169 research outputs found
3D printing tablets: Predicting printability and drug dissolution from rheological data
Rheology is an indispensable tool for formulation development, which when harnessed, can both predict a material’s performance and provide valuable insight regarding the material’s macrostructure. However, rheological characterizations are under-utilized in 3D printing of drug formulations. In this study, viscosity measurements were used to establish a mathematical model for predicting the printability of fused deposition modelling 3D printed tablets (Printlets). The formulations were composed of polycaprolactone (PCL) with different amounts of ciprofloxacin and polyethylene glycol (PEG), and different molecular weights of PEG. With all printing parameters kept constant, both binary and ternary blends were found to extrude at nozzle temperatures of 130, 150 and 170 °C. In contrast PCL was unextrudable at 130 and 150 °C. Three standard rheological models were applied to the experimental viscosity measurements, which revealed an operating viscosity window of between 100 and 1000 Pa·s at the apparent shear rate of the nozzle. The drug release profiles of the printlets were experimentally measured over seven days. As a proof-of-concept, machine learning models were developed to predict the dissolution behaviour from the viscosity measurements. The machine learning models were discovered to accurately predict the dissolution profile, with the highest f2 similarity score value of 90.9 recorded. Therefore, the study demonstrated that using only the viscosity measurements can be employed for the simultaneous high-throughput screening of formulations that are printable and with the desired release profile
Robustness of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism
The Blandford-Znajek mechanism has long been regarded as a key ingredient in
models attempting to explain powerful jets in AGNs, quasars, blazzars etc. In
such mechanism, energy is extracted from a rotating black hole and dissipated
at a load at far distances. In the current work we examine the behaviour of the
BZ mechanism with respect to different boundary conditions, revealing the
mechanism robustness upon variation of these conditions. Consequently, this
work closes a gap in our understanding of this important scenario.Comment: 7 pages, accepted in CQ
Multifluid magnetohydrodynamic turbulent decay
It is generally believed that turbulence has a significant impact on the
dynamics and evolution of molecular clouds and the star formation which occurs
within them. Non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects are known to influence the
nature of this turbulence. We present the results of a suite of 512-cubed
resolution simulations of the decay of initially super-Alfvenic and supersonic
fully multifluid MHD turbulence. We find that ambipolar diffusion increases the
rate of decay of the turbulence while the Hall effect has virtually no impact.
The decay of the kinetic energy can be fitted as a power-law in time and the
exponent is found to be -1.34 for fully multifluid MHD turbulence. The power
spectra of density, velocity and magnetic field are all steepened significantly
by the inclusion of non-ideal terms. The dominant reason for this steepening is
ambipolar diffusion with the Hall effect again playing a minimal role except at
short length scales where it creates extra structure in the magnetic field.
Interestingly we find that, at least at these resolutions, the majority of the
physics of multifluid turbulence can be captured by simply introducing fixed
(in time and space) resistive terms into the induction equation without the
need for a full multifluid MHD treatment. The velocity dispersion is also
examined and, in common with previously published results, it is found not to
be power-law in nature.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap
Boundary conditions for hyperbolic formulations of the Einstein equations
In regards to the initial-boundary value problem of the Einstein equations,
we argue that the projection of the Einstein equations along the normal to the
boundary yields necessary and appropriate boundary conditions for a wide class
of equivalent formulations. We explicitly show that this is so for the
Einstein-Christoffel formulation of the Einstein equations in the case of
spherical symmetry.Comment: 15 pages; text added and typesetting errors corrected; to appear in
Classical and Quantum Gravit
Simulating binary neutron stars: dynamics and gravitational waves
We model two mergers of orbiting binary neutron stars, the first forming a
black hole and the second a differentially rotating neutron star. We extract
gravitational waveforms in the wave zone. Comparisons to a post-Newtonian
analysis allow us to compute the orbital kinematics, including trajectories and
orbital eccentricities. We verify our code by evolving single stars and
extracting radial perturbative modes, which compare very well to results from
perturbation theory. The Einstein equations are solved in a first order
reduction of the generalized harmonic formulation, and the fluid equations are
solved using a modified convex essentially non-oscillatory method. All
calculations are done in three spatial dimensions without symmetry assumptions.
We use the \had computational infrastructure for distributed adaptive mesh
refinement.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures. Added one figure from previous version;
corrected typo
Deep ACS Imaging in the Globular Cluster NGC 6397: The Cluster Color Magnitude Diagram and Luminosity Function
We present the CMD from deep HST imaging in the globular cluster NGC 6397.
The ACS was used for 126 orbits to image a single field in two colors (F814W,
F606W) 5 arcmin SE of the cluster center. The field observed overlaps that of
archival WFPC2 data from 1994 and 1997 which were used to proper motion (PM)
clean the data. Applying the PM corrections produces a remarkably clean CMD
which reveals a number of features never seen before in a globular cluster CMD.
In our field, the main sequence stars appeared to terminate close to the
location in the CMD of the hydrogen-burning limit predicted by two independent
sets of stellar evolution models. The faintest observed main sequence stars are
about a magnitude fainter than the least luminous metal-poor field halo stars
known, suggesting that the lowest luminosity halo stars still await discovery.
At the bright end the data extend beyond the main sequence turnoff to well up
the giant branch. A populous white dwarf cooling sequence is also seen in the
cluster CMD. The most dramatic features of the cooling sequence are its turn to
the blue at faint magnitudes as well as an apparent truncation near F814W = 28.
The cluster luminosity and mass functions were derived, stretching from the
turn off down to the hydrogen-burning limit. It was well modeled with either a
very flat power-law or a lognormal function. In order to interpret these fits
more fully we compared them with similar functions in the cluster core and with
a full N-body model of NGC 6397 finding satisfactory agreement between the
model predictions and the data. This exercise demonstrates the important role
and the effect that dynamics has played in altering the cluster IMF.Comment: 43 pages including 4 tables and 12 diagrams. Figures 2 and 3 have
been bitmapped. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa
Improved Laboratory Transition Probabilities for Neutral Chromium and Re-determination of the Chromium Abundance for the Sun and Three Stars
Branching fraction measurements from Fourier transform spectra in conjunction
with published radiative lifetimes are used to determine transition
probabilities for 263 lines of neutral chromium. These laboratory values are
employed to derive a new photospheric abundance for the Sun: log (Cr
I) = 5.640.01 (). These Cr I solar abundances do
not exhibit any trends with line strength nor with excitation energy and there
were no obvious indications of departures from LTE. In addition, oscillator
strengths for singly-ionized chromium recently reported by the FERRUM Project
are used to determine: log (Cr II) = 5.770.03 (). Transition probability data are also applied to the spectra of three
stars: HD 75732 (metal-rich dwarf), HD 140283 (metal-poor subgiant), and CS
22892-052 (metal-poor giant). In all of the selected stars, Cr I is found to be
underabundant with respect to Cr II. The possible causes for this abundance
discrepancy and apparent ionization imbalance are discussed.Comment: 44 pages, 6 figure
Hydrodynamical assessment of 200 AGeV collisions
We are analyzing the hydrodynamics of 200 A GeV S+S collisions using a new
approach which tries to quantify the uncertainties arising from the specific
implementation of the hydrodynamical model. Based on a previous
phenomenological analysis we use the global hydrodynamics model to show that
the amount of initial flow, or initial energy density, cannot be determined
from the hadronic momentum spectra. We additionally find that almost always a
sizeable transverse flow deve- lops, which causes the system to freeze out,
thereby limiting the flow velocity in itself. This freeze-out dominance in turn
makes a distinction between a plasma and a hadron resonance gas equation of
state very difficult, whereas a pure pion gas can easily be ruled out from
present data. To complete the picture we also analyze particle multiplicity
data, which suggest that chemical equilibrium is not reached with respect to
the strange particles. However, the over- population of pions seems to be at
most moderate, with a pion chemical potential far away from the Bose
divergence.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figs in separate uuencoded file, for LateX, epsf.tex,
dvips, TPR-94-5 and BNL-(no number yet
High-powered Gravitational News
We describe the computation of the Bondi news for gravitational radiation. We
have implemented a computer code for this problem. We discuss the theory behind
it as well as the results of validation tests. Our approach uses the
compactified null cone formalism, with the computational domain extending to
future null infinity and with a worldtube as inner boundary. We calculate the
appropriate full Einstein equations in computational eth form in (a) the
interior of the computational domain and (b) on the inner boundary. At future
null infinity, we transform the computed data into standard Bondi coordinates
and so are able to express the news in terms of its standard and
polarization components. The resulting code is stable and
second-order convergent. It runs successfully even in the highly nonlinear
case, and has been tested with the news as high as 400, which represents a
gravitational radiation power of about .Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Excitons in quasi-one dimensional organics: Strong correlation approximation
An exciton theory for quasi-one dimensional organic materials is developed in
the framework of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger Hamiltonian augmented by short range
extended Hubbard interactions. Within a strong electron-electron correlation
approximation, the exciton properties are extensively studied. Using scattering
theory, we analytically obtain the exciton energy and wavefunction and derive a
criterion for the existence of a exciton. We also systematically
investigate the effect of impurities on the coherent motion of an exciton. The
coherence is measured by a suitably defined electron-hole correlation function.
It is shown that, for impurities with an on-site potential, a crossover
behavior will occur if the impurity strength is comparable to the bandwidth of
the exciton, corresponding to exciton localization. For a charged impurity with
a spatially extended potential, in addition to localization the exciton will
dissociate into an uncorrelated electron-hole pair when the impurity is
sufficiently strong to overcome the Coulomb interaction which binds the
electron-hole pair. Interchain coupling effects are also discussed by
considering two polymer chains coupled through nearest-neighbor interchain
hopping and interchain Coulomb interaction . Within the
matrix scattering formalism, for every center-of-mass momentum, we find two
poles determined only by , which correspond to the interchain
excitons. Finally, the exciton state is used to study the charge transfer from
a polymer chain to an adjacent dopant molecule.Comment: 24 pages, 23 eps figures, pdf file of the paper availabl
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