Synthesis and properties of acrylate functionalized alkyds via a Diels–Alder reaction

The α-eleosterate pendent fatty acid of a tung oil based alkyd was functionalized via a Diels–Alder reaction with three different acrylate groups: (1) 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl methacrylate, (2) 3-methacryloxypropyl trimethoxysilane, and (3) triallyl ether acrylate. The modified alkyds were characterized by using ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The drying time was measured at ambient temperature. The viscoelastic properties of the alkyd-modified films were measured using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. The viscoelastic and drying time results show that the alkyd modified with siloxane and triallyl group affords a faster drying time, higher crosslink density, and higher glass transition temperature compared to the unmodified alkyd, whereas the fluorinated alkyd possesses surface active properties, but suffers in terms of drying and crosslinking density.     

Bibliometric performance measures

Three different types of bibliometrics — literature bibliometrics, patent bibliometrics, and linkage bibliometric can all be used to address various government performance and results questions. Applications of these three bibliometric types will be described within the framework of Weinberg's internal and external criteria, whether the work being done is good science, efficiently and effectively done, and whether it is important science from a technological viewpoint. Within all bibliometrics the fundamental assumption is that the frequency with which a set of papers or patents is cited is a measure of the impact or influence of the set of papers. The literature bibliometric indicators are counts of publications and citations received in the scientific literature and various derived indicators including such phenomena as cross-sectoral citation, coauthorship and concentration within influential journals. One basic observation of literature bibliometrics, which carries over to patent bibliometrics, is that of highly skewed distributions — with a relatively small number of high-impact patents and papers, and large numbers of patents and papers of minimal impact. The key measure is whether an agency is producing or supporting highly cited papers and patents. The final set of data are in the area of linkage bibliometrics, looking at citations from patents to scientific papers. These are particularly relevant to the external criteria, in that it is quite obvious that institutions and supporting agencies whose papers are highly cited in patents are making measurable contributions to a nation's technological progress.     

Speciation of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) in environmental samples by solid phase extraction on Ambersorb 563 resin

A simple and sensitive method for the speciation, separation and preconcentration of Cr(VI) and Cr(III) in natural water, soil and sediment samples was developed. Cr(VI) has been separated from Cr(III) and preconcentrated as Cr(III)-diphenylcarbazone complex by using Ambersorb 563 resin and determined by spectrophotometric method at 540 nm. Effect of analytical parameters such as sulfuric acid concentration, ligand volume, type of elution solution, sample volume, amount of resin and foreign ions were investigated. The presented procedure was successfully applied for the chromium speciation in various environmental samples with successfully results.     

Expression of the male reproduction‐related gene in spermatic ducts of the blue swimming crab,Portunus pelagicus,and transfer of modified protein to the sperm acrosome

Expression of a sex‐specific gene in Macrobrachium rosenbergii (Mr‐Mrr), encoding a male reproduction‐related (Mrr) protein, has been identified in the spermatic ducts (SDs) and postulated to be involved in sperm maturation processes. M. rosenbergii is the only decapod that the expression and fate of the Mrr protein has been studied. To determine that this protein was conserved in decapods, we firstly used cloning techniques to identify the Mrr gene in two crabs, Portunus pelagicus (Pp‐Mrr) and Scylla serrata (Ss‐Mrr). We then investigated expression of Pp‐Mrr by in situ hybridization, and immunolocalization, as well as phosphorylation and glycosylation modifications, and the fate of the protein in the male reproductive tract. Pp‐Mrr was shown to have 632 nucleotides, and a deduced protein of 110 amino acids, with an unmodified molecular weight of 11.79 kDa and a mature protein with molecular weight of 9.16 kDa. In situ hybridization showed that Pp‐Mrr is expressed in the epithelium of the proximal, middle, distal SDs, and ejaculatory ducts. In Western blotting, proteins of 10.9 and 17.2 kDa from SDs were all positive using anti‐Mrr, antiphosphoserine/threonine, and antiphosphotyrosine. PAS staining showed they were also glycosylated. Immunolocalization studies showed Pp‐Mrr in the SD epithelium, lumen, and on the acrosomes of spermatozoa. Immunofluorescence staining indicated the acrosome of spermatozoa contained the Mrr protein, which is phosphorylated with serine/threonine and tyrosine, and also glycosylated. The Mrr is likely to be involved in acrosomal activation during fertilization of eggs. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Solid‐phase extraction and spectrophotometric determination of Allura Red (E129) in foodstuff,soft drink,syrup and energy drink samples: a comparison study

Amberlite XAD‐7 and XAD‐8 resins were used as adsorbents for preconcentration and determination of Allura Red (AR) food dye in aqueous medium. The effects of pH, sample volume, sample and eluent flow rates on the extraction of AR were optimised. The determination of dye was performed at 506.0 nm using spectrophotometry. Interference effects of matrix ions and some dyes were also investigated under optimised conditions. The methods permitted low detection limits which were 1.2 and 0.6 μg L^?1 for XAD‐7 and XAD‐8, respectively. Adsorption behaviours were investigated by adsorption isotherms and zero charge pH experiments. Validations of the method were performed by determination of AR contents in some foodstuffs. AR contents of liquid samples were found between 58 and 440 μg mL^?1. AR concentrations of solid samples were between 416 and 432 μg g^?1. The XAD‐7 and XAD‐8 resins presented a fast and reliable potential to determine AR dye in real samples.     

Linkage between patents and papers: An interim EPO/US comparison

A unification of more than one million non-patent references (NPR's) on the front pages of U.S. and EPO patents has been carried out, with a subsequent match to theScience Citation Index (SCI), in order to investigate the citation linkage between patented technology and the scientific research literature. The U.S. system shows an extremely rapid increase in linkage, with citations from U.S. patents to U.S. authored papers increasing more than three-fold over the last decade. The EPO system does not show any increase; the occurrence of non-patent references appears to be relatively constant in the EPO system over the last decade. In the U.S. system approximately 75 percent of the cited papers originate in public science institutions, showing large dependence of patented industrial technology on public science. We expect to find similar result in the EPO system.     

Citation rates to technologically important patents

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the average number of citations received by issued U.S. patents from subsequently issued U.S. patents is higher for patents associated with important technological advances than for a group of randomly selected patents. Analysis of examiners' citations to 100 selected patents showed that these selected patents, which underlay technically important products, were more than twice as frequently cited (significance level of 0.0001) as a randomly selected set of 102 control patents. This finding provides strong evidence for the hypothesis that patent citation data can be used in technological indicators development, and in technological policy analysis, since it implies that the location and analysis of groups of highly cited patents can provide a valid indicator of patent areas of technical importance.     

A Low Duty Cycle MAC Protocol for Directional Wireless Sensor Networks

Directional communication in wireless sensor networks minimizes interference and thereby increases reliability and throughput of the network. Hence, directional wireless sensor networks (DWSNs) are fastly attracting the interests of researchers and industry experts around the globe. However, in DWSNs the conventional medium access control protocols face some new challenges including the synchronization among the nodes, directional hidden terminal and deafness problems, etc. For taking the advantages of spatial reusability and increased coverage from directional communications, a low duty cycle directional Medium Access control protocol for mobility based DWSNs, termed as DCD-MAC, is developed in this paper. To reduce energy consumption due to idle listening, duty cycling is extensively used in WSNs. In DCD-MAC, each pair of parent and child sensor nodes performs synchronization with each other before data communication. The nodes in the network schedule their time of data transmissions in such a way that the number of collisions occurred during transmissions from multiple nodes is minimized. The sensor nodes are kept active only when the nodes need to communicate with each other. The DCD-MAC exploits localized information of mobile nodes in a distributed manner and thus it gives weighted fair access of transmission slots to the nodes. As a final point, we have studied the performance of our proposed protocol through extensive simulations in NS-3 and the results show that the DCD-MAC gives better reliability, throughput, end-to-end delay, network lifetime and overhead comparing to the related directional MAC protocols.     

The subject composition of the world's scientific journals

A country by subject count of the serial periodical collection at the British Library Lending Division (BLLD) in 1973 is reported and compared to previous counts. Approximately 25 000 periodicals have titles indicating that they are scientific journals in nine fields of the physical and biological sciences, engineering, and mathematics. The overall subject distribution of the journals appears to be remarkably stable when compared to a similar count byHulme 60 years ago, although the number of journals appears to have doubled in the last 60 years. A major shift was found in the national origin of the journals, when compared withHulme's counts, with a notable rise in the number and percent of U.S. journals, and a sharp decline in the percentage of French and German journals.