A Series of Pharmaceutical Technology Concepts Applied to Pediatric Formulations

Pediatric formulations have received great attention from regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe. Since solid dosage forms such as tablets and capsules will not be able to improve pediatric patients’ compliance, customized pediatric formulations are needed. In response, formulators in the pharmaceutical industry have made significant effort into developing various pediatric formulations. However, developing satisfactory pediatric formulations is a process that is guided by case by case basis. The objective of this current study was to apply the scientific pharmaceutical technology concepts into developing modern pediatric formulations. We have shown that the drug delivery design will be affected by the route of administration and by the type of dosage form utilized. We are hopeful that our approach will serve as a tool to assist formulations development. Three drug molecules and an anion were utilized in this work (Chlorpheniramine Maleate, Prednisone, Sulfamerazine, and Iodide ion). Each drug molecule was utilized according to its physicochemical properties along with the pediatric patients’ needs. As a result, several pediatric formulations were developed. Here is the list: taste masked orally disintegrating tablet, taste masked orally disintegrating film, taste masked mini-tablet, reconstituted nanocrystals and a transdermal microemulsion. We are hopeful that these dosage forms will serve as good examples for specialized pediatric formulations and will attract pharmaceutical industry to adapt some these delivery systems into their development strategy

Using Lotus Domino Discussion Databases to Support Problem-Based Learning

Management education is undergoing significant transformations. Many business schools have started the process of redesigning curriculums and instructional methods at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Many educational reengineering efforts are supported by the use of Web-based technologies. This paper describes some preliminary results of using Lotus Domino server technology and Lotus Domino discussion databases to support a problem-based collaborative learning program. The purpose of the paper is to share our experience with other universities that are interested in using web-based groupware technology as a tool to augment students’ learning. It also serves as a starting point for further investigating the impact of web- based groupware technology on computer-mediated collaborative learning

Contextual and own-age effects in age perception

Our judgement of certain facial characteristics such as emotion, attractiveness or age, is affected by context. Faces that are flanked by younger faces, for example, are perceived as being younger, whereas faces flanked by older faces are perceived as being older. Here, we investigated whether contextual effects in age perception are moderated by own age effects. On each trial, a target face was presented on the screen, which was flanked by two faces. Flanker faces were either identical to the target face, were 10 years younger or 10 years older than the target face. We asked 40 older (64–69 years) and 43 younger adults (24–29) to estimate the age of the target face. Our results replicated previous studies and showed that context affects age estimation of faces flanked by target faces of different ages. These context effects were more pronounced for younger compared to older flankers but present across both tested age groups. An own-age advantage was observed for older adults for unflanked faces who had larger estimation errors for younger faces compared to older faces and younger adults. Flanker effects, however, were not moderated by own-age effects. It is likely that the increased effect of younger flankers is due to mechanisms related to perceptual averaging

Data Deduplication with Random Substitutions

Data deduplication saves storage space by identifying and removing repeats in the data stream. Compared with traditional compression methods, data deduplication schemes are more time efficient and are thus widely used in large scale storage systems. In this paper, we provide an information-theoretic analysis on the performance of deduplication algorithms on data streams in which repeats are not exact. We introduce a source model in which probabilistic substitutions are considered. More precisely, each symbol in a repeated string is substituted with a given edit probability. Deduplication algorithms in both the fixed-length scheme and the variable-length scheme are studied. The fixed-length deduplication algorithm is shown to be unsuitable for the proposed source model as it does not take into account the edit probability. Two modifications are proposed and shown to have performances within a constant factor of optimal with the knowledge of source model parameters. We also study the conventional variable-length deduplication algorithm and show that as source entropy becomes smaller, the size of the compressed string vanishes relative to the length of the uncompressed string, leading to high compression ratios

Contextual and own-age effects in age perception

Our judgement of certain facial characteristics such as emotion, attractiveness or age, is affected by context. Faces that are flanked by younger faces, for example, are perceived as being younger, whereas faces flanked by older faces are perceived as being older. Here, we investigated whether contextual effects in age perception are moderated by own age effects. On each trial, a target face was presented on the screen, which was flanked by two faces. Flanker faces were either identical to the target face, were 10 years younger or 10 years older than the target face. We asked 40 older (64–69 years) and 43 younger adults (24–29) to estimate the age of the target face. Our results replicated previous studies and showed that context affects age estimation of faces flanked by target faces of different ages. These context effects were more pronounced for younger compared to older flankers but present across both tested age groups. An own-age advantage was observed for older adults for unflanked faces who had larger estimation errors for younger faces compared to older faces and younger adults. Flanker effects, however, were not moderated by own-age effects. It is likely that the increased effect of younger flankers is due to mechanisms related to perceptual averaging

Higher dimensional integrable deformations of the modified KdV equation

The derivation of nonlinear integrable evolution partial differential equations in higher dimensions has always been the holy grail in the field of integrability. The well-known modified KdV equation is a prototypical example of integrable evolution equations in one spatial dimension. Do there exist integrable analogs of modified KdV equation in higher spatial dimensions? In what follows, we present a positive answer to this question. In particular, rewriting the (1+1)-dimensional integrable modified KdV equation in conservation forms and adding deformation mappings during the process allow one to construct higher dimensional integrable equations. Further, we illustrate this idea with examples from the modified KdV hierarchy, also present the Lax pairs of these higher dimensional integrable evolution equations.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Use of Groupware:A Test of Three Theoretical Perspectives

It has become fashionable in business to talk about the flattening of organizational hierarchies, the importance of teamwork to meet overall organizational goals, and the need to capture and manage an organization\u27s knowledge base to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. Such discussion has driven the software industry to focus attention on software specifically designed to support the team approach essential to most service and customer oriented organizations. Known as groupware, such software products enable teams of people to integrate their knowledge, work processes and applications to achieve improved business effectiveness. While groupware products are proliferating and fueling speculations about their potential to enhance organizational effectiveness (Johansen et al., 1991), it has been suggested thatthe implementation of such technologies is more difficult and yields more unintended consequences than is typically acknowledged (Bullen and Bennett, 1990; Grudin, 1990; Kling, 1991; Orlikowski, 1992). If indeed groupware is to offer what it has promised,then studying the use of groupware in the work place should be valuable for understanding how such technology is used, if it is used at all, and how its use is affecting productivity in today\u27s organizations. This study concerns the use of groupware in organizational settings. The questions of whether groupware products are being used in organizations and how they are being used in organizations that have implemented this type of technology are important for three reasons (Markus et al., 1992). First, howsuch technologies are used is believed to condition their effects. Second, how these technologies are likely to be used when alternative tools co-exist can not be easily predicted from technological characteristics. Third, because people use groupware with other people, one person\u27s choices about how to use groupware may have consequences for other group members. This study consists of an electronic survey of the use of a particular groupware product, Lotus Notes, in three Fortune 500 companies. It buildson the work of Rice and Shook (1988), Rice et al. (1989), Rice et al. (1990), and Markus et al. (1992) by combining three theoretical perspectives related to the use of new communication technologies: the theory of media richness (Daft and Lengel, 1984 and 1986; Trevino et al., 1987 and 1990), the theory of social influence (Fulk et al., 1987 and 1990), and the theory of critical mass (Markus, 1987 and 1990). These three theoretical perspectives are combined to develop a research model that reflects a pluralistic view of new communication technology use behavior and permits the investigation of the research question: what factors, suggested by the theories of media richness, social influence, and critical mass, best explain organizational members\u27 use of groupware. The results are mixed for the research question. Only social influence has a significant, although quite moderate, positive relationship with use. On the other hand, media richness explains little of an individual\u27s media use behavior. Contrary to the prediction made by media richness theory, task analyzability has no relationship with selfreported use and exhibits a negative relationship with computer monitored use. In addition, critical mass, while intuitively appealing, fails to explain actual use behavior. Implications for theory and research suggest that (1) new media perceptions and use depend on factors in addition to those contained in the richness scale and (2) the theories of social influence and critical mass, while promising in providing explanatory power for new media use, both need additional work in order to conceptualize relevant variables and operationalize their measurement. It was the contention of this study that no single theory is capable of explaining all differences in individuals\u27 use of groupware. A wide array of factors co-exist in affecting individuals\u27 preferences and use of groupware. The relationship appears more complicated than any theory would suggest. As Panko (1992) contends, while there is ample evidence that the existence of many correspondents affects groupware adoption, empirical studies have consistently shown that many other things correlate with use. Panko further suggests that when we study groupware use, we need to develop explanations that take in a hostof task, implementation, social influence, and other factors. The present study represents a first step in this directio

On the security of the Yen-Guo's domino signal encryption algorithm (DSEA)

Recently, a new domino signal encryption algorithm (DSEA) was proposed for digital signal transmission, especially for digital images and videos. This paper analyzes the security of DSEA, and points out the following weaknesses: 1) its security against the brute-force attack was overestimated; 2) it is not sufficiently secure against ciphertext-only attacks, and only one ciphertext is enough to get some information about the plaintext and to break the value of a sub-key; 3) it is insecure against known/chosen-plaintext attacks, in the sense that the secret key can be recovered from a number of continuous bytes of only one known/chosen plaintext and the corresponding ciphertext. Experimental results are given to show the performance of the proposed attacks, and some countermeasures are discussed to improve DSEA.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure