Temperature modulated DSC study of the kinetics of free radical isothermal network polymerization

Temperature modulated differential scanning calorimetry (TMDSC) is used to study the kinetics of the free radical isothermal polymerization of triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA). Azo-bis-isobutironitrile was used as initiator. The polymerization’s temperature is lower than the final glass transition temperature of the polymer network. The measurement of the average heat flow released and the heat capacity during the reaction allows identifying the different stages of the reaction. The presence of double peaks in the heat flow is ascribed to the autoacceleration. The influence of temperature, measuring conditions and oxygen are described. Vitrification is detected by the drop in heat capacity. It occurs at increasing conversion rates for increasing temperatures. After vitrification, the diffusion-controlled reaction continues.     

A potentiometric DNA sensor for determining autoimmune antibodies to DNA

A new technique is proposed for detecting interactions between DNA and DNA autoimmune antibodies using a potentiometric sensor based on a glassy-carbon electrode modified with polyaniline and native DNA from chicken erythrocytes. It is shown that the DNA-antibody interaction changes the rate of polyaniline doping in transferring the DNA sensor from an alkaline (pH 7.5) solution, which is optimum for the immunochemical reaction, to an acidic (pH 3.0) solution. The dynamics of the variation of the DNA sensor potential depends on the titer of antibodies and their origin. The dependence of the DNA sensor signal on the dilution of the blood sera from systemic lupus erythematosus and autoimmune thyroiditis patients shows that DNA antibodies can be diagnosed by the characteristic maximum in the dilution curve found in the range of serum dilutions from 1: 20 to 1: 50.     

Polarization dynamics of longitudinally monomode bipolarized microchip solid-state lasers

This paper is devoted to the polarization dynamics of a longitudinally monomode bipolarized Nd:YAG laser: the low-frequency polarization dynamics of a microchip laser is studied experimentally and theoretically. The intensities and the relaxation oscillation spectrum of orthogonally polarized modes versus the direction of pump polarization is observed. A phase-sensitive model of a longitudinally monomode bipolarized solid-state laser with linear polarized diode laser pump is developed to account for the experimental observations.     

Scalar and axial-vector mesons

Almost thirty years ago, Penny G. Estabrooks asked “Where and what are the scalar mesons?” (P. Estabrooks, Phys. Rev. D 19, 2678 (1979)). The first part of her question can now be confidently responded (E. van Beveren et al., Z. Phys. C 30, 615 (1986)). However, with respect to the “What” many puzzles remain unanswered. Scalar and axial-vector mesons form part of a large family of mesons. Consequently, though it is useful to pay them some extra attention, there is no point in discussing them as isolated phenomena. The particularity of structures in the scattering of --basically-- pions and kaons with zero angular momentum is the absence of the centrifugal barrier, which allows us to “see” strong interactions at short distances. Experimentally observed differences and similarities between scalar and axial-vector mesons on the one hand, and other mesons on the other hand, are very instructive for further studies. Nowadays, there exists an abundance of theoretical approaches towards the mesonic spectrum, ranging from confinement models of all kinds, i.e., glueballs, and quark-antiquark, multiquark and hybrid configurations, to models in which only mesonic degrees of freedom are taken into account. Nature seems to come out somewhere in the middle, neither preferring pure bound states, nor effective meson-meson physics with only coupling constants and possibly form factors. As a matter of fact, apart from a few exceptions, like pions and kaons, Nature does not allow us to study mesonic bound states of any kind, which is equivalent to saying that such states do not really exist. Hence, instead of extrapolating from pions and kaons to the remainder of the meson family, it is more democratic to consider pions and kaons mesonic resonances that happen to come out below the lowest threshold for strong decay. Nevertheless, confinement is an important ingredient for understanding the many regularities observed in mesonic spectra. Therefore, excluding quark degrees of freedom is also not the most obvious way of describing mesons in general, and scalars and axial-vectors in particular.