Modeling of quantitative relationships between physicochemical properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients and tensile strength of tablets using a boosted tree

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the potential of boosted tree (BT) to develop a correlation model between active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) characteristics and a tensile strength (TS) of tablets as critical quality attributes.

Methods: First, we evaluated 81 kinds of API characteristics, such as particle size distribution, bulk density, tapped density, Hausner ratio, moisture content, elastic recovery, molecular weight, and partition coefficient. Next, we prepared tablets containing 50% API, 49% microcrystalline cellulose, and 1% magnesium stearate using direct compression at 6, 8, and 10?kN, and measured TS. Then, we applied BT to our dataset to develop a correlation model. Finally, the constructed BT model was validated using k-fold cross-validation.

Results: Results showed that the BT model achieved high-performance statistics, whereas multiple regression analysis resulted in poor estimations. Sensitivity analysis of the BT model revealed that diameter of powder particles at the 10th percentile of the cumulative percentage size distribution was the most crucial factor for TS. In addition, the influences of moisture content, partition coefficients, and modal diameter were appreciably meaningful factors.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that BT model could provide comprehensive understanding of the latent structure underlying APIs and TS of tablets.     

Comparison of the radiation dose in a cardiac IVR X-ray system

In this study, the entrance surface dose rates received by a phantom during cineangiography and fluoroscopy were compared. The X-ray conditions used in the measurements were those normally used in facilities performing percutaneous coronary intervention. Although, today, the entrance surface doses (cineangiography and fluoroscopy) of X-ray equipment used for cardiac interventional radiology (IVR) tends to be lower than they were previously, some equipment produces a high radiation dose. Therefore, the X-ray equipment used for cardiac IVR procedures must be maintained in good repair and must be carefully calibrated. In addition, periodic measurement of the radiation dose from the X-ray equipment used for both cineangiography and fluoroscopy for cardiac IVR is necessary. If the radiation dose of the X-ray system in use is too high, the IVR staff should determine the reason and make an effort to reduce it. Hence, the IVR staff must be adequately trained in radiation protection.     

A 110-MHz/1-Mb synchronous TagRAM

A 4-way set associative TagRAM with 1.189-Mb capacity has been developed which can handle a secondary cache system of up to 16 Mbytes. A 9-ns cycle operation and clock to D_out of 4.7 ns are achieved by use of circuit techniques such as a pipelined decoding scheme, a single PMOS load BiCMOS main decoder, a BiCMOS sense-amplifying comparator, doubly placed self-timed write circuits, and highly linear VCO for a PLL. The device is successfully implemented with 0.7-μm double polysilicon double-metal BiCMOS technology     

InGaAsP planar buried heterostructure laser diode (PBH-LD) with very low threshold current

Using a new LPE growth technique, an InGaAsP/InP planar buried heterostructure laser diode (PBH-LD) has been realised in 1.3 and 1.5 ?m wavelength regions. As a result of the effective carrier confinement, CW threshold currents as low as 8.5 mA and 13 mA have been obtained in 1.3 and 1.5 ?m PHB-LDs, respectively, at room temperature.     

Harmonic distortion due to laser modulation in multimode fibre optic analogue transmission

The effect of laser-diode frequency chirping on harmonic distortions in multimode fibre analogue transmission with direct intensity modulation was clarified experimentally with results in good agreement with the theory. The results show that the harmonic distortion can be greatly reduced by the reduction of the frequency chirping which accompanies diode-laser intensity modulation.     

Ten-port graded-index waveguide star coupler fabricated by dry ion diffusion process

A ten-port planar star coupler has been developed, utilising multimode waveguides easily formed in a glass substrate by evaporated silver ion diffusion. The waveguides have circular cross-sections with graded-index profile, which matches well to graded-index multimode fibres. Insertion loss of 6 dB and the loss variation of 0.8 dB were attaied.     

A 32 kbyte integrated cache memory

The system, circuit, layout and device levels of an integrated cache memory (ICM), which includes 32 kbyte DATA memory with typical address to HIT delay of 18 ns and address to DATA delay of 23 ns, are described. The ICM offers the largest memory size and the fastest speed ever reported in a cache memory. The device integrates a 32 kbyte DATA INSTRUCTION memory, a 34 kbit TAG memory, an 8 kbit VALID flat, a 2 kbit least recently used (LRU) flag, comparators, and CPU interface logic circuits on a chip. The inclusion of the DATA memory is crucial in improving system cycle time. The device uses several novel circuit design technologies, including a double-word-line scheme, low-noise flush clear, a low-power comparator, noise immunity, and directly testable memory design. Its newly proposed way-slice architecture increases both flexibility and expandability     

110-GB/s simultaneous bidirectional transceiver logic synchronizedwith a system clock

A simultaneous bidirectional transceiver logic (SBTL), for a 0.25 μm CMOS embedded array, has a low-voltage-swing input flip-flop circuit and an output flip-flop with a boundary scan to enable a 1.1-Gb/s data transfer per LSI pin with a 550-MHz system clock. Clock skew and jitter minimization enables high bandwidth in a phase-locked system. Measured latency time for transmission is less than 3.0 ns during simultaneous switching mode when the cable length is 18 cm. Average power consumption is 12 mW per pin at 550 MHz. A low-noise output buffer and a controlled collapse chip connection (C4)-based 1595-pin package with on-package capacitors achieve 100-byte data bus. The maximum data bandwidth per LSI is 110 GB/s     

A 0.5-W 64-kilobyte snoopy cache memory with pseudo two-portoperation

A 64-kbyte snoopy cache memory was developed. The modified double word-line architecture with word-line buffers resulted in a large-size memory and a time-multiplex snoop operation by the pseudo-two-port method with a single-port cell. The flexible expandability was achieved by cascading multiple cache memories. The device was successfully implemented with 1.0-μm double-polysilicon and double-metal CMOS technology. Low-power sense amplifiers and comparators limited power dissipation to 0.5 W at 40 MHz     

A coherent photonic wavelength-division switching system forbroad-band networks

A coherent photonic wavelength-division (WD) switching system, utilizing a coherent wavelength switch (λ switch), is proposed. In the proposed coherent λ switch, the tunable wavelength filter function is accomplished using coherent optical detection with a wavelength tunable local oscillator. The coherent photonic WD switching system has the following features; (1) low crosstalk switching for dense WDM signal, and (2) large line capacity capability. Design considerations show that 32 wavelength division channels can be available with a coherent λ switch. It is also shown that a broadband metropolitan-area-network with over 1000 line capacity is possible, using a multistage connection in the coherent λ switches. The switching function of the coherent λ switch is demonstrated in a two-channel wavelength-synchronized switching experiment, using 8-GHz-spaced, 280-Mb/s optical FSK signals