Delivery of inhalation drugs to children for asthma and other respiratory diseases

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Nanotechnology versus other techniques in improving drug dissolution

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A performance study of packet scheduling algorithms for coordinating colocated Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b in a Linux machine

Due to the proliferation of hand-held short-range communication devices, coexistence between Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b has become a performance critical issue. In this study, we performed an actual implementation of a Linux based network access point (NAP), in which Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b are colocated. Such a NAP is expected to be crucial in supporting 'hot-spot' systems targeted to serve nomadic users carrying either a Bluetooth or a IEEE 802.11b device. Specifically, the goal of our study is to investigate the efficacy of a software based interference coordination approach. We consider five most commonly used scheduling algorithms in a Linux environment. Our extensive experimental results obtained in a real environment indicate that a hierarchical scheduling approach exhibits the best performance in terms of aggregate bandwidth achieved by Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11b.published_or_final_versio

Seasonality of forest invertebrates in Hong Kong, South China

Because of its position on the northern margin of the tropics (22° 17[prime prime or minute]N) and the southern coast of a huge continent, Hong Kong has a climate in which both temperature and rainfall are highly seasonal. Although summer temperatures are equatorial, the January mean is only 15.8 °C,and the absolute minimum recorded at sea level is 0 °C (Dudgeon & Corlett 1994). As a result, all aspects of the ecology of Hong Kong show seasonal changes. The most dramatic changes occur in the bird fauna, with the majority of species migratory (Carey et al. 2001). The winter fruiting peak in secondary shrublands and the forest understorey coincides with the arrival of partially frugivorous migrant robins and thrushes (Corlett 1993). However, while resident insectivore-frugivores consume almost entirely fruit during this period (Corlett 1998), all the winter visitors continue to eat insects and some (e.g. Phylloscopus warblers) are entirely insectivorous. The study of insect seasonality reported here formed part of a 30-mo study of the seasonality of a forest bird community in Hong Kong (Kwok & Corlett 1999, 2000). Plant names follow Corlett et al. (2000).published_or_final_versio

Effect of crystallinity on electrostatic charging in DPI formulations

Poster Presentation: no. 13PS41Introduction: Many physicochemical, mechanical and environmental factors can influence charging of dry powder inhaler (DPI) formulations - crystallinity is one of these factors. Due to differences in crystal packing and surface energies, there may be differences in charge transfer behaviours between amorphous and crystalline materials. Although the effect of crystallinity on electrostatic charging in DPI formulations has been investigated previously by other researchers, the reported data were inconclusive since the samples not only differed in crystallinity, but also in particle morphology and size distributions. Therefore, these variables are controlled in the present study to determine the role of crystallinity in electrostatic charging of DPI formulations. The objective of this study was to characterize inherent charges generated by amorphous and crystalline micron-sized salbutamol sulfate (SS) powders .....published_or_final_versio

Spray freeze dried large porous particles for nano drug delivery by inhalation

INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection caused by Mycobaterium tuberculosis. TB has recently reemerged as a disease of interest for improved drug delivery, with a focus on leveraging the benefits of anti-tubercular drug nanoparticle formulation (1, 2). Drug nanoparticles can target infected cells and provide a large payload, but the optimal administration route remains uncertain (3). While oral formulations are most preferred, the passage of nanoparticles across the gastrointesintal tract is challenging. On the other hand, intravenous injection of nanosuspen…postprin

WIJAM: a mobile collaborative improvisation platform under Master-players Paradigm

Music jamming is an extremely difficult task for musical novices. Trying to extend this meaningful and highly enjoyable activity to a larger recipient group, we present WIJAM, a mobile application for an ad-hoc group of musical novices to perform improvisation along with a music master. In this master-players' paradigm, the master offers a music backing, orchestrates the musical flow, and gives feedbacks to the players; the players improvise by tapping and sketching on their smartphones. We argue that this paradigm can be a significant contribution to the possibility of music playing by a group of novices with no instrumental training leading to decent musical results.published_or_final_versio

Design of dry powder formulations of pH responsive peptide/plasmid DNA complexes for pulmonary delivery

Poster Presentation: no. 13PS50Respiratory diseases are substantial public health problems around the world. Recently, nucleic acid was developed as a potential therapeutic strategy to tackle a series of lung diseases. Delivery still poses one of the major challenges for their clinical application. pH responsive peptides containing either histidine or derivatives of 2,3-diaminopropionic acid (Dap) can mediate effective DNA transfection in lung epithelial cells with the latter remaining effective even in the presence of lung surfactant containing bronchoalveolar fluid (BALF), which make them promising vectors for delivering therapeutic nucleic acid to the airways .....published_or_final_versio

Chronic benign neutropenia among Chinese children

Objective. To delineate the clinical behaviour of chronic benign neutropenia in Chinese children in Hong Kong. Design. Retrospective study. Setting. University teaching hospital, Hong Kong. Patients. All infants and children with absolute neutrophil count of 1.5 × 109 /L or lower for more than 3 months. Main outcome measures. Development of significant infection, and achievement of remission. Results. Twenty-four children with chronic benign neutropenia were identified between 1992 and 2001. Their median age of diagnosis was 9 months. The mean (standard deviation) initial absolute neutrophil count was 0.28 × 109 /L (0.24 × 109 /L). Twenty-three patients presented with infection. Of the 19 patients tested, four (21%) were positive for anti-neutrophil antibodies. Bone marrow examination was performed in 17 patients: nine had normal results, but six showed evidence of peripheral consumption, one showed late maturation arrest at band stage, and one showed phagocytosis of myeloid cells by histiocytes. The overall hospitalised infection rate was 51.6 episodes per 1000 patient-months. Ten percent of cases were considered 'significant' infections and required hospital admission with either surgical intervention or intravenous therapy (antibiotics or fluid replacement). In the first year of diagnosis, more than 80% of patients had their lowest absolute neutrophil count (mean, 0.16 × 109 /L; standard deviation, 0.11 × 109 /L). Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor was used to treat three patients and induced transient elevation of absolute neutrophil count in all three. The projected remission rate was 55.4% at 3 years. Even for those with persistent disease, there was significant recovery in absolute neutrophil count to a mean of 0.5 × 109 /L (P<0.01). Conclusions. Patients with chronic benign neutropenia experienced a relatively benign clinical course regardless of their remission status. Only a small proportion of patients developed significant infections. A multi-centre prospective study may help identify predictive factors of remission.published_or_final_versio

PubMed-supported clinical term weighting approach for improving inter-patient similarity measure in diagnosis prediction

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