Opportunities for Process Control and Quality Assurance Using Online NIR Analysis to a Continuous Wet Granulation Tableting Line

This paper investigates the application of online near-infrared measurements as a means to measure blend uniformity in a continuous tableting line. Underlying all the monitoring and control methods is the ability to measure key tablet properties online at a rate suitable for control purposes. The use of NIR to determine any deviations in blend uniformity is demonstrated by interpreting the relevant spectral signature allowing quantitative information to be acquired for process monitoring and quality assurance. In addition to demonstrating the functionality of the NIR probe, the practical issues arising in the application are discussed. The composition of the blend was measured using an NIR probe over a range of concentrations and the results were calculated comparing sub unit dose scale of scrutiny of small populations. This was compared with predicted product quality for whole tablets over the whole production period. This technique has demonstrated how data collected online can be used to successfully predict the quality of the whole production run for the purposes of real-time product quality assurance

The Fatigue Associated with Depression Questionnaire (FAsD): responsiveness and responder definition

PURPOSE: The Fatigue Associated with Depression Questionnaire (FAsD) was developed to assess fatigue and its impact among patients with depression. The purpose of this study was to examine the questionnaire’s responsiveness to change and identify a responder definition for interpretation of treatment-related changes. METHODS: Data were collected at baseline and at 6 weeks from patients with depression starting treatment with a new antidepressant. RESULTS: Of the 96 participants, 55.2% were women, with a mean age of 43.4 years. The total score and both subscales demonstrated statistically significant change with moderate to large effect sizes (absolute values ≥0.76). FAsD change scores were significantly correlated with change on the Brief Fatigue Inventory (r ≥ 0.73; p < 0.001). FAsD mean change scores discriminated among patient subgroups differing by degree of improvement in patient- and clinician-reported fatigue and depression. Responder definition for the two subscales and total score (0.67, 0.57, 0.62) was estimated primarily based on mean change among patients who reported a small but important improvement in fatigue. DISCUSSION: The FAsD was responsive to change, and the responder definition may be used when interpreting treatment-related change. Results add to previous findings suggesting the FAsD is a useful measure of fatigue among patients with depression

Logic gates at the surface code threshold: Superconducting qubits poised for fault-tolerant quantum computing

A quantum computer can solve hard problems - such as prime factoring, database searching, and quantum simulation - at the cost of needing to protect fragile quantum states from error. Quantum error correction provides this protection, by distributing a logical state among many physical qubits via quantum entanglement. Superconductivity is an appealing platform, as it allows for constructing large quantum circuits, and is compatible with microfabrication. For superconducting qubits the surface code is a natural choice for error correction, as it uses only nearest-neighbour coupling and rapidly-cycled entangling gates. The gate fidelity requirements are modest: The per-step fidelity threshold is only about 99%. Here, we demonstrate a universal set of logic gates in a superconducting multi-qubit processor, achieving an average single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.92% and a two-qubit gate fidelity up to 99.4%. This places Josephson quantum computing at the fault-tolerant threshold for surface code error correction. Our quantum processor is a first step towards the surface code, using five qubits arranged in a linear array with nearest-neighbour coupling. As a further demonstration, we construct a five-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state using the complete circuit and full set of gates. The results demonstrate that Josephson quantum computing is a high-fidelity technology, with a clear path to scaling up to large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum circuits.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, including supplementary materia

Immunohistochemical localization of collagen types I and VI in human skin wounds

A total of 74 human skin wounds were investigated and collagen types I and VI were localized in the wound area by immunohistochemistry. Collagen type I appeared in the form of ramifying string-like structures after approximately 5–6 days, but positive reactions in the form of a spot-like staining around isolated fibroblasts also occurred in a skin wound aged 4 days. Collagen VI was detectable after a post-infliction interval of at least 3 days showing a strongly positive reacting network associated with fibroblasts in the wound area. Both collagens appeared almost constantly after a wound age of 6–7 clays and could also be found in wounds aged a few months. Therefore, although a positive reaction for collagen type I in the form of string-like and ramifying structures around wound fibroblasts indicates a wound age of at least 5–6 days, a spot-like positive staining for collagen type I cannot exclude a wound age of at least 4 days. A positive staining for collagen type VI represents a post-infliction time of 3 days or more. The almost constant appearance of these collagen types suggests that negative results in a sufficient number of specimens indicate a wound age of less than 6–7 days, but cannot completely exclude longer post-infliction intervals. Since collagen type I and VI are also found in the granulation/scar tissue of lesions with advanced wound age, the immunohistochemical analysis of these proteins provides no further information for an age determination of older skin wounds

Acquisition of pneumococci specific effector and regulatory Cd4+ T cells localising within human upper respiratory-tract mucosal lymphoid tissue

The upper respiratory tract mucosa is the location for commensal Streptococcus (S.) pneumoniae colonization and therefore represents a major site of contact between host and bacteria. The CD4(+) T cell response to pneumococcus is increasingly recognised as an important mediator of immunity that protects against invasive disease, with data suggesting a critical role for Th17 cells in mucosal clearance. By assessing CD4 T cell proliferative responses we demonstrate age-related sequestration of Th1 and Th17 CD4(+) T cells reactive to pneumococcal protein antigens within mucosal lymphoid tissue. CD25(hi) T cell depletion and utilisation of pneumococcal specific MHCII tetramers revealed the presence of antigen specific Tregs that utilised CTLA-4 and PDL-1 surface molecules to suppress these responses. The balance between mucosal effector and regulatory CD4(+) T cell immunity is likely to be critical to pneumococcal commensalism and the prevention of unwanted pathology associated with carriage. However, if dysregulated, such responses may render the host more susceptible to invasive pneumococcal infection and adversely affect the successful implementation of both polysaccharide-conjugate and novel protein-based pneumococcal vaccines

Use of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy to predict nitrogen uptake by winter wheat within fields with high variability in organic matter

In this study, the ability to predict N-uptake in winter wheat crops using NIR-spectroscopy on soil samples was evaluated. Soil samples were taken in unfertilized plots in one winter wheat field during three years (1997-1999) and in another winter wheat field nearby in one year (2000). Soil samples were analyzed for organic C content and their NIR-spectra. N-uptake was measured as total N-content in aboveground plant materials at harvest. Models calibrated to predict N-uptake were internally cross validated and validated across years and across fields. Cross-validated calibrations predicted N-uptake with an average error of 12.1 to 15.4 kg N ha-1. The standard deviation divided by this error (RPD) ranged between 1.9 and 2.5. In comparison, the corresponding calibrations based on organic C alone had an error from 11.7 to 28.2 kg N ha-1 and RPDs from 1.3 to 2.5. In three of four annual calibrations within a field, the NIR-based calibrations worked better than the organic C based calibrations. The prediction of N-uptake across years, but within a field, worked slightly better with an organic C based calibration than with a NIR based one, RPD = 1.9 and 1.7 respectively. Across fields, the corresponding difference was large in favour of the NIR-calibration, RPD = 2.5 for the NIR-calibration and 1.5 for the organic C calibration. It was concluded that NIR-spectroscopy integrates information about organic C with other relevant soil components and therefore has a good potential to predict complex functions of soils such as N-mineralization. A relatively good agreement of spectral relationships to parameters related to the N-mineralization of datasets across the world suggests that more general models can be calibrated

Reactions of a Be-10 beam on proton and deuteron targets

The extraction of detailed nuclear structure information from transfer reactions requires reliable, well-normalized data as well as optical potentials and a theoretical framework demonstrated to work well in the relevant mass and beam energy ranges. It is rare that the theoretical ingredients can be tested well for exotic nuclei owing to the paucity of data. The halo nucleus Be-11 has been examined through the 10Be(d,p) reaction in inverse kinematics at equivalent deuteron energies of 12,15,18, and 21.4 MeV. Elastic scattering of Be-10 on protons was used to select optical potentials for the analysis of the transfer data. Additionally, data from the elastic and inelastic scattering of Be-10 on deuterons was used to fit optical potentials at the four measured energies. Transfers to the two bound states and the first resonance in Be-11 were analyzed using the Finite Range ADiabatic Wave Approximation (FR-ADWA). Consistent values of the spectroscopic factor of both the ground and first excited states were extracted from the four measurements, with average values of 0.71(5) and 0.62(4) respectively. The calculations for transfer to the first resonance were found to be sensitive to the size of the energy bin used and therefore could not be used to extract a spectroscopic factor.Comment: 16 Pages, 10 figure

Volcanic constraints on the unzipping of Africa from South America: Insights from new geochronological controls along the Angola margin

The breakup of Africa from South America is associated with the emplacement of the Paraná-Etendeka flood basalt province from around 134 Ma and the Tristan da Cunha plume. Yet many additional volcanic events occur that are younger than the main pulse of the Paraná-Etendeka and straddle the rift to drift phases of the main breakup. This contribution reports on new geochronological constraints from the Angolan part of the African Margin. Three coastal and one inland section have been sampled stretching across some 400 Km, with 39Ar/40Ar, U-Pb and Palaeontology used to provide age constraints. Ages from the new data range from ~100 to 81 Ma, with three main events (cr. 100, 91 and 82-81 Ma). Volcanic events are occurring within the Early to Late Cretaceous, along this part of the margin with a general younging towards Namibia. With the constraints of additional age information both onshore and offshore Angola, a clear younging trend at the early stages of rift to drift is recorded in the volcanic events that unzip from North to South. Similar age volcanic events are reported from the Brazilian side of the conjugate margin, and highlight the need to fully incorporate these relatively low volume volcanic pulses into the plate tectonic breakup models of the South Atlantic Margin

Cross-cultural adaptation and construct validity of the German version of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for service users (German ASCOT)

Background: There has been considerable interest in using the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT), developed in England, to measure quality-of-life outcomes of long-term care (LTC-QoL) service provision in national and cross-national studies. Objectives: The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the original ASCOT service user measure into German and to evaluate its content and construct validity in Austrian home care service users. Methods: The translation and cultural adaptation process followed the ISPOR TCA guidelines. We used qualitative data from six cognitive debriefing interviews with Austrian recipients of home care services to assess linguistic and content validity. In addition, cross-sectional survey data (n = 633) were used to evaluate construct validity by testing hypothesized associations established in a previous study for the original English ASCOT service user instrument. Results: Cognitive debriefing interviews confirmed that the German adaptation of the ASCOT service user instrument was understood as intended, although two domains (‘Control over daily life’ and ‘Dignity’) and selected phrases of the response options were challenging to translate into German. All ASCOT domains were statistically significantly associated with related constructs and sensitive to service user sub-group differences. Conclusions: We found good evidence for a valid cross-cultural adaptation of the German version of ASCOT for service users. The analysis also supports the construct validity of the translated instrument and its use in evaluations of QoL-effects of LTC service provision in German-speaking countries. Further research on the reliability and feasibility in different care settings is encouraged