Cold Extrusion but Not Coating Affects Iron Bioavailability from Fortified Rice in Young Women and Is Associated with Modifications in Starch Microstructure and Mineral Retention during Cooking.

Rice can be fortified with the use of hot or cold extrusion or coating, but the nutritional qualities of the resulting rice grains have never been directly compared. Using fortified rice produced by coating or hot or cold extrusion, we compared ) iron and zinc absorption with the use of stable isotopes, ) iron and zinc retention during cooking, and ) starch microstructure. We conducted 2 studies in young women: in study 1 [ = 19; mean ± SD age: 26.

Cofortification of ferric pyrophosphate and citric acid/trisodium citrate into extruded rice grains doubles iron bioavailability through in situ generation of soluble ferric pyrophosphate citrate complexes.

Background: Iron fortification of rice is a promising strategy for improving iron nutrition. However, it is technically challenging because rice is consumed as intact grains, and ferric pyrophosphate (FePP), which is usually used for rice fortification, has low bioavailability.

Objective: We investigated whether the addition of a citric acid/trisodium citrate (CA/TSC) mixture before extrusion increases iron absorption in humans from FePP-fortified extruded rice grains.

Advances in inhaled technologies: understanding the therapeutic challenge, predicting clinical performance, and designing the optimal inhaled product.

Inhaled medicines are designed mainly to provide safe and efficacious treatment of respiratory diseases, offering the potential advantages of targeted drug delivery such as reduced onset time and increased therapeutic ratio. However, as a flipside of targeted drug delivery, drug levels in the relevant effect compartment cannot be easily assessed. In combination with technical challenges associated with aerosolizing and administering an inhaled medicine, this renders inhalation product development demanding in the regulatory aspect as well.

Oil powders and gels from particle-stabilized emulsions.

We report on the use of silica particle-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions as a template for the preparation of oil powders and gels obtained in a single step by either slow or rapid evaporation of water using freeze-drying or spray-drying, respectively. Using olive oil and partially hydrophobic fumed silica nanoparticles, an oil powder containing nearly 90 wt % oil can be formed by spray-drying, which shows no sign of oil leakage over several months. Upon slow evaporation of water by freeze-drying, a transparent oil gel with oil content as high as 98 wt % can be formed, in which the silica particles form a space-filling network thickening the oil.

An edge-sensitive noise reduction algorithm for image processing.

An edge-sensitive noise reduction algorithm for digital image processing is proposed. It is designed as C-DLL to run as a macro command under Image-Pro Plus. Its properties are compared to the median filter and a simple smoothing kernel.

The effect of ketoconazole on the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and safety of nisoldipine.

Objective: The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of ketoconazole on the pharmacokinetics of nisoldipine.

Methods: A single dose of nisoldipine 5 mg immediate-release tablet was administered either alone or in combination with ketoconazole 200 mg (4 days pretreatment and concomitant administration) in a randomized crossover trial in seven healthy male Caucasian volunteers. Plasma concentration-versus-time profiles of nisoldipine and its metabolite M9 were determined.

Design of a PC-based system for time-domain and spectral analysis of heart rate variability.

Investigation of heart rate variability is the subject of considerable interest in physiology, clinical medicine, and clinical pharmacology. The functional assessment of the autonomic nerve system by observation of its main actors, the sympathetic and parasympathetic branch, is emphasizing the importance of autonomic regulation under different physiological circumstances, in several disease states, and under drug therapy. This paper describes a PC-based system designed with LabView that performs time-domain and frequency-domain analyses of heart rate variability as suggested by the guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology.

Butterworth equations for homomorphic filtering of images.

In digital image processing, the homomorphic filtering approach is derived from an illumination-reflectance model of the image. Homomorphic filtering can perform simultaneous dynamic range compression and contrast enhancement. Crucial for the success of the homomorphic approach is the selection of an appropriate frequency-domain filter function in order to modify the illumination and reflectance components of an image differently.

Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling as a tool to evaluate the clinical relevance of a drug-food interaction for a nisoldipine controlled-release dosage form.

Objective: Nisoldipine, a calcium antagonist of the dihydropyridine class, has been used in the treatment of hypertension and angina pectoris. A new controlled-release dosage form (nisoldipine coat-core, NCC) has been developed to allow once daily dosing. In addition to a formal food interaction study as requested by regulatory authorities for controlled-release dosage forms, a subsequent study was conducted to determine the clinical relevance of the changes in nisoldipine plasma concentration vs time profiles seen in the food effect study.