Objectives: Digoxin is a drug with very low aqueous solubility, low therapeutic dose and low therapeutic index. Soft gelatin capsule is an ideal dosage form to formulate low soluble drugs that provides faster dissolution, higher bioavailability and higher content uniformity. The purpose of the present study is to enhance digoxin solubility using appropriate vehicles to prepare digoxin soft gelatin capsule core formulation.Methods: Solubility of digoxin in different solvents, including water, ethanol, polyethylene glycol 400, propylene glycol, transcutol and binary and/or ternary solvent systems were investigated using shake-flask method. Saturated solutions of these solvents and solvent mixtures were shaken at 25oC for 48 h. After equlibrium, the supernatant layer was withdrawn and passed through 0.45 mm filter. Concentrations of drug in solutions were determined by HPLC and UV method. The mathematical mixture design was used to design the solvent systems.Results: The obtained results indicated that best co-solvent for increasing the solubility of digoxin is ethanol. Digoxin solubility in other co-solvents also was more than its aqueous solubility. Using co-solvency method, the solubility was increased up to 14.5 times more than its aqueous solubility.Conclusion: It is concluded that digoxin solubility could be increased using co-solvency method to achieve appropriate formulations for designing soft gelatin capsules.

In this research, the effects of different levels of White cheese (0-30%) and tri-sodium citrate (0-2%) on chemical and physical properties of Pizza processed cheese was investigated. Adding White cheese resulted in significant decrease (p£0.05) in pH, protein and significant increase in fat and salt content.Adding tri-sodium citrate induced the increase in pH and fat and decrease in moisture. The effect of mixture components on melting degree was significant (p£0.05). Free oil was affected by tri-sodium citrate ratio in the mixture. The oiling off was decreased by increasing melting salt, Length of stretch was decreased by increasing White cheese ratio in blend. Comparison of stretch length indicated a meaningful (p£0.001) correlation between "Fork test" and "Ring & Ball" method with Pearson coefficient of 0.906. The necessity of using tri-sodium citrate as melting salt for producing a homogenous cheese mass with the ability of exhibiting smooth slices without any fracture was approved in this study. Statistical analysis using mixture design showed that the optimum formula of Pizza Processed cheese was acheived by blending 90% base, 8.6% White cheese and 1.4% tri-sodium citrate. In addition to above, two new methods for measuring physical properties of Pizza cheese were also developed.

In every engineering field, rational methods of design, in which the strengths of all materials employed are utilized on unit of strength, is an ultimate objective. A rational procedure of design requires that a general mode of failure under assumed service conditions be determined or assumed. Also, a quantity such as stress, strain, or energy may be chosen as a critical value to limit the loading that can be applied to the member. Further more, suitable testes of material must be adopted for determination of the critical value. In this study triaxial test and Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion is utilized to characterize asphalt concrete mixture. Also, a relationship is proposed by which the asphalt concrete mixture strength could be determined based on loading geometry including surface shear and interface adhesion (bonding) between asphalt surface course and underlying layer as well as mixture strength parameters.To develop the equation of asphalt concrete mixture strength, it is assumed that an adequate thickness of base and subbase layers are provided to prevent subgrade failure, and that the base and subbase course materials will not fail under the shear stresses imposed by the loads applied.

Pumpkins prevent the occurrence of all types of cancers due to the wealthiest micronutrients and high levels of 30% carotenoids. Regarding the high nutritional value and low consumption in the community, the primary objective of this research is to optimize the formulation of a new non-leavened dessert based on the pumpkin, which drives from hydrocolloids (Persian gum, xanthan, and carboxymethyl cellulose) in dessert formulation. In order to determine the dessert treatments, mixed design and software Design Expert 11 for three components of Persian gum (0-5%), xanthan gum (0-5%) and carboxymethyl cellulose (0-5%) use. After preparing the dessert, physicochemical tests (moisture, Dyeing, aw, and colorimetric) evaluate. The results showed that the lower humidity and water activity and the syneresis rate are more desirable that cause with decreasing xanthan and CMC and increasing Persian gum. Considering that more index b* is desirable in pumpkin dessert, so increasing the xanthan CMC and decreasing Persian gum cause the a* value be more and by decreasing xanthan and increasing CMC and decreasing Persian gum b* value was more.

Marmalade is a processed product of some plant organs such as fruit, flower, fruit peel and tuber in which the plant parts used are small and well homogenized. Sugar is used as a sweetener in the preparation of marmalade. In this study, the use of date syrup as a substitute for sucrose used in marmalade formulation was studied. The constrained mixture design was used to achieve the optimal formulation and the effect of sugar substitution with date palm syrup on properties of marmalade was studied. The ingredients used in the formulation were plum paste (35-65%), sugar syrup (0-65%) and date syrup (0-65%). Ten formulas were produced based on the constrained mixture design and their physical, chemical and sensorial properties were investigated. The results showed that plum paste had the greatest effect on increasing the viscosity and total acidity of marmalade, while total soluble solids decreased with increasing the amount of plum paste in the formulation. The L* index of the samples decreased with increasing date syrup and plum paste and the redness of marmalade increased with increasing plum paste. Sensory evaluation of the produced formulations showed that the increase in plum paste increased the consistency, spreadability, color and overall acceptance, while the sweetness and taste and flavor were more affected by the increase in date syrup. Optimal formulation was obtained in the ratios of 58% plum paste, 12% sugar syrup and 30% date syrup and in the optimal formulation the total acidity, total phenolic compounds, and viscosity of marmalade at 20 ° C were equal to 2. 07 g citric acid/100 g, 112. 4 mg gallic acid/100 g, and 3961 cp, respectively.

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is one of the most successful techniques of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and is mostly in use for the treatment of infertility with male factors. In this method, before injecting sperm into the intracytoplasmic of the oocyte, cumulus cells around the oocyte must be stripped to facilitate the injection process. To achieve this, both enzymatic and mechanical methods are used in embryological laboratories for denudation, which has major deficiencies, including the possibility of damaging the oocyte prior to the injection process. In this research, a microfluidic-based device is introduced for the separation of cumulus cells around the oocyte with minimum manual operations. The results prove high efficiency, and non-destructive denudation of the oocyte with the reduced amount of culture medium leads to the low-cost preparation process of oocytes. The process can also be integrated with ICSI chips under development and will be reported shortly.

The extreme vertices mixture design was applied for optimization of the NBR blend for hardness response. The 15 treatment combinations out of 29 candidate points investigated (as proposed by Minitab 14 software) Contained varying proportions of carbon black, sulfur, MBTS (Dibenzothiazyl disulfide), and Antioxidant as four variable factors while other factors were kept constant. The significant model coefficients are interpreted in term of interacting linear and quadratic effects of the NBR variable blend constituents. Based on the three dimensional surface, contour, and response trace plot, MBTS exhibits an adverse negative effect, while sulfur exhibits a strong positive effect on the hardness.Carbon black and antioxidant have, respectively, weak and moderate negative effect on the response. The model was used to predict the treatment combination of the NBR blend in the optimum hardness response. (Hardness response was 54.07, A: 3.52, B: 1.5467, C: 91.9733, D: 2.96). There is no significant difference between the result of the model and which obtained in the laboratory.

Minimizing of cement paste volume not only decreases the cost of construction but also improves many of attributions regarding durability in self-consolidating concrete. In this paper, a mixture design method of Self-Consolidating Concrete based on minimum cement paste volume is proposed that descends cost of construction, more over because of creating a systematic modification process, achieving desired mixture is accelerated. It's understood from the results that amount of minimum required cement paste in self-consolidating concrete is dependable on aggregate size distribution and composition of cement paste, more over in self-consolidating concrete, it is probable that minimum amount of required cement paste is needed in aggregate composition that haven't maximum packing density.

In this paper, recommended spiral passive micromixer was designed and simulated. spiral design has the potential to create and strengthen the centrifugal force and the secondary flow. A series of simulations were carried out to evaluate the effects of channel width, channel depth, the gap between loops, and flowrate on the micromixer performance. These features impact the contact area of the two fluids and ultimately lead to an increment in the quality of the mixture. In this study, for the flow rate of 25 μl/min and molecular diffusion coefficient of 1×10-10 m2/s, mixing efficiency of more than 90% is achieved after 30 (approximately one-third of the total channel length). Finally, the optimized design fabricated using proposed 3D printing method.