| Abstract: | This paper analyzes data from experiments on simple polymer chains. It measures the extent to which a particular monomer prefers to link with another of the same type. To analyze the data, it derives the likelihood function for a two‐state Markov model in which only the number in each state, but not the order, is observed. This technology is applied to a data set on which experimenters mixed lactic‐glycolic monomers with a known proportion of a contaminant consisting of an extra lactic acid. The resulting copolymers were subjected to matrix‐assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry. This records the number of copolymers at each atomic weight, which can be associated with a given length of copolymer and number of contaminant monomers. Analysis of the data shows that the proportion of contaminant monomers exceeded the proportion of experimentally induced contaminant. Maximum likelihood estimates using the data show that lactic‐glycolic monomers show a positive affinity for the contaminant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
