A Quantitative Chemometric Study of Pharmaceutical Tablet Formulations Using Multi-Spectroscopic Fibre Optic Probes.

Two fibre optic probes were custom designed to perform Raman and near-infrared spectroscopic measurements. Our long-term objective is to develop a non-destructive tool able to collect data in hard-to-access locations for real-time analysis or diagnostic purposes. This study evaluated the quantitative performances of Probe A and Probe B using model pharmaceutical tablets.

Humans exploit the trade-off between lateral stability and manoeuvrability during walking.

People use the mechanical interplay between stability and manoeuvrability to successfully walk. During single-limb support, body states (position and velocity) that increase in lateral stability will inherently resist lateral manoeuvres, decrease medial stability and facilitate medial manoeuvres. Although not well understood, people can make behavioural decisions exploiting this relationship in anticipation of perturbations or direction changes.

Low-Frequency Raman Spectroscopy on Amorphous Poly(Ether Ether Ketone) (PEEK).

Low-frequency peaks in the Raman spectra of amorphous poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) were investigated. An amorphous sample with zero crystallinity, as confirmed by wide-angle X-ray diffraction, was used in this study. In a previous study, two peaks were observed in the low-frequency Raman spectra of the crystallized samples.

Amplify Gait to Improve Locomotor Engagement in Spinal Cord Injury (AGILE SCI) trial: study protocol for an assessor blinded randomized controlled trial.

Background: Among ambulatory people with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI), balance deficits are a primary factor limiting participation in walking activities. There is broad recognition that effective interventions are needed to enhance walking balance following iSCI. Interventions that amplify self-generated movements (e.

Motor learning alters vision, but vision does not alter motor learning.

During visuomotor learning, improvements in motor performance accompany changes in how people use vision. However, the dependencies between altered visual reliance and improvements in motor skill is unclear. The present studies used an online sequence learning task to quantify how changing the availability of visual information affected motor skill learning () and how changing motor skill affected visual reliance ().

Children with bilateral cerebral palsy use their hip joint to complete a step-up task.

Performance in stair-climbing is largely associated with disruptions to mobility and community participation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). It is important to understand the nature of motor impairments responsible for making stairs a challenge in children with bilateral CP to clarify underlying causes of impaired mobility. In pediatric clinical populations, sensitive measurements of movement quality can be captured during the initial step of stair ascent.

Controlling Excited State Localization in Bichromophoric Photosensitizers via the Bridging Group.

A series of photosensitizers comprised of both an inorganic and an organic chromophore are investigated in a joint synthetic, spectroscopic, and theoretical study. This bichromophoric design strategy provides a means by which to significantly increase the excited state lifetime by isolating the excited state away from the metal center following intersystem crossing. A variable bridging group is incorporated between the donor and acceptor units of the organic chromophore, and its influence on the excited state properties is explored.

Prior uncertainty impedes discrete locomotor adaptation.

The impact of environmental uncertainty on locomotor adaptation remains unclear. Environmental uncertainty could either aid locomotor adaptation by prompting protective control strategies that stabilize movements to assist learning or impede adaptation by reducing error sensitivity and fostering hesitance to pursue corrective movements. To explore this, we investigated participants' adaptation to a consistent force field after experiencing environmental uncertainty in the form of unpredictable balance perturbations.

Effect of consumption of sheep and cow milk on rat brain fatty acid and phospholipid composition.

The effect of sheep milk and cow milk on the lipid composition of rat brain was investigated in two feeding experiments of 28-days duration. Total lipids of the rat brain were extracted using ethanol-hexane, and the fatty acids and phospholipid contents analysed using gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) and phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (P NMR). Furthermore, freeze-dried pooled samples were analysed using attenuated total reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared and Fourier Transform Raman Spectroscopy and analysed with multivariate methods.

Load modulation affects pediatric lower limb joint moments during a step-up task.

Performance in a single step has been suggested to be sensitive measure of movement quality in pediatric clinical populations. Although there is less information available in children with typical development, researchers have postulated the importance of analyzing the effect of body weight modulation on the initiation of stair ascent, especially during single limb stance where upright stability is most critical. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of load modulation from -20% to +15% of body weight on typical pediatric lower limb joint moments during a step-up task.

An Exploration of Mineral Density, Elemental and Chemical Composition of Primary Teeth in Relation to Cord-Blood Vitamin D, Using Laboratory Analysis Techniques.

Postnatally, severe vitamin D deficiency commonly results in rickets as well as potential defects in tooth mineralization. The effects of milder deficiency on oral health outcomes later in life are still unclear. This study used micro-computed tomography (μCT), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), and Raman spectroscopy to investigate mineral density, total density, and elemental composition of enamel and dentine in 63 exfoliated primary incisors from participants with known 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (25-OHD) at birth.

Seeing does not mean processing: where we look and the visual information we rely on change independently as we learn a novel walking task.

People use vision to inform motor control strategies during walking. With practice performing a target stepping task, people shift their gaze farther ahead, transitioning from watching their feet contact the target to looking for future target locations. The shift in gaze focus suggests the role of vision in motor control changes from emphasizing feedback to feedforward control.

In Situ Monitoring of Drug Precipitation from Digesting Lipid Formulations Using Low-Frequency Raman Scattering Spectroscopy.

Low-frequency Raman spectroscopy (LFRS) is a valuable tool to detect the solid state of amorphous and crystalline drugs in solid dosage forms and the transformation of drugs between different polymorphic forms. It has also been applied to track the solubilisation of solid drugs as suspensions in milk and infant formula during in vitro digestion. This study reports the use of LFRS as an approach to probe drug precipitation from a lipid-based drug delivery system (medium-chain self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery system, MC-SNEDDS) during in vitro digestion.

Exploring the Excited States of a Hexa--hexabenzocoronene-Substituted Dipyridophenazine Ligand and Its Metal Complexes.

A hexa--hexabenzocoronene (HBC)-substituted dipyridophenazine (dppz) ligand (dppz-HBC) and its corresponding rhenium [Re(CO)Cl] and ruthenium [Ru(bpy)] complexes were synthesized and characterized. The interplay of their various excited states was investigated using spectroscopic and computational techniques. Perturbation of the HBC was seen through a broadening and decreased intensity of the HBC absorption bands that dominate the absorption spectra.

Control of center of mass motion during walking correlates with gait and balance in people with incomplete spinal cord injury.

Background: There is evidence that ambulatory people with incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) have an impaired ability to control lateral motion of their whole-body center of mass (COM) during walking. This impairment is believed to contribute to functional deficits in gait and balance, however that relationship is unclear. Thus, this cross-sectional study examines the relationship between the ability to control lateral COM motion during walking and functional measures of gait and balance in people with iSCI.

Systematic Tuning of Electronic Ground and Excited States in Donor-Acceptor Dyes; Steps toward Designer Compounds for Modern Technologies.

The vibrational and electronic properties of six systematically altered donor-acceptor dyes were investigated with density functional theory (DFT), spectroscopy, and electrochemical techniques. The dyes incorporated a carbazole donor connected to a dithieno[3,2-b:2',3'-d]thiophene linker at either the C () or C () position. Indane-based acceptors contained either dimalononitrile (), ketone and malononitrile () or diketone () electron accepting groups.

Exploring the Solid-State Landscape of Carbamazepine during Dehydration: A Low Frequency Raman Spectroscopy Perspective.

The solid-state landscape of carbamazepine during its dehydration was explored using Raman spectroscopy in the low- (-300 to -15, 15 to 300) and mid- (300 to 1800 cm) frequency spectral regions. Carbamazepine dihydrate and forms I, III, and IV were also characterized using density functional theory with periodic boundary conditions and showed good agreement with experimental Raman spectra with mean average deviations less than 10 cm. The dehydration of carbamazepine dihydrate was examined under different temperatures (40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 °C).

Early preclinical work with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues.

In this article, I provide a narrative remembrance of the many early proof-of-concept studies that were performed at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A group, led by the late Dr. Gary Hodgen, piloted some of the ways gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues are now being used clinically.

Detection and Quantification of Adulteration in Krill Oil with Raman and Infrared Spectroscopic Methods.

Raman and infrared spectroscopy, used as individual and low-level fused datasets, were evaluated to identify and quantify the presence of adulterants (palm oil, PO; ω-3 concentrates in ethyl ester, O3C and fish oil, FO) in krill oil. These datasets were qualitatively analysed with principal component analysis (PCA) and classified as adulterated or unadulterated using support vector machines (SVM). Using partial least squares regression (PLSR), it was possible to identify and quantify the adulterant present in the KO mixture.

Optimism persists when walking in unpredictable environments.

Humans continuously modulate their control strategies during walking based on their ability to anticipate disturbances. However, how people adapt and use motor plans to create stable walking in unpredictable environments is not well understood. Our purpose was to investigate how people adapt motor plans when walking in a novel and unpredictable environment.

Resonant Raman-Active Polymer Dot Barcodes for Multiplex Cell Mapping.

Resonance Raman spectroscopy is an efficient tool for multiplex imaging because of the narrow bandwidth of the electronically enhanced vibrational signals. However, Raman signals are often overwhelmed by concurrent fluorescence. In this study, we synthesized a series of truxene-based conjugated Raman probes to show structure-specific Raman fingerprint patterns with a common 532 nm light source.

A discrete-choice experiment study of physicians' prioritization of attributes of medical treatments for endometriosis-associated pain.

Background: Physicians' preferences for attributes of medical treatments for endometriosis-associated pain have not previously been quantified.

Methods: US obstetrician-gynecologists completed an online discrete-choice experiment survey. In a series of questions, physicians chose a medical treatment for a hypothetical patient with endometriosis experiencing severe, persistent dysmenorrhea, nonmenstrual pelvic pain, and/or dyspareunia.

People adapt a consistent center-of-mass trajectory in a novel force field.

During human walking the whole body center-of-mass (COM) trajectory may be a control objective, a goal the central nervous system uses to plan and regulate movement. Our previous observation, that after practice walking in a novel laterally directed force field people adapt a COM trajectory similar to their normal trajectory, supports this idea. However, our prior work only presented data demonstrating changes in COM trajectory in response to a single force field.