Malawi’s Tobacco Paradox: Short Term Survival Versus Long Term Languish

The past forty years have been tumultuous for tobacco companies facing increasingly stringent regulations in the northern hemisphere. To maintain profits, they have tapped into new markets in the developing world. One of these places, Malawi, an African nation with an economic dependence on tobacco growing, has been a target of their marketing prowess. This study provides a new perspective on the dichotomy that exists between short-term economic benefits and long-term health implications of tobacco in a poverty-ravaged nation. Conflicting interests hinder tobacco regulation in Malawi. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) claims that tobacco companies manipulate consumers and governments in order to increase consumption. Tobacco companies say that the WHO should focus on communicable diseases rather than interfering with developing nations’ autonomy. These competing voices distort facts regarding tobacco’s true effects in order to carry out their own agenda. This study explores three areas of concern that incite these conflicts: deforestation, child labor, and crop substitution. This study also hypothesized that tobacco consumption in Malawi is increasing because of tobacco companies’ coziness with governments, advertising, and corporate philanthropy. Malawi’s economy depends on tobacco growing and sales for foreign exchange and jobs. The Legacy Tobacco Documents Library proved to be invaluable by providing primary evidence as to how tobacco companies targeted Malawians to buy more tobacco products. The companies emphasize that tobacco growing relieves the overwhelming poverty and the Malawian government has been slow to encourage tobacco control measures. Ironically, for Malawians, tobacco equates with life

Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies in Formulation Development: Current Trends and Techniques

The safety, efficacy, quality and stability of a formulation are the cornerstones of any new drug development process. In order to consistently maintain these attributes in a finished dosage form, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the physico-chemical characteristics of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), as well as all other components (e.g. excipients, manufacturing aids, packaging materials) of the drug product. In a new drug development process, a detailed characterization of the API and other formulation components is usually carried out during the preformulation stage. The preformulation stage involves characterization of several aspects of the API including solubility, dissolution, permeability, polymorph/salt screening, stability (solidstate and solution-state), ionization properties, particle size distribution, API-excipient compatibilities etc. [1]. Excipients are ubiquitous to virtually every pharmaceutical formulation, and facilitate the manufacture, stability, administration, delivery of the API, and/or provide other functionalities to the dosage form. Excipients are used to improve processing (e.g. improving powder flow [2, 3], powder compactibility [4-6] etc.), enhance aesthetics (e.g. identification, branding etc. [7]), optimize product performance (e.g. modified drug-release [8-11]), and/or to facilitate patient compliance (e.g. taste masking [12-15]). They may constitute anywhere from 1 to 99 % of the total formulation mass. Due to the intimate contact of the API with one or more excipients in a formulation, there exists a likelihood of physical and/or chemical interactions between them. Any such interactions may result in a negative impact on the physical, stability or performance attributes of the drug product [16, 17]. The choice of excipients is of crucial importance to avoid these negative effects, and to facilitate the development of a robust and an effective formulation [18-20]. Thus, for a rational selection of excipients, screening of excipient-API compatibility is recognized as an important aspect of formulation development. Moreover, the USFDA’s 21st century current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) initiative and International Council on Harmonization (ICH) Q8 guidelines encourage the pharmaceutical manufacturers to apply Quality by Design (QbD) principles in their drug development process [21, 22]. These guidelines include expectations of a clear understanding of any interactions between the formulation components. Moreover, recent advances in various thermal and non-thermal analytical techniques have led to an improved efficiency in the detection, monitoring and prevention of the incompatibilities early in the drug development process [23, 24]. This article aims to provide a brief overview of the nature of drug-excipient incompatibilities; as well as current trends and techniques used to evaluate these compatibilities in formulation development

Enhancement in biodegradability of distillery wastewater using enzymatic pretreatment

A combined treatment technique consisting of enzymatic hydrolysis, followed by aerobic biological oxidation was investigated for the treatment of alcohol distillery spent wash. The enzyme cellulase was used for the pretreatment step with an intention of transforming the complex and large pollutant molecules into simpler biologically assimilable smaller molecules. Batch experiments were performed in order to analyze the influence of various parameters like pretreatment time, enzyme concentration and pH during the pretreatment step on the subsequent aerobic oxidation kinetics. The rate of aerobic oxidation was enhanced by 2.3 fold for the pretreated sample as compared to the untreated sample when the pH during the pretreatment step was maintained at a value of 4.8. Similarly, a two fold increase in the aerobic oxidation rate was found when the effluent was pretreated with the enzyme, without any pH control (i.e. effluent pH of 3,8). The study indicated that the enzymatic pretreatment of the effluent could be one of the successful pretreatments which can lead to enhancement of the rate of the subsequent aerobic oxidation

Optimization of solutions of polyamide for AC electrospinning

Nowadays, nanofibers and nanoparticles have become the attraction of study for researchers. Due to the unique physical properties such as ultra-thin fiber diameter. The electrospinning manufacturing technique produces nanofibers that have potential applications in the electronic, biomedical, and filtration industries. Until today, plenty of polymers has been electrospun into nanofibers. Researchers are trying to find the finest nanofibers with excellent spinnability on electrospinning.This study's goal was to optimize the solution for polyamides on alternating current (AC) electrospinning. The polymers PA 6 and PA 6,12 have been chosen for the study. These polymers were dissolved in the mixture of formic acid and dichloromethane at a weight ratio of 1:1 with an increasing concentration of sulfuric acid. All the solutions were electrospun on the alternating and direct current electrospinning systems. The solubility and spinnability of polyamides were investigated. The scanning electron microscope was used for nanofiber diameter measurement. The solution parameters, such as surface tension, conductivity, and viscosity, were measured to see the impact of acid content on the mixture.All the prepared polyamide solutions were spun on both AC and DC electrospinning systems. The sulfuric acid concentration influences the spinnability, nanofiber diameter, and solution properties. AC and DC electrospun polyamide nanofibrous structures are different in terms of bulkiness or thickness.Nowadays, nanofibers and nanoparticles have become the attraction of study for researchers. Due to the unique physical properties such as ultra-thin fiber diameter. The electrospinning manufacturing technique produces nanofibers that have potential applications in the electronic, biomedical, and filtration industries. Until today, plenty of polymers has been electrospun into nanofibers. Researchers are trying to find the finest nanofibers with excellent spinnability on electrospinning.This study's goal was to optimize the solution for polyamides on alternating current (AC) electrospinning. The polymers PA 6 and PA 6,12 have been chosen for the study. These polymers were dissolved in the mixture of formic acid and dichloromethane at a weight ratio of 1:1 with an increasing concentration of sulfuric acid. All the solutions were electrospun on the alternating and direct current electrospinning systems. The solubility and spinnability of polyamides were investigated. The scanning electron microscope was used for nanofiber diameter measurement. The solution parameters, such as surface tension, conductivity, and viscosity, were measured to see the impact of acid content on the mixture.All the prepared polyamide solutions were spun on both AC and DC electrospinning systems. The sulfuric acid concentration influences the spinnability, nanofiber diameter, and solution properties. AC and DC electrospun polyamide nanofibrous structures are different in terms of bulkiness or thickness.

Production of vascular grafts for tissue engineering

Světová populace roste rychleji. Vzhledem k tomu, že počet obyvatelstva stoupá, stále častěji se objevují choroby u lidí. Nejčastější z nich jsou kardiovaskulární onemocnění. Tato nemoc má většinou za následek smrt. Abychom se tohoto problému zbavili, existuje na světě mnoho typů řešení. Výroba syntetického cévního štěpu je jedním z nich.Tato diplomová práce je studií výroby syntetického štěpu, popisuje vyžadovaný materiál a vysvětluje testování štěpu. Existují různé způsoby jak nahradit nebo obnovit nemocné orgány a pro tyto práce volí nejlepší techniku.V této práci je uvažováno o implementaci těchto metod k výrobě syntetických štěpů a o možnostech vývoje. Výsledky a diskuse v této diplomové práci pomohou při dalším studiu a rozšíření záběru tkáňového inženýrství.The world's population growing faster. As population digit going high diseases in human kinds also exploring faster. In those diseases, cardiovascular disease is the biggest among those. This disease mostly resulting in death. To get rid of this problem, many types of solutions are present in the world. The production of synthetic vascular graft is one of the solutions to this problem.In this dissertation, the synthetic graft production, required material for it, testing of the graft explained. There are different ways to replace or recover diseased organs, over those techniques this thesis chooses the best technique. Implementing those methods to produce synthetic graft and development possibilities are considered. The results and discussion in this diploma thesis will help in further study and expanding the scope for tissue engineering

Coreless Welding Transformer

The study of welding transformer with detailed sequence of operation is necessary. Parameters of welding type transformer compared to those of an ordinary step down transformer of equivalent ratings are distinct. Also these papers present a new method for manufacturing of arc welding type transformer. This method uses an auxiliary circuit and series coupled inductor and hence the number of tappings of simulation and experiment result are presented to show valuable operating of proposed method arcing starting

A novel hybrid approach of activated carbon and ultrasound cavitation for the intensification of palm oil mill effluent (POME) polishing

This investigation focuses on activated carbon (AC) adsorption and ultrasound (US) cavitation for polishing the palm oil mill effluent (POME). Both AC adsorption and US cavitation were investigated individually, in series and operating them in a combined way. The efficiency of above processes has been evaluated in terms of removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total suspended solids (TSS). For the individual operation, the optimisation studies were carried out by using the following conditions: AC dosage (50–200 g/L); contact time (2, 4, 6 h); US power amplitude (50% and 80%) and US cavitation time (30–180 min). The optimisation studies utilising US power amplitude (50%) and cavitation time (15 min) followed by AC adsorption using minimum AC dosage (50 g/L) and contact time (30 min) resulted in ∼100% COD and 83.33% TSS removals which meets the discharge limits set by the Department of Environment (DoE), Malaysia. The hybrid operation was also studied by simultaneously employing AC adsorption and US cavitation and it was observed that an adsorption dosage of 50 g/L resulted into achieving 73.08% COD and 98.33% TSS removals within 15 min of US irradiation. With the possibility of continuous and feasible sonochemical reactors, this hybrid approach of US cavitation followed by AC adsorption could be an alternative processing technique for POME polishing

Taking ethanol quality beyond fuel grade: A review

Ethanol production in the United States approached 15 billion gal/year in 2015. Only about 2.5% of this was food‐grade alcohol, but this represents a higher‐value product than fuels or other uses. The ethanol production process includes corn milling, cooking, saccharification, fermentation, and separation by distillation. Volatile byproducts are produced during the fermentation of starch. These include other alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, fatty acids and esters. Food‐grade ethanol is generally produced by wet milling, where starch and sugars are separated from the other corn components, resulting in much smaller concentrations of the impurities than are obtained from fermentation of dry‐milled corn, where cyclic and heterocyclic compounds are produced from lignin in the corn hull. Some of these volatile byproducts are likely to show up in the distillate and these fermentation byproducts in ethanol could cause unpleasant flavours and affect human health if used for human consumption. There is some interest in improving ethanol quality, since human consumption represents a higher value. Advanced purification techniques, such as ozone oxidation, currently used for drinking water and municipal wastewater treatment, offer possibilities for adaptation in ethanol quality improvement. The development of analytical techniques has enabled the detection of low‐concentration compounds and simple quality assurance of food‐grade alcohol. This review includes the most recent ethanol production methods, potential ethanol purification techniques and analytical techniques. Application of such techniques would aid in the development of simplified alcohol production