our search framework provides a mechanism to explore results via non-linear ways. The search framework realized by suggesting a framework architecture design and instantiating a search tool. The effectiveness of blended integration and browsing is measured via precision and click through rate respectively. Search task support in results exploration mechanism measured via task-based evaluation. We also validated the conformance of various search/exploration attributes discussed in the state-of-the-art in our frameworks.