Rheology of asphalts modified with glycidylmethacrylate functionalized polymers

Asphalt is known to be a colloidal suspension in which asphaltenes are covered by a stabilizing phase of polar resins and form complex micelles that are dispersed in the oily maltenic phase. In order to enhance its mechanical properties (e.g., in road paving), asphalts are often loaded with polymeric materials, thereby obtaining blends that can have different physical or chemical structures, depending on the composition of the added polymer. Asphalts modified by the addition of reactive ethylene terpolymers were prepared and their dielectric and rheological properties were measured both before and after a cure at high temperature. Even if it is not possible to determine the exact nature of the chemical interactions between asphalt and polymer, master curves obtained from dynamic data clearly show that during the cure the material tends to the behavior of a cross-linked network.     

Rheological properties of asphalt/SBS/clay blends

The effect of the addition of clay as a third component in polymer modified asphalts has been investigated. After a preliminary investigation on the binary asphalt/clay and polymer/clay blends, the tertiary blends were prepared by adding the clay and polymer to the asphalt, either separately or in the form of a premixed master batch. Intercalated nanocomposites with comparable interlayer distances and glass transition temperatures were obtained in both cases. However, the results show that the mixing procedure significantly affected the final rheological properties. The master curves built in the linear viscoelastic range and represented in both the frequency and the temperature domains help to visualize and evaluate such differences.     

A study of the sign problem for lattice QCD with chemical potential

We study the expectation value of the phase of the fermion determinant for Wilson lattice fermions with chemical potential. We use quenched SU(3)$\mathrm{SU}(3)$ ensembles and implement a recently proposed exact dimensional reduction of the fermion determinant. Ensembles at several temperatures below and above the phase transition are studied and we analyze the role of the quark mass, the temperature, the volume and the topological sectors. We compare our numerical results to predictions from chiral perturbation theory.     

Revealing the seed proteome of the health benefitting grain amaranth (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Amaranthus cruentus</Emphasis> L.)

Amaranth, a staple food source in ancient Aztec, Maya and Inca cultures, has been recognised as a 21st century crop. This superfood, known as Inca wheat, attracts the worldwide attention of researchers and farmers for its superior agronomical and technological properties but especially because of its exceptional nutritive value. A combination of two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) with MS facilitating the effective differentiation of 13 classes of Amaranthus cruentus L. “Ficha” mature seed proteins was used in the current study. The best resolution results in the 2-DE were obtained using immobilised pH gradients strips with a pH range of 5–8. Out of the 461 spots detected, 249 were successfully identified by LC-MS/MS analysis, making this the most inclusive protein profile of mature amaranth seed. Unknown proteins represented the most abundant class of proteins (59), the second most abundant category was related to energy (46) and then to seed storage proteins (43). These results expand the knowledge of the amaranth seed proteome and it is expected that the data presented here will contribute to further in-depth characterisation of Amaranthus seeds.     

Influence of supercurrents on the stability of superconducting magnets

Supercurrents were recently identified as a source of reduced magnet stability which can explain the measured ramp rate limitation in large superconducting magnets. They also explain an unexpected periodic field modulation along the axes of superconducting accelerator dipoles. Supercurrents are extra coupling currents between the strands of a cable which are induced by a variable field sweep rate (x) along the length of the cable. They flow over the whole cable length and have time constants many orders of magnitudes larger than ‘normal' interstrand coupling currents. Supercurrents may lead to a highly inhomogeneous current distribution and to additional coupling losses (‘supercurrent losses'), even in magnet sections with =0. Both effects can drastically reduce the magnet stability during fast ramping up. The complete solution of the space and time dependence is given for a two-strand model cable. The theory of supercurrents can explain typical results of ramp rate limitation in large magnets.     

Fluorescence Dynamics of Monocyclodextrin– and Bis(thiol‐cyclodextrin)–Coumarin C153 Complexes

The solvation and confinement of coumarin C153 within supramolecular host/guest complexes based on β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD) and 6‐deoxy‐6‐thio‐β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD‐SH) in water are studied by fluorescence spectroscopy. For β‐CD/C153, the 1:1 complex is proposed, and for β‐CD‐SH/C153 both the 1:1 and 2:1 complexes are believed to be formed. The 2:1 β‐CD‐SH/C153 complex has an association constant of 4.2×10⁵ M ^?1 and a C153 population of 82 %, which are interestingly high values, indicating that the proposed β‐CD‐SH dimers structure are connected by covalent disulfide bonds; this is supported by mass spectrometry. Solvation related to fast hydrogen‐bond rearrangement as a part of fluorescence relaxation is determined by the ultrafast components of time‐resolved spectroscopy to be 3 and 7 ps for the 1:1 β‐CD/C153 and 2:1 β‐CD‐SH/C153 complexes, respectively.