the glass transition temperature (tg) and the melting temperature (tm) of gelatin at water contents between 7 and 14% were measured using differential scanning calorimetry.  the plasticisation of the polymer by water led to a decrease in tg and tm. the tg of partially crystalline gelatin was higher than that of the amorphous one obtained by quenching from the melt. the enthalpy relaxation occur...

The question of the local stability of the ~replica-symmetric! amorphous solid state is addressed for a class of systems undergoing a continuous liquid to amorphous-solid phase transition driven by the effect of random constraints. The Hessian matrix, associated with infinitesimal fluctuations around the stationary point corresponding to the amorphous solid state, is obtained. The eigenvalues o...

We propose a method to predict the value of the external strain where a generic amorphous solid will fail by a plastic response (i.e., an irreversible deformation), solely on the basis of measurements of the nonlinear elastic moduli. While usually considered fundamentally different, with the elastic properties describing reversible phenomena and plastic failure epitomizing irreversible behavior...

The evolution and annealing of pores in, and the crystallization of, vapor-deposited films of amorphous solid water have been studied by using variable-energy positron annihilation spectroscopy for temperatures in the range 50-150 K. Both positron and positronium annihilation provide insight to the nature of the grown-in pores and their evolution with temperature. Crystallization of the films w...

The amorphous state is of particular interest in the pharmaceutical industry due to the higher solubility that amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredients show compared to their respective crystalline forms. Due to their thermodynamic instability, drugs in the amorphous state tend to recrystallize; in order to avoid crystallization, it has been a common strategy to add a second component to hin...

Introduction An understanding of the crystallization kinetics of magnetic amorphous alloys is of scientific interest for two important reasons. First, for an alloy that exhibits excellent magnetic properties in its amorphous phase, the crystallization kinetics represent the limit at which these properties begin to deteriorate. Therefore, thermal stability determines the magnetic stability of th...

Amorphous computing considers the problem of controlling millions of spatially distributed unreliable devices which communicate only with nearby neighbors. To program such a system, we need a highlevel description language for desired global behaviors, and a system to compile such descriptions into locally executing code which robustly creates and maintains the desired global behavior. I survey...

Amorphous materials are often preferred in the pharmaceutical industry due to their enhanced dissolution rate and bioavailability. Since the amorphous state is metastable and less thermodynamically stable relative to the crystalline state, there is always the potential for unexpected crystallization during storage. Conversion of amorphous to crystalline state can be evaluated by stability studi...