Building a financial decision support system with Oracle

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is the world's leading particle physics research laboratory. It is a truly global organization, collaborating with more than 500 research institutes around the world. The laboratory is currently working on the construction of its largest and most complex scientific instrument ever, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), due for completion in 2007. Under the current economic climate, however, the laboratory, along with many other businesses and organizations, is having to face shrinking resources and reduced staff levels. Since CERN is expected to continue to grow, it will be forced to achieve higher productivity with fewer resources. In the area of administrative information systems, the situation described above led us to the decision to use Oracle's Data Warehousing concepts and J2EE for the implementation of a scalable and flexible financial decision support system with a low maintenance cost. This paper outlines the experiences drawn from this implementation, from the logical design to the technical architecture

Physicochemical stability of cimetidine amorphous forms estimated by isothermal microcalorimetry

The effect of humidity on the physicochemical properties of amorphous forms of cimetidine was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry, isothermal microcalorimetry, and x-ray diffraction analysis. Amorphous forms were obtained by the melting (amorphous form M [AM]) and the cotton candy (amorphous form C [AC]) methods. Thermal behaviors of AM and AC with or without seed crystals were measured using an isothermal microcalorimeter under various conditions of relative humidity (RH) and temperature, respectively. The crystallization kinetics of amorphous solids was analyzed based on 10 kinds of solid-state reaction models. AM transformed into form A at 11% RH, 50°C but transformed into a mixture of form A and monohydrate at 51% and 75% RH at 25°C. The mean crystallization times (MCTs) of the heat flow curve of AM and AC at 11% RH, 50°C were 47.82 and 32.00 hours, respectively, but at 11% RH, 25°C both were more than 4320 hours. In contrast, AC transformed into form A under all storage conditions. The MCTs of AC at 51% and 75% RH were 29.61 and 11.81 hours, respectively; whereas the MCTs of AM were 46.79 and 15.52 hours, respectively. The crystallization of amorphous solids followed the three-dimensional growth of nuclei (Avrami equation) with an induction period (IP). The IP for AM at 11% RH, 50°C was more than 2 times that for AC, but the difference in the crystal growth rate constant (CR) between AC and AM was within 10%. The IP for AM at 75% RH, 25°C was reduced to only 10% of the IP at 51% RH with increasing humidity, but the CR did not change significantly. In contrast, the IP for AC was slightly reduced at 75% RH compared with 51% RH, but the CR was about 5 times greater. At 75% RH, 25°C, the IP and CR of AM were about one-fourth the values of AC. This result suggests that the crystallization process consists of an initial stage during which the nuclei are formed and a final stage of growth

Effect of surface modification on hydration kinetics of carbamazepine anhydrate using isothermal microcalorimetry

The purpose of this research was to improve the stability of carbamazepine (CBZ) bulk powder under high humidity by surface modification. The surface-modified anhydrates of CBZ were obtained in a specially designed surface modification apparatus at 60°C via the adsorption of n-butanol, and powder x-ray diffraction, Fourier-Transformed Infrared spectra, and differential scanning calorimetry were used to determine the crystalline characteristics of the samples. The hydration process of intact and surface-modified CBZ anhydrate at 97% relative humidity (RH) and 40±1°C was automatically monitored by using isothermal microcalorimetry (IMC). The dissolution test for surface-modified samples (20 mg) was performed in 900 mL of distilled water at 37±0.5°C with stirring by a paddle at 100 rpm as in the Japanese Pharmacopoeia XIII. The heat flow profiles of hydration of intact and surface-modified CBZ anhydrates at 97% RH by using IMC profiles showed a maximum peak at around 10 hours and 45 hours after 0 and 10 hours of induction, respectively. The result indicated that hydration of CBZ anhydrate was completely inhibited at the initial stage by surface modification of n-butanol and thereafter transformed into dihydrate. The hydration of surface-modified samples followed a 2-dimensional phase boundary process with an induction period (IP). The IP of intact and surface-modified samples decreased with increase of the reaction temperature, and the hydration rate constant (k) increased with increase of the temperature. The crystal growth rate constants of nuclei of the intact sample were significantly larger than the surface-modified samples at each temperature. The activation energy (E) of nuclei formation and crystal growth process for hydration of surface-modified CBZ anhydrate were evaluated to be 20.1 and 32.5 kJ/mol, respectively, from Arrhenius plots, but the Es of intact anhydrate were 56.3 and 26.8 kJ/mol, respectively. The dissolution profiles showed that the surface-modified sample dissolved faster than the intact sample at the initial stage. The dissolution kinetics were analyzed based on the Hixon-Crowell equation, and the dissolution rate constants for intact and surface-modified anhydrates were found to be 0.0102±0.008 mg1/3 min−1 and 0.1442±0.0482 mg1/3·min−1. The surface-modified anhydrate powders were more stable than the nonmodified samples under high humidity and showed resistance against moisture. However, surface modification induced rapid dissolution in water compared to the control