Dow Chemical (France)

With the explosive growth in the number of highly automated powder diffraction systems, many types of analyses which were previously considered a specialty analysis are now performed on a routine basis. Algorithms have been developed for measuring peak profiles from which crystallite sizes, residual microstrain, and X-ray crystal structure (Rietveld techniques for example) can be determined. However, these techniques require an instrumental peak profile calibration standard to correct the experimental data for instrumental broadening due to the system optics. Significant problems are encountered when laboratories try to cross-correlate or reproduce published data due to the lack of a common reference material for instrumental calibration. This is particularly distressing in microstrain and crystallite size calculations which can be dramatically affected by a poor choice of standard materials. Microstrain and crystallite size measurement are becoming increasingly important for the characterization of advanced materials and catalysts.

This chapter will review silicone based adhesive technologies, applications and characterization, emphasizing those self-adhesive materials often used in skin contact applications including transdermal drug delivery and wound care device attachment. The silicone pressure sensitive adhesives used in transdermal applications today are thermoplastic and based on silicone polymer and silicate resin chemistries. Previous research has suggested that some drugs readily diffuse through silicone adhesives, prompting their use in transdermal patches. A recently developed silicone acrylate hybrid adhesive technology combines polyacrylate and silicone molecular structures to form a stable, semi-interpenetrated network. This technology provides ease in formulating transdermal drug delivery systems through improved physical stability over simple blends of acrylate and silicone adhesives. The ability of some silicone adhesives to affix bandages without disrupting the wound bed upon removal has led to the wide acceptance of a third type of silicone adhesive technology that unlike the aforementioned thermoplastic materials is thermoset. This adhesive form is based on a platinum catalyzed, cross-linking reaction between vinyl functional and silicon-hydride functional silicone polymers. The various silicone adhesive types have been characterized via classical measurements of physical performances. Rheological techniques elucidated herein provide further understanding of the structure-property relationships previously unavailable using classical characterization approaches.

Serum copper, magnesium, zinc, calcium and ionized calcium (Ca++) concentrations were compared in 6 rabbits infected with Trypanosoma brucei brucei and 5 uninfected rabbits. There was a significant depletion of Mg and Zn and a significant increase in Cu from about day 10 of infection to the end. There was no change in plasma total calcium or free diffusible calcium. There was a development of kidney damage as shown clinically by proteinuria and urinary loss of magnesium and zinc, and histologically by the observation of hypercellularity in the glomeruli and tubular degeneration. Our findings thus indicate that trypanosomiasis causes kidney damage which may be responsible for the depletion of the cations seen in the study. Some of the clinical manifestations associated with African trypanosomiasis such as convulsions, anaemia, electrocardiographic changes and splenomegaly may therefore be related to these cation changes.

We describe the design and implementation of Must, a framework for modeling and automatically verifying distributed systems. Must provides a concurrency API that supports multiple communication models, on top of a mainstream programming language, such as Rust. Given a program using this API, Must verifies it by means of a novel, optimal dynamic partial order reduction algorithm that maintains completeness and optimality for all communication models supported by the API. We use Must to design and verify models of distributed systems in an industrial context. We demonstrate the usability of Must’s API by modeling high-level system idioms (e.g., timeouts, leader election, versioning) as abstractions over the core API, and demonstrate Must’s scalability by verifying systems employed in production (e.g., replicated logs, distributed transaction management protocols), the verification of which lies beyond the capacity of previous model checkers.

A methodology was developed in order to characterize the deprotection mechanisms implied in 193nm chemically amplified (CA) resists. This method is based on resist outgassing measurements as a function of exposure dose and bake temperature using Thermal Desorption-Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry / Flame Ionization Detector (TDGCMS/ FID) technique. This approach allows both quantitative and qualitative studies of the outgassing behaviour and was validated from a 193nm model resist representative of CA formulations. In so doing, the identification of outgassed by-products respectively coming from the PAG, from the polymer as well as from the solvent is made possible. In parallel, quantitative results as a function of exposure dose and temperature allowed us to monitor the deprotection process and the solvent evaporation. The quantitative results obtained by this technique were in good agreement with Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) results. Such a methodology can be used not only to characterise 193nm resist outgassing during exposure, but also be extended to monitor resist behaviour during implant, thermal treatment, e-beam exposure.

We derive a mathematical expression (fourth-degree polynomial) to calculate the average of the maximum and minimum soil temperatures at a 10-cm depth for any day of the year at 15 locations in France. Coefficients for the equations are tabulated.

A comparison has been made between the use of clopidol-methyl benzoquate and amprolium-ethopabate mixtures for the prophylactic control of Eimeria adenoeides and Eimeria meleagrimitis in turkeys. Twenty four poults were randomly allocated to each of the following treatments: non contaminated non treated; contaminated non treated; contaminated treated with 100 ppm + 8.35 ppm clopidol methyl benzoquate; contaminated treated with 200 ppm + 16.70 ppm clopidol methyl benzoquate; contaminated treated with 125 ppm + 8 ppm amprolium ethopabate. The amprolium-ethopabate mixture only partially controlled an infection with 50,000 sporulated oocysts of E. adenoeides and 200,000 oocysts of E. meleagrimitis. The clopidol-methyl benzoquate mixture completely controlled such an infection at the higher concentration (200 ppm + 16.70 ppm) and almost completely controlled it at the lower concentration (100 ppm+ 8.35 ppm). Drug withdrawal studies showed that the clopidol-methyl benzoquate mixture is coccidiostatic for the two species studied.

There have been many publications on the measurement and use of yield stress as a means of determining the ability of a system to suspend. Although in theory it is a useful predictive tool, in reality, it will often be found to give erroneous results, particularly when attempting to draw comparisons between dissimilar systems. Alternative techniques can be used which, whilst not being perfect, will give results which are closer to the reality. Several of these methods are evaluated and compared.

Opacifier technology has been applied in cleansing formulations to provide an opaque and creamy appearance in consumer products. Styrene/acrylate latex (SAL) is one of the most widely used technologies. Conventionally, this opacifier technology is based on latexes stabilized with anionic groups on the surfaces. It is being used in anionic surfactant-based systems at slightly acidic to neutral pH. However, this technology is not compatible in cleansing formulations that contain a higher content of cationic polymers. In this paper, we describe a novel cationic SAL that is prepared by an emulsion polymerization process. The compatibility and long term formulation stability is markedly improved with this cationic SAL vs. the anionic counterpart where cleansing formulations contain higher content of a variety of cationic polymer ingredients.

This paper presents a unified framework for the evaluation and optimization of autonomous vehicle trajectories, integrating formal safety, comfort, and efficiency criteria. An innovative geometric indicator, based on the analysis of safety zones using adaptive ellipses, is used to accurately quantify collision risks. Our method applies the Shoelace formula to compute the intersection area in the case of misaligned and time-varying configurations. Comfort is modeled using indicators centered on longitudinal and lateral jerk, while efficiency is assessed by overall travel time. These criteria are aggregated into a comprehensive objective function solved using a PSObased algorithm. The approach was successfully validated under real traffic conditions via experiments conducted in an urban intersection involving an autonomous vehicle interacting with a human-operated vehicle, and in simulation using data recorded from human driving in real traffic.