Combined study of biphasic and zero-order release formulations with dissolution tests and ATR-FTIR spectroscopic imaging.

In this study of multi-layer tablets, the dissolution of biphasic and zero-order release formulations has been studied primarily using attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopic imaging as well as UV-Vis detection of dissolved drug in the effluent stream and USP dissolution testing. Bilayer tablets, containing the excipients microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and glucose, were used for biphasic release with nicotinamide and buflomedil as model drugs. ATR-FTIR spectroscopic imaging showed the changing component distributions during dissolution. Further experiments studied monolithic and barrier-layered tablets containing hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, MCC and buflomedil dissolving in a USP I apparatus. These data were compared with UV-Vis dissolution profiles obtained online with the ATR flow-through cell. ATR-FTIR imaging data of the biphasic formulations demonstrated that the drug release was affected by excipient ratios and effects such as interference between tablet sections. Tablets placed in the ATR-FTIR flow-through cell exhibited zero-order UV-Vis dissolution profile data at high flow rates, similar to barrier-layered formulations studied using the USP I apparatus. ATR-FTIR spectroscopic imaging provided information regarding the dissolution mechanisms in multi-layer tablets which could assist formulation development. The ability to relate data from USP dissolution tests with that from the ATR-FTIR flow-through cell could help spectroscopic imaging complement dissolution methods used in the industry.

[Parallel PLS algorithm using MapReduce and its aplication in spectral modeling].

Partial least squares (PLS) has been widely used in spectral analysis and modeling, and it is computation-intensive and time-demanding when dealing with massive data To solve this problem effectively, a novel parallel PLS using MapReduce is proposed, which consists of two procedures, the parallelization of data standardizing and the parallelization of principal component computing. Using NIR spectral modeling as an example, experiments were conducted on a Hadoop cluster, which is a collection of ordinary computers. The experimental results demonstrate that the parallel PLS algorithm proposed can handle massive spectra, can significantly cut down the modeling time, and gains a basically linear speedup, and can be easily scaled up.

A vast-range speed control microchip for retention of all cell types.

This Technical Note is the first description of a large-scale logarithmic flow-rate damping system designed to retain cells of different adherence, different suspensibility and different motility. The chamber, which can easily retain and cultivate many types of cells, including high-motility cells and swimming cells, via a series of "speed bumps", readily facilitates cell retention for complex heterogeneous cultures. Yeast cells, red blood cells, rabbit bone marrow aspirate and dinoflagellate swimming cells were introduced into the chip for multi-cell retention, multi-cell culture and observation. Here, we show that the chamber creates a flow field with a ratio of end/start speeds as low as 0.01. The logarithmic distribution of flow-rate within the chamber is controlled precisely by pressure, all of the cell types that we tested were retained easily within the chamber. Many cell-cell interactions were observed, predicting a high potential for the success of on-chip heterogeneous cell experiments.