ABSTRACT:In this work, the compatibility of blends of plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (p-PVC) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) was investigated using a dynamic mechanical analyzer and scanning electron microscopy. Two kinds of TPU with different ratios of hard to soft segments, i.e., TPU90 and TPU70 were compared. p-PVC/ TPU90 and p-PVC/TPU70 blends with variable weight ratios (100/0, 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, 0/100) were prepared by melt blending. PVC was plasticized with 40 phr of dioctyl phthalate. It was found that TPU with a lower hard segment (i.e., TPU70) is more compatible with plasticized PVC than TPU with a higher hard segment (i.e., TPU90) in over the composition ranges examined. It was concluded that the compatibility of plasticized PVC and TPU are dependent on the ratio of hard to soft segments in TPU.
Summary
Approximately 1.8 million children under age 15 were living with HIV. This study is the first to empirically examine the impact of sanctions on children's new HIV infection and AIDS‐related death rates. Using sanction and HIV/AIDS data that are available for 71 developing countries from 1990 to 2012, this study reveals that sanctions increase children's new HIV infection and their AIDS‐related death rates. This study increases understanding about the consequences of sanctions, especially their effect on a marginalized population and is in line with previous literature. The significant impacts of sanctions on children's HIV/AIDS suggest that the leader in a country targeted by sanctions needs to consider extending programs to respond to children's HIV/AIDS both during sanctioning and after it is lifted.
Among current studies, there is still question as to whether conflict increases, decreases, or has no effect on HIV prevalence. This lack of clarity can be attributed to the scarcity of quantitative analysis in this field. Thus, studies about conflict and HIV have failed to specify the ways conflict affects HIV prevalence, if indeed it does. In this paper, I argue that armed conflict increases HIV prevalence by reducing total per capita health spending. Using HIV prevalence data from 1990 to 2009, I find supporting evidence in the case of civil conflicts for these arguments. In addition, I find that as the severity of civil conflict increases, so do HIV rates. These findings have significant policy implications for individual governments, as well as for the international community.
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