Stabilization of poly(vinyl chloride). I. Change in color of poly(vinyl chloride) compounded with some metal soaps

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) with one or more metal salts added was colored by the action of heat to investigate the stabilization mechanism. The coloration and the color difference of heated PVC compound films varied according to the metal salt added. The decoloration of the colored compound films was advanced markedly in THF, DMF, acetone, and ammonia. On the other hand, the heated achromatic PVC film containing Cd/Ba soaps underwent an opposite change, from colorless to yellow orange, in the above materials. This means that the coloration of heated compound films may result from the formation of some complex (for example, π complex of the polyene with the metal chloride). Furthermore, the colored film with cadmium stearate was decolored by roll mixing with the colored film containing barium stearate. These results indicate that the stabilization with metal soaps may be founded on a physical phenomenon such aa an effect of complementary color.     

Phase Separation in Gelling Silica–Organic Polymer Solution: Systems Containing Poly(sodium styrenesulfonate)

Phase separation which occurs in parallel to the hydrolysis and gelation of alkoxysilane solution containing poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) (NaPSS) has been investigated. Depending on the reaction conditions, gel morphologies such as isolated pores, particle aggregates, and interconnected continuous pores from 0.1 to 100 μm long have been observed. Time-resolved light scattering of gelling solution suggested the occurrence of spinodal phase separation through the polymerization of silica and the subsequent freezing of the developing structure by sol-gel transition. The effects of reaction parameters on the periodic size are explained mainly in terms of their influence on the "chemical cooling" rate which is determined by the polymerizatica rate of silica and the solubility of NaPSS in the reacting solution.     

An Application of Silica‐Based Monolithic Membrane Emulsification Technique for Easy and Efficient Preparation of Uniformly Sized Polymer Particles

Summary: Uniformly sized polymer particles were prepared by an emulsification and polymerization technique utilizing a silica monolithic membrane, namely the “silica monolithic membrane emulsification technique”. In this paper, we utilized silica monolithic membrane as a device for the preparation of uniformly sized polymer particles. A mixture of monomers, diluents and oil‐soluble initiator was emulsified into a continuous medium through the silica monolithic membrane and polymerized. The particles obtained had a higher size uniformity than that of particles prepared by previously reported membrane emulsification techniques, such as the Shirasu Porous Glass (SPG) emulsification technique. Through the silica monolithic membrane emulsification technique, we could prepare particles having availability as a possible packing material for solid‐phase extraction (SPE) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

SEM photograph of silica particles prepared through capillary plate membrane.     

Factors associated with serum magnesium and vascular stiffness in maintenance hemodialysis patients

Introduction : We evaluated the associated factors of serum magnesium in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). Furthermore, we evaluated the relationship between low serum magnesium and arteriosclerosis in these patients. Methods : In 129 patients on MHD, we evaluated the blood levels of magnesium, brachial‐ankle pulse wave velocity (ba‐PWV), ankle‐brachial index (ABI), and intima‐media thickness of the common carotid artery (IMT). Findings : In MHD patients, the serum level of magnesium was significantly correlated with age, calcium, TNF‐α, albumin, and ba‐PWV but not with ABI or IMT. In the multiple regression analysis, albumin (P = 0.0001, β = 0.31) and calcium (P = 0.029, β = 0.18) were selected as significant predictors of the magnesium level in MHD patients. Furthermore, the serum level of magnesium, as well as systolic blood pressure (P = 0.0001, β = 0.32) and age (P = 0.005, β = 0.25), were selected as significant (P = 0.012, β = ?0.22) predictors of ba‐PWV in MHD patients. Discussion : In MHD patients, the serum magnesium level was associated with the serum levels of calcium and albumin. Furthermore, a low serum magnesium level in MHD patients was associated with the index of vascular stiffness.     

Octadecylsilylated porous silica rods as separation media for reversed-phase liquid chromatography

Continuous porous silica rods consisting of a mesoporous (pore size, 14 or 25 nm) silica skeleton of ～1 μm size and through-pores of ～1.7 μm were prepared and derivatized to C(18) phase by on-column reaction with octadecyldimethyl-(N,N-diethylamino)silane. The C(18) silica rods gave plate heights of 10-20 μm for aromatic hydrocarbons in 80% methanol and 20-40 μm for insulin in acetonitrile-water mixtures in the presence of trifluoroacetic acid. The performance of the silica rods was much better at a high flow rate than that of conventional columns packed with 5 μm C(18) silica particles having 12 and 30 nm pores, especially for high molecular weight species.     

Real-time CAM-based Hough transform algorithm and its performance evaluation

Abstract. This paper proposes a highly parallel Hough transform algorithm for real-time straight-line extraction and its hardware implementation on a content-addressable memory (CAM). To achieve high-speed processing, incrementation for voting, which composes the Hough transform, and calculations for coordinate updating are carried out for the every scan line, not every edge pixel, and extracting maxima in Hough space is executed by parallel comparing. Moreover, variously weighted voting achieves more accurate line extraction in spite of the quantization error and noise in the image space. In the implementation, the CAM acts as a PE (processing-element) array that effectively performs highly parallel processing for the Hough transform and also as a memory for two-dimensional Hough space, and both voting and peak extraction are directly executed by the CAM. Evaluations of CAM hardware size, processing time and the accuracy of line extraction show that a real-time and high-resolution Hough transform for a 256256 picture can be achieved using a single CAM chip with current VLSI technology. This CAM-based Hough transform algorithm promises to be an important step towards the realization of a real-time and compact image-understanding system. Received: 15 August 1998 / Accepted: 15 March 2000     

Utilizing endoscopic technology to reveal real-time proteomic alterations in response to chemoprevention

Cancer chemoprevention approaches use either pharmacological or dietary agents to impede, arrest or reverse the carcinogenic process. Although several agents have shown effectiveness against colon cancer, present intervention strategies provide only partial reduction. In this study, we utilized high-resolution endoscopy to obtain colon tumor biopsy specimens from Apc mutant mice before and after 2-wk sulindac intervention. To acquire information beyond genomics, proteome analysis using the ProteomeLab PF2D platform was implemented to generate 2-D protein expression maps from biopsies. Chromatograms produced common signature profiles between sulindac and nonsulindac treated samples, and contrasting profiles termed "fingerprints". We selected a double peak that appeared in tumor biopsies from sulindac-treated mice. Further analyses using MS sequencing identified this protein as histone H2B. The location of H2B in the 1(st) dimension strongly suggested PTM, consistent with identification of two oxidized methionines. While further studies on sulindac proteomic fingerprints are underway, this study demonstrates the feasibility and advantages of "real-time" proteomic analysis for obtaining information on biomarker discovery and drug activity that would not be revealed by a genetic assay. This approach should be broadly applicable for assessing lesion responsiveness in a wide range of translational and human clinical studies.     

Non-contact measurements of water jet spreading width with a laser instrument

Jet spreading width is one of the important characteristics of water jets discharging into the air. Many researchers have dealt with measuring this width, and contact measuring methods on the water jet surface were employed in a lot of the cases. In order to avoid undesirable effects caused by the contact on the jet surface, we introduce non-contact measuring methods with a laser instrument to the measurements of jet spreading width. In measurements, a transmitter emits sheet-like laser beam to a receiver. The water jet between the transmitter and the receiver interrupts the laser beam and makes a shadow. The minimum and maximum values of the shadow width are measured. In addition, pictures of the water jet are taken with a scale, and the shadow width is measured from the pictures. The experiments on various needle strokes were performed. Three kinds of width consistent with the jet structure were obtained. In the results, it can be concluded that our non-contact measuring methods are feasible. The data of jet spreading widths and jet taper were obtained and are useful for future applications.     

Shape memory properties of polypeptide hydrogels having hydrophobic alkyl side chains

Polypeptide hydrogels were prepared by cross-linking of hydrophobically-modified poly[N⁵-(2-hydroxyethyl) l-glutamine] having alkyl side chains –C_nH_2n+1. Chain length of the alkyl group was n = 8, 16, and 18, and their mole fractions in the polypeptide were varied in the range of 0.05–0.16. Shape memory ability of the prepared polypeptide hydrogels was investigated. After deformation at 60 °C, the hydrogel was cooled in order to fix the temporary deformed shape. It was found that crystallization of the alkyl side chains did not occur, and the fixation ability of the hydrogel at 0 °C was low. In the subsequent heating process, the deformed temporary shape spontaneously recovered to the original shape gradually with increasing temperature, in other words, the shape recovery ratio varied with depending on the recovery temperature. From these observations, it was proposed that the shape fixation of the polypeptide hydrogel was achieved by strong segregation of the hydrophobic alkyl chains at low temperature, and the shape recovery of the deformed hydrogel was accompanied by the gradual decrease of the segregation strength with the temperature increase.