Milling of Organic Solids in a Jet Mill. Part 2: Checking the Validity of the Predicted Rate of Breakage Function

The particle size distribution of fine chemicals in the solid state, like active pharmaceutical ingredients, is often a critical parameter. To achieve the desired particle size distribution, milling of such materials is usually the method of choice. Since these chemicals are often scarcely available, experimental optimization of milling is not possible. Therefore, a model to predict the milling conditions has been developed. The model estimates the rate of breakage function, and needs mechanical properties like hardness and yield strength as input to calculate the rate of breakage function. This paper attempts to check the validity of the model by a series of experiments. A comparison of the experimental results with the outcomes of the model using five different model compounds has been performed. It appears that the rate of breakage function can be estimated by: The model is able to rank the compounds by degree of fracture as an effect of milling. It was also possible to perform a quantitative prediction of the impact of milling pressure on the milling behavior. Finally, it appeared that the prediction of the large particles in the distribution was significantly better than small ones. Because the oversized material is usually the most critical parameter, the conclusion is that the model has acceptable practical applicability.     

The impact of metrological traceability on the validity of creatinine measurement as an index of renal function

When the calibration of a routine measurement procedure is traced back to metrological higher order, a significant discrepancy can occur between the analytical conditions of the routine measurement and the analytical conditions that were used in the clinical studies upon which the decision-making criteria are based. This can lead to serious interpretation errors with possible dramatic consequences for patients. The calibration of the creatinine Jaffé method is an excellent example of the importance of medical traceability. The compensated Jaffé method correlated accurately with the reference method and the compensated Jaffé creatinine clearance (CrCl), Cockroft and Gault and MDRD with the ⁵¹Cr EDTA clearance. The Schwartz estimate based upon the compensated Jaffé and enzymatic method overestimated, while uncompensated Jaffé slightly underestimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR). The situation in children is complex since serum creatinine concentrations are much lower in infants, rendering tubular secretion relatively more important. Low-molecular weight proteins have been suggested to replace serum creatinine as a marker for GFR. -trace protein, cystatin C, and ₂-microglobulin showed good correlation with GFR. However, care should be taken in patients presenting with some malignant tumors, since significant increases of cystatin C in patients with metastatic melanoma or colorectal cancer has been reported.Presented at the 9th Conference on Quality in the Spotlight, 18-19 March 2004, Antwerp, Belgium     

The “SKATE” CO2 Gigawatt Laser for a Laser-Plasma Generator of Ions and Nuclei

A set-up of the CO₂ SKATE and its output characteristics are described. The system is based on a self-sustained gas discharge module with x-ray preionization that ensures reliability and stable repetition rate operation at 1 Hz for a long time. Measurement of the initial electron density in the discharge volume produced by an x-ray gun is presented for different gases and their mixtures, which is of independent interest for some applications of x-ray preionization. Data on measurements of the low-intensity signal gain and laser parameters for a free-running generator configuration are presented as well as long-term operation characteristics. This laser system has been used as a CO₂ generator with gigawatt peak intensity and high spatial–temporal characteristics. In particular, the laser can be used as a driver for a source of multicharged ions in contrast to the laboratory prototypes previously investigated.     

Large time behavior to the system of incompressible non-Newtonian fluids in R

In this paper, the authors study the large time behavior for the weak solutions to a class system of the incompressible non-Newtonian fluids in R². It is proved that the weak solutions decay in L² norm at (1+t)^−1/2 and the estimate for the decay rate is sharp in the sense that it coincides with the decay rate of a solution to the heat equation.     

On comparison of jump point detection for an exchange rate series

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the detection of jump points of a discontinuous function in the presence of a noise by the wavelet approach. A computing algorithm of our method is proposed and then applied to the daily exchange rate of US Dollar against Deutsche Mark. All the points detected by our method reflect very strong economic and political impacts. Other statistical methods to detect jump points have also been applied to the same exchange rate data. Our proposed method has produced more convincing empirical results than others.     

Existence and global attractivity of positive periodic solutions for delay Lotka-Volterra competition patch systems with stocking

By means of Mawhin's continuation theorem of coincidence degree and Lyapunov functional, a set of easily verifiable criteria are established for the existence and global attractivity of positive periodic solutions for delay Lotka-Volterra competition patch system with stocking

     

Nonlinear Internal Damping of Wave Equations with Variable Coefficients

For wave equations with variable coefficients on regions which are not necessarily smooth, we study the energy decay rate when a nonlinear damping is applied on a suitable subrigion.     

Performance of run-length limited (4, 18) code for optical storage systems

In this paper, the authors investigate the performance of recently presented run-length limited (4, 18) code for high density optical storage systems. The construction of the code is described simply. The code has code rate R = 1/3 and density ratio (DR) = 1.67. The bit error rate (BER) performance for decision feedback equalizer (DFE) and partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) detector are simulated, considering signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and optical channel jitter. The result shows that the performance of the code is acceptable. The encoder and decoder of the code are implemented by complex programmable logic device (CPLD) chip and the hardware resources required for encoder and decoder arelow.     

Current Trends in Laser Separation of Isotopes in Monatomic Vapors

A comparative analysis of the techniques of laser isotope separation in monatomic vapors is presented. The restraints inherent in the conventional isotope separation technique AVLIS (atomic vapor laser isotope separation) are discussed as applied to the large-scale production of various isotopes. The requirements that should be met by the chemical reactions are formulated for the use of these reactions in isotope separation. The photochemical technique was shown to be quite competitive with the AVLIS.     

Solvent viscosity dependence of the folding rate of a small protein: distributed computing study

By using distributed computing techniques and a supercluster of more than 20,000 processors we simulated folding of a 20-residue Trp Cage miniprotein in atomistic detail with implicit GB/SA solvent at a variety of solvent viscosities (gamma). This allowed us to analyze the dependence of folding rates on viscosity. In particular, we focused on the low-viscosity regime (values below the viscosity of water). In accordance with Kramers' theory, we observe approximately linear dependence of the folding rate on 1/gamma for values from 1-10(-1)x that of water viscosity. However, for the regime between 10(-4)-10(-1)x that of water viscosity we observe power-law dependence of the form k approximately gamma(-1/5). These results suggest that estimating folding rates from molecular simulations run at low viscosity under the assumption of linear dependence of rate on inverse viscosity may lead to erroneous results.