Effect of annealing time on the self‐nucleation behavior of semicrystalline polymers

It is widely known that when a polymer is heated just above its melting point and is kept at a given temperature (denoted T_s) for a short time, when it is cooled down its nucleation density increases and its peak crystallization temperature shifts to higher temperatures, as detected for instance by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The T_s temperature range where the described process occurs has been named Domain II self‐nucleation (SN) because the selected T_s temperatures are high enough to melt the polymer without causing detectable annealing of any remnant crystals by DSC. Experimental results obtained by DSC, polarized light optical microscopy (PLOM), and rheology indicate that these techniques are unable to detect any remaining crystal fragments in Domain II. Our kinetic results demonstrate that Domain II SN is a transient phenomenon that can even disappear if enough time at T_s is allowed. Results of the study of the time dependence of the SN effect indicates two possibilities: (a) if crystal fragments are present (even if undetected by the employed techniques) their final melting is a very slow process (in the order of hours); (b) if all crystallites have melted in Domain II, then it may be more plausible to reinterpret self‐nuclei as arising from “precursors” whose detail nature has not been the subject of this investigation but that can be regarded as either a residual segmental orientation in the melt (i.e., a melt memory effect) or a mesophase in a preordered state. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 1738–1750, 2006     

Green chemical synthesis for well-defined and sharply distributed SiO2@FexOy particles

Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology - Using a non-toxic precursor, we created a green chemical synthesis for colloidal spheres with a core@shell structure having a silica core and an iron...     

Comparison of UV and charged aerosol detection approach in pharmaceutical analysis of statins

CAD (charged aerosol detector) has recently become a new alternative detection system in HPLC. This detection approach was applied in a new HPLC method for the determination of three of the major statins used in clinical treatment—simvastatin, lovastatin and atorvastatin.The method was optimized and the influence of individual parameters on CAD response and sensitivity was carefully studied. Chromatography was performed on a Zorbax Eclipse XDB C18 (4.6 mm × 75 mm, 3.5 μm), using acetonitrile and formic acid 0.1% as mobile phase. The detection was performed using both CAD (20 pA range) and DAD (diode array detector—238 nm) simultaneously connected in series. In terms of linearity, precision and accuracy, the method was validated using tablets containing atorvastatin and simvastatin.The CAD is designated to be a non-linear detector in a wide dynamic range, however, in this application and in the tested concentration range its response was found to be perfectly linear. The limits of quantitation (0.1 μg/ml) were found to be two times lower than those of UV detection.     

Recent Advances and Applications of “Successive Self-Nucleation and Annealing” (SSA) High Speed Thermal Fractionation

The Successive Self-nucleation and Annealing (SSA) thermal fractionation technique is briefly reviewed to highlight recent advances such as the use of high speed DSC concepts to perform faster fractionation. Additionally, recent applications of SSA to characterize confined semi-crystalline model polyethylenes in block copolymer nanophases and in situ prepared nanocomposites with carbon nanotubes are also reviewed. A novel result presented here deals with the use of a macromolecular plasticizer to improve the quality of SSA thermal fractionation.     

\mathfrak{g}-Relative Star Products

We consider Kontsevich star products on the duals of Lie algebras. Such a star product is relative if, for any Lie algebra, its restriction to invariant polynomial functions is the usual pointwise product. Let be a fixed Lie algebra. We shall say that a Kontsevich star product is -relative if, on ^*, its restriction to invariant polynomial functions is the usual pointwise product. We prove that, if is a semi-simple Lie algebra, the only strict Kontsevich -relative star products are the relative (for every Lie algebras) Kontsevich star products.     

Cohomology of Good Graphs and Kontsevich Linear State Products

Following the ideas presented in q-alg/9709040, we give the definition of Kontsevich star products for linear Poisson structures on ^d. We prove that all these structures are equivalent and can be defined by integral formulae. Finally, we characterize, among these star products, the Gutt and Duflo star products.     

Adhesin contribution to nanomechanical properties of the virulent Bordetella pertussis envelope

Adherence to a biological surface allows bacteria to colonize and persist within the host and represents an essential first step in the pathogenesis of most bacterial diseases. Consequently, the physicochemical properties of the outer membrane in bacteria play a key role for attachment to surfaces and therefore for biofilm formation. Bordetella pertussis is a Gram-negative bacterium that colonizes the respiratory tract of humans, producing whooping cough or pertussis, a highly infectious disease. B. pertussis uses various adhesins exposed on its surface to promote cell-surface and cell-cell interactions. The most dominant adhesin function is displayed by filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA). B. pertussis Tohama I wild-type (Vir+) strain and two defective mutants, an avirulent (Vir-) and a FHA-deficient (FHA-) B. pertussis strains were studied by AFM under physiological conditions to evaluate how the presence or absence of adhesins affects the mechanical properties of the B. pertussis cell surface. Quantitative information on the nanomechanical properties of the bacterial envelope was obtained by AFM force-volume analysis. These studies suggested that the presence of virulence factors is correlated with an increase in the average membrane rigidity, which is largely influenced by the presence of FHA. Moreover, for this system we built a nanoscale stiffness map that reveals an inhomogeneous spatial distribution of Young modulus as well as the presence of rigid nanodomains on the cell surface.     

Weak quadratic overgroups for a class of Lie groups

Let $G$ be a connected and simply connected Lie group with Lie algebra $\mathfrak g $ . We say that a subset $X$ in the set $\mathfrak g ^\star / G$ of coadjoint orbits is convex hull separable when the convex hulls differ for any pair of distinct coadjoint orbits in $X$ . In this paper, we define a class of solvable Lie groups, and we give an explicit construction of an overgroup $G^+$ and a quadratic map $\varphi $ sending each generic orbit in $\mathfrak g ^\star $ to a $G^+$ -orbit in $\mathfrak{g ^+}^\star $ , in such a manner that the set $\varphi (\mathfrak g ^\star _{gen}){/ G^+}$ is convex hull separable. We then call $G^+$ a weak quadratic overgroup for $G$ . Thanks to this construction, we prove that any nilpotent Lie group, with dimension at most 7 admits such a weak quadratic overgroup. Finally, we produce different examples of solvable Lie groups, having weak quadratic overgroups, but which are not in our class of Lie groups and for which usual constructions fail to hold.     

Separation of representations with quadratic overgroups

Any unitary irreducible representation π of a Lie group G defines a moment set Iπ, subset of the dual g^? of the Lie algebra of G. Unfortunately, Iπ does not characterize π. If G is exponential, there exists an overgroup G⁺ of G, built using real-analytic functions on g^?, and extensions π⁺ of any generic representation π to G⁺ such that Iπ⁺ characterizes π.In this paper, we prove that, for many different classes of group G, G admits a quadratic overgroup: such an overgroup is built with the only use of linear and quadratic functions.     

Kontsevich formality and cohomologies for graphs

A formality on a manifold M is a quasi isomorphism between the space of polyvector fields (T _poly(M)) and the space of multidifferential operators (D _poly(M)). In the case M=R ^d , such a mapping was explicitly built by Kontsevich, using graphs drawn in configuration spaces. Looking for such a construction step by step, we have to consider several cohomologies (Hochschild, Chevalley, and Harrison and Chevalley) for mappings defined on T _poly. Restricting ourselves to the case of mappings defined with graphs, we determine the corresponding coboundary operators directly on the spaces of graphs. The last cohomology vanishes.