INTEGRATING THE TRAINING IN STANDARDIZATION IN UNIVERSITY CURRICULA – EUROPEAN DIMENSIONS AND CHALLENGES

Standardization and standards play a key role in today’s competitive landscape. It is already broadly recognised the importance of the standards and standardization regarding the knowledge and best practices transfer, global supply chain networks building and management, the achievement of economic efficiency and sustainability as well as boosting the innovations. Taking into consideration the importance and the urgent need outlined by the business and the industries for a workforce equipped with relevant knowledge and skills regarding standardization and standards, this paper is focused on the following questions: (i) what are the reasons the standards-related training are still not adequately represented in the academic disciplines; (ii) what is the University lecturers and students’ levels of awareness about the international and European standardization systems and their readiness to improve their knowledge and competencies in the field of standardization; (iii) what are the main aspects to improve the training in terms of standards and standardization in university education. The authors of this paper propose answers to these questions on the base of the results achieved through a comprehensive study conducted in five European countries in the framework of the international project “Standards Teaching in University Education” /STUNED/, funded by the Erasmus plus program of the European Commission.

Dry Powder and Budesonide Inhalation Suspension Deposition Rates in Asthmatic Airway-Obstruction Regions

Steroid inhalation is the standard bronchial asthma therapy and it includes powdered metered doses, dry powder, and nebulizer suspension. However, particle sizes vary widely. The research goal was to demonstrate that different budesonide administration forms and devices have various deposition rates in the airway obstruction region. Here, we compared relative inhalation therapy efficacies and identified therapies that delivered the highest drug doses to the airway obstruction region. Weibel’s anatomy data were used to identify the airway obstruction region in asthma. Based on European Standardization Committee data, we investigated the diameters of the drug particles being deposited there and evaluated the average particle size and distribution of the budesonide dosage forms and application devices. Drug dose depositions were measured by HPLC at each stage of a Cascade Impactor. Weibel’s anatomy data indicated that the 1st–4th bronchial generations comprised the airway obstruction region and corresponded to the tracheobronchial area. According to the European Standardization, particles 2–6 µm in diameter were readily deposited there. The proportions of particles in this size range were 33.0%, 32.0%, 59.0%, and 78.0% for Turbuhaler, Symbicort, mesh-type NE-U22 suspension, and jet-type NE-C28 suspension, respectively. We localized the airway obstruction regions of bronchial asthma and identified the optimal inhalation therapy particle size. An electric nebulizer was more efficacious for budesonide administration than dry powder delivery. The NE-C28 treatment deposited 2.36x more budesonide in the airway obstruction region than dry powder delivery systems.