Preparation of macromonomers by copolymerization of methyl acrylate dimer involving β fragmentation

The unsaturated dimer of methyl acrylate [CH₂C(CO₂CH₃)CH₂CH₂CO₂CH₃, or MAD] was copolymerized with various monomers to prepare copolymers bearing the ω-unsaturated end group [CH₂C(CO₂CH₃)CH₂ ] arising from β fragmentation of the MAD propagating radical. Copolymerizations of MAD with cyclohexyl and n-butyl acrylate resulted in copolymers with ω-unsaturated end groups, and increasing the temperature up to 180 °C resulted in an increase in the rate of β fragmentation of MAD radicals relative to propagation. Only a small amount of unsaturated end groups was introduced by copolymerization with ethyl methacrylate (EMA), and the EMA content in the copolymer increased with temperature. These findings could be explained by the reversible addition of the poly(EMA) radical to MAD. The copolymerization with ethyl α-ethyl acrylate (EEA) did yield a copolymer containing unsaturated end groups with MAD units as part of the main chain, although the steric hindrance of the ethyl group suppressed homopropagation and crosspropagation of EEA, resulting in low polymerization rates. Therefore, the copolymerization of MAD with acrylic esters at high temperatures was noted as a convenient route for obtaining acrylate–MAD copolymers bearing unsaturated end groups at the ω end (macromonomer). © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 597–607, 2004     

Fracture mechanism of liquid‐crystalline epoxy resin systems with different phase structures

A liquid‐crystalline epoxy resin was cured at two different temperatures. The phases of the cured systems clearly showed isotropic and nematic polydomain structures, which depended on the curing temperature. The fracture toughness of the systems was measured, and the fracture mechanism was investigated with polarized IR measurements. The nematic polydomain structure system showed considerably higher fracture toughness than the isotropic structure. Moreover, both systems exhibited a reorientation of the network chains near the fracture surface during the fracture process, and the region of the network reorientation in the nematic polydomain structure system was larger than that in the isotropic structure system. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 4044–4052, 2004     

Classification of Extremal Double Circulant Self-Dual Codes of Lengths 64 to 72

Recently extremal double circulant self-dual codes have been classified for lengths n ≤ 62. In this paper, a complete classification of extremal double circulant self-dual codes of lengths 64 to 72 is presented. Almost all of the extremal double circulant singly-even codes given have weight enumerators for which extremal codes were not previously known to exist.     

Action learning versus strategy learning

This article seeks to ascertain whether the strategy‐learning model of Hanaki, Sethi, Erev, and Peterhansl (2003) better accounts for observed behavior than do the various action‐learning models. It does so by measuring the goodness‐of‐fit of the models' predictions against published experimental results for such games as Coordination, Prisoner's Dilemma, and Chicken. The fit is measured via the mean squared deviation (MSD) between the observed behavior and the one predicted by the model. The results show that, for Chicken, the strategy‐learning model fits the observed data much better than do the action‐learning models. The best action‐learning model, on the other hand, fits the observed data well in Coordination. Overall, the strength of the strategy‐learning model is best shown in games where alternations between the two stage‐game Nash equilibria are often observed in the laboratory experiments. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 9: 41–50, 2004     

Endoscopic Observation of Tissue by Narrowband Illumination

We propose a new illumination method for a medical endoscope: narrow band imaging (NBI), in which the spectral bandwidth of the filtered light is narrowed. To confirm how the spectral specifications of the filtered light influence a reproduced image, an experiment was conducted observing the endoscopic images of the back mucosa of a human tongue. In addition, the effect of NBI on endoscopic images was investigated through preliminary clinical tests in colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. It has been shown that NBI can enhance the capillary pattern and the crypt pattern on the mucosa. These patterns are useful features for diagnosing an early cancer.     

Self-Orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) Designs and Extremal Doubly-Even Self-Dual Codes of Length 56

In this paper, we show that the code generated by the rows of a block-point incidence matrix of a self-orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) design is a doubly-even self-dual code of length 56. As a consequence, it is shown that an extremal doubly-even self-dual code of length 56 is generated by the codewords of minimum weight. We also demonstrate that there are more than one thousand inequivalent extremal doubly-even self-dual [56,28,12] codes. This result shows that there are more than one thousand non-isomorphic self-orthogonal 3-(56,12,65) designs. AMS Classification: 94B05, 05B05     

Hydrogel‐like elastic membrane consisting of semi‐interpenetrating polymer networks based on a phosphorylcholine polymer and a segmented polyurethane

To obtain a hydrogel‐like elastic membrane, we prepared semi‐interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) by the radical polymerization of methacrylates such as 2‐methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC), 2‐hydroxyethylmethacrylate, and triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate diffused into segmented polyurethane (SPU) membranes swollen with a monomer mixture. The values of Young's modulus for the hydrated semi‐IPN membranes were less than that for an SPU membrane because of higher hydration, but they were much higher than that for a hydrated MPC polymer gel (non‐SPU). According to a thermal analysis, the MPC polymer influenced the segment association of SPU. The diffusion coefficient of 8‐anilino‐1‐naphthalenesulfonic acid sodium salt from the semi‐IPN membrane could be controlled with different MPC unit concentrations in the membrane, and it was about 7 × 10² times higher than that of the SPU membrane. Fibroblast cell adhesion on the semi‐IPN membrane was effectively reduced by the MPC units. We concluded that semi‐IPNs composed of the MPC polymer and SPU may be novel polymer materials possessing attractive mechanical, diffusive‐release, and nonbiofouling properties. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 68–75, 2003     

Influence of the network chain orientation on the fracture toughness of a mesogenic epoxy resin modified with CTBN

A biphenol‐type epoxy resin, which had a mesogenic group in the backbone moiety, was modified with carboxy‐terminated butadiene acrylonitrile copolymer (CTBN) as a reactive elastomer, and its fracture toughness was measured. With the addition of CTBN, the fracture toughness of the biphenol‐type epoxy resin significantly increased and became significantly higher than that of a bisphenol A‐type epoxy resin modified with CTBN. The network chain orientation in the cured biphenol‐type epoxy resin system was clearly observed during the fracture process with polarized microscopy Fourier transform infrared measurements, although such a phenomenon was not observed in the bisphenol A‐type epoxy resin system. The high toughness of the cured biphenol‐type system was clearly due to the consumption of the mechanical energy by a large deformation of the matrix resin due to the orientation of the network chains during the fracture process. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 1198–1209, 2003     

Reduction of dislocation density and improvement of optical quality in ZnO layers by MgO-buffer annealing

Optical properties of ZnO thin films with/without MgO-buffer annealing were investigated by low and room temperature photoluminescence measurements. The ZnO films were grown on c-sapphire substrates by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy employing a thin MgO-buffer layer. Dislocation density of ZnO layer was reduced from 5.3 × 10⁹ to 1.9 × 10⁹ cm⁻² by annealing MgO-buffer prior to the growth of ZnO. The intensity of free exciton emission from the sample with MgO-buffer annealing was almost twice of that from the sample without annealing, while the deep level emission from the sample with MgO-buffer annealing was about 1/3 of that without annealing. The MgO-buffer annealing improves optical quality of overgrown ZnO films.