European Paediatric Formulation Initiative (EuPFI)-Formulating Ideas for Better Medicines for Children.

© American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists 2016, published by Springer US, available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1208/s12249-016-0584-1The European Paediatric Formulation Initiative (EuPFI), founded in 2007, aims to promote and facilitate the preparation of better and safe medicines for children through linking research and information dissemination. It brings together the capabilities of the industry, academics, hospitals, and regulators within a common platform in order to scope the solid understanding of the major issues, which will underpin the progress towards the future of paediatric medicines we want.The EuPFI was formed in parallel to the adoption of regulations within the EU and USA and has served as a community that drives research and dissemination through publications and the organisation of annual conferences. The membership and reach of this group have grown since its inception in 2007 and continue to develop and evolve to meet the continuing needs and ambitions of research into and development of age appropriate medicines. Five diverse workstreams (age-appropriate medicines, Biopharmaceutics, Administration Devices, Excipients and Taste Assessment & Taste Masking (TATM)) direct specific workpackages on behalf of the EuPFI. Furthermore, EuPFI interacts with multiple diverse professional groups across the globe to ensure efficient working in the area of paediatric medicines. Strong commitment and active involvement of all EuPFI stakeholders have proved to be vital to effectively address knowledge gaps related to paediatric medicines, discuss potential areas for further research and identify issues that need more attention and analysis in the future.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The light ion trough, the main trough, and the plasmapause

Extensive observations of mid-latitude depletions in electron and total ion density by both direct and indirect techniques, have prompted numerous studies of the possible association between these troughs, observed in the F-region, the topside ionosphere, and the plasmapause. One basic problem arises, in that while the plasmapause was detected as a global phenomenon both by VLF and ion composition measurements, the electron and ion density troughs were identified primarily as nightside features. This problem, as well as the difficulty in explaining various inconsistencies in relating the position of the plasmapause and the ionization trough, is explained by a close examination of the ion composition. In particular, ion composition results from the polar orbiting OGO satellites identify the persistence of a pronounced light ion trough in H(+) and He(+) identified by order of magnitude decreases in the light ion concentrations

Structural sensitivity analysis: Methods, applications, and needs

Some innovative techniques applicable to sensitivity analysis of discretized structural systems are reviewed. These techniques include a finite-difference step-size selection algorithm, a method for derivatives of iterative solutions, a Green's function technique for derivatives of transient response, a simultaneous calculation of temperatures and their derivatives, derivatives with respect to shape, and derivatives of optimum designs with respect to problem parameters. Computerized implementations of sensitivity analysis and applications of sensitivity derivatives are also discussed. Finally, some of the critical needs in the structural sensitivity area are indicated along with Langley plans for dealing with some of these needs

The moderating effect of trait mindfulness on implicit racial bias following a brief mindfulness induction: A pilot study

Objective: This study was designed to explore the interactive effects of state and trait mindfulness in reducing implicit racial bias. Method: A 3-factor, quasi-experimental mixed design was employed. The factors were induction type, order of presentation and trait mindfulness. Post-induction implicit racism as well as explicit racism comprised the two dependent variables. Twenty-five older adults completed an Implicit Association Test on two occasions, one week apart. Results: The non-significant main effect of induction type (H1) was moderated by trait mindfulness (H2). Specifically, low trait mindful participants showed a significant reduction in implicit racism following the mindfulness induction compared with the control induction. There were no differences in implicit racism between induction conditions among high trait mindful counterparts. Explicit racism did not vary as a function of trait mindfulness (H3) and was independent of implicit racism (H4). Conclusion: A combination of state and trait mindfulness is needed to demonstrate a causal reduction in implicit racial bias. Differences between system 1 and system 2 thinking (Kahneman, 2011) are drawn upon to explain the findings

Kinematics of a hot massive accretion disk candidate

Characterizing rotation, infall and accretion disks around high-mass protostars is an important topic in massive star formation research. With the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Very Large Array we studied a massive disk candidate at high angular resolution in ammonia (NH3(4,4) & (5,5)) tracing the warm disk but not the envelope. The observations resolved at ~0.4'' resolution (corresponding to ~1400AU) a velocity gradient indicative of rotation perpendicular to the molecular outflow. Assuming a Keplerian accretion disk, the estimated protostar-disk mass would be high, similar to the protostellar mass. Furthermore, the position-velocity diagram exhibits additional deviation from a Keplerian rotation profile which may be caused by infalling gas and/or a self-gravitating disk. Moreover, a large fraction of the rotating gas is at temperatures >100K, markedly different to typical low-mass accretion disks. In addition, we resolve a central double-lobe cm continuum structure perpendicular to the rotation. We identify this with an ionized, optically thick jet.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for Astrophysical Journal Letters, a high-resolution version of the draft can be found at http://www.mpia.de/homes/beuther/papers.htm

The President's Day cyclone 17-19 February 1979: An analysis of jet streak interactions prior to cyclogenesis

The President's Day cyclone, produced record breaking snowfall along the East Coast of the United States in February 1979. Conventional radiosonde data, SMS GOES infrared imagery and LFM 2 model diagnostics were used to analyze the interaction of upper and lower tropospheric jet streaks prior to cyclogenesis. The analysis reveals that a series of complex scale interactive processes is responsible for the development of the intense cyclone. The evolution of the subsynoptic scale mass and momentum fields prior to and during the period of rapid development of the President's Day cyclone utilizing conventional data and SMS GOES imagery is documented. The interaction between upper and lower tropospheric jet streaks which occurred prior to the onset of cyclogenesis is discussed as well as the possible effects of terrain modified airflow within the precyclogenesis environment. Possible deficiencies in the LFM-2 initial wind fields that could have been responsible, in part, for the poor numerical forecast are examined

Use of sensitivity analysis to predict pilot performance as a function of different displays

A technique for objectively evaluating different displays by sensitivity analysis is described. First, the mathematical model used to analyze static displays is developed. The technique is based on formulating functional relationships between the state variables and the variables observable in the display. The matrix of the partial derivatives of the display variables with respect to the state variables, together with the observer's acuity function, is used to calculate expected errors in the state vector estimation. The technique is expanded by the use of Kalman filtering to process a time series of observation vectors. This provides a tool for analyzing displays of dynamic processes by means of a dynamic display evaluation computer program. Results are reported using this program to simulate an Instrument Landing System approach

Maser Source Finding Methods in HOPS

The {\bf H}$_2${\bf O} Southern Galactic {\bf P}lane {\bf S}urvey (HOPS) has observed 100 square degrees of the Galactic plane, using the Mopra radio telescope to search for emission from multiple spectral lines in the 12\,mm band (19.5\,--\,27.5\,GHz). Perhaps the most important of these spectral lines is the 22.2\,GHz water maser transition. We describe the methods used to identify water maser candidates and subsequent confirmation of the sources. Our methods involve a simple determination of likely candidates by searching peak emission maps, utilising the intrinsic nature of water maser emission - spatially unresolved and spectrally narrow-lined. We estimate completeness limits and compare our method with results from the {\sc Duchamp} source finder. We find that the two methods perform similarly. We conclude that the similarity in performance is due to the intrinsic limitation of the noise characteristics of the data. The advantages of our method are that it is slightly more efficient in eliminating spurious detections and is simple to implement. The disadvantage is that it is a manual method of finding sources and so is not practical on datasets much larger than HOPS, or for datasets with extended emission that needs to be characterised. We outline a two-stage method for the most efficient means of finding masers, using {\sc Duchamp}.Comment: 8 pages, 1 table, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in PASA special issue on Source Finding & Visualisatio

Overcoming the false-minima problem in direct methods: Structure determination of the packaging enzyme P4 from bacteriophage φ13

The problems encountered during the phasing and structure determination of the packaging enzyme P4 from bacteriophage φ13 using the anomalous signal from selenium in a single-wavelength anomalous dispersion experiment (SAD) are described. The oligomeric state of P4 in the virus is a hexamer (with sixfold rotational symmetry) and it crystallizes in space group C2, with four hexamers in the crystallographic asymmetric unit. Current state-of-the-art ab initio phasing software yielded solutions consisting of 96 atoms arranged as sixfold symmetric clusters of Se atoms. However, although these solutions showed high correlation coefficients indicative that the substructure had been solved, the resulting phases produced uninterpretable electron-density maps. Only after further analysis were correct solutions found (also of 96 atoms), leading to the eventual identification of the positions of 120 Se atoms. Here, it is demonstrated how the difficulties in finding a correct phase solution arise from an intricate false-minima problem. © 2005 International Union of Crystallography - all rights reserved