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Technology and Development of Self-Reinforced Polymer Composites, by Ben Alcock und Ton Peijs.- Recent Advances in High-Temperature Fractionation of Polyolefins, by Harald Pasch, Muhammad Imran Malik und Tibor Macko.- Antibacterial Peptidomimetics: Polymeric Synthetic Mimics of Antimicrobial Peptides, by Karen Lienkamp, Ahmad E. Madkour und Gregory N. Tew.- Collagen in Human Tissues: Structure, Function, and Biomedical Implications from a Tissue Engineering Perspective, by Molamma P. Prabhakaran.

Participatory GIS (PGIS) is used in regional urban development and in solving regional problems that affect local communities. Accordingly, the widespread adoption of PGIS is important. In this paper, the development of a Web GIS-based regional social networking service (SNS) is presented. The SNS focuses on PGIS and takes into account user activity support. The system has three functions: information extraction by user activity area, GPS location referencing, and location based information posting function. The proposed SNS is evaluated in Takizawa Village, Japan. Furthermore, a PGIS usage model is proposed for actively utilizing PGIS. Local governments, nonprofit organizations, and universities each have a role in this model.

Segmented chain molecules involving mesogenic units along the backbone chain, conventionallycalled mainchain liquid crystals, often exhibit an enatiotropic nematic liquid-crystalline phase overa certain temperature range between the crystal and the isotropic melt. The phase transitions involvedare usually of first order. Spectroscopic analyses such as X-ray and neutron diffraction, IR andRaman absorption, and 1H and 2H NMR demonstratedthat the orientational ordering of mesogenic cores in the mesophase are strongly coupled with thespatial arrangement of the spacer. While the orientation of the molecular axis (i.e., the whole molecule)varies as a function of temperature, the well-defined nematic conformation of the spacer remainsalmost unaltered over the entire range of the liquid-crystalline state. In these compounds, the conformationaltransition takes place in the order isotropic random coil ↔ nematic conformation ↔ extendedcrystalline form, or vice versa during the crystallization/melting process. In this article, we firstpresent a brief summary of the entropy of fusion of chain molecules. In the second part, conformationalentropy changes associated with the melting via a nematic phase, or the crystallization via a nematicmesophase, are reviewed. The experimental data on liquid-crystal transitions were mostly collectedfrom studies on oligomeric compounds such as dimer and trimer mainchain liquid crystals with neatchemical structures. Finally it is suggested that further studies on the phase transition of chainmolecules via a nematic mesophase may provide some valuable information regarding the embryonicstage of the polymer crystallization mechanism.

The RIS analysis of the deuterium quadrupolar splitting data have been performed for ether-type dimer liquid crystals NCPh2O(CD2)nOPh2CN (DLC) with n = 9 and 10 according to the simulation scheme previously established. The orientational as well as conformational characteristics of DLCs have been investigated under various conditions including binary mixtures with a low-molar-mass liquid crystal EtOPhCH=NPhCN. In the DLC systems studied, the intervening spacer -O(CH2)nO- was found to take spatial arrangements characteristic of the nematic phase. The nematic conformation thus identified remains quite stable over a wide range of concentration and temperature.