Taking cues from machine learning, compartmental and time series models for SARS-CoV-2 omicron infection in Indian provinces.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, posed a significant threat to the world. We analyzed COVID-19 dissemination data in the top ten Indian provinces by infection incidences using the Susceptible-Infectious-Removed (SIR) model, an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) time series model, a machine learning model based on the Random Forest, and distribution fitting. Outbreaks are expected to continue if the Basic Reproduction Number (R) > 1, and infection waves are anticipated to end if the R < 1, as determined by the SIR model.

Path-dependent morphology of CH hydrates and their dissociation studied with high-pressure microfluidics.

Methane hydrates (MHs) have been considered a promising future energy source due to their vast resource volume and high energy density. Understanding the behavior of MH formation and dissociation at the pore-scale and the effect of MH distribution on the gas-liquid two phase flow is of critical importance for designing effective production strategies from natural gas hydrate (NGH) reservoirs. In this study, we devised a novel high-pressure microfluidic chip apparatus that is capable of direct observation of MH formation and dissociation behavior at the pore-scale.

Modeling Global Monkeypox Infection Spread Data: A Comparative Study of Time Series Regression and Machine Learning Models.

The global impact of COVID-19 has heightened concerns about emerging viral infections, among which monkeypox (MPOX) has become a significant public health threat. To address this, our study employs a comprehensive approach using three statistical techniques: Distribution fitting, ARIMA modeling, and Random Forest machine learning to analyze and predict the spread of MPOX in the top ten countries with high infection rates. We aim to provide a detailed understanding of the disease dynamics and model theoretical distributions using country-specific datasets to accurately assess and forecast the disease's transmission.

Transfer Learning of Full Molecular Weight Distributions via High-Throughput Computer-Controlled Polymerization.

The skew and shape of the molecular weight distribution (MWD) of polymers have a significant impact on polymer physical properties. Standard summary metrics statistically derived from the MWD only provide an incomplete picture of the polymer MWD. Machine learning (ML) methods coupled with high-throughput experimentation (HTE) could potentially allow for the prediction of the entire polymer MWD without information loss.

Microfluidic Particle Engineering of Hydrophobic Drug with Eudragit E100─Bridging the Amorphous and Crystalline Gap.

Co-processing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with excipients is a promising particle engineering technique to improve the API physical properties, which can lead to more robust downstream drug product manufacturing and improved drug product attributes. Excipients provide control over critical API attributes like particle size and solid-state outcomes. Eudragit E100 is a widely used polymeric excipient to modulate drug release.

: Learning effective strategies for COVID-19 vaccine distribution using reinforcement learning.

A vaccine is our best bet for mitigating the ongoing onslaught of the pandemic. However, vaccine is also expected to be a limited resource. An optimal allocation strategy, especially in countries with access inequities and temporal separation of hot-spots, might be an effective way of halting the disease spread.

Correction: Nanochannel conduction in piezoelectric polymeric membrane using swift heavy ions and nanoclay.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1039/C3RA23176C.].

Control of Drug-Excipient Particle Attributes with Droplet Microfluidic-based Extractive Solidification Enables Improved Powder Rheology.

Purpose: Industrial implementation of continuous oral solid dosage form manufacturing has been impeded by the poor powder flow properties of many active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Microfluidic droplet-based particle synthesis is an emerging particle engineering technique that enables the production of neat or composite microparticles with precise control over key attributes that affect powder flowability, such as particle size distribution, particle morphology, composition, and the API's polymorphic form. However, the powder properties of these microparticles have not been well-studied due to the limited mass throughputs of available platforms.

Hydrogel Microparticle-Templated Anti-Solvent Crystallization of Small-Molecule Drugs.

Conventional formulation strategies for hydrophobic small-molecule drug products frequently include mechanical milling to decrease active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) crystal size and subsequent granulation processes to produce an easily handled powder. A hydrogel-templated anti-solvent crystallization method is presented for the facile fabrication of microparticles containing dispersed nanocrystals of poorly soluble API. Direct crystallization within a porous hydrogel particle template yields core-shell structures in which the hydrogel core containing API nanocrystals is encased by a crystalline API shell.

Encapsulation of Lutein via Microfluidic Technology: Evaluation of Stability and In Vitro Bioaccessibility.

Inadequate intake of lutein is relevant to a higher risk of age-related eye diseases. However, lutein has been barely incorporated into foods efficiently because it is prone to degradation and is poorly bioaccessible in the gastrointestinal tract. Microfluidics, a novel food processing technology that can control fluid flows at the microscale, can enable the efficient encapsulation of bioactive compounds by fabricating suitable delivery structures.

Automated synthesis of prexasertib and derivatives enabled by continuous-flow solid-phase synthesis.

Recent advances in end-to-end continuous-flow synthesis are rapidly expanding the capabilities of automated customized syntheses of small-molecule pharmacophores, resulting in considerable industrial and societal impacts; however, many hurdles persist that limit the number of sequential steps that can be achieved in such systems, including solvent and reagent incompatibility between individual steps, cumulated by-product formation, risk of clogging and mismatch of timescales between steps in a processing chain. To address these limitations, herein we report a strategy that merges solid-phase synthesis and continuous-flow operation, enabling push-button automated multistep syntheses of active pharmaceutical ingredients. We demonstrate our platform with a six-step synthesis of prexasertib in 65% isolated yield after 32 h of continuous execution.

Microfluidics-enabled particle engineering of monodisperse solid lipid microparticles with uniform drug loading and diverse solid-state outcomes.

Lipids serve as excellent excipients for drug products. Solid lipid microparticles (SLMs) are relatively underexplored in drug delivery; these particles are conventionally prepared using processes yielding polydisperse size distributions, such as spray congealing or emulsification. In this paper, we demonstrate a microfluidics-enabled process for particle engineering of monodisperse solid lipid microparticles with size and content uniformity.

Chitosan coated synergistically engineered nanoemulsion of Ropinirole and nigella oil in the management of Parkinson's disease: Formulation perspective and In vitro and In vivo assessment.

The research presented aims at developing Ropinirole hydrochloride (RHCl) nanoemulsion (NE) with nigella oil for Parkinson's disease (PD). In silico study was done to explore interactions of ropinirole and thymoquinone at receptor site (TNF-α and NFK-β). Ropinirole and Thymoquinone forms a hydrogen bond with residue Arginine 201 and residue Arginine 253 with a bond length of 1.

Multi National Survey of the Advice Given to Muslim Kidney Graft Recipients by Muslim Nephrologists about Lifestyle and Religious Rituals with Potential Medical Risk.

Muslim renal transplant recipients often ask their physicians if performing certain lifestyles or religious obligations may be harmful to their health. Permissibility as advised by an expert Muslim physician is considered as being religiously accepted. A cross-sectional, survey-based study was conducted enquiring what nephrologists would advise their transplant recipients to do, about some lifestyles and religious duties.

Boosting the Brain Delivery of Atazanavir through Nanostructured Lipid Carrier-Based Approach for Mitigating NeuroAIDS.

Unlabelled: Atazanavir (ATZ) presents poor brain availability when administered orally, which poses a major hurdle in its use as an effective therapy for the management of NeuroAIDS. The utilization of nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) in conjunction with the premeditated use of excipients can be a potential approach for overcoming the limited ATZ brain delivery.

Methods: ATZ-loaded NLC was formulated using the quality by design-enabled approach and further optimized by employing the Box-Behnken design.

Recent Advances in Co-processed APIs and Proposals for Enabling Commercialization of These Transformative Technologies.

Optimized physical properties (e.g., bulk, surface/interfacial, and mechanical properties) of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are key to the successful integration of drug substance and drug product manufacturing, robust drug product manufacturing operations, and ultimately to attaining consistent drug product critical quality attributes.

Fabrication of Conducting Nanochannels Using Accelerator for Fuel Cell Membrane and Removal of Radionuclides: Role of Nanoparticles.

Latent tracks in pure polymer and its nanohybrid are fabricated by irradiating with swift heavy ions (SHI) (Ag) having 140 MeV energy followed by selective chemical etching of the amorphous path, caused by the irradiation of SHI, to generate nanochannels of size ∼80 nm. Grafting is done within the nanochannels utilizing free radicals generated from the interaction of high-energy ions, followed by tagging of ionic species to make the nanochannels highly ion-conducting. The uniform dispersion of two-dimensional nanoparticles better controls the size and number density of the nanochannels and, thereby, converts them into an effective membrane.

Embedded droplet printing in yield-stress fluids.

Microfluidic tools and techniques for manipulating fluid droplets have become core to many scientific and technological fields. Despite the plethora of existing approaches to fluidic manipulation, non-Newtonian fluid phenomena are rarely taken advantage of. Here we introduce embedded droplet printing-a system and methods for the generation, trapping, and processing of fluid droplets within yield-stress fluids, materials that exhibit extreme shear thinning.

Development of highly reliable SERS-active photonic crystal fiber probe and its application in the detection of ovarian cancer biomarker in cyst fluid.

Conventionally Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is realized by adsorbing analytes onto nano-roughened planar substrate coated with noble metals (silver or gold) or their colloidal nanoparticles (NPs). Nanoscale irregularities in such substrates/NPs could lead to SERS sensors with poor reproducibility and repeatability. Herein, we demonstrate a suspended core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based SERS sensor with extremely high reproducibility and repeatability in measurement with a relative SD of only 1.

Multi-color lasing in chemically open droplet cavities.

In this paper, we demonstrate FRET-based multicolor lasing within chemically open droplet cavities that allow online modulation of the gain medium composition. To do this, we generated monodisperse microfluidic droplets loaded with coumarin 102 (donor), where the spherical droplets acted as whispering gallery mode (WGM) optical cavities in which coumarin 102 lasing (~ 470 nm) was observed. The lasing color was switched from blue to orange by the introduction of a second dye (acceptor, rhodamine 6 G) into the flowing droplet cavities; subsequent lasing from rhodamine 6 G (~ 590 nm) was observed together with the complete absence of coumarin 102 emission.

Design of Mucoadhesive PLGA Microparticles for Ocular Drug Delivery.

Topically administered ocular drug delivery systems typically face severe bioavailability challenges because of the natural protective mechanisms of eyes. The rational design of drug delivery systems that are able to persist on corneal surfaces for sustained drug release is critical to tackle this problem. In this study, we fabricated monodisperse chitosan-coated PLGA microparticles with tailored diameters from 5 to 120 μm by capillary microfluidic techniques and conducted detailed investigations of their mucoadhesion to artificial mucin-coated substrates.

Electrically controlled mass transport into microfluidic droplets from nanodroplet carriers with application in controlled nanoparticle flow synthesis.

Microfluidic droplets have been applied extensively as reaction vessels in a wide variety of chemical and biological applications. Typically, once the droplets are formed in a flow channel, it is a challenge to add new chemicals to the droplets for subsequent reactions in applications involving multiple processing steps. Here, we present a novel and versatile method that employs a high strength alternating electrical field to tunably transfer chemicals into microfluidic droplets using nanodroplets as chemical carriers.