N.m.r. studies on the effect of water on the glass transition of polystyrene

These investigations are concerned with water-polymer interactions in polymer latices. It is known that water can act as a plasticizer for many solid polymers and cause a reduction in the glass transition temperature, T_g, of the amorphous regions. Experiments were carried out to determine whether pulsed n.m.r. techniques could be used to study the T_g of a polymer suspension and hence the influence of water and electrolyte on it. From T₁ and T₂ proton relaxation measurements as a function of temperature on polystyrene latex systems it was shown that the presence of water lowers the T_g of the polymer particles (by about 10°C), the effect being slightly greater in the presence of concentrated electrolyte. The extent of electrolyte penetration into the particles was deduced by studying relaxation as a function of particle diameter in latices containing paramagnetic Mn²⁺ ions. Using simple theories of relaxation and spin diffusion it was concluded that for all but the smallest particles electrolyte penetration is restricted to a very thin shell of the order of 1 nm. These conclusions were supported by the results of similar measurements on PTFE particles.     

Stereospecific synthesis ofcis andtrans fatty esters

Theerythro andthreo isomers of methyl 9,10-dihydroxyoctadecanoate and thethreo isomer of methyl 12,13-dihydroxy-cis-9-octadecenoate were converted into methylcis- andtrans-9-octadecenoate and methylcis-9,rans-12-octadecadienoate, respectively, by reaction of the dihydroxy ester with triethyl orthoformate to give the 2-ethoxy-1,3-dioxolane which was thermally decomposed to the unsaturated ester.     

Fat,cholesterol, and atherosclerosis

Summary Cholesterol is a universal constituent of all animal cells and therefore occurs in all foods of animal origin. Cholesterol is the mother substance of bile acid and of sex hormones and has other important physiological roles. Cholesterol is synthesized in the body from acetate obtainable from ingested carbohydrate, fat. or protein, of animal or vegetable origin. The fate of cholesterol in the body has not been definitely established. The cause of atherosclerosis is unknown. Atherosclerosis occurs in young as well as old individuals. Atherosclerosis is the number-one killer today. Diagnosis of atherosclerosis in the healthy individual is not possible. Treatment of atherosclerosis is empirical. Reduction of blood cholesterol levels by dietary means is difficult under conditions consonant with good nutrition. A well-balanced intake of all available foods on a modified total caloric basis appears to be the practical approach to the problem of fat, cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. Presented at the 47th Annual, Meeting, American Oil Chemists’ Society, Houston, Tex., April 23–25, 1956.     

A facile chemical synthesis of cholest-4-en-3-one. Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectral properties of cholest-4-en-3-one and cholest-5-en-3-one

This paper presents a simplified method for the chemical synthesis of cholest-4-en-3-one, which is a naturally occurring steroid and a salient intermediate in steroid chemistry. Pyridinium chlorochromate (PCC) in refluxing benzene has been found to be an effective and convenient reagent for the oxidation and concomitant isomerization of cholest-5-en-3β-ol (cholesterol) to cholest-4-en-3-one in high yield. Also described are the carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectral properties of cholest-4-en-3-one and of the isolated reaction intermediate cholest-5-en-3-one. Based on a paper presented at the Symposium on Plant and Fungal Sterols: Biosynthesis Metabolism and function held at the AOCS Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, April 1990.     

Pressureless low temperature sintering of nanocrystalline zirconia ceramics via dry powder processing

Pressureless sintering approaches provide a simple avenue to manufacture dense ceramic parts with minimal processing equipment, but current pressureless sintering techniques have yet to demonstrate capabilities of producing dense ceramics while maintaining sub-50 nm grain sizes. Nanocrystalline yttria stablized zirconia ceramics were process from 4 mol% yttria stablized zirconia (4YSZ) nanopowders with a crystallite size of 7.5 nm using dry cold isostatic pressing (CIP) where powders are dried immediately prior to green compact formation and CIP vacuum bagging. It is shown that CIP pressures >75 000 psi (517 MPa) effectively remove pores larger than 100 nm and that pressureless sintering occurs at reduced temperatures for green densities ≥50%. Though the sintering kinetics are shown to be similar to other zirconia nanopowder sintering studies, the small initial crystallize size and reduced sintering temperature allowed densities as high as 97.2%, while retaining a ceramic grain size at or below 40 nm. Produced nanocrystalline 4YSZ ceramics with a grain size of 30.3 nm and a density of 96.3% had Vicker's hardnesses as high as 14.2 GPa and Vicker's indentation fracture resistance of 3.43 MPa·, demonstrating that simple processing approaches can be refined to fabricate nanocrystalline ceramics while maintaining high hardness and indentation fracture resistance.     

More on graph theoretic software watermarks: Implementation,analysis, and attacks

This paper presents an implementation of the watermarking method proposed by Venkatesan et al. in their paper [R. Venkatesan, V. Vazirani, S. Sinha, A graph theoretic approach to software watermarking, in: Fourth International Information Hiding Workshop, Pittsburgh, PA, 2001]. An executable program is marked by the addition of code for which the topology of the control-flow graph encodes a watermark. We discuss issues that were identified during construction of an actual implementation that operates on Java bytecode. We present two algorithms for splitting a watermark number into a redundant set of pieces and an algorithm for turning a watermark number into a control-flow graph. We measure the size and time overhead of watermarking, and evaluate the algorithm against a variety of attacks.     

Usability engineering for augmented reality: employing user-based studies to inform design

A major challenge, and thus opportunity, in the field of human-computer interaction and specifically usability engineering is designing effective user interfaces for emerging technologies that have no established design guidelines or interaction metaphors or introduce completely new ways for users to perceive and interact with technology and the world around them. Clearly, augmented reality is one such emerging technology. We propose a usability engineering approach that employs user-based studies to inform design, by iteratively inserting a series of user-based studies into a traditional usability engineering lifecycle to better inform initial user interface designs. We present an exemplar user-based study conducted to gain insight into how users perceive text in outdoor augmented reality settings and to derive implications for design in outdoor augmented reality. We also describe lessons learned from our experiences conducting user-based studies as part of the design process.     

An aging model for surface acoustic wave devices

The authors present a study of the phase-aging kinetics of a 591.2 MHz quartz-crystal surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter intended for application in an undersea telecommunication system. At aging temperatures from 50 to 140 degrees C, a previously established SAW-device aging model describes the time dependence of the phase aging. The results of an investigation of the temperature dependence of the coefficients in this aging model allows the authors to extend the model, capturing both the time and the temperature dependence of the degradation. They then identify and assess the sources of variation, or error, affecting the data and model, estimate the distributions of the errors, and incorporate these error distributions in the extended aging model. This leads to a composite aging model that describes the time and temperature dependence of the complete phase-aging distribution. The authors use this composite model to predict end-of-life phase-aging distributions, demonstrating that the devices exhibit the high level of stability required by the application.