Miscibility

Abstract

One of the main goals of polymer scientists is to control the structure and morphology of multicomponent systems to produce materials with novel properties. Understanding the miscibility behavior of polymer–polymer blends is vital, and this requires a knowledge of thermodynamics and the ability to select appropriate methods for the determination of phase behavior. The article provides a brief introduction to some aspects of polymer–polymer miscibility.

The World System in transition: a panoramic view

“…It was the interstate system that allowed capitalism to become a world system. (Arrighi 2010) 2 As the promoters of this revolutionary institutional innovation, the United Provinces State poisoned itself as the first hegemon (Arrighi idem), which reaffirmed the leadership of Dutch capitalists over the worldwide processes of capital accumulation and the United Provinces as the center of the world-economy. It should be noted that, for Kissinger (2014, 15), with the institution of the interstate system it was conceived "what passes for order in our time":…”

“…Before dealing directly with the SCA, it is important to make it clear that: 1) the "Systemic cycles of accumulation (…) are thus inherently capitalist phenomena" (Arrighi 2010, 9); and 2) capitalist or capitalism is defined by Braudel (and Arrighi), in contrast with the other two components of economic life, which are material life and market economy. The latter has many horizontal communications between the different markets: here a degree of automatic coordination usually links supply, demand and prices.…”

“…It is the power associated with dominance expanded by the exercise of "intellectual and moral leadership." (Arrighi 2010, 28-29, emphasis added)…”

“…In his reconstruction of the CWS as a sequence of SCA, Arrighi (2010) found four Systemic Cycles of Accumulation (SCA), each one named according to the origin of the private and public agents that led the capitalist world-economy during this cycle: Genoese (1460-1630), Dutch (1630-1780), British (1780British ( -1930 and American (1930-…). From now on I will focus on the US SCA, mainly on its Financial Expansion, with which came the decline of the US hegemony and the debate about global order and a new hegemony.…”

“…At Bretton Woods, a new world monetary system had been established; at Hiroshima and Nagasaki new means of violence had demonstrated what the military underpinnings of the new world order would be; and at San Francisco new norms and rules for the legitimization of state-making and war-making had been laid out in the UN Charter. " (Arrighi 2010, 283).…”