Search results for "Polymers."
showing 10 items of 3543 documents
Warren Buffett versus Zvi Bodie: Should You Buy Or Sell Put Options?
2021
Academics and investment professionals often disagree when it comes to investment advice. Legendary investor Warren Buffett is a proponent of time diversification and firmly believes that stocks are less risky in the long run. Therefore, he often sells long-term put options instead of buying them for portfolio protection. By contrast, the famous finance professor Zvi Bodie argues that time diversification is a fallacy and, therefore, his advice to fund managers is to buy long-term portfolio insurance. In this article, we consider the optimal portfolio choice problem for a loss-averse investor. First, we demonstrate that our loss-averse investor subscribes to the principle of time diversific…
Enhancing production and cytotoxic activity of polymeric soluble FasL-based chimeric proteins by concomitant expression of soluble FasL.
2012
International audience; Membrane FasL is the natural trigger of Fas-mediated apoptosis. A soluble homotrimeric counterpart (sFasL) also exists which is very weakly active, and needs oligomerization beyond its trimeric state to induce apoptosis. We recently generated a soluble FasL chimera by fusing the immunoglobulin-like domain of the leukemia inhibitory factor receptor gp190 to the extracellular region of human FasL, which enabled spontaneous dodecameric homotypic polymerization of FasL. This polymeric soluble human FasL (pFasL) displayed anti-tumoral activity in vitro and in vivo without systemic cytotoxicity in mouse. In the present work, we focused on the improvement of pFasL, with two…
Local structural investigation of hafnia-zirconia polymorphs in powders and thin films by X-ray absorption spectroscopy
2019
Björn Matthey (Fraunhofer IKTS, Dresden) is acknowledged for providing HfO2 and ZrO2 powders on short notice after DESY’s renowned customs office punished us. Parts of this research were carried out at Petra III at DESY, a member of the Helmholtz Association (HGF). The experiments on single Si:HfO2 thin film samples were performed at the CLAESS beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff. We would like to thank Edmund Welter for assistance (in using beamline P65) and DESY for enabling this research for proposal no. 20160591 and for travel support. T.S. acknowledges the German Research Foundation (DFG) for funding this work in the frame of the project “Inferox” (project…
Shape transitions of giant liposomes induced by an anisotropic spontaneous curvature
2000
International audience; We explore how a magnetic field breaks the symmetry of an initially spherical giant liposome filled with a magnetic colloid. The condition of rotational symmetry along the field axis leads either to a prolate or to an oblate ellipsoid. We demonstrate that an electrostatic interaction between the nanoparticles and the membrane triggers the shape transition. PACS numbers: 75.
Effect of aggregation of a dispersed rigid filler on the elastic characteristics of a polymer composite
1986
We proposed a method for describing the effective elastic characteristics of a polymer composite with a rigid aggregating filler. An important feature of such a medium is the variable coupling of the inclusion phase in relation to its volume content. A change in the degree of coupling of the filler is accounted for by introducing an additional parameter. We examined a method of determining the coupling parameter from the results of statistical modeling of the geometry of the medium. Using the example of a calcite-HDPE composite, we showed that aggregation has a significant effect on the dependence of the elastic modulus on the volume content of filler; satisfactory agreement was obtained be…
Use of Biochar as Filler for Biocomposite Blown Films: Structure-Processing-Properties Relationships
2021
In this work, biocomposite blown films based on poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) as biopolymeric matrix and biochar (BC) as filler were successfully fabricated. The materials were subjected to a film-blowing process after being compounded in a twin-screw extruder. The preliminary investigations conducted on melt-mixed PBAT/BC composites allowed PBAT/BC 5% and PBAT/BC 10% to be identified as the most appropriate formulations to be processed via film blowing. The blown films exhibited mechanical performances adequate for possible application as film for packaging, agricultural, and compost bags. The addition of BC led to an improvement of the elastic modulus, still maintaining h…
Study and evaluation of dispersion of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and silica filler in polypropylene composites
2018
Various methods were used for evaluation of homogeneity of polypropylene (PP) matrix composites with octakis([n‐octyl]dimethylsiloxy)octasilsesquioxane, octakis([n‐octadecyl]dimethylsiloxy)octasilsesquioxane, and silica (SiO2) fillers. The filler dispersion was determined on the basis of the results from the wide‐angle X‐ray scattering (WAXS) analysis, from the tests of selected mechanical properties, from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy and from the decomposable entropic descriptor method. The use of different methods allowed to evaluate homogeneity of PP composites on various levels and with different precisions. The dispersion degree was found…
Using organoclay to promote morphology refinement and co-continuity in high-density polyethylene/polyamide 6 blends – Effect of filler content and po…
2010
We investigate the gradual changes of the microstructure of two blends of high-density polyethylene (HOPE) and polyamide 6 (PA6) at opposite composition filled with increasing amounts of an organo-modified clay. The filler locates preferentially inside the polyamide phase, bringing about radical alterations in the micron-scale arrangement of the polymer phases. When the host polyamide represents the major constituent, a sudden reduction of the average sizes of the polyethylene droplets was observed upon addition of even low amounts of organoclay. A morphology refinement was also noticed at low filler contents when the particles distributes inside the minor phase. In this case, however, keep…
Orientation and Crystallinity Measurements in Film Casting Products
2003
Film casting experiments were carried out with iPP under processing conditions causing the crystallization process to occur under orienting flow. Draw ratio and cooling rates were changed by varying mass flow rates and die thickness. The effect of processing conditions on film crystallinity was investigated by combining WAXS and FT-IR transmission methods, while orientation of both phases was measured by IR dichroism (according to Fraser's method) and successfully compared to birefringence measurements on final films. Crystallinity appears to be almost insensitive to draw ratio and cooling rate. Moreover the crystallinity profile turned out to be also constant along the transverse film dire…
Density Fluctuation in Amorphous Polymers by Small Angle X-Ray Scattering
1984
Density fluctuations in an infinite volume can be obtained by extrapolating the scattering intensity to the zero scattering angle, while those in a finite volume having a radius of several tens of Angstrom can be obtained from intensities at non-zero scattering angles. Small angle X-ray scattering intensities for condensed phases were approximated by I(s)=I(0)exp(As2). This s dependence of the intensity arises from the repulsive interaction between two particles. Since the density fluctuations in the above two types of volume (infinite and finite) were nearly the same in magnitude and temperature dependence for an amorphous polymer (PMMA), it was concluded that no density fluctuations due t…