Use of isothermal microcalorimetry in pharmaceutical preformulation studies

Excipient compatibility of a new chemical entity was assessed using an isothermal microcalorimeter. Mixtures of an active pharmaceutical ingredient with a primary amine group and excipients were prepared in a 1:1 ratio and compatibility monitored by exposing to 50, 60 and 70°C in presence of 200 mL of water. The new chemical entity, a primary amine, reacted with reducing sugars such as lactose and resulted in a brown discoloration. This reaction is the Maillard type condensation reaction between amines and reducing sugars. The rate of reaction was dependent on the temperature with rapid degradation at higher temperatures. No other incompatibility was apparent between the primary amine and other excipients This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

"Ideal" engineering alloys

A newly discovered group of alloys, called Gum Metals, approaches ideal strength in bulk form, exhibits significant plastic deformation prior to failure, and shows no indications of conventional-dislocation activity. Two conditions must be met for a material to exhibit this "ideal" behavior: (1) the stress required to trigger conventional-dislocation plasticity in the material must exceed its ideal strength, and (2) the material must be intrinsically ductile when stressed to ideal strength. Gum Metals satisfy both criteria, explaining their remarkable mechanical properties.     

Adatom transport on strained Cu(001): surface crowdions

Surface strain is often suggested as a means to control the self-assembled growth of nanostructures. Strain affects both the kinetics of nucleation and the free energies of formation of the desired nanostructure. It is demonstrated here that diffusion on some strained surfaces may be mediated by newly identified adatom transport mechanism: the formation and motion of a surface crowdion.     

Distortion and segregation in a dislocation core region at atomic resolution

The structure of an isolated, Ga terminated, 30 degree partial dislocation in GaAs:Be is determined by high resolution transmission electron microscopes and focal series reconstruction. The positions of atomic columns in the core region are measured to an accuracy of better than 10 pm. A quantitative comparison of the structure predicted by an ab initio electronic structure total energy calculation to the experiment indicates that theory and experiment agree to within 20 pm. Further analysis shows the deviations between theory and experiment appear to be systematic. Electron energy loss spectroscopy establishes that defects segregate to the core region, thus accounting for the systematic deviations.