Twin screw granulation – review of current progress

Twin screw granulation (TSG) is a new process of interest to the pharmaceutical community that can continuously wet granulate powders, doing so at lower liquid concentrations and with better product consistency than found by a high shear batch mixer. A considerable body of research has evolved over the short time since this process was introduced but generally with little comparison of results. A certain degree of confidence has been developed through these studies related to how process variables and many attributes of machinery configuration will affect granulation but some major challenges still lay ahead related to scalability, variations in the processing regimes related to degree of channel fill and the impact of wetting and granulation of complex powder formulations. This review examines the current literature for wet granulation processes studied in twin screw extrusion machinery, summarizing the influences of operational and system parameters affecting granule properties as well as strives to provide some practical observations to newly interested users of the technique.     

Protecting local access telecommunications networks: Toward a minimum-cost solution

The problem of designing fibre-optic networks for local-access telecommunications generates (at least) three non-trivial subproblems. In the first of these subproblems one must determine how many fibre-optic cables (fibres) are required at either end of a street. In the next subproblem a minimum-cost network must be designed to support the fibres. The network must also provide distinct paths from either end of the street to the central exchange(s). Finally, the fibre-optic cables must be placed in protective covers. These covers are available in a number of different sizes, allowing some flexibility when covering each section of the network. In this paper we describe a dynamic programming (DP) formulation for finding a minimum-cost (protective) covering for the network (the third of the subproblems). This problem is a generalised set covering problem with side constraints and is further complicated by the introduction of fixed and variable welding costs. The DP formulation selects covers along each arc (in the network), but cannot exactly model the fixed costs and so does not guarantee optimality. We also describe an integer programming (IP) formulation for assessing the quality of the DP solutions. The cost of the networks constructed by the IP model is less than those designed using the DP model, but the saving is not significant for the problems examined (less than 0.1%). This indicates that the DP model will generally give very good solutions. Furthermore, as the problem dimensions grow, DP gives significantly better solution times than IP.     

Platinum Binuclear Complexes as Phosphorescent Dopants for Monochromatic and White Organic Light‐Emitting Diodes

Efficient blue‐, green‐, and red‐light‐emitting organic diodes are fabricated using binuclear platinum complexes as phosphorescent dopants. The series of complexes used here have pyrazolate bridging ligands and the general formula C^∧NPt(μ‐pz)₂PtC^∧N (where C^∧N = 2‐(4′,6′‐difluorophenyl)pyridinato‐N,C^2′, pz = pyrazole ( 1 ), 3‐methyl‐5‐tert‐butylpyrazole ( 2 ), and 3,5‐bis(tert‐butyl)pyrazole ( 3 )). The Pt–Pt distance in the complexes, which decreases in the order 1 > 2 > 3 , solely determines the electroluminescence color of the organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs). Blue OLEDs fabricated using 8 % 1 doped into a 3,5‐bis(N‐carbazolyl)benzene (mCP) host have a quantum efficiency of 4.3 % at 120 Cd m^–2, a brightness of 3900 Cd m^–2 at 12 V, and Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.11, 0.24). Green and red OLEDs fabricated with 2 and 3 , respectively, also give high quantum efficiencies (～ 6.7 %), with CIE coordinates of (0.31, 0.63) and (0.59, 0.46), respectively. The current‐density–voltage characteristics of devices made using dopants 2 and 3 indicate that hole trapping is enhanced by short Pt–Pt distances (< 3.1 Å). Blue electrophosphorescence is achieved by taking advantage of the binuclear molecular geometry in order to suppress dopant intermolecular interactions. No evidence of low‐energy emission from aggregate states is observed in OLEDs made with 50 % 1 doped into mCP. OLEDs made using 100 % 1 as an emissive layer display red luminescence, which is believed to originate from distorted complexes with compressed Pt–Pt separations located in defect sites within the neat film. White OLEDs are fabricated using 1 and 3 in three different device architectures, either with one or two dopants in dual emissive layers or both dopants in a single emissive layer. All the white OLEDs have high quantum efficiency (～ 5 %) and brightness (～ 600 Cd m^–2 at 10 V).     

D-AKAP2, a novel protein kinase A anchoring protein with a putative RGS domain

Subcellular localization directed by specific A kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) is a mechanism for compartmentalization of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). Using a two-hybrid screen, a novel AKAP was isolated. Because it interacts with both the type I and type II regulatory subunits, it was defined as a dual specific AKAP or D-AKAP1. Here we report the cloning and characterization of another novel cDNA isolated from that screen. This new member of the D-AKAP family, D-AKAP2, also binds both types of regulatory subunits. A message of 5 kb pairs was detected for D-AKAP2 in all embryonic stages and in all adult tissues tested. In brain, skeletal muscle, kidney, and testis, a 10-kb mRNA was identified. In testis, several small mRNAs were observed. Therefore, D-AKAP2 represents a novel family of proteins. cDNA cloning from a mouse testis library identified the full length D-AKAP2. It is composed of 372 amino acids which includes the R binding fragment, residues 333-372, at its C-terminus. Based on coprecipitation assays, the R binding domain interacts with the N-terminal dimerization domain of RIalpha and RIIalpha. A putative RGS domain was identified near the N-terminal region of D-AKAP2. The presence of this domain raises the intriguing possibility that D-AKAP2 may interact with a Galpha protein thus providing a link between the signaling machinery at the plasma membrane and the downstream kinase.     

The Role of the γ/ γeutectic and porosity on the tensile behavior of a single-crystal nickel-base superalloy

The microstructure of a single-crystal nickel-base superalloy, PWA 1480, has been varied by heat treatment and hot isostatic pressing in order to study the role of the γ/yγ′ eutectic and porosity on subsequent tensile behavior. The level of porosity was found not to affect any of the tensile properties, while the γ/γ′ eutectic strongly influenced ductility. Eliminating the γ/γ′ eutectic increased ductility which was attributed to the cleavage fracture of this constituent. It is proposed that such cleavage of the γ/γ′ eutectic is initiated by the stress created from impinging slip bands, promoting shear localization, and final fracture along {111} slip planes. The precise nature of this fracture process is discussed with emphasis on the role of the γ/′ micro-structure. The deformation structure of PWA 1480 was also studied, and while different in some respects from many other single-crystal superalloys, its fracture process appears to be similar. Formerly Graduate Student, Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, Carnegie Mellon University.     

Thermoelectric properties of BiSb alloys

Bismuth is a semimetal that has a relatively low lattice thermal conductivity. A positive energy gap can be created by alloying with antimony, leading to useful alloys for thermoelectric energy conversion. This paper gives an insight into the basic properties of BiSb alloys for thermoelectric applications.     

Enhancing echo cancellation via estimation of delay

The advent of packetized audio transmission, such as voice over IP (VoIP), has resulted in challenging requirements for echo cancellation technology. One key aspect of this technology is the need to characterize, quickly and accurately, the echo paths in the transmission media. Echo paths consist of a constant time delay with no echo signal and active regions in which the echo signal is present. When an adaptive filter echo cancellation algorithm is used, its performance can be greatly increased, and its complexity can be reduced if it is only applied to the active regions. This requires an algorithm to estimate the constant delay and locate the active regions. Traditionally, delay estimation has been based on direct application of cross-correlation. This method has poor performance because the input signals are highly correlated and has a high implementation cost because many cross-correlation lags have to be computed for longer time delays. The delay estimation addressed in this paper has two major advantages over the traditional methods. The first is that it has improved performance because the input signals are processed to have less correlation. The second is that the implementation cost is significantly reduced because fewer cross-correlation lags are computed, and an efficient method to estimate lags is created.