Thermal oxidative stability and effect of water on gas transport and mechanical properties in PA6‐EVOH films

The thermal oxidative stability and the effect of water on gas transport and mechanical properties of blends of polyamide 6 (PA6) with ethylene‐co‐vinyl alcohol (EVOH) and EVOH modified with carboxyl groups (EVOH‐COOH) have been investigated. The presence of EVOH reduces water vapor and oxygen gas permeability of polyamide, as well as small amounts of EVOH‐COOH further improve barrier properties, especially to oxygen. This has been explained in terms of improved interactions of the blend constituents in the amorphous phase, due to ionic linkages between the polyamide amino groups and the carboxyls of modified EVOH. The permeation to gases was found to increase with the amount of sorbed water. The morphology of the samples was found to have an effect on barrier properties, as the presence of EVOH causes the PA6 α crystalline form to increase, lowering the permeability to oxygen and water vapor. Mechanical properties are strongly affected by water sorption, as tensile modulus and strength decrease with increasing water content. Chemiluminescence (CL), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and tensile test were employed in order to assess the correlation between chemical composition and the thermal oxidative stability of the films aged at 110 °C in air. CL experiments suggest that the presence of EVOH and EVOH‐COOH efficiently inhibits the formation of peroxidized species during the processing, and increases the thermal oxidative stability of the films. Infrared spectroscopy showed a build‐up of carbonyl absorption in the range 1700–1780 cm^?1, due to the formation of oxidation products, which is greater in the case of the pure polymer. Tensile tests on films revealed a reduction in ductility as a result of ageing for neat PA6, whereas in comparison the blends exhibit a far better long‐term stability. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 45: 840–849, 2007     

Urea-Formaldehyde Microcapsules Containing an Epoxy Resin: Influence of Reaction Parameters on the Encapsulation Yield

In this work urea-formaldehyde microcapsules containing an epoxy resin are prepared by in situ polymerization of monomers in an oil-in-water emulsion. Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) was performed to investigate on microcapsule size and surface morphology. Calorimetric and spectroscopic analyses were carried out with the aim of evaluate the encapsulation yield and the shell features. Factors determining the microencapsulability of the core material were described. In particular, our interest was devoted to a better understanding of the influence of the reaction parameters on the microcapsule properties. It was found that the encapsulation yield as well as the extent of urea-formaldehyde polymerization depends on the reaction temperature and the stirring speed.     

Cosmological Black Holes

In this paper we propose a model for the formation of the cosmological voids. We show that cosmological voids can form directly after the collapse of extremely large wavelength perturbations into low-density black holes or cosmological black holes (CBH). Consequently the voids are formed by the comoving expansion of the matter that surrounds the collapsed perturbation. It follows that the universe evolves, in first approximation, according to the Einstein-Straus cosmological model. We discuss finally the possibility to detect the presence of these black holes through their weak and strong lensing effects and their influence on the cosmic background radiation.     

PtCl(PHCy2)[(PCy2O)2H]: a hydrogen bonded phosphinito complex obtained by direct reaction of molecular oxygen with a terminal phosphido complex

Exposure of solid trans-[Pt(PHCy2)2(PCy2)Cl] (1) to dry oxygen unexpectedly leads to [PtCl(PHCy2)[(PCy2O)2H]] (2) as the major product, the formation of which has been followed by NOESY 1H NMR techniques.     

Concerning the efficient conversion of epoxy alcohols into epoxy ketones using dioxiranes

Representative epoxy alcohols are cleanly converted into the corresponding epoxy ketones in high yield by selective oxidation using dimethyldioxirane (1a) and its trifluoro analogue (1b) under mild conditions. The oxidation is found to take place leaving the configuration at the epoxy functionality unaffected. The direct oxyfunctionalization of simple cyclic epoxides with the powerful dioxirane 1b provides another attractive method to access epoxy ketones regioselectively.     

Characterization of gallotannins from Astronium species by flow injection analysis- electrospray ionization-ion trap-tandem mass spectrometry and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of- flight mass spectrometry

The species Astronium urundeuva (Allemao) Engl. and Astronium graveolens Jacq., which are used in Brazilian folk medicine to treat allergies, inflammation, diarrhea and ulcers, were investigated for their composition. The aim of this study was to define a rapid and reliable analytical approach, based on the flow-injection analysis-electrospray ionization-ion trap-tandem mass spectrometry (FIA-ESI-IT-MS-MS) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF-MS), to investigate the full range of hydrolyzable tannins present in the extracts of these Astronium species. The MALDI-ToF-MS analysis allowed us to ascertain the presence of hydrolysable tannins in both Astronium species as a series of gallotannins with degrees of polymerization of 7 to 13 galloyl units. Moreover, the analysis by FIA-ESI-IT-MS-MS, as well as confirming this result and chemically defining gallotannins as galloylglucose compounds, highlighted the presence of further classes of hydrolysable tannins, such as hexahydrodiphenoyl esters of glucose and some gallic acid derivatives, providing information about their structure by a careful study of their fragmentation patterns. Finally, the evaluation of the number of positional isomers of gallotannins occurring in both Astronium species was obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-ion trap mass spectrometry (HPLC/ESI-IT-MS). This is the first mass spectrometric evidence relating to the existence of gallotannins in Astronium genus.     

Synthesis and characterization of potentially biodegradable thermotropic polyesters based on p-hydroxybenzoic acid and glycolic acid

The synthesis of novel thermotropic liquid crystalline copolyesters derived from aliphatic hydroxy acid (glycolic acid, GA) and aromatic hydroxy acid (p-hydroxybenzoic acid, PHBA) via a melt-copolycondensation process in the presence of various catalysts was explored. The following three possible routes were checked: PHBA and GA in different feed ratios with or without a catalyst; PHBA and GA in different feed ratios with or without a catalyst in the presence of acetic anhydride as a condensation agent; and different PHBA derivatives were used to examine the reactivity of aromatic hydroxy acid. The copolycondensability, chemical structure, liquid crystallinity, textures and morphology, phase transition behaviors and thermal stability, and solubility were investigated by FTIR, NMR, DSC, TGA, and polarized-light microscope. It has been found that only the 60–70 mol % PHBA-containing copolyesters could exhibit a nematic liquid crystallinity. The as-prepared polymers were brittle due to relatively lower molecular weights. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Estimating the state of epidemics spreading with graph neural networks

When an epidemic spreads into a population, it is often impractical or impossible to continuously monitor all subjects involved. As an alternative, we propose using algorithmic solutions that can infer the state of the whole population from a limited number of measures. We analyze the capability of deep neural networks to solve this challenging task. We base our proposed architecture on Graph Convolutional Neural Networks. As such, it can reason on the effect of the underlying social network structure, which is recognized as the main component in spreading an epidemic. The proposed architecture can reconstruct the entire state with accuracy above 70%, as proven by two scenarios modeled on the CoVid-19 pandemic. The first is a generic homogeneous population, and the second is a toy model of the Boston metropolitan area. Note that no retraining of the architecture is necessary when changing the model.