Divinylsiloxane‐bisbenzocyclobutene‐based polymer modified with polystyrene–polybutadiene–polystyrene triblock copolymers

Divinylsiloxane‐bisbenzocyclobutene (DVS‐bisBCB) polymer has very low dielectric constant and dissipation factor, good thermal stability, and high chemical resistance. The fracture toughness of the thermoset polymer is moderate due to its high crosslink density. A thermoplastic elastomer, polystyrene–polybutadiene–polystyrene triblock copolymer, was incorporated into the matrix to enhance its toughness. The cured thermoset matrix showed different morphology when the elastomer was added to the B‐staged prepolymer or when the elastomer was B‐staged with the DVS‐bisBCB monomer. Small and uniformly distributed elastomer domains were detected by transmission electron micrographs (TEM) in the former case, but TEM did not detect a separate domain in the latter case. A high percentage of the polystyrene–polybutadiene–polystyrene triblock copolymer could be incorporated into the DVS‐bisBCB thermoset matrix by B‐staging the triblock copolymer with the BCB monomer. The elastomer increased the fracture toughness of DVS‐bisBCB polymer as indicated by enhanced elongation at break and increased K1c values obtained by the modified edge‐lift‐off test. Elastomer modified DVS‐bisBCB maintained excellent electrical properties, high T_g and good thermal stability, but showed higher coefficient of linear thermal expansion values. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 1591–1599, 2006     

Principle of event symmetry

To accommodate topology change, the symmetry of space-time must be extended from the diffeomorphism group of a manifold to the symmetric group acting on the discrete set of space-time events. This is the principle ofevent-symmetric space-time. I investigate a number of physical toy models with this symmetry to gain some insight into the likely nature of event-symmetric space-time. In the more advanced models the symmetric group is embedded into larger structures such as matrix groups which provide scope to unify space-time symmetry with the internal gauge symmetries of particle physics. I also suggest that the symmetric group of space-time could be related to the symmetric group acting to exchange identical particles, implying a unification of space-time and matter. I end with a definition of a new type of loop symmetry which is important in event-symmetric superstring theory.     

QCD corrections to the forward-backward asymmetries of c and b quarks at the Z pole

Measurements of the forward-backward production asymmetry of heavy quarks in Z decays provide a precise determination of . The asymmetries are sensitive to QCD effects, in particular hard gluon radiation. In this paper QCD corrections for and are discussed. The interplay between the experimental techniques used to measure the asymmetries and the QCD effects is investigated using simulated events. A procedure to estimate the correction needed for experimental measurements is proposed, and some specific examples are given. Received: 26 February 1998 / Published online: 2 June 1998     

Crystal structures of dimethylsuccinate and dimethyloxalate: Carbonyl group orientation for C13 chemical shielding tensor studies

The crystal structures of dimethylsuccinate (DMS) and dimethyloxalate (DMO) have been determined to facilitate the determination of the C-13 chemical shielding tensors of the carbonyl carbon in esters. Crystals of DMS are monoclinic, space groupC2/c,Z=4,a=13.154(4),b=6.156(1),c=9.363(4)Å,=98.53(3)°. The structure was solved by direct methods and refined by leastsquares procedures to giveR=0.071 for 932 observed data. Crystals of DMO are monoclinic space group,P2₁/n,Z=2, witha=3.891(1),b=11.879(2),c=6.213(2) Å,=103.32(2)°. The structure is the same (within experimental error) as that reported by Dougill and Jeffrey (1953) and refined to giveR=0.074 for 395 observed data.     

Truncation error bounds for modified continued fractions with applications to special functions

Much recent work has been done to investigate convergence of modified continued fractions (MCF's), following the proof by Thron and Waadeland [35] in 1980 that a limit-periodic MCFK(a _n , 1;x ₁), with andnth approximant

A confidence interval for the slope of a truncated regression

Summary Bhattacharya, Chernoff and Yang (1983) proposed a nonparametric estimate for the slope of a regression lineY = _o X + V subjected to the truncationYy ₀. The estimate corresponds to the zero-crossing of a random functionS _n (). In this paper an estimate for the asymptotic variance of the estimate of the slope is proposed and the rate of convergence is given. The proofs rest heavily on the local behavior ofS _n () in the neighborhood of the true value _o.