Synthesis and characterization of poly(arylene ether)s containing 6‐(4‐hydroxyphenyl)pyridazin‐3(2H)‐one or 6‐(4‐hydroxyphenyl)pyridazine moieties

A series of novel soluble pyridazinone‐ or pyridazine‐containing poly(arylene ether)s were prepared by a polycondensation reaction. The pyridazinone monomer, 6‐(4‐hydroxyphenyl)pyridazin‐3(2H)‐one ( 1 ), was synthesized from the corresponding acetophenone and glyoxylic acid in a simple one‐pot reaction. The pyridazinone monomer was successfully copolymerized with bisphenol A (BPA) or 1,2‐dihydro‐4‐(4‐hydroxyphenyl)phthalazin‐1(2H)‐one (DHPZ) and bis(4‐fluorophenyl)sulfone to form high‐molecular‐weight polymers. The copolymers had inherent viscosities of 0.5–0.9 dL/g. The glass‐transition temperatures (T_g's) of the copolymers synthesized with BPA increased with increasing content of the pyridazinone monomer. The T_g's of the copolymers synthesized from DHPZ with different pyridazinone contents were similar to those of the two homopolymers. The homopolymers showed T_g's from 202 to 291 °C by differential scanning calorimetry. The 5% weight loss temperatures in nitrogen measured by thermogravimetric analysis were in the range of 411–500 °C. 4‐(6‐Chloropyridazin‐3‐yl)phenol ( 2 ) was synthesized from 1 via a simple one‐pot reaction. 2 was copolymerized with 4,4′‐isopropylidenediphenol and bis(4‐fluorophenyl)sulfone to form high‐T_g polymers. The copolymers with less than 80 mol % pyridazinone or chloropyridazine monomers were soluble in chlorinated solvents such as chloroform. The copolymers with higher pyridazinone contents and homopolymers were not soluble in chlorinated solvents but were still soluble in dipolar aprotic solvents such as N‐methylpyrrolidinone. The soluble polymers could be cast into flexible films from solution. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 3328–3335, 2006     

Synthesis of TiO2–SiO2/polymer core–shell microspheres with a microphase‐inversion method

A novel microphase‐inversion method was proposed for the preparation of TiO₂–SiO₂/poly(methyl methacrylate) core–shell nanocomposite particles. The inorganic–polymer nanocomposites were first synthesized via a free‐radical copolymerization in a tetrahydrofuran solution, and the poor solvent was added slowly to induce the microphase separation of the nanocomposite and result in the formation of nanoparticles. The average particle sizes of the microspheres ranged from 70 to 1000 nm, depending on the reaction conditions. Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy indicated a core–shell morphology for the obtained microspheres. Thermogravimetric analysis and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements confirmed that the surface of the nanocomposite microspheres was polymer‐rich, and this was consistent with the core–shell morphology. The influence of the synthetic conditions, such as the inorganic composition and the content of the crosslinking monomer, on the particle properties was studied in detail. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 3911–3920, 2006     

Preparation and characterization of optically active polystyrene via a chiral nitroxide‐mediated polymerization

2,2,6,6‐Tetramethyl‐4‐[d‐(+)‐10‐camphorsulfonyl]‐1‐piperidinyloxy was synthesized and used as a chiral nitroxide for the bulk polymerizations of styrene initiated with benzoyl peroxide (BPO), tetraethylthiuram disulfide (TETD), and thermal initiation. The results showed that the polymerizations proceeded in a controlled/living way; that is, the kinetics presented approximately first‐order plots, and the number‐average molecular weights of the polymers with narrow molecular weight distributions (weight‐average molecular weight/number‐average molecular weight) increased with the monomer conversion linearly. The molecular weight distributions in the case of thermal initiation were narrower than those in the case of BPO and TETD, whereas the polymerization rate with BPO or TETD as an initiator was obviously faster than that with thermal initiation. In addition, successful chain‐extension reactions were carried out, and the structures of the obtained polymers were characterized by gel permeation chromatography and ¹H NMR. The specific rotations of the polymers were also measured by polarimetric analysis. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 1522–1528, 2006     

Positive Steady States of a Prey-predator Model with Diffusion and Non-monotone Conversion Rate

In this paper, we study the positive steady states of a prey-predator model with diffusion throughout and a non-monotone conversion rate under the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. We obtain some results of the existence and non-existence of positive steady states. The stability and uniqueness of positive steady states are also discussed.     

Locally symmetric positively curved Finsler spaces

We showed that any compact locally symmetric Finsler metric with positive flag curvature must be Riemannian. Dedicated to Professor Karsten Grove on the occassion of his sixtieth birthday Received: 8 May 2006     

On the sheaf of extendible ideals of topological algebras

In this paper a new sheaf for topological algebras, called the sheaf of extendible ideals, is introduced. It is shown that the sheaf space of this sheaf is uniformizable but not complete in general. The research of both of the authors was supported by Estonian Science Foundation grant 6205.     

Theory and Application of Characteristic Finite Element Domain Decomposition Procedures for Coupled System of Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Media

For a coupled system of multiplayer dynamics of fluids in porous media,the characteristic finiteelement domain decomposition procedures applicable to parallel arithmetic are put forward.Techniques suchas calculus of variations,domain decomposition,characteristic method,negative norm estimate,energy methodand the theory of prior estimates are adopted.Optimal order estimates in L~2 norm are derived for the error inthe approximate solution.     

Reformulation of the support set selection problem in the logical analysis of data

The paper is concerned with the problem of binary classification of data records, given an already classified training set of records. Among the various approaches to the problem, the methodology of the logical analysis of data (LAD) is considered. Such approach is based on discrete mathematics, with special emphasis on Boolean functions. With respect to the standard LAD procedure, enhancements based on probability considerations are presented. In particular, the problem of the selection of the optimal support set is formulated as a weighted set covering problem. Testable statistical hypothesis are used. Accuracy of the modified LAD procedure is compared to that of the standard LAD procedure on datasets of the UCI repository. Encouraging results are obtained and discussed.     

On the growth type of entire monogenic functions

In this paper we establish an explicit relation between the growth type of general entire solutions to the generalized Cauchy-Riemann system in \mathbbRⁿ⁺¹{\mathbb{R}^{n+1}} and their Taylor coefficients. This formula then enables us to compute the growth type of some higher dimensional generalizations of the trigonometric and special functions that are null-solutions to this system.     

Commutators of singular integrals on spaces of homogeneous type

In this work we prove some sharp weighted inequalities on spaces of homogeneous type for the higher order commutators of singular integrals introduced by R. Coifman, R. Rochberg and G. Weiss in Factorization theorems for Hardy spaces in several variables, Ann. Math. 103 (1976), 611–635. As a corollary, we obtain that these operators are bounded on L ^p (w) when w belongs to the Muckenhoupt’s class A _p , p > 1. In addition, as an important tool in order to get our main result, we prove a weighted Fefferman-Stein type inequality on spaces of homogeneous type, which we have not found previously in the literature.