Precipitous weakening of quartz at the α–β phase inversion

Crystalline quartz has long been identified as among the weakest of abundant crustal minerals. This weakness is particularly evident around the α–β phase inversion at 573°C, in which Si–O bonds undergo a displacive structural transformation from trigonal to hexagonal symmetry. Here we present data using indentation testing methodologies that highlight the precipitous extent of the transformational weakening. Although the indentations are localized over relatively small specimen contact areas, the data quantify the essential deformation and fracture properties of quartz in a predominantly (but not exclusively) compressive stress field, at temperatures and pressures pertinent to conditions in the earth's crust.     

Robust optimisation of sustainable food grain transportation with uncertain supply and intentional disruptions

The proliferating need for sustainability intervention in food grain transportation planning is anchoring the attention of researchers in the interests of stakeholders and environment at large. Uncertainty associated with food grain supply further intensifies the problem steering the need for designing robust, cost-efficient and sustainable models. In line with this, this paper aims to develop a robust and sustainable intermodal transportation model to facilitate single type of food grain commodity shipments while considering procurement uncertainty, greenhouse gas emissions, and intentional hub disruption. The problem is designed as a mixed integer non-linear robust optimisation model on a hub and spoke network for evaluating near optimal shipment quantity, route selection and hub location decisions. The robust optimisation approach considers minimisation of total relative regret associated with total cost subject to several real-time constraints. A version of Particle Swarm Optimisation with Differential Evolution is proposed to tackle the resulting NP-hard problem. The model is tested with two other state-of the art meta-heuristics for small, medium, and large datasets subject to different procurement scenarios inspired from real time food grain operations in Indian context. Finally, the solution is evaluated with respect to total cost, model and solution robustness for all instances.     

Effect of Silicon Activity on Liquid-Phase Sintering of Nitrogen Ceramics

Volatilization resulting from the thermal decomposition of Si₃N₄ causes the large weight loss and desintering phenomenon observed during pressureless sintering of Si₃N₄-5% MgO and sialon (z =2)-5% MgO. The addition of a few weight percent of Si to the powder suppresses this volatilazation and helps to achieve fully dense Si₃N₄ components.     

Crystallization of Polymer-Derived Silicon Carbonitride at 1873 K under Nitrogen Overpressure

The chemical stability of an amorphous silicon carbonitride ceramic, having the composition 0.57SiC·0.43Si₃N₄·0.49C is studied as a function of nitrogen overpressure at 1873 K. The ceramic suffers a weight loss at p _N2 < 3.5 bar (1 bar = 100 kPa), does not show a weight change from 3.5 to 11 bar, and gains weight above 11 bar. The structure of the ceramic changes with pressure: it is crystalline from 1 to 6 bar, amorphous at ∼10 bar, and is crystalline above ∼10 bar. The weight-loss transition, at 3.5 bar, is in excellent agreement with the prediction from thermodynamic analysis when the activities of carbon, SiC, and Si₃N₄ are set equal to those of the crystalline forms; this implies that the material crystallizes before decomposition. The amorphous to crystalline transition that occurs at ∼10 bar, and which is accompanied by weight gain, is likely to have taken place by a different mechanism. A nucleation and growth reaction with the atmospheric nitrogen is proposed as the likely mechanism. The supersaturation required to nucleate α-Si₃N₄ crystals is calculated to be 30 kJ/mol.     

Influence of Grain Size on Ferroelastic Toughening and Piezoelectric Behavior of Lead Zirconate Titanate

Lead zirconate titanate specimens, at composition Zr_{48.9+- 1.0}/ Ti_51.1+-1.0 of grain sizes ranging from 0.5 to 15 (μm were prepared by hot pressing. The fracture toughness showed a 40% increase in the fine-grained specimens. Poling produced anisotropy in the fracture toughness. A tensor representation for the fracture toughness, now a function of the crack plane normal and the poling direction, is developed. The maximum and minimum values in the toughness tensor are shown to be related to the unpoled toughness by a simple phenomenological relationship. We also find that the piezoelectric coefficient, d₃₃ , shows a slight increase for the fine-grained specimens, which is in conflict with the general view that smaller-grained materials can sustain vanishingly small values of spontaneous polarization.     

Influence of Distributed Particle Size on the Determination of the Parabolic Rate Constant for Oxidation by the Powder Method

The established analysis for the study of oxidation using powder specimens is based on the assumption of monosized particles. The experiments, however, are conducted on powders with a distributed particle size. Here we present a statistical approach for the calculation of the rate constant for oxidation. The results of the analysis are applied to new data on oxidation studies of dense powders of silicon carbonitride amorphous ceramics. The monosized model requires a wide range of values for the rate constant to fit the short term and the long-term data, leading to considerable ambiguity in the estimate of the parabolic rate constant, k _p, for oxidation. In contrast the statistical model fits over the entire range of data, yielding a much more reliable value for k _p. For example, the monosized approach gave a value in the range 19.7 × 10⁻¹⁸ < k _p < 2.7 × 10⁻¹⁸ m²/s. In contrast, the statistical model yields a specific value of 4.5 × 10⁻¹⁸ m²/s.     

Near infrared light-induced disassembly of polymeric micelles based on methylene blue conjugated polyethylene glycol

Light-sensitive drug delivery systems are considered ideal for applications in the biomedical fields for their ability to release the payload in an on-demand spatiotemporal controlled manner through the manipulation of the light source. Among the broad radiation spectrum, near infrared (NIR) light is considered advantageous compared to UV and visible light, due to its inherently lower photodamage to normal tissues and deeper penetration to lesion areas. In this study, we report a successful synthesis of a polymer capable of undergoing partial degradation upon irradiation with NIR light by conjugating 10-N-carbamoyl linkage methylene blue (MB) moiety, a NIR photocleavable ligand, with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Through effective coupling of MB, a hydrophobic moiety, to the hydrophilic PEG molecule, an amphiphilic polymer was synthesized, as demonstrated by a lowered surface tension (55 mN/m at 0.1% wt/vol). Subsequently, photo-induced reversal of surface activity associated with self-assembled structure disruption, was displayed by surface tension measurements, size distribution analysis, and burst release profile of paclitaxel (PTX) from polymeric micelles upon the exposure to NIR irradiation.     

Formulation and development of ophthalmic in situ gel for the treatment ocular inflammation and infection using application of quality by design concept

Context: The conventional liquid ophthalmic delivery systems exhibit short pre-corneal residence time and the relative impermeability to the cornea which leads to poor ocular bioavailability.

Objective: The aim of this study was to apply quality by design (QbD) for development of dexamethasone sodium phosphate (DSP) and tobramycin sulfate (TS)-loaded thermoresponsive ophthalmic in situ gel containing Poloxamer 407 and hydroxyl propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) K4M for prolonging the pre-corneal residence time, ocular bioavability and decreases the frequency of administration of dosage form. The material attributes and the critical quality attributes (CQA) of the in situ gel were identified. Central composite design (CCD) was adopted to optimize the formulation.

Materials and methods: The ophthalmic in situ forming gels were prepared by cold method. Materials attributes were the amount of Poloxamer 407 and HPMC and CQA identified were Gel strength, mucoadhesive index, gelation temperature and % of drug release of both drug.

Results and discussion: Optimized batch (F*) containing 16.75% poloxamer 407 and 0.54% HPMC K4M were exhibited all results in acceptable limits. Compared with the marketed formulation, optimized in situ gel showed delayed T_max, improved C_max and AUC in rabbit aqueous humor, suggesting the sustained drug release and better corneal penetration and absorption.

Conclusion: According to the study, it could be concluded that DSP and TS would be successfully formulated as in situ gelling mucoadhesive system for the treatment of steroid responsive eye infections with the properties of sustained drug release, prolonged ocular retention and improved corneal penetration.     

A blind medical image watermarking: DWT-SVD based robust and secure approach for telemedicine applications

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In this paper, a blind image watermarking scheme based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD) is proposed. In this scheme,...