Emerging technologies for the non-invasive characterization of physical-mechanical properties of tablets

The density, porosity, breaking force, viscoelastic properties, and the presence or absence of any structural defects or irregularities are important physical-mechanical quality attributes of popular solid dosage forms like tablets. The irregularities associated with these attributes may influence the drug product functionality. Thus, an accurate and efficient characterization of these properties is critical for successful development and manufacturing of a robust tablets. These properties are mainly analyzed and monitored with traditional pharmacopeial and non-pharmacopeial methods. Such methods are associated with several challenges such as lack of spatial resolution, efficiency, or sample-sparing attributes. Recent advances in technology, design, instrumentation, and software have led to the emergence of newer techniques for non-invasive characterization of physical-mechanical properties of tablets. These techniques include near infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray microtomography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging, terahertz pulsed imaging, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, and various acoustic- and thermal-based techniques. Such state-of-the-art techniques are currently applied at various stages of development and manufacturing of tablets at industrial scale. Each technique has specific advantages or challenges with respect to operational efficiency and cost, compared to traditional analytical methods. Currently, most of these techniques are used as secondary analytical tools to support the traditional methods in characterizing or monitoring tablet quality attributes. Therefore, further development in the instrumentation and software, and studies on the applications are necessary for their adoption in routine analysis and monitoring of tablet physical-mechanical properties

NIR Calibrations for Soybean Seeds and Soy Food Composition Analysis: Total Carbohydrates, Oil, Proteins and Water Contents

Conventional chemical analysis techniques are expensive, time consuming, and often destructive. The non-invasive Near Infrared (NIR) technology was introduced over the last decades for wide-scale, inexpensive chemical analysis of food and crop seed composition (see Williams and Norris, 1987; Wilcox and Cavins, 1995; Buning and Diller, 2000 for reviews of the NIR technique development stage prior to 1998, when Diode Arrays were introduced to NIR). NIR spectroscopic measurements obey Lambert and Beer’s law, and quantitative measurements can be successfully made with high speed and ease of operation. NIR has been used in a great variety of food applications. General applications of products analyzed come from all sectors of the food industry including meats, grains, and dairy products (Shadow, 1998)

NIR Calibrations for Soybean Seeds and Soy Food Composition Analysis: Total Carbohydrates, Oil, Proteins and Water Contents [v.2]

Conventional chemical analysis techniques are expensive, time consuming, and often destructive. The non-invasive Near Infrared (NIR) technology was introduced over the last decades for wide-scale, inexpensive chemical analysis of food and crop seed composition (see Williams and Norris, 1987; Wilcox and Cavins, 1995; Buning and Diller, 2000 for reviews of the NIR technique development stage prior to 1998, when Diode Arrays were introduced to NIR). NIR spectroscopic measurements obey Lambert and Beer’s law, and quantitative measurements can be successfully made with high speed and ease of operation. NIR has been used in a great variety of food applications. General applications of products analyzed come from all sectors of the food industry including meats, grains, and dairy products (Shadow, 1998).
Novel NIR calibrations for rapid, reliable and accurate composition analysis of a variety of several soy based foods and bulk soybean seeds were developed and validated in a six-year collaborative project with a large number of different samples (N >~12, 000). The availability of such calibrations is important for establishing NIR as a secondary method for composition analysis of foods and soybeans both in applications and fundamental research

Digital Color Imaging

This paper surveys current technology and research in the area of digital color imaging. In order to establish the background and lay down terminology, fundamental concepts of color perception and measurement are first presented us-ing vector-space notation and terminology. Present-day color recording and reproduction systems are reviewed along with the common mathematical models used for representing these devices. Algorithms for processing color images for display and communication are surveyed, and a forecast of research trends is attempted. An extensive bibliography is provided

Polydiacetylene Biosensors in Food Microbiology Applications

Polydiacetylenes (PDAs) are conjugated polymers which consist of diacetylene monomers (DAs). DAs are colorless and can be polymerized under UV light at 254nm to form blue PDAs. Stimuli such as heat, chemicals, mechanic force and pH change will trigger color change of PDA from blue to red/pink. This chroma property makes PDA an ideal material for sensor development and therefore has received considerable attention in recent years. There has been several reports of generating PDA-based sensors for cations, chemicals, virus, microorganisms, and bacterial toxins detection. However, development of PDA-based sensors for food microbiology applications were limited. The objective of this study were thus to 1) investigate the sanitizers and surfactant effect on PDA-based sensors 2) develop a PDA-based biosensor for bacteria detection and verify the working mechanism 3) optimize and apply PDA-based biosensor for bacteria detection. 4) build and validate the statistical model for quantitative bacteria in samples. We started with generating liquid state PDA-based sensors and explored interaction between sanitizers/surfactant and PDA-based sensors. Subsequently, solid state PDA-based sensors were developed and detection mechanism for this method was verified with specifically designed experiments. Further, solid state PDA-based sensors were optimized and applied for bacteria detection with a statistical model built for quantitative bacteria in samples. This study provide a novel strategy of applying PDA-based biosensors for bacteria detection with quantitative measurement of bacteria and was supported by verified detection mechanism. Furthermore, this proposed method can be applied to quickly detect and quantify bacteria and may inspire other PDA-based biosensor design in the future

Agricultural scene understanding and supporting field research, volume 1

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Using the contrast ratio method and achromatic transmission densitometry as a substitute for Status A transmission densitometry with the Photographic Activity Test For Enclosure Materials

The discontinuation of conventional photographic spot-reading transmission densitometers -including the widely adopted X-Rite model 310- due to the rapid decrease in demand for analogic photographic laboratory work has had a broadly felt effect in the conservation community. In the cultural heritage conservation field, instruments like the X-Rite 310 are widely used, specifically in the performance of the Photographic Activity Test (PAT) for the preservation of photographic materials. In the present research, five possible alternate metrics were investigated as substitutes for the increasingly unavailable spot reading transmission densitometers in Status-A readings as mandated by the current PAT. The analyzed metrics were: (1) ratio in reflection using normal illumination geometry and circumferential 45° viewing (0/45:c), (2) contrast ratio in reflection using diffuse illumination and 8° viewing geometry with specular component included (d/8:i), (3) contrast ratio in reflection using diffuse illumination and 8° viewing geometry with specular component excluded (d/8:e), (4) Ortho-transmission densitometry and (5) UV- transmission densitometry. The contrast ratio metric can be obtained with commonly available reflection spectrophotometers, such as the X-Rite 939 and the X-Rite SP64. The use of contrast ratio metric could open up new possibilities for measurement in the field of art reproduction and cultural heritage preservation to analyze changes in density and opacity. The proposed work analyzed the readings obtained by three measurement instruments: (1) X-Rite 361T, (2) X-Rite 939 and (3) X-Rite SP64, in a set of three achromatic transmission step-wedges (15-Step Transmission Stouffer© Graphic Arts T1530CC step-wedge) used as a surrogate for the colloidal silver strip used in the PAT. The goal was to evaluate the performance of the five proposed metrics and geometries as a possible alternative to transmission densitometry measurements when recording data using the Photographic Activity Test. The results indicate that there exists a near-perfect linear relationship between the readings using the X-Rite 361T in Ortho-transmission densitometry channel and the readings from the Status-A transmission density using the X-Rite 310 across the entire densitometric range represented by the Stouffer wedge. The UV channel measurements also exhibit a near seamless linear regression model with the Status-A readings. Both relationships were found to be statistically significant. On the other hand, the measurements with the setups using contrast ratio measurements did not exhibit the same linear relationship when the entire measurement range is considered. However, in readings of less than .95 opacity, the contrast ratio measurements did exhibit a meaningful linear relationship when compared to the Status-A transmission readings with a density value of less than 1.8, albeit still with lower correlation than both readings with the X-Rite 361T

Quantitative assessment of emergent biomass and species composition in tidal wetlands using remote sensing

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Printable organic and inorganic materials for flexible electrochemical devices

Portuguese Science Foundation - project Electra PTDC/CTM/099124/2008 and the PhD grant SFRH/BD/45224. financial support: Professor E. Fortunato’s ERC 2008 Advanced Grant (INVISIBLE contract number 228144), “APPLE” FP7-NMP-2010-SME/262782-2 and “SMARTEC” FP7-ICT-2009.3.9/25820