Synthesis and characterization of cellulose acetate from cellophane industry residues. Application as acetaminophen controlled-release membranes

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Cellophane film production generates cellulosic residues from scraps, edges, and low-quality films. In this work, cellophane was used as a raw material...     

A Global Newton Method for the Nonsmooth Vector Fields on Riemannian Manifolds

Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications - This paper proposes and analyzes a globalized version of the Newton method for finding a singularity of the nonsmooth vector fields. Basically, the...     

Deciphering the Structure and Chemical Composition of Drug Nanocarriers: From Bulk Approaches to Individual Nanoparticle Characterization

Drug nanocarriers (NCs) with sizes usually below 200 nm are gaining increasing interest in the treatment of severe diseases such as cancer and infections. Characterization methods to investigate the morphology and physicochemical properties of multifunctional NCs are key in their optimization and in the study of their in vitro and in vivo fate. Whereas a variety of methods has been developed to characterize “bulk” NCs in suspension, the scope of this review is to describe the different approaches for the NC characterization on an individual basis, for which fewer techniques are available. The accent is put on methods devoid of labelling, which could lead to artefacts. For each characterization method, the principles and approaches to analyze the data are presented in an accessible manner. Aspects related to sample preparation to avoid artefacts are indicated, and emphasis is put on examples of applications. NC characterization on an individual basis allows gaining invaluable information in terms of quality control, on: i) NC localization and fate in biological samples; ii) NC morphology and crystallinity; iii) distribution of the NC components (drugs, shells), and iv) quantification of NCs’ chemical composition. The individual characterization approaches are expected to gain increasing interest in the near future.     

Association measures for interval variables

Advances in Data Analysis and Classification - Symbolic Data Analysis (SDA) is a relatively new field of statistics that extends conventional data analysis by taking into account intrinsic data...     

The use of dilatometry aiming to evaluate the metallurgical aspect of coil slump in a hot-rolled medium carbon steel

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The hot coil slump is a recurrent problem in the manufacturing process of medium and high equivalent carbon steel plates. Even with the success of the...     

Comparative bioavailability of two zolpidem hemitartrate formulations in healthy human Brazilian volunteers using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry

To assess the bioequivalence of two zolpidem hemitartrate formulations in 30 healthy volunteers. Plasma samples were obtained over a 24 h period. Plasma concentrations of zolpidem were analyzed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry with positive ion electrospray ionization using multiple reaction monitoring. Values of peak concentration (C_max), area under curve (AUC), half-life, elimination constant, volume of distribution and clearance showed statistically significant differences when comparing women (604.34 ng h/ml, 127.36 ng/ml, 4.4 h, 0.18 1/h, 50.56 L and 8.55 L/h, respectively) and men (276.1 ng h/ml, 70.9 ng/ml, 3.3 h, 0.26 1/h, 91.42 L and 24.34 L/h, respectively), receiving the same dose (5 mg), respectively. The geometric means with corresponding 90% confidence interval for Test/Reference percentage ratios were 99.73% (CI 93.69–106.16) for C_max, 97.44% (90% CI = 91.85–103.37%) for area under curve of plasma concentration until the last concentration observed (AUC_last) and 98.30% (90% CI = 92.48–104.49) for the area under curve between the first sample (pre-dosage) and infinity (AUC_0–inf). Since the 90% CI for AUC_last, AUC_0–inf and C_max ratios were within the 80–125% interval proposed by the US Food and Drug Administration, it was concluded that zolpidem hemitartrate formulation (5 mg orodispersible tablet) is bioequivalent to the zolpidem hemitartrate formulation (Patz SL 5 mg sublingual tablet) with regard to both the rate and the extent of absorption. A new formulation of zolpidem 2.5 mg may be useful in women for the same clinical benefits as the 5 mg formulation in men.     

Purity assessment using the mass balance approach for inorganic in-house certified reference material production at Inmetro

Accreditation and Quality Assurance - The production of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) is one of the essential activities of the National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology...     

Recovery and Purity of High Molar Mass Bio-hyaluronic Acid Via Precipitation Strategies Modulated by pH and Sodium Chloride

Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology - The effects of ethanol/broth proportions and the number of steps at varying pH in the presence or absence of sodium chloride (NaCl) were studied as...     

Magnetic properties of a polyfluorene derivative containing complexed neodymium ions

Poly[9,9′‐dihexylfluorene‐2,7‐diyl)‐6,6″‐(2,2′:6′,2″‐terpyridine)] (LaPPS75) and its complexes with neodymium were synthesized and characterized. Magnetic measurements showed that the noncomplexed polymer presented a ferromagnetic contribution due to the formation of π stacking, and that in absence of those, the ferromagnetic behavior is suppressed. The pristine polymer, the complexed one and a low‐molecular‐weight model compound with the same structure of the complexed site in the parent polymer were studied. The observed behavior found is presented and discussed, the most important finding was that when a conjugated chain is used as a host for the metallic ion, an amplification of four times for the magnetization is achieved, using the same metallic content for complexed polymer and model compound for comparison. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2019 , 57, 304–311     

On concentration of solution to a Schrödinger logarithmic equation with deepening potential well

In this work, we prove the existence of positive solution for the following class of problems where λ>0 and is a potential satisfying some conditions. Using the variational method developed by Szulkin for functionals, which are the sum of a C¹ functional with a convex lower semicontinuous functional, we prove that for each large enough λ>0, there exists a positive solution for the problem, and that, as λ→+∞, such solutions converge to a positive solution of the limit problem defined on the domain Ω=int(V^?1({0})).