Das Verhalten organischer Pigmente in Polymeren

The importance of colouring matter is of prime importance in the plastics industry. The individual behaviour of organic pigments in the various polymer materials necessitates, however, on the part of the plastics manufacturer a precise knowledge of ?which pigment for which plastic”?. For example, a well known Thioindigo pigment behaves very differently in various polymer materials : In polystyrene, depending on the concentration used, it is monomolecularly dissolved, in associated solution or present as undissolved particles. In PVC, however, the good migration fastness is indicative of the insolubility of the pigment in this medium and so it is not surprising that PVC is the ideal plastic medium for this pigment. The behaviour of organic pigments in polymers is largely a function of molecular structure, e. g. intermolecular H-bonds can cause a decrease in solubility of a pigment in a polymer material, which in turn results in improved migration fastness. This is demonstrated by the improved migration fastness of variously substituted β-hydroxy naphthoic acid arylamide derivatives. Many phenomena exist however, which as yet can only be explained on the basis of the crystal structure of the pigment particles, i. e. the presence of aggregates or agglomerates. Such a phenomenon is, for example, the dispersibility of pigments in polymers. Here pigment surface, wettability by polymer and intermolecular forces are all of importance. In general, the dispersibility is better the smaller the specific surface area, as is shown for a typical quinacridone pigment. The influence of the rate of wetting on dispersibility is demonstrated using polyethylene wax. A further effect, which demonstrates the intermolecular forces between pigment and polymer, is the way in which certain pigments influence the rate of crystallization of partly crystalline polymers. This itself is connected with the shape and size of the pigment particles embedded in the polymer material. Such effects are demonstrated by measurements on various polyethylene objects. The pigment in this case was a naphthalene tetra carbonic acid derivative in both cis and trans form with widely varying specific surface areas.     

Zur Selbstdiffusion von Benzol und Azeton in Polymethylmethacrylat

The selfdiffusion coefficients of acetone and benzene are studied in the systems acetone/poly(methylmethacrylate) and benzene/poly(methylmethacrylate) by means of the spin echo technique as function of concentration and temperature. From the dependence of temperature, the activation energies are calculated as function of concentration. The dependence of concentration of the selfdiffusion coefficients is discussed using the theory of Free Volume according to FUJITA. The Free Volume of the poly(methylmethacrylate) is calculated as function of temperature.     

Intercorrelations among plasma high density lipoprotein,obesity and triglycerides in a normal population

The interrelationships among fatness measures, plasma triglycerides and high density lipoproteins (HDL) were examined in 131 normal adult subjects: 38 men aged 27–46, 40 men aged 47–66, 29 women aged 27–46 and 24 women aged 47–66. None of the women were taking estrogens or oral contraceptive medication. The HDL concentration was subdivided into HDL_2b, HDL_2a and HDL₃ by a computerized fitting of the total schlieren pattern to reference schlieren patterns. Anthropometric measures employed included skinfolds at 3 sites, 2 weight/height indices and 2 girth measurements. A high correlation was found among the various fatness measures. These measures were negatively correlated with total HDL, reflecting the negative correlation between fatness measures and HDL₂ (as the sum of HDL_2a and_2b). Fatness measures showed no relationship to HDL₃. There was also an inverse correlation between triglyceride concentration and HDL₂. No particular fatness measure was better than any other for demonstrating the inverse correlation with HDL but multiple correlations using all of the measures of obesity improved the correlations. Partial correlations controlling for fatness did not reduce any of the significant correlations between triglycerides and HDL₂ to insignificance. The weak correlation between fatness and triglycerides was reduced to insignificance when controlled for HDL₂. Presented (in part) at the Annual Meeting of the Oil Chemists' Society in St. Louis, MO, May 1978.     

BAIS: A Bayesian Artificial Immune System for the effective handling of building blocks

Significant progress has been made in theory and design of Artificial Immune Systems (AISs) for solving hard problems accurately. However, an aspect not yet widely addressed by the research reported in the literature is the lack of ability of the AISs to deal effectively with building blocks (partial high-quality solutions coded in the antibody). The available AISs present mechanisms for evolving the population that do not take into account the relationship among the variables of the problem, potentially causing the disruption of high-quality partial solutions. This paper proposes a novel AIS with abilities to identify and properly manipulate building blocks in optimization problems. Instead of using cloning and mutation to generate new individuals, our algorithm builds a probabilistic model representing the joint probability distribution of the promising solutions and, subsequently, uses this model for sampling new solutions. The probabilistic model used is a Bayesian network due to its capability of properly capturing the most relevant interactions among the variables. Therefore, our algorithm, called Bayesian Artificial Immune System (BAIS), represents a significant attempt to improve the performance of immune-inspired algorithms when dealing with building blocks, and hence to solve efficiently hard optimization problems with complex interactions among the variables. The performance of BAIS compares favorably with that produced by contenders such as state-of-the-art Estimation of Distribution Algorithms.     

Pattern classification with mixtures of weighted least-squares support vector machine experts

Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers are high-performance classification models devised to comply with the structural risk minimization principle and to properly exploit the kernel artifice of nonlinearly mapping input data into high-dimensional feature spaces toward the automatic construction of better discriminating linear decision boundaries. Among several SVM variants, Least-Squares SVMs (LS-SVMs) have gained increased attention recently due mainly to their computationally attractive properties coming as the direct result of applying a modified formulation that makes use of a sum-squared-error cost function jointly with equality, instead of inequality, constraints. In this work, we present a flexible hybrid approach aimed at augmenting the proficiency of LS-SVM classifiers with regard to accuracy/generalization as well as to hyperparameter calibration issues. Such approach, named as Mixtures of Weighted Least-Squares Support Vector Machine Experts, centers around the fusion of the weighted variant of LS-SVMs with Mixtures of Experts models. After the formal characterization of the novel learning framework, simulation results obtained with respect to both binary and multiclass pattern classification problems are reported, ratifying the suitability of the novel hybrid approach in improving the performance issues considered.     

Constructive learning neural network applied to identification and control of a fuel-ethanol fermentation process

In the present work, a constructive learning algorithm was employed to design a near-optimal one-hidden layer neural network structure that best approximates the dynamic behavior of a bioprocess. The method determines not only a proper number of hidden neurons but also the particular shape of the activation function for each node. Here, the projection pursuit technique was applied in association with the optimization of the solvability condition, giving rise to a more efficient and accurate computational learning algorithm. As each activation function of a hidden neuron is defined according to the peculiarities of each approximation problem, better rates of convergence are achieved, guiding to parsimonious neural network architectures. The proposed constructive learning algorithm was successfully applied to identify a MIMO bioprocess, providing a multivariable model that was able to describe the complex process dynamics, even in long-range horizon predictions. The resulting identification model was considered as part of a model-based predictive control strategy, producing high-quality performance in closed-loop experiments.     

Bronchoalveolar lavage. Quantitation of intraalveolar fluid?

A precise calculation of the amount of intraalveolar fluid is the basis of a quantitative analysis of intraalveolar compounds. Different approaches have been made to cover this important problem. Here, we report a comparative study with five markers: 99mTc-DTPA, 51Cr-EDTA, inulin, urea, and methylene blue in animal experiments as well as in human experiments. The marker substances were added to the lavage fluid, and the "dilution" of the markers, i.e., the alveolar fluid, was calculated. The results showed that in animals with healthy lungs the tracer methods are able to calculate amounts of intraalveolar fluid that are comparable to morphologic findings. In animals as well as in humans, methylene blue and inulin were shown to be useless in determining alveolar fluid volume compared with the tracer methods. In humans, the calculations with the urea method and with Tc-DTPA were in the same magnitude, but there was no individual correlation. We conclude that, at present, the methods to quantitate alveolar fluid volume lack precision and add nothing to a deeper understanding of alveolar biology.     

Hydrogen oxidation on gold electrode in sulphuric acid solution

The aim of this work is to study the electrochemical oxidation of Hydrogen on gold electrodes in sulphuric acid solution and to compare the results with those obtained in a similar study in perchloric acid solution. In both electrolytes, the reaction is irreversible because the atomic H, which appears as reaction intermediate, diffuses inside of the metal. The reactive is introduced in two ways: by electrolysis at a cathodic potential during different times and by saturating the solution with the gaseous reactive. During the cathodic electrolysis the different crystalline planes of the surface reconstruct and this feature has an influence on the reaction kinetics. The catalytic influence of the incipient hydrous gold oxide on the H electrooxidation is also shown. The presence of sulphate and perchlorate ions leads to unlike voltamperometric profiles in the double layer charging potential region. A gold compound is formed during the metal treatment and an attempt has been done to identify it with FTIR.     

The role of correspondence sections in post-publication peer review: A bibliometric study of general and internal medicine journals

Scientific journals claim that correspondence sections are for post-publication peer review. We compared the conditions for submission and the bibliometrics of letters-to-editors published in leading medical journals in 2002 and 2007 using journal-derived information and data from PubMed and Journal Citation Reports. The median time limit for letter submissions decreased from 6 to 3.5 weeks, the median word limit from 400 to 350. The median number of letters per published article was near one in both years. Only about half of the letters were followed by an author reply in either year. Electronic response systems were available for four journals in 2007.