Development and Validation of a New RP-HPLC Method for the Determination of Aprepitant in Solid Dosage Forms

Purpose: To develop and validate a new, simple, sensitive, rapid, cost-effective and accurate reverse phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for the determination of aprepitant (APT) in capsule dosage form.Methods: The method developed for the determination of APT in capsule formulation involved using RP-HPLC which incorporated a C18 column 250 x 2.5 mm i.d, 5 μm particle size, in isocratic mode, with mobile phase comprising of methanol: water in the ratio of 90:10 (v/v). The flow rate was 1 mL/min and the detection was monitored at 220 nm. The total run time was 10 min and the column was maintained at ambient temperature.Results: APT was eluted in the given mobile phase with a retention time (tr) of 4.473 min. The linearity for the quantification of APT was 0.1 - 10 μg/mL (R2 =0.989, Y= 33032x + 71501) with coefficients of variation (based on mean peak area for six replicate injections) in the range 0.04 to 0.132. The limits of detection and of quantification were 0.028 and 0.094 μg/mL, respectively. Recovery of the method was 99.56 - 100.5 % while the relative standard deviation (RSD) of intra-day and inter-day precision was 0.85 and 1.05, respectively. System precision and method precision were 0.013 and 1.400 %, respectively. The specificity data of the proposed method indicated that excipients in the capsules did not interfere with the drug peak. Furthermore, the well-shaped peaks buttressed the specificity of the method.Conclusion: The proposed RP-HPLC method is simple, sensitive, rapid, cost-effective and accurate for the determination of APT in both bulk materials and pharmaceutical dosage forms.Keywords: Aprepitant, RP-HPLC, Isocratic, Pharmaceutical dosage forms, Analysis, Validatio

Aspidella: un fósil de cuerpo blando ediacárico de la Arenisca de Jodhpur (Supergrupo de Marwar), área de Sursagar, Jodhpur, Rajasthan occidental, India

This paper describes well-preserved Aspidella remains, the Ediacaran body fossils from the Jodhpur Sandstone of the Marwar Supergroup in Sursagar area, Jodhpur, western Rajasthan, India. They show distinct morphological features previously described in other famous Ediacaran fossil sites, such as the Fermuse Formation of Newfoundland, South Australia and White Sea of RussiaSe describen en este trabajo los restos bien conservados de Aspidella, fósiles de cuerpo blando ediacáricos de la Arenisca de Jodhpur (Supergrupo de Marwar) el área de Sursagar, Jodhpur, al oeste de Rajasthan, India. Éstos muestran características morfológicas características descritas anteriormente en otros famosos yacimientos fósiles ediacáricos, como los de la Formación de Fermuse (Terranova), Australia meridional y el Mar Blanco de Rusia

The numerical modelling of composite floors exposed to fire

This thesis deals with the influence of fire on the behaviour of steel concrete composite floors. A theory has been developed to calculate deflections during the fire and the ultimate strength ofthe composite floor under such conditions. The solution is based on the finite difference method. It takes temperature-dependent material properties into account. The method of analysis comprises two parts; the first is thermal analysis, enabling temperatures to be calculated as a fu~ction 'of fire exposure time. The second is strength analysis for calculating the strength of composite floor with material properties affected by temperature. For the heat flow analysis, the cross-section is divided into mainly rectangular elements. Sloping boundaries are approximated by triangular elements. The heat transfer from the fire to the surface is considered as well as heat conduction to the neighbouring points. At internal points, heat conduction to all the neighbouring points is considered. To calculate the deflections, the floor is divided into a two-dimensional mesh. The deflections are calculated for each mesh point based on orthotropic plate theory. The differential operators are replaced by the finite difference formulae. This reduces the governing differential equation into a system of linear algebraic equations. To calculate the plate rigidities, it is necessary to find curvatures for all mesh points in the two planes using finite difference operators. The thermal strains , are superimposed, on the mechanical strains associated with curvatures to finp the net strains, and then stresses are calculated using the non-linear temperature dependent stress-strain curves. Integrating the stresses, the internal stress resultants are calculated. The above method has been programmed in Visual Basic. To validate this method, a comparison with a number of fire tests has been carried out , for both thermal and mechanical behaviour. The temperatures at comparable points are generally close to each other. Comparisons have also been carried out for calculated mid-span deflections by this method and the published test results. The results show excellent correlation between the tests and the new method. A parametric study has carried out on floors with different boundary conditions when subjected to in-plane forces for two fixed and simple ends. Comparison of mid-span deflections between the fixed and simple end conditions has shown that fixed edges have better fire resistance than simply supported when not subjected to in-plane forces. It has found that in-plane forces had little effect on deflection rates at initial stages of the fire. These only appeared at later stages. When subjected to in-plane forces in one direction only the floor showed better response. The conclusion from the parametric study is that in-plane forces at different edges play a signific'ant role in the behaviour, as the surrounding structure provides restraint increasing the fire resistance ofthe structure within the fire compartmen

Coronal Elemental Abundances during A-class Solar Flares Observed by Chandrayaan-2 XSM

The abundances of low First Ionisation Potential (FIP) elements are three to four times higher (FIP bias) in the closed loop active corona than in the photosphere, known as the FIP effect. Observations suggest that the abundances vary in different coronal structures. Here, we use the soft X-ray spectroscopic measurements from the Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) on board the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter to study the FIP effect in multiple A-class flares observed during the minimum of solar cycle 24. Using time-integrated spectral analysis, we derive the average temperature, emission measure, and the abundances of four elements - Mg, Al, Si, and S. We find that the temperature and emission measure scales with the flares sub-class while the measured abundances show an intermediate FIP bias for the lower A-flares (e.g., A1), while for the higher A-flares, the FIP bias is near unity. To investigate it further, we perform a time-resolved spectral analysis for a sample of the A-class flares and examine the evolution of temperature, emission measure, and abundances. We find that the abundances drop from the coronal values towards their photospheric values in the impulsive phase of the flares, and after the impulsive phase, they quickly return to the usual coronal values. The transition of the abundances from the coronal to photospheric values in the impulsive phase of the flares indicates the injection of fresh unfractionated material from the lower solar atmosphere to the corona due to chromospheric evaporation. However, explaining the quick recovery of the abundances from the photospheric to coronal values in the decay phase of the flare is challenging.Comment: Accepted for publication in 'Solar Physics

West New Britain Province: Text summaries, maps, code lists and village identification

The major purpose of the Papua New Guinea Agricultural Systems Project is to produce information on small holder (subsistence) agriculture at provincial and national levels (Allen et al 1995). Information was collected by field observation, interviews with villagers and reference to published and unpublished documents. Methods are described by Bourke et al. (1993). This Working Paper contains a written summary of the information on the Agricultural Systems in this Province, maps of the location of agriculture systems, a complete listing of all information in the database in coded form, and lists of villages with National Population Census codes, indexed by agricultural systems. This information is available as a map-linked database (GIS) suitable for use on a personal computer in ESRI and MapInfo formats. An Agricultural System is identified when a set of similar agricultural crops and practices occur within a defined area. Six criteria are used to distinguish one system from another: 1. Fallow type (the vegetation which is cleared from a garden site before cultivation). 2. Fallow period (the length of time a garden site is left unused between cultivations). 3. Cultivation intensity (the number of consecutive crops planted before fallow). 4. The staple, or most important, crops. 5. Garden and crop segregation (the extent to which crops are planted in separate gardens; in separate areas within a garden; or are planted sequentially). 6. Soil fertility maintenance techniques (other than natural regrowth fallows). Where one or more of these factors differs significantly and the differences can be mapped, then a separate system is distinguished. Where variation occurs, but is not able to be mapped at 1:500 000 scale because the areas in which the variation occurs are too small or are widely dispersed within the larger system, a subsystem is identified. Subsystems within an Agricultural System are allocated a separate record in the database, identified by the Agricultural System number and a subsystem number. Sago is a widespread staple food in lowland Papua New Guinea. Sago is produced from palms which are not grown in gardens. Most of the criteria above cannot be applied. In this case, systems are differentiated on the basis of the staple crops only. The Papua New Guinea Resource Information System (PNGRIS) is a GIS which contains information on the natural resources of PNG (Bellamy 1986). PNGRIS contains no information on agricultural practices, other than an assessment of land use intensity based on air photograph interpretation by Saunders (1993. The Agricultural Systems Project is designed to provide detailed information on agricultural practices and cropping patterns as part of an upgraded PNGRIS geographical information system. For this reason the Agricultural Systems database contains almost no information on the environmental settings of the systems, except for altitude and slope. The layout of the text descriptions, the database code files and the village lists are similar to PNGRIS formats (Cuddy 1987). The mapping of Agricultural Systems has been carried out on the same map base and scale as PNGRIS (Tactical Pilotage Charts, 1:500 000). Agricultural Systems were mapped within the areas of agricultural land use established by Saunders (1993) from aerial photography. Except where specifically noted, Agricultural Systems boundaries have been mapped without reference to PNGRIS Resource Mapping Unit (RMU) boundaries. Agricultural Systems are defined at the level of the Province (following PNGRIS) but their wider distribution is recognised in the database by cross-referencing systems which cross provincial borders. A preliminary view of the relationships between PNGRIS RMUs and the Agricultural Systems in this Province can be obtained from the listing of villages by Agricultural System, where RMU numbers are appended. Allen, B. J., R. M. Bourke and R. L. Hide 1995. The sustainability of Papua New Guinea agricultural systems: the conceptual background. Global Environmental Change 5(4): 297-312. Bourke, R. M., R. L. Hide, B. J. Allen, R. Grau, G. S. Humphreys and H. C. Brookfield 1993. Mapping agricultural systems in Papua New Guinea. Population Family Health and Development. T. Taufa and C. Bass. University of Papua New Guinea Press, Port Moresby: 205-224. Bellamy, J. A. and J. R. McAlpine 1995. Papua New Guinea Inventory of Natural Resources, Population Distribution and Land Use Handbook. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation for the Australian Agency for International Development. PNGRIS Publication No. 6, Canberra. Cuddy, S. M. 1987. Papua New Guinea Inventory of Natural Resources, Population Distribution and Land Use: Code Files Part 1 Natural Resources. Division of Water and Land Resources, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and Land Utilization Section, Department of Primary Industry, Papua New Guinea, Canberra

Research of GIS-services applicability for solution of spatial analysis tasks

Experiments for working out the areas of applying various gis-services in the tasks of spatial analysis are discussed in this paper. Google Maps, Yandex Maps, Microsoft SQL Server are used as services of spatial analysis. All services have shown a comparable speed of analyzing the spatial data when carrying out elemental spatial requests (building up the buffer zone of a point object) as well as the preferences of Microsoft SQL Server in operating with more complicated spatial requests. When building up elemental spatial requests, internet-services show higher efficiency due to cliental data handling with JavaScript-subprograms. A weak point of public internet-services is an impossibility to handle data on a server side and a barren variety of spatial analysis functions. Microsoft SQL Server offers a large variety of functions needed for spatial analysis on the server side. The authors conclude that when solving practical problems, the capabilities of internet-services used in building up routes and completing other functions with spatial analysis with Microsoft SQL Server should be involved

Parametric Effects of Single Point Incremental Forming on Hardness of AA1100 Aluminium Alloy Sheets

When using a unique tool with different controlled path strategies in the absence of a punch and die, the local plastic deformation of a sheet is called Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF). The lack of available knowledge regarding SPIF parameters and their effects on components has made the industry reluctant to embrace this technology. To make SPIF a significant industrial application and to convince the industry to use this technology, it is important to study mechanical properties and effective parameters prior to and after the forming process. Moreover, in order to produce a SPIF component with sufficient quality without defects, optimal process parameters should be selected. In this context, this paper offers insight into the effects of the forming tool diameter, coolant type, tool speed, and feed rates on the hardness of AA1100 aluminium alloy sheet material. Based on the research parameters, different regression equations were generated to calculate hardness. As opposed to the experimental approach, regression equations enable researchers to estimate hardness values relatively quickly and in a practicable way. The Relative Importance (RI) of SPIF parameters for expected hardness, determined with the partitioning weight method of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN), is also presented in the study. The analysis of the test results showed that hardness noticeably increased when tool speed increased. An increase in feed rate also led to an increase in hardness. In addition, the effects of various greases and coolant oil were studied using the same feed rates; when coolant oil was used, hardness increased, and when grease was applied, hardness decreased

Developing mathematical fluency: comparing exercises and rich tasks

Achieving fluency in important mathematical procedures is fundamental to students’ mathematical development. The usual way to develop procedural fluency is to practise repetitive exercises, but is this the only effective way?This paper reports three quasi experimental studies carried out in a total of 11 secondary schools involving altogether 528 students aged 12–15. In each study, parallel classes were taught the same mathematical procedure before one class undertook traditional exercises while the other worked on a "mathematical etude" (Foster International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 44(5), 765–774, 2013b), designed to be a richer task involving extensive opportunities for practice of the relevant procedure. Bayesian t tests on the gain scores between pre- and post-tests in each study provided evidence of no difference between the two conditions. A Bayesian meta-analysis of the three studies gave a combined Bayes factor of 5.83, constituting Bsubstantial^ evidence (Jeffreys, 1961) in favour of the null hypothesis that etudes and exercises were equally effective, relative to the alternative hypothesis that they were not. These data support the conclusion that the mathematical etudes trialled are comparable to traditional exercises in their effects on procedural fluency. This could make etudes a viable alternative to exercises, since they offer the possibility of richer, more creative problem-solving activity, with comparable effectiveness in developing procedural fluency

Delphi survey to inform patient-reported symptom monitoring after ovarian cancer treatment

Background Increasing numbers of ovarian cancer patients are living longer and requiring regular follow-up to detect disease recurrence. New models of follow-up care are needed to meet the growing number and needs of this patient group. The potential for patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) to capture key symptoms and online technology to facilitate long-term follow-up has been suggested. Objectives Prior to a pilot study exploring the potential for electronic patient-reported symptom monitoring, the content of an online intervention was developed via Delphi methodology. Design and setting A Delphi process was conducted aiming to obtain consensus amongst the clinicians and patients from 4 hospitals on the key aspects to monitor during follow-up after ovarian cancer treatment, and how to monitor them in an online intervention. A two round Delphi was conducted. Consensus was defined as at least 70% agreement. Results Out of 43 participants, 30 (18 patients, 12 healthcare professionals) completed round 1 and 19 (11 patients, 8 healthcare professionals) completed round 2. Consensus was reached on the key symptoms to monitor, and the importance of monitoring both duration and frequency of symptoms. Opportunity for review of psychological wellbeing and holistic needs were considered important by both groups. The frequency of online questionnaire completion, timeframe for patients to reflect on (e.g. during the past X weeks), and the choice of PROMs items to monitor symptoms did not reach the consensus threshold. Conclusion It is crucial that any intervention and the selection of PROMs is fully described to ensure transparency about the development and decisions taken. In this work, a set of key symptoms and areas to monitor were agreed, which has informed the design of an online intervention and a subsequent pilot study is now underway. The proposed model of remote follow-up using electronic PROMs could be adapted and explored in other cancer sites