(C) 2010 American Institute Selleckchem LBH589 of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3504193]“
“Heat-resistant branched poly(styrene-alt-NPMI) has been prepared via transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of styrene (St) and N-phenyl maleimide (NPMI) with divinylbenzene (DVB) as the branching

agent in anisole at 80 degrees C. Gas chromatography (GC) was used to determine the conversion of the reactants. Triple detection gel permeation chromatography (TD-GPC) was used to analyze the copolymers. The results show that the polymerization yields primary chains predominately in the early stages and the formation of branched molecules occurs mainly when conversion is higher than 50%. As expected, higher dosage of DVB in our investigation range favors the formation of polymers with higher degree of branching. All the resulting branched poly(styrene-alt-NPMI)s have glass transition temperature (T(g)) above 175 degrees C, extrapolated initial weight loss temperature (T(i)) above 410 degrees C and statistic heat-resistant index above 200 degrees C. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym

Sci 119: 977-982, 2011″
“The new World Health Organization (WHO) Manual for Semen Analysis contains several improvements. One is that the 20 million spermatozoa per mL paradigm has been ousted in favour of proper calculations of lower reference limits for semen from men, Selleckchem PLX4032 whose partners had a time-to-pregnancy of 12 months or less. The recommendation to grade the progressive motility as described in the third and fourth editions of the WHO manual was not evidence-based, and WHO was therefore motivated to abandon it. However, the new recommendation is not evidence-based either, and it is difficult to understand the rational for the new assessment. It may have been a compromise to avoid returning to the rather robust system recommended in the first edition (1980). The unconditional recommendation of the ‘Tygerberg strict criteria’ is

ML323 not evidence-based, and seems to be the result of an unfortunate bias in the composition of the Committee in favour of individuals known to support the ‘strict criteria’ method. This recommendation will have negative effects on the development of andrology as a scientific field. Given the importance of the WHO manual, it is unfortunate that the recommendations for such important variables, as motility and morphology, lack evidence-based support.”
“The demagnetization process of a hard/soft/hard sandwich has been investigated systematically within a self-contained micromagnetic model, with particular attention on the cases with small hard layer thickness. The microscopic and macroscopic hysteresis loops, as well as the angular distributions of the magnetization between nucleation and pinning have been obtained numerically, with the formula for the nucleation field derived.