Pharmacokinetics of phenprobamate after oral administration to healthy subjects

Phenprobamate (CAS 673-31-4) is a centrally acting skeletal-muscle relaxant agent. There are only two studies in the literature about the pharmacokinetics of phenoprobamate in man. The inconsistency between the results of these studies can be attributed partly to the different analytical methodologies used. A sensitive, specific and reproducible HPLC-assay, which may increase the reliability of the pharmacokinetic studies of phenprobamate in plasma, has been developed recently. The objective of this investigation was to assess the single-dose kinetics of phenprobamate in human and to determine the pharmacokinetic parameters of clinical and regulatory concern. The plasma pharmacokinetics of phenprobamate have been investigated following single oral administration at a dose of 800 mg in eleven healthy volunteers.     

PHASE EQUILIBRIUM FOR TERNARY LIQUID SYSTEMS OF WATER CARBOXYLIC ACID CHLORINATED HYDROCARBON: THERMODYNAMIC MODELING THROUGH SERLAS

Liquid-liquid equilibrium data of the solubility (binodal) curves and tie-line end compositions are presented for mixtures of [water (1) + formic acid, or acetic acid, or propanoic acid (2) + chlorobenzene, or 1,2-dichloroethane (3)] at T = 293.2 K and P = 101.3 ± 0.7 kPa. A log-basis approach, SERLAS (solvation energy relation for liquid-associated system), has been proposed to estimate the properties and liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) of associated systems containing proton-donating and -accepting and polar components capable of a physical interaction through hydrogen bonding or dipole-dipole interaction. The tie lines were also correlated using the UNIFAC-original model. The reliability of the models has been analyzed against the LLE data with respect to the distribution coefficient and separation factor. The proposed model appears to be an improvement in data fit for the ternary systems, yielding a mean relative error of 10.1% for all the systems considered.     

An on-chip cell culturing and combinatorial drug screening system

A low-cost, convenient and precise drug combination screening microfluidic platform is developed, in which cell culture chambers designed with micropillars integrate with three laminar flow diffusion channels. This platform has several distinct features, including minimum shear stress on cells, biocompatibility, optimum concentration distribution and automatic combinatorial gradient generation, which can potentially speed up the discovery of an effective drug combination for cancer ablations. The presented device can generate two-drug combination gradients at the optimum flow rate of 90 μL/h and can be applied to identify the optimal combination of two clinically relevant chemotherapy drugs. For demonstration, paclitaxel at 0.77 × 10^?3 mg/mL and cisplatin at 0.23 × 10^?4 mg/mL were studied against lung cancer cells (A549). This microfluidic device has the potential to provide a precise and robust screening for anticancer combinational drugs practiced in clinics.     

Converting numerical classification into text classification

Consider a supervised learning problem in which examples contain both numerical- and text-valued features. To use traditional feature-vector-based learning methods, one could treat the presence or absence of a word as a Boolean feature and use these binary-valued features together with the numerical features. However, the use of a text-classification system on this is a bit more problematic—in the most straight-forward approach each number would be considered a distinct token and treated as a word. This paper presents an alternative approach for the use of text classification methods for supervised learning problems with numerical-valued features in which the numerical features are converted into bag-of-words features, thereby making them directly usable by text classification methods. We show that even on purely numerical-valued data the results of text classification on the derived text-like representation outperforms the more naive numbers-as-tokens representation and, more importantly, is competitive with mature numerical classification methods such as C4.5, Ripper, and SVM. We further show that on mixed-mode data adding numerical features using our approach can improve performance over not adding those features.     

Influence of doctor blade gap on the properties of tape cast NiO/YSZ anode supports for solid oxide fuel cells

In this study, various tape cast NiO/YSZ anode support layers with similar geometric properties are fabricated by varying the doctor blade from 100?µm to 200?µm with an increment of 25?µm. The mechanical properties of the anode support layers are investigated by three point bending tests of 30 samples for each doctor blade gap. The reliability curves of the flexural strength data are also obtained via two-parameter Weibull distribution method. The effects of the doctor blade gap on the microstructure and the electrochemical performance of the anode support layers are determined via SEM investigations and single cell performance-impedance tests, respectively. The apparent porosities of the samples are also measured by Archimedes’ principle. The results indicate that the doctor blade gap or the resultant tape thickness influences the microstructure of tape cast NiO/YSZ anode supports significantly, yielding different mechanical and electrochemical characteristics. At a reliability level of 70%, the highest flexural strength of 110.20?MPa is obtained from the anode support layer with a doctor blade gap of 175?µm and the 16?cm² active area cell with this anode support layer also exhibits the highest peak performance of 0.483?W/cm² at an operating temperature of 800?°C. Thus, a doctor blade gap of 175?µm is found to have such a microstructure that provides not only better mechanical strength but also higher electrochemical performance.     

Determination of the energy savings and the optimum insulation thickness in the four different insulated exterior walls

The optimum insulation thickness of the external wall for four cities from four climate zones of Turkey, energy savings over a lifetime of 10 years and payback periods are calculated for the five different energy types and four different insulation materials applied externally on walls. Extruded polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, nil siding and rock wool as wall insulation material are selected. In this study, the net energy cost savings are calculated using the P₁–P₂ method. The results show that energy cost savings vary between 4.2 $/m² and 9.5 $/m² depending on the city and insulation materials. The highest payback period value with 2.25 years in Mersin found by using natural gas as an energy source for heating, while the lowest value is reached by using LPG as an energy source in Bitlis.     

Rectal hemorrhage as a first sign of renal cell adenocarcinoma

We present a 3-year-old patient with stenotic kinking of the left internal carotid artery (ICA) who developed an ischaemic infarction of the left brain hemisphere followed by severe neurological sequelae after a prolonged generalized seizure. At time of the seizure the boy was in biological remission of a nephrotic syndrome and received prednisolone and cyclosporin A (CsA) treatment. The haemodynamic consequences of inborn kinking of the ICA is discussed controversely in the literature. The presented case shows that stenotic kinking of the ICA may significantly impair the blood flow towards the homolateral hemisphere and therefore may result in an ischaemic infarction. The influence of CsA on seizure activity is discussed. CONCLUSION: This case provides clinical and radiological evidence supporting an association between stenotic kinking of the carotid artery and homolateral hemispheric brain infarction.     

Super porous α-, β-, γ-cyclodextrin cryogels with high active agent loading and controllable release profiles

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are truncated cone-like structures that are natural cyclic oligosaccharides. Here, a simple preparation method for super porous poly(α-CD), poly(β-CD), and poly(γ-CD) cryogels crosslinking with divinyl sulfone at 150%, 100% and 125% mole ratios with respect to the α-CD, β-CD, and γ-CD molecules, respectively, under cryogenic conditions, is reported. The interconnected homogeneous pore distribution of CD-based cryogels with pore sizes in the range of 5–100 μm is confirmed by SEM analysis. The CD-based cryogels weighing 10 mg are determined as hemocompatible with <1% hemolysis ratios and >79% blood clotting indexes; whereas the same materials weighing 1 mg are biocompatible with >75% cell viability on L929 fibroblasts. Additionally, active agent adsorption/delivery efficiencies of CD-based cryogels utilizing two active agents, Bisphenol A (BPA, a carcinogenic compound) and Curcumin (CUR, a polyphenolic compound), are individually evaluated. It was revealed that p(γ-CD) cryogels exhibited the highest active agent loading capacity for BPA, 87 ± 13 mg/g, whereas p(α-CD) cryogels showed the highest loading capacity for CUR, 136 ± 4 mg/g. Moreover, the active agent release from p(α-CD), p(β-CD), and p(γ-CD) cryogel networks at pH 7.4 and 37°C were determined as 40.6 ± 2, 35.3 ± 2, and 34 ± 1 mg/g for BPA, and 1.07 ± 0.2, 1.27 ± 0.1, and 1.37 ± 0.1 mg/g for CUR, respectively, within 96 h.     

Pack-boriding of Fe–Mn binary alloys: Characterization and kinetics of the boride layers

In this work, the boronizing of Fe–Mn binary alloys at 0.42, 0.76 and 0.94 wt.% Mn was carried out in a solid medium using the powder pack method. In this method, commercial Ekabor-II boron source and activator (ferro-silicon) were thoroughly mixed to form the boriding medium. The samples were boronized in an electrical resistance furnace for exposure times of 2, 4, 6 and 8 h at 1173 K under atmospheric pressure and a series of boronized samples in the temperature range 1073–1373 K for 3 h. After the furnace process, boronized samples were removed from the furnace and cooled in air. Afterwards, the boride layers generated by the pack-boronizing process were characterized by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, XRD analysis, Vickers microhardness and tensile testing. The generated boride layers, showing a saw-tooth morphology, had a surface microhardness in the range 1400–1270 HV0.1. It was shown that the values of yield stresses and ultimate tensile stresses were increased as the Mn content increases in the boronized Fe–Mn binary alloys. In contrast, the values of elongations determined from the stress–strain curves were decreased. Furthermore, it was found that the calculated mean value of the activation energy of boron diffusion was close to 119 J/mol.