Viscoelastic Behavior, Thermodynamic Compatibility, and Phase Equilibria in Block Copolymer-Based Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives

The viscoelastic behavior, thermodynamic compatibility, and phase equilibria in block copolymer-based pressure-sensitive adhesives were investigated. The block copolymers investigated were: (1) polystyrene-block-polybutadiene-block-polystyrene (SBS) copolymer (KRATON® D-1102, Shell Development Company) and (2) polystyrene-block-polyisoprene-block-polystyrene (SIS) copolymer (KRATON® D-1107, Shell Development Company). The tackifying resins investigated were: (1) WINGTACK® 86 (Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company) and (2) PICCOTAC® 95BHT (Hercules Inc.). Samples of various compositions were prepared by a solution-casting method with toluene as solvent. Measurements of dynamic storage modulus (G'), dynamic loss modulus (G'), and loss tangent (tan δ) were taken, using a Rheometrics Mechanical Spectrometer. It was found that: (1) both WINGTACK 86 and PICCOTAC 95BHT were equally effective in decreasing the plateau modulus (G^O_N), and increasing the glass transition temperature (T_g) of the polyisoprene midblock of KRATON 1107; and (2) WINGTACK 86 was very effective in decreasing the G^O_N and increasing the T_g of the polybutadiene midblock of KRATON 1102, whereas PICCOTAC 95BHT was not. The observed difference between WINGTACK 86 and PICCOTAC 95BHT in decreasing the G^O_N and increasing the T_g of the polybutadiene midblock of KRATON 1102, whereas PICCOTAC 95BHT was not. The observed difference between WINGTACK 86 and PICCOTAC 95BHT in decreasing the G^O_N and increasing the T_g of the polybutadiene midblock of KRATON 1102 (perhaps to SBS block copolymers in general) is explained by the values of the interaction parameter for WINGTACK 86 and KRATON 1102, and for PICCOTAC 95BHT and KRATON 1102. The interaction parameter was determined, using the piezoelectric quartz sorption method. Phase diagrams were constructed for the four block copolymer/tackifying resin systems investigated, using information obtained from both dynamic viscoelastic measurements and optical microscopy. It was found that when mixed with KRATON 1102, PICCOTAC 95BHT formed separate domains whereas WINGTACK 86 did not over the range of concentrations and temperatures investigated. This confirms the evidence obtained from two other independent experimental techniques, namely, dynamic viscoelastic measurements and the piezo-electric sorption method. We have concluded from the present study that PICCOTAC 95BHT is not as an effective tackifying resin as WINGTACK 86, when each is mixed with KRATON 1102. It is pointed out further that information on the order-disorder transition temperature T_r, which was determined from a rheological technique proposed by us, is valuable in determining optimal processing conditions for block copolymer-based pressure-sensitive adhesives.     

尼龙斜交载重轮胎早期损坏原因及解决方法探讨

针对尼龙余交载重轮胎使用过程中出现的早期损坏，分析了其使用因素和设计因素，从配方设计、结构设计等方面提出了相应的解决方法。同时认为加强工艺控制与结构、配方设计对轮胎性能的影响同等重要。     

多次顶空固相微萃取方法的原理及应用

详细讨论了多次顶空固相微萃取(MHS-SPME)技术的原理和影响因素,并与常用的固相微萃取(SPME)定量校正方法相比较,分析了该方法的优势和缺点。综述了多次顶空固相微萃取在食品、农业领域的应用情况,并对该方法存在的问题和发展前景进行了论述。     

制备工艺和添加剂对TiO2体系陶瓷的复合功能特性的影响

TiO2体系复合功能陶瓷是一种兼有压敏功能和介电性能的新型功能陶瓷材料,具有压敏电压低、非线性系数高、介电常数大等优点,在微小型电子设备与器件中有广泛的用途。本文从制备工艺、添加改性等方面分析了TiO2体系复合功能陶瓷的研究现状,并对其发展方向进行了展望。     

复合型调湿涂料的研制及实验研究

将硅藻土做成乳胶型涂料，并得到了不同湿度下这种涂料的吸放湿性能曲线，但是吸放湿能力不是很理想。为了提高涂料的吸放湿能力，在基料中加入无机成膜物质制成硅藻土复合涂料，结果表明，通过复合，最大吸湿能力从6．5％提高到11％，最大放湿能力从5％提高到10％，并且确定了无机成膜物质的比例。复合涂料符合建筑涂料的常规性能要求，在调节湿度的同时克服了传统空调能耗高的缺点，具有很好的应用前景。     

Duration of slip-resistant shoe usage and the rate of slipping in limited-service restaurants: results from a prospective and crossover study

Several studies have indicated that slip-resistant shoes may have a positive effect on reducing the risk of slips and falls, a leading cause of injury at work. Few studies, however, have examined how duration of shoe usage affects their slip-resistance properties. This study examined the association between the duration of slip-resistant shoes usage and the self-reported rate of slipping in limited-service restaurant workers. A total of 475 workers from 36 limited-service restaurants in the USA were recruited to participate in a 12-week prospective study of workplace slipping. Of the 475 participants, 83 reported changing to a new pair of shoes at least once during the 12-week follow-up. The results show that slip-resistant shoes worn for less than six months were moderately more effective than those worn for more than six months. Changing to a new pair of shoes among those wearing slip-resistant shoes at baseline was associated with a 55% reduction in the rate of slipping (RR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.23–0.89). Further research is needed to develop criteria for the replacement of slip-resistant shoes.

Practitioner Summary: The duration of usage impacts the slip-resistance properties of slip-resistant shoes. Slip-resistant shoes worn for less than six months were moderately more effective in reducing slips than slip-resistant shoes worn for more than six months. Shoe use policies should not only encourage or require their use but also include guidance on replacing slip-resistant shoes at regular intervals.     

Oil supply between OPEC and non-OPEC based on game theory

The competing strategies between OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-OPEC producers make the oil supply market a complex system, and thus, it is very difficult to model and to make predictions. In this paper, we combine the macro-model based on game theory and micro-model to propose a new approach for forecasting oil supply. We take into account the microscopic behaviour in the clearing market and also use the game relationships to adjust oil supplies in our approach. For the supply model, we analyse and consider the different behaviour of non-OPEC and OPEC producers. According to our analysis, limiting the oil supply, and thus maintaining oil price, is the best strategy for OPEC in the low-price scenario, while the rising supply is the best strategy in the high-price scenario. No matter what the oil price is, the dominant strategy for non-OPEC producers is to increase their oil supply. In the high-price scenario, OPEC will try to deplete non-OPEC’s share in the oil supply market, which is to OPEC’s advantage.     

An alignment-free fingerprint bio-cryptosystem based on modified Voronoi neighbor structures

Bio-cryptography is an emerging security technology which combines cryptography with biometrics. A good bio-cryptosystem is required to protect the privacy of the relevant biometric data as well as achieving high recognition accuracy. Fingerprints have been widely used in bio-cryptosystem design. However, fingerprint uncertainty caused by distortion and rotation during the image capturing process makes it difficult to achieve a high recognition rate in most bio-cryptographic systems. Moreover, most existing bio-cryptosystems rely on the accurate detection of singular points for fingerprint image pre-alignment, which is very hard to achieve, and the image rotation transformation during the alignment process can cause significant singular point deviation and minutiae changes. In this paper, by taking full advantage of local Voronoi neighbor structures (VNSs), e.g. local structural stability and distortion insensitivity, we propose an alignment-free bio-cryptosystem based on fixed-length bit-string representations extracted from modified VNSs, which are rotation- and translation-invariant and distortion robust. The proposed alignment-free bio-cryptosystem is able to provide strong security while achieving good recognition performance. Experimental results in comparison with most existing alignment-free bio-cryptosystems using the publicly-available databases show the validity of the proposed scheme.     

End-to-end scene text recognition using tree-structured models

Detecting and recognizing text in natural images are quite challenging and have received much attention from the computer vision community in recent years. In this paper, we propose a robust end-to-end scene text recognition method, which utilizes tree-structured character models and normalized pictorial structured word models. For each category of characters, we build a part-based tree-structured model (TSM) so as to make use of the character-specific structure information as well as the local appearance information. The TSM could detect each part of the character and recognize the unique structure as well, seamlessly combining character detection and recognition together. As the TSMs could accurately detect characters from complex background, for text localization, we apply TSMs for all the characters on the coarse text detection regions to eliminate the false positives and search the possible missing characters as well. While for word recognition, we propose a normalized pictorial structure (PS) framework to deal with the bias caused by words of different lengths. Experimental results on a range of challenging public datasets (ICDAR 2003, ICDAR 2011, SVT) demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods both for text localization and word recognition.