While books have been written on many topics of Polymer Science, no compre hensive treatise on long chain branching has ever been composed. This series of reviews in Volume 142 and 143 of Advances in Polymer Science tries to fill this gap by highlighting active areas of research on branched polymers. Long chain branching is a phenomenon observed in synthetic polymers and in some natural polysaccharides. It has long been recognized as a major mole cular parameter of macromolecules. Its presence was first surmised by H. Stau dinger and G. V. Schuh (Ber. 68, 2320, 1935). Interestingly, their method of iden tification by means of the abnormal relation between intrinsic viscosity and molecular weight has survived to this day. Indeed, the most sophisticated method for analysis of long chain branching uses size exclusion fractionation with the simultaneous recording of mass, molecular weight and intrinsic visco sity of the fractions. In the 1940s and 1950s, random branching in polymers and its effect on their properties was studied by Stockmayer, Flory, Zimm and many others. Their work remains a milestone on the subject to this day. Flory dedicated several chapters of his "Principles of Polymer Chemistry" to non linear polymers. Especially important at that time was the view that randomly branched polymers are inter mediates to polymeric networks. Further developments in randomly branched polymers came from the introduction of percolation theory. The modern aspec ts of this topic are elaborated here in the chapter by W. Burchard.

QCM-D Studies on Polymer Behavior at Interfaces reviews the applications of quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) in polymer research, including the conformational change of grafted polymer chains, the grafting kinetics of polymer chains, the growth mechanism of polyelectrolyte multilayers, and the interactions between polymers and phospholipid membranes. It focuses on how QCM-D can be applied to the study of polymer behavior at various solid-liquid interfaces. Moreover, it clearly reveals the physical significance of the changes in frequency and dissipation associated with the different polymer behaviors at the interfaces.

Drawing a picture of the current situation of this new field, this volume both summarizes the past achievements and analyzes the present unsolved problems.

This book summarizes the properties and applications of conventional and commercially available fiber-forming, bioresorbable polymers, as well as those currently under study, for use as biotextiles. Factors affecting the performance of these biomaterials are presented, and precautionary measures to reduce premature, hydrolytic degradation during manufacturing and processing are discussed. Because of the structural requirements of medical devices and the technological advancements in synthetic fibers and textile technology, the new field of "Biotextiles" has evolved to exploit the potential of various woven, knitted, braided and non-woven textile structures for biomedical applications. Textile substrates provide certain unique mechanical properties to the medical device and because of an inherently high level of porosity, they can encourage cell growth and promote migration and proliferation. Bioresorbable devices that assist in the repair and regeneration of damaged tissues have in recent years replaced many of the permanent prosthetic devices. Thus, the topic of "Bioresorbable Biomaterials" generates much interest and research activity in the field of biomaterials science today. For this reason, the use of bioresorbable polymers as fibers is currently dominating the field of resorbable biomaterials for applications from sutures to tissue engineering scaffolds.

"Functionalized Conjugated Polyelectrolytes "presents a comprehensive review of these polyelectrolytes and their biomedical applications. Basic aspects like molecular design and optoelectronic properties are covered in the first chapter. Emphasis is placed on the various applications including sensing (chemical and biological), disease diagnosis, cell imaging, drug/gene delivery and disease treatment. This book explores a multi-disciplinary topic of interest to researchers working in the fields of chemistry, materials, biology and medicine. It also offers an integrated perspective on both basic research and application issues. Functionalized conjugated polyelectrolyte materials, which have already drawn considerable interest, will become a major new direction for biomedicine development.

Silicone Surface Science offers a survey of the major topics concerning the properties and behavior of silicone surfaces. It covers all main aspects of the subject, including: polydimethylsiloxane, spread monolayers, self-assembled monolayers, hydrophobicity and super-hydrophobicity, coupling agents, surfactants, fluorosilicones, surface treatments and surface analysis. This book brings together the field's leading experts who investigated both fundamental and applied aspects of silicone surface science and technology, and introduces the reader to the origins and historical development of silicone surfaces as well as to their most significant current key features. Silicone Surface Science is an invaluable guide and indispensable reference source for all those interested in this important area of polymer and materials science and technology, from graduate students to experienced scientists alike.

Over the past 40 years, Rotational Isomeric State (RIS) models for hundreds of polymer structures have been developed. The RIS approach is now available in several software packages. The user is often faced with the time-consuming task of finding appropriate RIS parameters from the literature. This book aims at easing this step by providing a comprehensive overview of the models available. It reviews the literature from the first applications of RIS models to the end of 1994, comprises synthetic as well as naturally orccuring macromolecules, and tabulates all the pertinent features of published models. It will help readers, even when not very familiar with the method, to take advantage of this computationally efficient way of assessing the conformational properties of macromolecular systems.

This book contains the proceedings of the Symposium on FT-IR Characterization of Polymers, which was held under the auspices of the Division of Polymer Chemistry, American Chemical Society (ACS) during the annual ACS meeting in Philadelphia, August, 1984. The content of each paper has been substantially extended from the papers presented during the conference. Due to the accidental, irrecoverable loss of the entire contents of the book by the computer system used for editorial purposes, the publication of this book has been delayed more than one year over the initial scheduled date. It has been a continuous, frustrating experience for the editor as well as for the authors. An extended Murphy's law, -anything can go wrong goes multiply wrong- has been demonstrated in editor's office. It necessitated, otherwise unnecessary, repeated proof reading during which time the editor had valuable experience ~n familiarizing himself with each paper much more than usual. The papers in this book are state-of-the-art even after such a delay. It is the authors pride and integrity toward the quality of each paper that makes the value of this book long lasting, while responsibility of the loss of any timeliness rests at the editor's hand. For the purpose of official records, submission and acceptance dates must be stated. All papers had been submitted by September, 1984, and had been accepted for publication by November, 1984, after the critical review processes.

In recent years, a growing number of engineering applications of light weight and energy efficient plastics can be found in high quality parts vital to the func tioning of entire equipments and structures. Improved mechanical properties, especially balance of stiffness and toughness, are among the most frequently desired features of the new materials. In addition, reduced flammability is con sidered the single most important requirement for further expansion of plastics into large volume and demanding markets such as construction and mass trans port. Production of power cables also requires flame retardant cable jacketing plastics to replace or at least to reduce consumption of environmentally unsound PVC. The two principal ways to achieve the goals mentioned above include the development of completely new thermoplastic polymers and various modifica tions of the existing ones. Development and commercialization of a new ther moplastic require mobilization of large human and financial resources, the lat ter being within the range from $100 million to $10 billion, in comparison to $100 thousand to $10 million needed to develop and commercialize polymeric mate rial with prescribed end use properties using physical or chemical modification of an existing plastic. In addition, the various markets utilizing thermoplastics demand large flexibility in material properties with only moderate volumes, at the best.

Over the last forty years,good old-fashioned colloid chemistry has undergone something of a revolution,transforming itself from little more than a collection of qualitative observations of the macroscopic behaviour of some complex s- tems into a discipline with a solid theoretical foundation and a whole toolbox of new chemical techniques.It can now boast a set of concepts which go a long way towards providing an understanding of the many strange and interesting beh- iour patterns exhibited by natural and artificial systems on the mesoscale. In other words: colloid chemists have acquired a great deal of experience in the generation and control of matter with tools that are specific on a scale of some nanometers to micrometers.Modern concepts such as self-organisation,hier- chical set-up of materials,nanoparticles,functional surface engineering,int- facing and cross-talk of complex chemical objects,all of which are now in the toolbox of this 90-year old science. It is the aim of the present issue of"Topics in Current Chemistry"to highlight some of the most attractive recent developments in colloid chemistry which are expected to have broader relevance and to be interesting to a more general readership.The contributions focus both on tools and procedures as well as on potential applications.

Pt. A: NMR and other Spectroscopic Methods. Pt. B: Mechanical Methods