7,994 research outputs found
Modelling the Effect of Process Parameters on the Wet Extrusion and Spheronisation of High-Loaded Nicotinamide Pellets Using a Quality by Design Approach
Open access articleThe aim of the present study was to develop an alternative process to spray granulation in order to prepare high loaded spherical nicotinamide (NAM) pellets by wet extrusion and spheronisation. Therefore, a quality by design approach was implemented to model the effect of the process parameters of the extrusion-spheronisation process on the roundness, roughness and useable yield of the obtained pellets. The obtained results were compared to spray granulated NAM particles regarding their characteristics and their release profile in vitro after the application of an ileocolon targeted shellac coating. The wet extrusion-spheronisation process was able to form highly loaded NAM pellets (80%) with a spherical shape and a high useable yield of about 90%. However, the water content range was rather narrow between 24.7% and 21.3%. The design of experiments (DoE), showed that the spheronisation conditions speed, time and load had a greater impact on the quality attributes of the pellets than the extrusion conditions screw design, screw speed and solid feed rate (hopper speed). The best results were obtained using a low load (15 g) combined with a high rotation speed (900 m/min) and a low time (3–3.5 min). In comparison to spray granulated NAM pellets, the extruded NAM pellets resulted in a higher roughness and a higher useable yield (63% vs. 92%). Finally, the coating and dissolution test showed that the extruded and spheronised pellets are also suitable for a protective coating with an ileocolonic release profile. Due to its lower specific surface area, the required shellac concentration could be reduced while maintaining the release profil
Silicon mirror suspensions for gravitational wave detectors
One of the most significant limits to the sensitivity of current, and future, long-baseline interferometric gravitational wave detectors is thermal displacement noise of the test masses and their suspensions. This paper reports results of analytical and experimental studies of the limits to thermal noise performance of cryogenic silicon test mass suspensions set by two constraints on suspension fibre dimensions: the minimum dimensions required to allow conductive cooling for extracting incident laser beam heat deposited in the mirrors; and the minimum dimensions of fibres (set by their tensile strength) which can support test masses of the size envisaged for use in future detectors. We report experimental studies of breaking strength of silicon ribbons, and resulting design implications for the feasibility of suspension designs for future gravitational wave detectors using silicon suspension fibres. We analyse the implication of this study for thermal noise performance of cryogenically cooled silicon suspensions
Revealing the secrets of neuronal circuits with recombinant rabies virus technology
An understanding of how the brain processes information requires knowledge of the architecture of its underlying neuronal circuits, as well as insights into the relationship between architecture and physiological function. A range of sophisticated tools is needed to acquire this knowledge, and recombinant rabies virus (RABV) is becoming an increasingly important part of this essential toolbox. RABV has been recognized for years for its properties as a synapse-specific trans-neuronal tracer. A novel genetically modified variant now enables the investigation of specific monosynaptic connections. This technology, in combination with other genetic, physiological, optical, and computational tools, has enormous potential for the visualization of neuronal circuits, and for monitoring and manipulating their activity. Here we will summarize the latest developments in this fast moving field and provide a perspective for the use of this technology for the dissection of neuronal circuit structure and function in the normal and diseased brain
Exterior Differentials in Superspace and Poisson Brackets
It is shown that two definitions for an exterior differential in superspace,
giving the same exterior calculus, yet lead to different results when applied
to the Poisson bracket. A prescription for the transition with the help of
these exterior differentials from the given Poisson bracket of definite
Grassmann parity to another bracket is introduced. It is also indicated that
the resulting bracket leads to generalization of the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket
for the cases of superspace and brackets of diverse Grassmann parities. It is
shown that in the case of the Grassmann-odd exterior differential the resulting
bracket is the bracket given on exterior forms. The above-mentioned transition
with the use of the odd exterior differential applied to the linear even/odd
Poisson brackets, that correspond to semi-simple Lie groups, results,
respectively, in also linear odd/even brackets which are naturally connected
with the Lie superalgebra. The latter contains the BRST and anti-BRST charges
and can be used for calculation of the BRST operator cohomology.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX 2e, JHEP format. Correction of misprints. The titles
for some references are adde
Direct reconstruction of the quintessence potential
We describe an algorithm which directly determines the quintessence potential
from observational data, without using an equation of state parametrisation.
The strategy is to numerically determine observational quantities as a function
of the expansion coefficients of the quintessence potential, which are then
constrained using a likelihood approach. We further impose a model selection
criterion, the Bayesian Information Criterion, to determine the appropriate
level of the potential expansion. In addition to the potential parameters, the
present-day quintessence field velocity is kept as a free parameter. Our
investigation contains unusual model types, including a scalar field moving on
a flat potential, or in an uphill direction, and is general enough to permit
oscillating quintessence field models. We apply our method to the `gold' Type
Ia supernovae sample of Riess et al. (2004), confirming the pure cosmological
constant model as the best description of current supernovae
luminosity-redshift data. Our method is optimal for extracting quintessence
parameters from future data.Comment: 9 pages RevTeX4 with lots of incorporated figure
Enhanced adenosine A(1) receptor and Homer1a expression in hippocampus modulates the resilience to stress-induced depression-like behavior
Resilience to stress is critical for the development of depression. Enhanced adenosine A1 receptor (A1R) signaling mediates the antidepressant effects of acute sleep deprivation (SD). However, chronic SD causes long-lasting upregulation of brain A1R and increases the risk of depression. To investigate the effects of A1R on mood, we utilized two transgenic mouse lines with inducible A1R overexpression in forebrain neurons. These two lines have identical levels of A1R increase in the cortex, but differ in the transgenic A1R expression in the hippocampus. Switching on the transgene promotes robust antidepressant and anxiolytic effects in both lines. The mice of the line without transgenic A1R overexpression in the hippocampus (A1Hipp-) show very strong resistance towards development of stress-induced chronic depression-like behavior. In contrast, the mice of the line in which A1R upregulation extends to the hippocampus (A1Hipp+), exhibit decreased resilience to depression as compared to A1Hipp-. Similarly, automatic analysis of reward behavior of the two lines reveals that depression resistant A1Hipp-transgenic mice exhibit high sucrose preference, while mice of the vulnerable A1Hipp + line developed stress-induced anhedonic phenotype. The A1Hipp + mice have increased Homer1a expression in hippocampus, correlating with impaired long-term potentiation in the CA1 region, mimicking the stressed mice. Furthermore, virus-mediated overexpression of Homer1a in the hippocampus decreases stress resilience. Taken together our data indicate for first time that increased expression of A1R and Homer1a in the hippocampus modulates the resilience to stress-induced depression and thus might potentially mediate the detrimental effects of chronic sleep restriction on mood
Classification of N=6 superconformal theories of ABJM type
Studying the supersymmetry enhancement mechanism of Aharony, Bergman,
Jafferis and Maldacena, we find a simple condition on the gauge group
generators for the matter fields. We analyze all possible compact Lie groups
and their representations. The only allowed gauge groups leading to the
manifest N=6 supersymmetry are, up to discrete quotients, SU(n) x U(1), Sp(n) x
U(1), SU(n) x SU(n), and SU(n) x SU(m) x U(1) with possibly additional U(1)'s.
Matter representations are restricted to be the (bi)fundamentals. As a
byproduct we obtain another proof of the complete classification of the three
algebras considered by Bagger and Lambert.Comment: 18 page
Poincare Invariance of a Quantized Duality Symmetric Theory
The noncovariant duality symmetric action put forward by Schwarz-Sen is
quantized by means of the Dirac bracket quantization procedure. The resulting
quantum theory is shown to be, nevertheless, relativistically invariant
Observation of anomalous single-magnon scattering in half-metallic ferromagnets by chemical pressure control
Temperature variation of resistivity and specific heat have been measured for
prototypical half-metallic ferromagnets,
R_0.6Sr_0.4MnO_3, with controlling the one-electron bandwidth W. We have
found variation of the temperature scalings in the resistivity from
T^2 (R = La, and Nd) to T^3 (R = Sm), and have interpreted the $T^3-law in
terms of the anomalous single-magnon scattering (AMS) process in the
half-metallic system.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett., 3 pages + 4 EPS figure
First-principles study of orthorhombic CdTiO3 perovskite
In this work we perform an ab-initio study of CdTiO3 perovskite in its
orthorhombic phase using FLAPW method. Our calculations help to decide between
the different cristallographic structures proposed for this perovskite from
X-Ray measurements. We compute the electric field gradient tensor (EFG) at Cd
site and obtain excellent agreement with available experimental information
from a perturbed angular correlation (PAC) experiment. We study EFG under an
isotropic change of volume and show that in this case the widely used "point
charge model approximation" to determine EFG works quite well.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Accepted in Physical Review
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