Structure,morphology, and crystallization process of isotactic polypropylene/hydrogenated hydrocarbon resin blends

The structure, morphology, and isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization of isotactic polypropylene/low‐molecular‐mass hydrocarbon resin blends (iPP/HR) (up to 20% in weight of HR) have been studied, using optical and electron microscopy, wide‐ and small‐angle X‐ray and differential scanning calorimetry. New structures and morphologies can be activated, using appropriate preparation and crystallization conditions and blend composition. For every composition and crystallization condition, iPP crystallizes in α‐form, with a spherulitic morphology. The size of iPP spherulites increases with resin content, whereas the long period decreases. In the range of crystallization temperatures investigated, HR modifies the birefringence of iPP spherulites, favoring the formation of radial lamellae and changing the ratio between tangential and radial lamellae. Spherulitic radial growth rates, overall crystallization rates, and melting temperatures are strongly affected by resin, monotonically decreasing with resin content. This confirms miscibility in the melt between the two components of the blends. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 3368–3379, 2004     

Ferritin immunosensing on microfabricated electrodes based on the integration of immunoprecipitation and electrochemical signaling reactions.

A signal registration strategy from micropatterned immunosensors that converts antigen-antibody binding reactions into electrochemical signals was demonstrated. An array-type micropatterned gold electrode on a silicon wafer was fabricated, containing two electrode geometries of rectangular (100 microm x 500 microm) and circular (r. 50 microm) types, exhibiting electrochemical characteristics of bulk and micro-electrodes, respectively. Ferritin was employed as a model analyte for immunosensing because it has an advantageous molecular structure for functionalization to the sensing interface, and is regarded as a general marker protein for tumors and cancer recurrence. With the fabricated and ferritin-functionalized immunosensors, biospecific interactions were performed with antiferritin antiserum and secondary antibody samples, followed by electrochemical signaling via an immunoprecipitation reaction by the label enzyme. Under the optimized affinity-surface construction steps and reaction conditions, both types of microfabricated electrodes exhibited well-defined calibration results as a function of the protein concentration in antiserum samples. Furthermore, circular-type micropatterned immunoelectrodes exhibited voltammetric characteristics of microelectrodes, which is advantageous in terms of sensor operation under a fixed potential and low signal drift during the signaling reaction compared with the bulk-type electrodes. The results support that the employed signaling method with the proposed immunosensor configuration is fit for sensor miniaturization and integration to future biomicrosystems.     

Crystal structure of the 4-chromanone derivative.

The title compound was extracted from a natural product and its structure was characterized by an X-ray diffraction method. It crystallizes in the tetragonal space group P41 with cell parameters a = 15.832(10)A, c = 11.622(10)A, Z = 4; the final residual factor is R1 = 0.0769. The structure has both intra and intermolecular hydrogen bonds.     

The evolution of a truncated gaussian probability density through time—modelling animal liveweights after selection

The form of the probability density derived from the evolution in time of a previously truncated frequency distribution of animal Liveweights is of interest in animal husbandry. Truncated frequency distributions arise when the heavier animals are sold for slaughter and the lighter animals retained. The demands of modern quality assurance schemes require that, given information on animal growth, the farmer is able to estimate the number of animals that would meet the specifications at some time in the future after truncation. Assuming that animal growth can be described by a linear stochastic differential equation, we derive an explicit expression for the probability density of animal Liveweights at any time after the truncation of an initial Gaussian density. It is shown that this probability density converges rapidly to a Gaussian density, so that after about 20 days of typical growth rates for lambs, the resulting density is practically indistinguishable from Gaussian.     

Performance of a CW pumped Nd:YVO4 amplifier with kHz pulses

Until recently, simple and reliable high repetition-rate laser sources with nanosecond pulses much shorter than from conventional A-O Q-switch lasers were not available. However over the past 2 years we have developed such lasers based on proprietary fast E-O switching technology, which allows designs delivering 1 ns pulses and subnanosecond jitter for good synchronisation. The technology provides pulses with multi-kW peak power and repetition-rates to >100 kHz.Most recently, the performance of these short pulse lasers has been developed further by implementing oscillator/amplifier (master oscillator and power amplifier, MOPA) technology which increases the output to >1 W average power. Here we report on a simple model that has been used to predict the performance of the CW pumped Nd:YVO₄ amplifier used in the MOPA laser. The model is based on the well-known expressions for the saturated gain applying to laser pulses, but more usually applied to pulse-excited amplifiers. The model is shown to allow a good interpretation of the amplifier behaviour for kHz pulses and to be a useful tool for predicting the performance of the MOPA laser.     

Determination of flutter derivatives via a neural network approach

A neural-network-based method is offered to determine the flutter derivatives of section models under smooth and turbulent flows. The approach uses the observed dynamic responses to train an appropriate neural network. Subsequently, the modal parameters of the model for different mean velocities of wind flow are directly estimated using weight matrices in the neural network. The flutter derivatives can then be determined accurately. The validity of the present method is verified through numerical studies. Finally, the procedure is employed to process experimental data from an inverted-U-type section model, obtained from wind tunnel tests.     

Multi-Item Scheduling by Benders' Decomposition

Scheduling the production of several items requires the determination of production quantities in different periods in the presence of resource constraints. Several approximate and heuristic algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem. However, no method for finding an optimal solution has as yet been developed. It is shown that the problem may be solved advantageously using Benders' decomposition. The subproblem in Benders' decomposition is shown to be a transportation problem, and some strategies for solving the master problem are indicated. The paper concludes with a sample problem demonstrating the application of the method.     

Almost-Sure Central Limit Theorem for Directed Polymers and Random Corrections

We consider a general model of directed polymers on the lattice , weakly coupled to a random environment. We prove that the central limit theorem holds almost surely for the discrete time random walk X _T associated to the polymer. Moreover we show that the random corrections to the cumulants of X _T are finite, starting from some dimension depending on the index of the cumulants, and that there are corresponding random corrections of order , , in the asymptotic expansion of the expectations of smooth functions of X _T . Full proofs are carried out for the first two cumulants. We finally prove a kind of local theorem showing that the ratio of the probabilities of the events to the corresponding probabilities with no randomness, in the region of “moderate” deviations from the average drift bT, are, for almost all choices of the environment, uniformly close, as , to a functional of the environment “as seen from (T,y)$”. Received: 14 October 1996 / Accepted: 28 March 1997     

Diffusive behavior of asymmetric zero-range processes

We investigate a new interpretation for the Navier-Stokes corrections to the hydrodynamic equation of asymmetric interacting particle systems. We consider a system that starts from a measure associated with a profile that is constant along the drift direction. We show that under diffusive scaling the macroscopic behavior of the process is described by a nonlinear parabolic equation whose diffusion coefficient coincides with the diffusion coefficient of the hydrodynamic equation of the symmetric version of the process.     

Heavy Majorana neutrinos in e + e − → W + W−

In this paper we investigate the effects of heavy Majorana neutrinos in the reaction e ⁺ e ^? → W ⁺ W ^?. We consider neutrino masses in the 1–10 TeV region. We show that at LEP II and NLC energies it is possible to use this processes to verify indirect evidence of heavy neutral particles with mixing angles of the order sin² α = 0.01. We discuss the unitarity restrictions that can be obtained for vector singlet and fermion-mirror-fermion models.