Sharif Digital Repository

Respiratory drug delivery has been under the research spotlight for the past few decades, mainly due to the high incidence of pulmonary diseases and the fact that this type of delivery offers the highest efficiency for treatment. Despite its invaluable benefits, there are some major drawbacks to respiratory drug delivery, the most important of which being poor delivery efficiency and relatively high drug deposition in undesirable regions, such as the mouth cavity. One way to improve the efficiency of respiratory drug delivery with metered-dose inhalers is placing a respiratory spacer between the inhaler exit and the mouth. It is argued that high drug deposition in the immediate airways of... 

A fast high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) approach combined to solid phase extraction (SPE) as a pre-concentration step is developed for simultaneous determination of five selected pharmaceuticals (carbamazepine, naproxen, diclofenac, gemfibrozil and mefenamic acid) in water samples. The effective factors on the efficiency of SPE procedure are optimized using faced-centered central composite design (FCCD). In addition, multi-response optimization by using Derringer's desirability function is used to find the optimum experimental conditions for extraction of analytes from well and river waters. Due to the complexity of water matrices and the presence of... 

In unreliable supply environments, the strategy of pooling lead time risks by splitting replenishment orders among multiple suppliers simultaneously is an attractive sourcing policy that has captured the attention of academic researchers and corporate managers alike. While various assumptions are considered in the models developed, researchers tend to overlook an important inventory category in order splitting models: deteriorating items. In this paper, we study an order splitting policy for a retailer that sells a deteriorating product. The inventory system is modelled as a continuous review system (s, Q) under stochastic lead time. Demand rate per unit time is assumed to be constant over... 

The first usage of dihexadecyl hydrogen phosphate (DHP)-modified highly oriented multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) forests in a sensor configuration was developed to investigate the electrochemical oxidation and determination of simvastatin (SV) in pharmaceutical dosage forms. Synthesis of well-aligned MWCNTs on a conductive Ta substrate by catalytic vapor deposition technique using a common chemical, ethylenediamine, and without being plasma-aided was reported. The electrochemical behavior and oxidation of SV at the aligned MWCNTs/DHP/Ta electrode were discussed in detail through cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry. This modified electrode showed considerably higher... 

Suspension flow has an important role in various applications such as paint, material and pharmaceutical industries. Settling is considered as a resisting phenomenon in the processes dealing with suspensions. Using nanoparticles as an additive to micro-particulates has been studied in limited studies. This work presents an experimental investigation to assess the effectiveness of nanoparticles in reduction of suspension settling. Microscopic imaging and transmission measurement were used to analyze the stability factors in a container. Transmission analysis revealed that presence of nanoparticles in the suspension, decreased the sedimentation rate. Microscopy showed that the settling rate... 

Pharmaceutical drug Research and Development (R&D) outsourcing to contract research organizations (CROs) has experienced a significant growth in recent decades and the trend is expected to continue. A key question for CROs and firms in similar environments is which projects should be included in the firm's portfolio of projects. As a distinctive contribution to the literature this paper develops and evaluates a business support tool to help a CRO decide on clinical R&D project opportunities and revise its portfolio of R&D projects given the existing constraints, and financial and resource capabilities. A new mathematical programming model in the form of a capital budgeting problem is... 

Stock return is usually considered to be affected by firm's financial ratios as well as economic variables. Fundamental method assume that stock returns is not solely related to the stock market. Most result come from the company condition, industry situation and whole economy. In this paper, this relationship between stock return and fundamentals is studied using the data for 22 pharmaceutical companies in Tehran Stock Exchange over a 7 year period, and effective factors on stock return are investigated. Because of our data natural we used panel data model from econometric methods. The results show that 80 pecent of change in stock return can be explained with 9 fundamental variables... 

Recently, nanodiamonds have attracted interest in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, targeted cancer therapies, fabrication of tissue scaffolds, and biosensors. We incorporated diamond nanoparticles in alginate-bioactive glass films by electrophoretic process to prepare functional coatings for biomedical implants. Turbidity examination by time-resolved laser transmittance measurement revealed that a stable multi-component aqueous suspension of alginate, bioactive glass and diamond particles could be obtained at concentrations of 0.6, 1.3, and 0.65 g/l, respectively. Uniform films with ~ 5 μm thickness were deposited on 316 stainless steel foils by employing constant field... 

Three-dimensional gold nanoelectrode ensembles (3D GNE) have proven to be promising nanoelectrodes by representing much higher sensitivity compared to both their 2D nanostructures and bulk counterparts. The sensitivity of 3D gold nanotubes (GNTs) fabricated through electrodeposition inside the pores of polycarbonate templates, was examined toward metronidazole (MTZ) as one of their pharmaceutical applications. The electrochemical behavior of MTZ at the 3D GNT-modified electrode was discussed in detail through cyclic voltammetry (CV) which suggested an irreversible reduction of nitro group to the corresponding hydroxylamine and a subsequently reversible redox peak for the corresponding... 

The electrooxidation of clozapine (CLZ) was studied on the surface of a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with a thin film of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/new coccine (NC) doped polypyrrole (PPY) by using linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The pH of the supporting electrolyte (D), drop size of the cast MWCNTs suspension (E) and accumulation time of CLZ on the surface of modified electrode (F) was considered as effective experimental factors and the oxidation peak current of CLZ was selected as the response. By using factorial-based response-surface methodology, the optimum values of factors were obtained as 5.44, 10 μL and 300 s for D, E and F respectively. Under the optimized... 

To determine the outward permeability of retina-choroid-sclera (RCS) layer for different ophthalmic drugs and to develop correlations between drug physicochemical properties and RCS permeability. A finite volume model was developed to simulate pharmacokinetics in the eye following drug administration by intravitreal injection. The RCS permeability was determined for 32 compounds by best fitting the drug concentration-time profile obtained by simulation with previously reported experimental data. Multiple linear regression was then used to develop correlations between best fit RCS permeability and drugs physicochemical properties. The RCS drug permeabilities had values that ranged over 3 ×... 

Purpose. Drug release from nanosystems at the sites of either absorption or effect biophase is a major determinant of its biological action. Thus, in vitro drug release is of paramount importance in gaining insight for the systems performance in vivo. Methods. A novel in vitro in vivo correlation, IVIVC, model denoted as double reciprocal area method was presented and applied to 19 drugs from 55 nano formulations with total 336 data, gathered from literature. Results. The proposed model correlated the in vitro with in vivo parameters with overall error of 12.4 ± 3.9%. Also the trained version of the model predicted the test formulations with overall error of 15.8 ± 3.7% indicating the... 

A mixture of multi-walled carbon nanotube/graphite paste electrode modified with a salophen complex of cobalt was prepared and was applied for the study of the electrochemical behavior of 6-mercaptopurine (MP) using cyclic and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). An excellent electrocatalytic activity toward the oxidation of MP was achieved, which led to a considerable lowering in the anodic overpotential and remarkable increase in the response sensitivity in comparison with unmodified electrode. Utilizing DPV method, a linear dynamic range of 1-100 μM with detection limit of 0.1 μM was obtained in phosphate buffer of pH 3.0. The electrochemical detection system was very stable, and the... 

A novel ion selective electrode is fabricated for naltrexone HCl and used in pharmaceutical analysis and drug determination in biological fluids without complicated pretreatments and extractions, using direct potentiometry. The naltrexone complex with sodium tetraphenyl borate (NaTPB) is obtained by in situ soaking PVC membrane electrode in an 1 × 10 -3 M naltrexone solution. The sensor exhibited fast, reproducible and linear sub-Nernstian response over concentration range of 1 × 10 -5 - 1 × 10 -3 M with a detection limit of 5 × 10 -6 M. The membrane sensor was successfully applied to the determination of naltrexone in capsules as well as for its determination in urine and plasma samples  

Penicillin G is an active pharmaceutical ingredient of great importance in health sectors. Meanwhile, because of its huge quantity production and resistance to biodegradability, this antibiotic is ubiquitously presented in aquatic environment. In this study, the degradation of effluent wastewater from Penicillin G production plant by Photo- Fenton process and Ultrasound process (Sonolysis) was investigated, the effects of different process variables in both methods were evaluated and at last the degradation of Pen-G by these two processes in the optimum conditions was compared. Pen-G concentration and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) were selected as the environmental parameters to follow the... 

The electrochemical oxidation of sumatriptan on the surface of carbon paste electrode modified with multi-walled carbon nanotube and cobalt methyl-salophen complex is studied by using cyclic voltammetry and polarization studies. The results indicate that the drug is irreversibly oxidized in a one electron oxidation mechanism. It was found that the peak potential shifted negatively with increasing pH, confirms that H + participate in the oxidation process. The electrode is shown to be very effective for the detection of sumatriptan in the presence of other biological reductant compounds. The prepared modified electrode exhibits a very good resolution between the voltammetric peaks of... 

Hydrothermal synthesis of CuO nanoparticles under near-critical and supercritical conditions was investigated from two different standpoints in the current study. The first standpoint was optimization of "yield", "purity", and "size of the nanoparticles" that were optimized at T = 500 °C, time = 2 h, [Cu(NO3)2] = 0.1 mol dm-3, and pH 3. This was achieved by undertaking an orthogonal experiment design methodology and performing different instrumental analyses, such as X-ray diffractometry, inductively coupled plasma spectrometry, and transmission electron microscopy, along with treatment of the data by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The second goal of the study was elucidation of the... 

The voltammetric performance of edge-plane pyrolytic graphite (EPG) electrode via adsorptive stripping voltammetry was investigated for study of the electrochemical behavior of omeprazole (OMZ) in aqueous solution. The results revealed that the oxidation of OMZ is an irreversible pH-dependent process that proceeds with the transfer of one electron and one proton in an adsorption-controlled mechanism. The determination conditions, such as the pH values of the supporting electrolyte, accumulation time and scan rate were optimized. Simplicity, high reproducibility and low detection limit (3 nM) of the electrode response as well as wide linear range (0.01 to 4.0 µM) can be stated as significant... 

A sensitive colorimetric method for the detection of ascorbic acid was proposed in this research based on the reduction of silver ions by ascorbic acid in the presence of citrate-stabilized silver seeds, additional trisodium citrate and a polymer such as polyvinylpyrrolidone. The color of the stable sol is controlled by varying the concentration of trisodium citrate (TSC), polyvinylpyrrolidone, silver nitrate and silver seeds. The reduction of Ag + to triangle silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) by ascorbic acid in the presence of trisodium citrate (TSC) and silver seeds produced two very intense surface plasmon resonance peaks of Ag-NPs. The plasmon absorbance of Ag-NPs allows the quantitative... 

A sensitive and selective electrochemical sensor was fabricated via the drop-casting of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) suspension onto a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The application of this sensor was investigated in simultaneous determination of acetaminophen (ACE) and tramadol (TRA) drugs in pharmaceutical dosage form and ACE determination in human plasma. In order to study the electrochemical behaviors of the drugs, cyclic and differential pulse voltammetric studies of ACE and TRA were carried out at the surfaces of the modified GCE (MGCE) and the bare GCE. The dependence of peak currents and potentials on pH, concentration and the potential scan rate were investigated for these compounds...