Many approaches have been developed over time to counter the bioavailability limitations of poorly soluble drugs. With advances in nanotechnology in recent decades, this issue has been approached through the formulation of drugs as nanocrystals. Nanocrystals consist of pure drug(s) and a minimum of surface active agent(s) required for stabilization. They are carrier-free submicron colloidal drug delivery systems with a mean particle size typically in the range of 200 - 500 nm. By reducing particle size to nanoscale, the surface area available for dissolution is increased, and thus bioavailability is enhanced. Drug nanocrystals constitute a versatile formulation approach to enhance the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of poorly

Selective recovery of atropine from Datura innoxia seeds was studied. Applying pertraction in a rotating film contactor (RFC) the alkaloid was successfully recovered from native aqueous extracts obtained from the plant seeds. Decane as a liquid membrane and sulfuric acid as a stripping agent were used. Pertraction from native liquid extracts provided also a good atropine refinement, since the most of co-extracted from the plant species remained in the feed or membrane solution. Solid–liquid extraction of atropine from Datura innoxia seeds was coupled with RF-pertraction in order to purify simultaneously the extract obtained from the plant. Applying the integrated process, proposed in this study, a product containing 92.6% atropine was

   A microbubble air flotation technique was used to remove chromium ions from simulated wastewater (e.g. water used for electroplating, textiles, paints and pigments, and tanning leather). Experimental parameters were investigated to analyze the flotation process and determine the removal efficiency. These parameters included the location of the sampling port from the bottom of the column, where the diffuser is located to the top of flotation column (30, 60, and 90 cm), the type of surfactant (anionic, SDS, or cationic, CTAB) and its concentration (5, 10, 15, and 20 mg/L), the pH of the initial solution (3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), the initial contaminant concentration (10, 20, 30, and 40 mg/L), the gas flow rate (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.5 L/mi

This work was conducted to study the extraction of eucalyptus oil from natural plants (Eucalyptus camaldulensis leaves) using water distillation method by Clevenger apparatus. The effects of main operating parameters were studied: time to reach equilibrium, temperature (70 to100°C), solvent to solid ratio (4:1 to 8:1 (v/w)), agitation speed (0 to 900 rpm), and particle size (0.5 to 2.5 cm) of the fresh leaves, to find the best processing conditions for achieving maximum oil yield. The results showed that the agitation speed of 900 rpm, temperature 100° C, with solvent to solid ratio 5:1 (v/w) of particle size 0.5 cm for 160 minute give the highest percentage of oil (46.25 wt.%). The extracted oil was examined by HPLC.

Its well known that understanding human facial expressions is a key component in understanding emotions and finds broad applications in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), has been a long-standing issue. In this paper, we shed light on the utilisation of a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) for facial emotion recognition from videos using the TensorFlow machine-learning library from Google. This work was applied to ten emotions from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set-Bath Intensity Variations (ADFES-BIV) dataset and tested using two datasets.

Water scarcity is one of the most important problems facing humanity in various fields such as economics, industry, agriculture, and tourism. This may push people to use low-quality water like industrial-wastewater. The application of some chemical compounds to get rid of heavy metals such as cadmium is an environmentally harmful approach. It is well-known that heavy metals as cadmium may induce harmful problems when present in water and invade to soil, plants and food chain of a human being. In this case, man will be forced to use the low quality water in irrigation. Application of natural materials instead of chemicals to remove cadmium from polluted water is an environmental friendly approach. Attention was drawn in this research wor

A mixture of algae biomass (Chrysophyta, Cyanophyta, and Chlorophyte) has been investigated for its possible adsorption removal of cationic dyes (methylene blue, MB). Effect of pH (1-8), biosorbent dosage (0.2-2 g/100ml), agitated speed (100-300), particle size (1304-89μm), temperature (20-40˚C), initial dye concentration (20-300 mg/L), and sorption–desorption were investigated to assess the algal-dye sorption mechanism. Different pre-treatments, alkali, protonation, and CaCl2 have been experienced in order to enhance the adsorption capacity as well as the stability of the algal biomass. Equilibrium isotherm data were analyzed using Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin models. The maximum dye-sorption capacity was 26.65 mg/g at pH= 5, 25

Petroleum is one of the most important substances consumed by man at present times, a major energy source in this century, petroleum oils can cause environmental pollution during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use, petroleum hydrocarbons pollutions ranging from soil, ground water to marine environment, become an inevitable problem in the modern life, current study focused on bioremediation process of hydrocarbons contaminants that remaining in the bottom of gas cylinders and discharged to the soil. Twenty-four bacterial isolates were isolated from contaminated soils all of them gram negative bacteria, bacterial isolates screening to investigate the ability of biodegradation of hydrocarbons, these isolates inocula

The preparation of composite metal oxide to attain high efficiency in removing phenol from wastewater has a great concern. In the present study, the focus would be on adopting antimony-tin oxide coating onto graphite substrates instead of titanium; besides the effect of SbCl3 concentration on the SnO2-Sb2O3 composite would be examined. The performance of this composite electrode as the working electrode in the removal of phenol by sonoelectrochemical oxidation will be studied. The antimony-tin dioxide composite electrode was prepared by cathodic deposition with SnCl2 . 2H2O solution in a mixture of HNO3 and NaNO3, with different concentrations of SbCl3. The SnO2-Sb2O3 deposit layer’s structure and morphology were examined and the 4 g/l Sb