Very large-scale classification taxonomies typically have hundreds of thousands of categories, deep hierarchies, and skewed category distribution over documents. However, it is still an open question whether the state-of-the-art technologies in automated text categorization can scale to (and perform well on) such large taxonomies. In this paper, we report the first evaluation of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) in web-page classification over the full taxonomy of the Yahoo! categories. Our accomplishments include: 1) a data analysis on the Yahoo! taxonomy; 2) the development of a scalable system for large-scale text categorization; 3) theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation of SVMs in hierarchical and non-hierarchical settings for classification; 4) an investigation of threshold tuning algorithms with respect to time complexity and their effect on the classification accuracy of SVMs. We found that, in terms of scalability, the hierarchical use of SVMs is efficient enough for very large-scale classification; however, in terms of effectiveness, the performance of SVMs over the Yahoo! Directory is still far from satisfactory, which indicates that more substantial investigation is needed.

Summary For hydrophobically associative polymers, incorporating a small fraction of hydrophobic monomer into a hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) polymer can promote intermolecular associations and thereby enhance viscosities and resistance factors. In this paper, we investigate the behavior of a new associative polymer in porous media. The tetra-polymer has low hydrophobic-monomer content and a molecular weight (Mw) of 12–17 million g/mol. Total anionic content is 15–25 mol%, including a few percent of a sulfonic monomer. This polymer is compared with a conventional HPAM with 18–20 million g/mol Mw and 35–40% anionic content. Rheological properties (viscosity vs. concentration; and shear rate and elastic and loss moduli vs. frequency) were similar for the two polymers [in a 2.52% total dissolved solids (TDS) brine at 25 °C]. For both polymers in cores with permeabilities from 300 to 13,000 md, no face plugging or internal-filter-cake formation was observed, and resistance factors correlated well using the capillary-bundle parameter. For the HPAM polymer in these cores, low-flux resistance factors were consistent with low-shear-rate viscosities. In contrast, over the same permeability range, the associative polymer provided low-flux resistance factors that were two to three times the values expected from viscosities. Moderate shear degradation did not eliminate this effect—nor did flow through a few feet of porous rock. Propagation experiments in long cores (up to 157 cm) suggest that the unexpectedly high resistance factors could propagate deep into a reservoir—thereby providing enhanced displacement compared with conventional HPAM polymers. Compared with HPAM, the new polymer shows a significantly higher level of shear thinning at low fluxes and a lower degree of shear thickening at high fluxes.

For hydrophobically associative polymers, incorporating a small fraction of hydrophobic monomer into a hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) polymer can promote intermolecular associations and thereby enhance viscosities and resistance factors. In this paper, we investigate the behavior of a new associative polymer in porous media. The tetra-polymer has low hydrophobic-monomer content and a molecular weight (Mw) of 12-17 million g/mol. Total anionic content is 15-25 mol%, including a few percent of a sulfonic monomer. This polymer is compared with a conventional HPAM with 18-20 million g/mol Mw and 35-40% anionic content. Rheological properties (viscosity vs. concentration; and shear rate and elastic and loss moduli vs. frequency) were similar for the two polymers [in a 2.52% total dissolved solids (TDS) brine at 25°C]. For both polymers in cores with permeabilities from 300 to 13,000 md, no face plugging or internal-filter-cake formation was observed, and resistance factors correlated well using the capillary-bundle parameter. For the HPAM polymer in these cores, low-flux resistance factors were consistent with low-shear-rate viscosities. In contrast, over the same permeability range, the associative polymer provided low-flux resistance factors that were two to three times the values expected from viscosities. Moderate shear degradation did not eliminate this effect-nor did flow through a few feet of porous rock. Propagation experiments in long cores (up to 157 cm) suggest that the unexpectedly high resistance factors could propagate deep into a reservoir-thereby providing enhanced displacement compared with conventional HPAM polymers. Compared with HPAM, the new polymer shows a significantly higher level of shear thinning at low fluxes and a lower degree of shear thickening at high fluxes.

Electron-donating triphenylamine and/or electron-withdrawing pyromellitic diimide (PMDI) are functionalized on dithienylethene (DTE) and three novel photochromic materials have been designed and successfully synthesized. All the compounds display reversible photochromism due to the molecular switching between ring-closed isomers upon UV light irradiation and ring-open isomers upon exposure to visible light. Thus they can be applied as an anti-counterfeiting ink. Moreover, the study of the photoswitching kinetics reveals that both the ring-closing and ring-opening reactions are first-order reactions. Further charge population analysis discovers that the electron densities of the substituents at the DTE core have a dramatic influence on the photochromic properties. The incorporation of electron-donating triphenylamine groups at the α-position of the thiophene rings in the DTE unit facilitates the ring-closing reaction upon UV light irradiation. In contrast, the substitution of an electron-withdrawing PMDI unit in the DTE unit is beneficial to the ring-opening reaction upon irradiation of visible light. This work may help to understand the photochromism of DTE derivatives and provide a pathway for designing DTE-based photochromes with more or less sensitivity to UV or visible light.