Electrospinning of ultrafine cellulose acetate fibers: Studies of a new solvent system and deacetylation of ultrafine cellulose acetate fibers

Electrospinning of cellulose acetate (CA) in a new solvent system and the deacetylation of the resulting ultrafine CA fibers were investigated. Ultrafine CA fibers (∼2.3 μm) were successfully prepared via electrospinning of CA in a mixed solvent of acetone/water at water contents of 10–15 wt %, and more ultrafine CA fibers (0.46 μm) were produced under basic pH conditions. Ultrafine cellulose fibers were regenerated from the homogeneous deacetylation of ultrafine CA fibers in KOH/ethanol. It was very rapid and completed within 20 min. The crystal structure, thermal properties, and morphology of ultrafine CA fibers were changed according to the degree of deacetylation, finally to those of pure cellulose, but the nonwoven fibrous mat structure was maintained. The activation energy for the deacetylation of ultrafine CA fibers was 10.3 kcal/mol. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 5–11, 2004     

Desorption behavior of a surfactant in a linear low‐density polyethylene blend at elevated temperatures

The desorption behavior of a surfactant in a linear low‐density polyethylene (LLDPE) blend at elevated temperatures of 50, 70, and 80 °C was studied with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The composition of the LLDPE blend was 70:30 LLDPE/low‐density polyethylene. Three different specimens (II, III, and IV) were prepared with various compositions of a small molecular penetrant, sorbitan palmitate (SPAN‐40), and a migration controller, poly(ethylene acrylic acid) (EAA), in the LLDPE blend. The calculated diffusion coefficient (D) of SPAN‐40 in specimens II, III, and IV, between 50 and 80 °C, varied from 1.74 × 10^?11 to 6.79 × 10^?11 cm²/s, from 1.10 × 10^?11 to 5.75 × 10^?11 cm²/s, and from 0.58 × 10^?11 to 4.75 × 10^?11 cm²/s, respectively. In addition, the calculated activation energies (E_D) of specimens II, III, and IV, from the plotting of ln D versus 1/T between 50 and 80 °C, were 42.9, 52.7, and 65.6 kJ/mol, respectively. These values were different from those obtained between 25 and 50 °C and were believed to have been influenced by the interference of Tinuvin (a UV stabilizer) at elevated temperatures higher than 50 °C. Although the desorption rate of SPAN‐40 increased with the temperature and decreased with the EAA content, the observed spectral behavior did not depend on the temperature and time. For all specimens stored over 50 °C, the peak at 1739 cm^?1 decreased in a few days and subsequently increased with a peak shift toward 1730 cm^?1. This arose from the carbonyl stretching vibration of Tinuvin, possibly because of oxidation or degradation at elevated temperatures. In addition, the incorporation of EAA into the LLDPE blend suppressed the desorption rate of SPAN‐40 and retarded the appearance of the 1730 cm^?1 peak. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 1114–1126, 2004     

Effects of poly[styrene‐b‐(ethylene‐co‐butylene)‐b‐styrene] on the charge distributions of low‐density polyethylene/polystyrene blends

The effect of the triblock copolymer poly[styrene‐b‐(ethylene‐co‐butylene)‐b‐styrene] (SEBS) on the formation of the space charge of immiscible low‐density polyethylene (LDPE)/polystyrene (PS) blends was investigated. Blends of 70/30 (wt %) LDPE/PS were prepared through melt blending in an internal mixer at a blend temperature of 220 °C. The amount of charge that accumulated in the 70% LDPE/30% PS blends decreased when the SEBS content increased up to 10 wt %. For compatibilized and uncompatibilized blends, no significant change in the degree of crystallinity of LDPE in the blends was observed, and so the effect of crystallization on the space charge distribution could be excluded. Morphological observations showed that the addition of SEBS resulted in a domain size reduction of the dispersed PS phase and better interfacial adhesion between the LDPE and PS phases. The location of SEBS at a domain interface enabled charges to migrate from one phase to the other via the domain interface and, therefore, resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of space charge for the LDPE/PS blends with SEBS. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 2813–2820, 2004     

Fabrication and Characteristics of Sol-Gel Derived Fluorinated Hybrid Material Films

Fluorinated inorganic-organic hybrid materials (HYBRIMER) were successfully prepared from fluoroalkylsilanes (FASs) containing fluoro-alkyl functions and methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) through a sol-gel process. The influence of concentration and fluoro-alkyl chain lengths of FASs on the physical characteristics of the fluorinated HYBRIMER films was examined. Larger fluorine contents lowered the refractive index within a range, which was closely dependent on the fluoro-alkyl chain lengths of FASs. Thermo-optic coefficients (TOC) were negative values, and the values grew with increasing fluorine contents and fluoro-alkyl chain lengths. Also, the thermal stability is enhanced by addition of fluorine in the HYBRIMER.     

On division rings with algebraic commutators of bounded degree

We shall answer several questions concerning additive or multiplicative commutators in a division ring which are algebraic of bounded degree over its center.     

The classical limit of the relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system in two space dimensions

The motion of a collisionless plasma is modelled by the Vlasov–Maxwell system. In this paper, solutions of the relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system are considered in two space dimensions. The speed of light, c, appears as a parameter in the system. With representations of the electric and magnetic fields, conditions are established under which solutions of the relativistic Vlasov–Maxwell system converge pointwise to solutions of the non‐relativistic Vlasov–Poisson system as c tends to infinity, at the asymptotic rate of 1/c. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS quad-band GSM RF transceiver using an efficient LO frequency plan

This paper describes a single-chip CMOS quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) RF transceiver for GSM/GPRS applications. It is the most important design issue to maximize resource sharing and reuse in designing the multiband transceivers. In particular, reducing the number of voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) required for local oscillator (LO) frequency generation is very important because the VCO and phase-locked loop (PLL) circuits occupy a relatively large area. We propose a quad-band GSM transceiver architecture that employs a direct conversion receiver and an offset PLL transmitter, which requires only one VCO/PLL to generate LO signals by using an efficient LO frequency plan. In the receive path, four separate LNAs are used for each band, and two down-conversion mixers are used, one for the low bands (850/900 MHz) and the other for the high bands (1800/1900 MHz). A receiver baseband circuit is shared for all four bands because all of their channel spaces are the same. In the transmit path, most of the building blocks of the offset PLL, including a TX VCO and IF filters, are integrated. The quad-band GSM transceiver that was implemented in 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS technology has a size of 3.3/spl times/3.2 mm/sup 2/, including its pad area. From the experimental results, we found that the receiver provides a maximum noise figure of 2.9 dB and a minimum IIP3 of -13.2dBm for the EGSM 900 band. The transmitter shows an rms phase error of 1.4/spl deg/ and meets the GSM spectral mask specification. The prototype chip consumes 56 and 58 mA at 2.8 V in the RX and TX modes, respectively.     

Fast DCT algorithm with fewer multiplication stages

A novel fast DCT scheme with reduced multiplication stages and fewer additions and multiplications is proposed. The proposed algorithm is structured so that most multiplications tend to be performed at the final stage, which reduces the propagation error that could occur in the fixed-point computation. Minimisation of the multiplication stages can further decrease the error     

Virtual circuit connection method for RSVP multicasting supportingheterogeneous receivers on the ATM network

The authors suggest a novel virtual circuit connection method based on the reverse traversing technique to minimise the waste of network bandwidth resources, when the Internet protocol multicast is interoperated using the resource reservation protocol over an asynchronous transfer mode network. Simulation results show that, as the number of receivers increases, the bandwidth requirements on all links of the network of the proposed scheme become more advantageous than those of other conventional methods