Thermal,mechanical, and morphological characterization studies of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) blends with polystyrene and brominated polystyrene

The miscibility of the binary and ternary blends of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide), brominated polystyrene, and polystyrene was investigated using a differential scanning calorimeter. The morphology of these blends was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. These studies revealed a close relation between the blend structure and its mechanical properties. The compatibilizing effect of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) on the miscibility of the polystyrene/brominated polystyrene blends was examined. It was found that poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide), which was miscible with polystyrene and partially miscible with brominated polystyrene, compatibilizes these two immiscible polymers if its contention exceeds 33 wt %. Upon the addition of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) to the immiscible blends of polystyrene/brominated polystyrene, we observed a change in the morphology of the mixtures. An improvement in the mechanical properties was noticed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 75: 225–231, 2000     

Synthesis,characterization, biological activity,and thermal stability of new styrenic polymer having pendant ketone and its some derivatives

A new type of styrene monomer, 1‐{4‐[(4‐vinylbenzyl)oxy]phenyl}ethanone (VBOPE), was synthesized. The oxime, phenylhydrazone, toluol‐4‐sulfonic acid hydrazone, and thiosemicarbazone (TSC) derivatives of VBOPE were prepared with hydroxylamine hydrochloride, phenylhydrazine, toluol‐4‐sulfonic acid hydrazine, and TSC hydrochloride, respectively. Radical homopolymerization of the monomers were prepared at 65°C in 1,4‐dioxane solution with benzoylperoxide as an initiator. The compounds was characterized with Fourier transform infrared and NMR techniques. The thermal properties of polymers were investigated with thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The activation energies of the thermal degradation of the polymers were calculated with the Ozawa and Kissinger method. The antibacterial and antifungal effects of the monomer and the polymer and its derivatives were also investigated on various bacteria and fungi. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2013. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Inhibition through incremental fragment cuing with primed items.

Completing a word fragment (e.g., r__i__rop) that is revealed gradually (e.g., r__p; r__r__p; r__i__r__p; r__i__rop) was shown to be more difficult than completing the same fragment revealed all at once, but this was true only for words that had been presented beforehand (Peynircio?lu & Watkins, 1986). In the present study a similar inhibitory effect is demonstrated under certain conditions in which words are not presented beforehand. Fragments of words belonging to a newly learned language (Experiment 3) are less likely to be completed when they are revealed gradually than when they are revealed all at once. Thus, priming the test items, whether it be through presentation for study or otherwise, appears to be a significant factor in promoting this inhibitory effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Covert rehearsal of tones.

Z. F. Peynircio?lu and M. L. Palmer (see record 1993-04390-001) found that memory for simple pairs or triples of tones did not benefit from covert rehearsal, although it did benefit from repetition. The present study systematically explored people's ability to rehearse different dimensions and varied the complexity of the musical stimuli. The first 6 experiments showed that even though repetition of tone pairs with pitch or interval as the relevant information led to better long-term recognition, covert rehearsal of the same stimuli did not. The next 2 experiments showed that covert rehearsal of pitch and interval information did benefit immediate recognition, however. The last 2 experiments showed that with more complex musical stimuli covert rehearsal can be effective and can lead to better long-term recognition. The results are discussed within the context of the transfer-appropriate processing framework. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seal bond characterization of laminated plastic food cups by scanning electron and optic microscopes

Heat seals of laminated semi‐rigid food cups were evaluated to characterize the seal bond. Laminated lidding material was sealed at temperatures of 160–180°C to thermoformed cups. Various seal regions of the cups with different ultrasonic signal strengths (%) were sectioned at the rim and examined using optical and scanning electron microscopes (SEM). Ultrasonic signals were able to pinpoint seal defects; however, the magnitude of the signals did not relate to the actual seal condition or seal quality affected by the sealing process. This was attributed to the very short seal width and non‐parallel surface of the heat seal, which possibly resulted in signal loss by reflection and scattering from the seal surface. C‐scan of ultrasound, SEM and optical microscopic images provided the information that the heat‐sealing process was unstable, due to insufficient and non‐uniform heat‐seal temperature or pressure, misalignment of the sealing jaws or non‐parallel sealing or cutting unit configuration. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Printable and Flexible Phototransistors Based on Blend of Organic Semiconductor and Biopolymer

Printable and flexible organic phototransistors (OPTs) make comprehensive requirements for the organic semiconductors (OSCs), including high photosensitivity, decent transistor characteristics, appropriate solution viscosity, and good film flexibility. It has been challenging to obtain such semiconductors. Here, we demonstrated that by taking advantage of the interfacial charge effect, printable and flexible OPTs with high performance can be successfully fabricated through simply blending common OSCs with polymers. Using 2,7‐dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2‐b][1]benzothiophene and an insulating biopolymer polylactide, OPTs with blended and layered structure are both fabricated and investigated. The photoresponses of the OPTs can be modulated by gate voltage over 1000 times, and their responsivities are measured up to 400 A W^?1. As compared to the layered OPTs, the blended ones exhibit higher photocurrent to dark current ratio (up to 10⁵) and better light detection limit (lower than 0.02 mW cm^?2). The improvements are attributed to larger interfacial area and more intensive charge trapping effect. The flexible OPTs are further fabricated by inkjet printing the blended solution. This work presents OPTs with comprehensive advantages including low cost, enhanced photosensitivity, great flexibility, and printability, which are realized by simply blending common OSC with polymer, and thus provide an inspiration for the design of novel organic electronics.     

Experimentally approved generalized model for circuit applications

In this paper, generalized model based on the multiplicative least square method presented and showed that it is convenient to approximate observation in the electrical system analysis. The introduced model is exponential based and relies on parametric values. The advantage of the method is due to exponential derivation process within multiplicative calculus and has the flexibility to represent widely used functions such as Gaussian and exponentials. In spite of numerous results on the best fitting model, we study the robustness of the method by making direct comparisons with Matlab built‐in functions. The presented model is challenging because modern electrical circuits and systems are faced with different types of inputs that require near exact representation for accurate processing. Some real applications of exponential‐based data were selected to demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed representation.     

Supporting OpenMP on Cell

The Cell processor is a heterogeneous multi-core processor with one power processing engine (PPE) core and eight synergistic processing engine (SPE) cores. There is a significant amount of ongoing research in programming models and tools that attempts to make it easy to exploit the computation power of the Cell architecture. In our work, we explore supporting OpenMP on the Cell processor. It is attractive to support OpenMP because programmers can continue using their familiar programming model, and existing code can be re-used. We base our work on IBM’s XL compiler, and developed new components in the XL compiler and a new runtime library. Three major issues are addressed: (1) synchronization support on heterogeneous cores; (2) code generation targeting the different instruction sets; (3) data transfers and implement the OpenMP memory model. We present experimental results for some SPEC OMP 2001 and NAS benchmarks to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. A visualization tool based on Paraver is also used to provide some insights into actual thread and synchronization behaviors.     

Formaldehyde Formation During Ozonation Of Drinking Water

Partial oxidation of natural organic material during ozonation produces oxygenated by-products of low molecular weight. Formaldehyde, being the most common oxygenated by-product of ozone, is considered to be a problematic compound by the water industry due to its potential adverse health effects. This research attempts to provide specific information on the effects of water quality parameters, specifically, pH and alkalinity, the structure of humic material, and the operational parameters, e.g., ozone dosage and contact time, on generation of formaldehyde. The results showed that ozonation caused almost an immediate formation of formaldehyde, which reached a peak value, and then started to decrease with continued ozonation. Ozonation of aqueous fulvic acid produced higher concentrations of formaldehyde compared to other types of humic material. Formaldehyde formation was suppressed by high bicarbonate levels, and enhanced at higher pH. Formaldehyde accumulation was more dramatic at low ozone dosages.     

Effects of NCO/OH Ratio and Reactive Diluent Type on the Adhesion Strength of Polyurethane Methacrylates for Cord/Rubber Composites

A series of dual curable polyurethane methacrylate-based oligomers were synthesized by changing the NCO:OH ratio and then were included in adhesive formulations using trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate and tricyclodecane dimethanol diacrylate (TCDDA) as reactive diluents. The effects of NCO:OH ratio and reactive diluent type on the structural properties of UV-cured free films and adhesion properties between polyester cord/rubber surfaces were studied. The highest adhesion strength of the 103?N?cm^?1 was obtained when the NCO:OH ratio was set as 4 and the TCDDA was used as a reactive diluent.