Essentials of Aquaphotomics and Its Chemometrics Approaches

Aquaphotomics is a novel scientific discipline involving the study of water and aqueous systems. Using light-water interaction, it aims to extract information about the structure of water, composed of many different water molecular conformations using their absorbance bands. In aquaphotomics analysis, specific water structures (presented as water absorbance patterns) are related to their resulting functions in the aqueous systems studied, thereby building an aquaphotome-a database of water absorbance bands and patterns correlating specific water structures to their specific functions. Light-water interaction spectroscopic methods produce complex multidimensional spectral data, which require data processing and analysis to extract hidden information about the structure of water presented by its absorbance bands. The process of extracting information from water spectra in aquaphotomics requires a field-specific approach. It starts with an appropriate experimental design and execution to ensure high-quality spectral signals, followed by a multitude of spectral analysis, preprocessing and chemometrics methods to remove unwanted influences and extract water absorbance spectral pattern related to the perturbation of interest through the identification of activated water absorbance bands found among the common, consistently repeating and highly influential variables in all analytical models. The objective of this paper is to introduce the field of aquaphotomics and describe aquaphotomics multivariate analysis methodology developed during the last decade. Through a worked-out example of analysis of potassium chloride solutions supported by similar approaches from the existing aquaphotomics literature, the provided instruction should give enough information about aquaphotomics analysis i.e. to design and perform the experiment and data analysis as well as to represent water absorbance spectral pattern using various forms of aquagrams-specifically designed aquaphotomics graphs. The explained methodology is derived from analysis of near infrared spectral data of aqueous systems and will offer a useful and new tool for extracting data from informationally rich water spectra in any region. It is the hope of the authors that with this new tool at the disposal of scientists and chemometricians, pharmaceutical and biomedical spectroscopy will substantially progress beyond its state-of-the-art applications

„Niecodzienna codzienność”. Świat społeczny osób z chorobą Parkinsona

 Choroba Parkinsona jest jedną z najczęstszych chorób neurozwyrodnieniowych. Podstawowymi objawami choroby Parkinsona są bradykinezja, drżenie i sztywność plastyczna. Społeczne badania naukowe nad doświadczaniem chorób przewlekłych koncentrują się bezpośrednio na kluczowych graczach w służbie zdrowia – ludziach chorych. Badacze zdrowia, praktycy i decydenci mogą twierdzić, że reprezentują obawy pacjentów, rzadko jednak uwypuklają opinie na temat doświadczenia pacjentów w zakresie opieki zdrowotnej, a tym bardziej w odniesieniu do tego, co oznacza życie z chorobą przewlekłą. Celem badań było rozpoznanie i przedstawienie ich społecznego świata na podstawie narracji będącej subiektywną rekonstrukcją ich historii życia. Do badań wykorzystano autobiograficzny wywiad narracyjny zaproponowany przez Schützego, który opracował metodę jako spójną koncepcję badań biograficznych. Zebrany materiał empiryczny (44 wywiady) został poddany analizie, co umożliwiło udzielenie odpowiedzi na postawione pytania i sformułowanie wniosków, to zaś pozwoliło na wzbogacenie posiadanej wiedzy o jakościowy aspekt analizy. Badania nad chorobą przewlekłą ukazują, jak ludzie postrzegają siebie jako osoby przewlekle chore i jak choroba wpływa na ich życie.Parkinson’s disease is one of the most frequent neurodegenerative disorders. The core symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are bradykinesia, tremor and plastic rigidity. Social scientific research on experiencing chronic illness focuses directly on pivotal players in health care – people who are sick. Health researchers, practitioners and policy makers may claim to represent patients’ concerns. However, they seldom obtain systematic “in-depth” views of patients’ experience of health care, much less of what it means to live with continued illness. The aim of the study was to recognize and present their social world on the basis of a narrative which is a subjective reconstruction of their life history. The technique of an autobiographical narrative interview was used for the research, as proposed by Schütz, who developed the method as a cohesive concept of biographical research. The collected empirical material (44 interviews) was analyzed, providing answers to the posed questions and allowing the formulation of conclusions, which made it possible to enrich the existing knowledge with the qualitative aspect of the analysis. The research on experiencing chronic illness emphasizes how people come to view themselves as chronically ill and how illness affects their lives

Preparation and Characterization of Indomethacin Supramolecular Systems with β-Cyclodextrin in Order to Estimate Photostability Improvement

Cyclodextrins have found wide application in contemporary chemistry, pharmacy and medicine. Because of their unique properties, cyclodextrins are constantly used in research on solubility or stability improvement, as well as other physicochemical properties of medicinal substances. Indomethacin (IND) is a photolabile molecule that also attracts the interest of researchers due to its therapeutic potential and the need to overcome its problematic photosensitivity. Supramolecular complexes of indomethacin with β-cyclodextrin (CD) are already known, and they show greater stability compared to complexes with other types of cyclodextrins. So far, however, the sensitivity to light of physical mixtures and inclusion complexes in the solid phase has not been studied, and their various stoichiometries have not yet been investigated. Due to this fact, the aim of the present study is to obtain supramolecular systems (inclusion complexes and physical mixtures) of indomethacin with three different amounts of β-cyclodextrin. Assessment of the photochemical stability of indomethacin-β-cyclodextrin systems in the solid state is performed in order to find the best correlation between IND stability and the amount of CD. Comparative analysis of physicochemical degradation for stoichiometry systems [CD:IND] = [1:1], [0.5:1] and [0.1:1] is performed by using ultraviolet spectroscopy, transmission—FTIR, reflection—ATR-FTIR infrared spectroscopy and DSC calorimetry

Volatile organic compounds in pharmacy – the range of the problem

The sensitivity and chemical instability of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) may result in the formation and emission of volatile substances which affect not only the stability of the medicinal product, but also leads to changes of physicochemical properties, causing negative pharmacologic effects sometimes toxic. For this reason, it is important to conduct routine stability tests, as well as, to determine gaseous degradation products using modern analytical methods, often unconventional. Knowledge of medicinal chemistry, physical chemistry, technology and toxicology is needed to provide a stable form of the drug and its utmost therapeutic effect. Available guidelines on determined volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in samples of drug substances have been verified , types of VOCs have been specified and classified. Current literature reviewed shows the results of determination of VOCs in active drug compounds and medicinal products, including discussion on various possibilities of their detection and identification. Currently used methods are based on gas chromatography and ion mobility spectrometry IMS.Brak stabilności chemicznej substancji leczniczych może skutkować powstawaniem i emisją substancji o charakterze lotnym oraz wpływać nie tylko na stabilność produktu leczniczego, lecz również prowadzić do zmian jego właściwości fizykochemicznych, wywoływać negatywne efekty farmakologiczne, a czasami również toksyczne. Z tego względu istotne jest rutynowe prowadzenie testów stabilności, jak również oznaczanie gazowych produktów degradacji nowoczesnymi metodami, często niekonwencjonalnymi. Wiedza z zakresu chemii medycznej, chemii fizycznej, technologii postaci leku i toksykologii jest potrzebna, by zapewnić stabilną postać leku i optymalny efekt terapeutyczny. Scharakteryzowano wytyczne dotyczące oznaczanych lotnych związków organicznych (LZO) obecnych w próbkach substancji leczniczych, wyszczególniono rodzaje LZO i ich klasyfikację. Dokonano przeglądu bieżącej literatury opisującej wyniki oznaczeń LZO w substancjach i produktach leczniczych oraz omówiono różne możliwości ich detekcji i identyfikacji. Obecnie najczęściej wykorzystuje się metody oparte o chromatografię gazową, GC oraz spektroskopię mobilności jonowej, IMS