Bulk level, properties associated with

In the present work, such a systematic approach to the physical characterization of pharmaceutical solids is outlined. Techniques available for the study of physical properties are classified as being associated with the molecular level (properties associated with individual molecules), the particulate level (properties pertaining to individual solid particles), and the bulk level (properties associated with an ensemble of particulates). Acquisition of this range of physical information yields a total profile of the pharmaceutical solid in question, whether it is an active drug, an excipient, or a blend of these. The development of a total profile is a requirement for successful manufacture of any solid dosage form. 

In Chapter 2, a brief discussion of statistical mechanics was presented. Statistical mechanics provides, in theory, a means for determining physical properties that are associated with not one molecule at one geometry, but rather, a macroscopic sample of the bulk liquid, solid, and so on. This is the net result of the properties of many molecules in many conformations, energy states, and the like. In practice, the difficult part of this process is not the statistical mechanics, but obtaining all the information about possible energy levels, conformations, and so on. Molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are two methods for obtaining this information... 

This variation in the properties of polymers along their interfaces with inclusions is extended to layers of a sometimes significant thickness. This follows from the fact that, if only a thin surface-layer of the polymer was affected by its contact with the other phase, then the change in Tg should be insignificant, since the level of the glass transition temperature is associated with the bulk of the polymer, or, at least, with a large portion of it. 

Several important effects are equilibrium in nature, for example spectral shifts associated with solvent induced changes in solute energy levels are equilibrium properties of the solvent-solute system. Obviously, such observables may themselves be associated with dynamical phenomena, in the example of solvent shifts it is the dynamics of solvation that affects their dynamical evolution (see Chapter 15). Another class of equilibrium effects on radiation-matter interaction includes properties derived from symmetry rules. A solvent can affect a change in the equilibrium configuration of a chromophore solute and consequently the associated selection rules for a given optical transition. Some optical phenomena are sensitive to the symmetry of the environment, for example, surface versus bulk geometry. 

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