Glass transition in semicrystalline polycarbonate

The intensity of the glass transition in semicrystalline polycarbonate was measured by differential scanning calorimetry and by thermally stimulated discharge of electrets. Solution-cast and bulk-crystallized samples possessing widely varying crystallinities and morphologies were investigated. It is shown that the intensity of the glass transition is governed by the extent of primary crystallization and is a linear combination of intensities from the bulk amorphous regions and from noncrystalline polymer within semicrystalline aggregates such as spherulites. The intensity of the glass transition within spherulites is about 0.1–0.3 as great as that in bulk amorphous regions. A three-phase model incorporating two distinct types of noncrystalline polycarbonate is proposed to account for the properties of this polymer.     

Plastic deformation of polypropylene VII. Long period as function of temperature and rate of drawing

Polypropylene fibers prepared by quenching in ice-water were drawn at 25, 80, 120, and 140°C to a draw ratio between 6 and 8 at draw rates 0.05, 0.5, 5, and 50 cm/min. The long period increases almost linearly with the draw rate for drawing at 25°C and decreases for drawing at higher temperatures. The effect in the latter cases is an annealing effect. As a consequence of the shorter exposure of the drawn fibers to the high temperature at higher draw rate, the long-period growth proceeds for a shorter time and hence results in a smaller increase of long period. At 25°C, however, the long-period growth is negligible. The increase of long period with draw rate is the consequence of higher adiabatic heating as calculated from the energy input during the plastic deformation which transforms the spherulitic into the fibrous structure. One concludes that the long period established during this transformation depends on the maximum temperature reached in the micronecking zone and not on the macroscopically observed temperature of the sample in the neck.     

Kainic acid: its tritiation revisited with added technical details

Kainic acid is a marine natural product and extremely useful for neuroscience research. A number of years ago, a preliminary account of its tritiation was reported and based on decades of experience with it, updated technical details about its tritium labelling as well as storage, stability and repurification are described.

     

Microbial and enzymatic hydrolysis of tannic acid: influence of substrate chemical quality

Tannic acid is commonly employed as the main component in culture media for the selection of tannase-producing strains. In biotechnological processes it is the favorite substrate used to induce the tannase enzyme in both solid and submerged culture for microbial and/or enzymatic production of gallic acid. However, the results found in literature are inconsistent notwithstanding the strict control of all parameters that rule the bioprocesses. The present work, for the first time, reveals the importance of differences in the quality and chemical profile of tannic acid from different suppliers and their influence on the fungal and enzymatic hydrolytic pattern obtained when it is used as a substrate. A degree of hydrolysis between 64.7 % and 100 % has been determined in different tannic acid samples. The specific growth rate of 0.712 h^?1, 0.792 h^?1, 0.477 h^?1, 0.536 h^?1 for Jalmek®, Faga Lab®, Division Food®, and Riedel de Häen®, respectively, was obtained at the concentration of 80 g L^?1 of each of the tannic acids.     

Network congestion control with Markovian multipath routing

In this paper we consider an integrated model for TCP/IP protocols with multipath routing. The model combines a Network Utility Maximization for rate control based on end-to-end queueing delays, with a Markovian Traffic Equilibrium for routing based on total expected delays. We prove the existence of a unique equilibrium state which is characterized as the solution of an unconstrained strictly convex program. A distributed algorithm for solving this optimization problem is proposed, with a brief discussion of how it could be implemented by adapting the current Internet protocols.     

Fourier analysis of polymer x-ray diffraction patterns

In analyzing the shapes of diffraction peaks from polymers, it has been mistakenly assumed that it is possible to distinguish between models based on “microstrains” and on paracrystallinity. It is shown that either paracrystallinity or distortions due to dislocations give rise to disorder of the second kind and cannot be distinguished by current diffraction methods. Fourier analysis of shapes of peaks from polymers gives quite satisfactory results, despite comments in the literature to the contrary. The analysis can now be carried out with single peaks; multiple orders are not required.     

Polydispersity effects in polymer self-diffusion measured by small-angle neutron scattering

The small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) method for measuring the self-diffusion coefficient D has been analyzed for effects of polydispersity in degree of polymerization for the case of linear polymers diffusing by reptation. Polydispersities corresponding to M_w/M_n = 1.0?10 were considered. It is shown that in all cases a meaningful effective diffusion coefficient D_e can be obtained from the short time recovery of the SANS intensity. This quantity D_e ≤ 1.3 D(M_w), where D(M_w) is the diffusion coefficient of a monodisperse polymer having molecular weight M = M_w. The method relies on SANS intensities extrapolated to zero scattering angle; realistic extrapolation is shown to give rise to quite acceptable errors on the order of 0.05 D_e.     

Geometric Criterium in the Center Problem

In this paper, we use a geometric criterium based on the classical method of the construction of Lyapunov functions to determine if a differential system has a focus or a center at a singular point. This criterium is proved to be useful for several examples studied in previous works with other more specific methods.