How does linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster to learn the word for 1 than children learning a language that lacks the singular-plural distinction, perhaps because the word for 1 is always used in singular contexts, highlighting its meaning. These studies are problematic, however, because reported differences in number word learning may be due to unmeasured cross-cultural differences rather than specific linguistic differences. To address this problem, we investigated number word learning in four groups of children from a single culture who spoke different dialects of the same language that differed chiefly with respect to how they grammatically mark number. We found that learning a dialect which features “dual” morphology (marking of pairs) accelerated children’s acquisition of the number word two relative to learning a “non-dual” dialect of the same language.

Coalescing aids are organic solvents that are widely used to accommodate the film formation of waterborne coatings. The influence of the volatility, hydrophilicity, and amount of coalescing aids on the properties of waterborne dispersions and the dynamics of film formation was investigated. The results show that coalescing aids increased the viscosity through particle swelling and solvation, with the effect being stronger with more hydrophilic solvents. The results obtained with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and indentation tests show that hydrophilic coalescing aids were more efficient because of the partitioning on the particle interfaces but they could temporarily decrease the water resistance. The ease of coalescence was countered by solvent retention, which complicated the dynamics of film formation. EIS was used to optimize a real‐world coating formulation and identify the pitfalls arising from the complex dynamics of film formation. The best resistance to humidity was obtained with a combination of hydrophobic and hydrophilic coalescing aids. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45142.

Semibatch, power feed, and shot‐addition feeding strategies were employed to synthesize carboxylated latex under acidic conditions, using emulsion polymerization. As a source of carboxyl groups, acrylic (AA) or methacrylic acid (MAA) was used. The distribution of carboxyl groups between feeding strategies were investigated using rheology, potentiometric/conductometric titrations, transmission electron microscopy, and FT‐IR spectroscopy. Upon alkalization, particle swelling was observed using dynamic light scattering. With increasing pH, both the AA‐ and MAA‐based latexes showed significant increase in hydrodynamic diameter as a consequence of the dissociation state of carboxyl groups. However, only MAA‐based latexes exhibit very pronounced increase in viscosity and storage modulus, and were therefore characterized as gels. The effect of feeding strategies was found to be more pronounced with the MAA functionalized latexes. By employing mentioned three procedures, significant differences in the rheological behavior of the neutralized dispersions were detected. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42062.

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