The pharmaceutical development challenges various processes from the exploration of potential candidates of API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) to the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. To ensure the developability of drug candidates, the full understanding of physicochemical characteristics of API is indispensable for the formulation and manufacturing of pharmaceutical product. We have introduced the usefulness of thermal analysis for the evaluation of various physicochemical characteristics of pharmaceuticals from API to pharmaceutical products. In the field of API, such as thermodynamic relative stability of polymorphs, quantitative relationship between dissolution rate and morphology, and crystallization mechanism of amorphous to polymorphs were studied. In the field of pharmaceutical products, such as compatibility of formulation, evaluation of stability of pharmaceuticals, monitoring of wetting and disintegration process, physical stability estimation of solid dispersion, optimum manufacturing process for freeze drying product were studied.

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The driving force of the oxide scale growth on alloy is the difference in the oxygen potentials between at the alloy/scale and the scale/atmosphere interfaces. When the mass transport in the oxide scale controls the growth of the oxide scale, we usually regard the oxygen potential at the scale/atmosphere interface as that of atmosphere. On the other hands, when the gas supply or the reaction controls the growth, the oxygen potential at the scale/atmosphere interface is different from that of atmosphere. This paper introduces the direct measurement for the oxygenpotential on the scale surface.

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The National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ) of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) maintains the pressure standards for Japan, which have been established using the most-advanced technology, and disseminates them to industry and society. NMIJ is also conducting various activities, mainly concerning research and development to improve and upgrade the standards and the calibration techniques that can support advanced industrial technology, the establishment and improvement of a traceability system for the standards in Japan, and the checking of the international equivalence of the standards. In this article, the pressure standards, the calibration principles and methods, NMIJ calibration services, the traceability system in Japan and the activities for improving the reliability of the pressure standards are described.

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This review discusses current topics on the experimental and theoretical parameters of thermodynamics and drug design. Freire reported that change in the interaction enthalpy (ΔH) measured with isothermal titration calorimeter (ITC) could provide valuable information for drug design. Kitaura and his coworkers developed the fragment molecular orbital (FMO) method for quantum-chemical calculation of large molecules such as proteins. The FMO method has been applied to studies of whole protein and protein-ligand interactions. CH/π hydrogen bond is a weak interaction similarly to CH/O, OH/π, and NH/π. However, recent studies have elucidated that the CH/π hydrogen bond exists in many biomolecues and they play an important role in recognition between protein and ligand. Recently we calculated the interaction energies for complexes between LCK protein and three inhibitors (staurosporine 1, and our compounds 2 and 3) with the FMO method. In every case a number of CH/π hydrogen bonds have been disclosed in the binding pocket. In the compound 2, NH/π and CH/O hydrogen bonds have been observed as well. In order to increase the potency for LCK protein the aniline ring of the compound 2 was replaced with 2,6-dimethyl aniline in the compound 3. A ten-fold increase in the potency has been achieved for 3 over 2. We suggest that to pay attention to the weak hydrogen bonds is useful in the systematic drug design.

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