The MiniWiD-Coater. III. Effect of Application Temperature on the Dissolution Profile of Sustained-Release Theophylline Pellets Coated with Eudragit Rs 30 D

Theophylline pellets were coated with Eudragit RS 30 D in a miniature fluid-bed pan coater called MiniWiD developed recently. The dispersions were plasticized with varying amounts of triethyl citrate (TEC), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), and polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG) and applied at different temperatures ranging from 25 to 45 °C. Theophylline release was tested by dissolution using the USP Apparatus 2 (paddle) in 0.1 N hydrochloric acid under sink conditions over 6 hours.

At a coating level of 4 % (0.7 mg/cm²) sustained-release profiles were obtained from dispersions plasticized with TEC or DBP. By reducing the amount of plasticizer from 20 to 10%, films with higher permeabilities were obtained. This effect was compensated by tempering the pellets at 50 deg;C for 24 hours. The coating temperature had little effect on the dissolution profiles of TEC-plasticized films and no effect on films with DBP.

Coatings plasticized with 20% PEG were applied at temperatures ranging from 25 to 45 °C. These films required a coating level of about 18 % (3.3 mg/cm²) to provide comparable sustained-release properties. In contrast to DBP and TEC, a strong influence of the coating temperature on the release rates was observed in which higher temperatures led to slower release rates. This behavior can be explained by the minimum film-forming temperature (MFT). Since PEG does not lower the MFT of Eudragit RS 30 D, the application of these films below the MFT of 45 °C is associated with a lower degree of film formation.     

On the computation of conjugacy classes of Chevalley groups

In this paper an algorithm is presented to determine the number of semisimple conjugacy classes for a given centralizertype for the Chevalley groupsSL _n(q) andSU _n(q). Moreover we give the exact number of regular semisimple classes of this groups and a summary of results on the generic classnumber of exceptional Chevalley groups of adjoint type.The first author acknowledges financial support by a grant of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft     

Irrigation Modelling in the Context of Basin Water Resources

Management practices for irrigation schemes can often be improved by modelling the behaviour of a scheme and by evaluating its efficiency statistics. However, looking at an irrigation scheme without regard for other water uses within the river basin may not be effective. Efficiencies computed in this way are local and, since water may be used many times within the same basin, may not be realistic. Changes in water uses (e.g. irrigation, industrial, power production, urban water supply, navigation, environmental, recreational) will often have effects on other uses; and changes in irrigation schemes (management,structural, crop pattern) may affect other users within the basin. In addition, all water users will be affected by external changes such as changes in land cover or in climate. As demand for water increases, these links become more important until, at some stage, there is insufficient water for all users and hard choices must be made. Hydrological modelling is a tool that can be used to relate irrigation schemes to the other water uses within a river basin and can help in assessing real productivities and in evaluating alternative patterns of water usage. This paper discusses the techniques available to simulate irrigation schemes within overall basin water resources using, as an example, an intensively utilized basin in western Turkey.     

Analysis of adaptive routing schemes in multirate loss networks

As technology evolves, it is now feasible to implement sophisticated adaptive routing schemes on networks which support different kinds of services with heterogeneous bandwidth characteristics. Adaptive routing can increase the network throughput by routing calls to less congested paths. It can also be used to bypass transmission facility failures. In this paper, we analyze and compare two adaptive routing schemes. The first is called theMaximum mean time to blocking (MTB) routing which is based on themean time to blocking measure of a link. This measure captures the traffic rates, bandwidth characteristic and link capacity information and reflects more accurately the congestion status of different paths. The second is theM ² routing, which is a modification of the least loaded routing (LLR). Aggregation of link status information can significantly reduce signalling traffic. We show in this paper that with properly designed aggregation, the aggregatedM ² and MTB routings can have performance that approach that of the non-aggregated schemes. The use of complete sharing and restricted access policies together with trunk reservation control in multirate loss networks are also studied.     

Measurement and prediction of pressure drop in two-phase flow

Experimental data for air–water two-phase co-current flow in two different pipe diameters were used to test the prediction of pressure drop by a number of existing theories and correlations. Several models are shown to be useful for prediction, particularly with the stratified regimes which have proved difficult to handle in the past. The model suggested by Olujic proved to be of particular value.