M E M O R A N D U M TO: Executive Board of the Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY) FROM: W. V. Metanomski SUBJECT: Nomenclature Committee's Report DATE: 23 August 1998 The Committee continues to promote polymer-nomenclature recommendations, in particular, those of the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature. The Committee monitors how the macromolecular nomenclature matters are explained and discussed in various textbooks and handbooks, and offers suggestions for improvements. Individual questions from POLY members and requests to help naming polymers are answered promptly. Ted Wilks published in the August 1998 issue of POLYMER PREPRINTS the "Macromolecular Nomenclature Note No. 15" on "Nomenclature and Structure Representation for Dendritic Polymers". This subject is being now considered by the IUPAC Commission. Ted presents a few options and asks for comments and suggestions. This Note has been accepted for publication in the polymer journal MACROMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, published now by Wiley VCH in Germany. This provides us with an additional forum on the international scene. Les Sperling published a note on "Polymer Network Definitions" on the Back Page of the Fall 1998 issue of PMSE - POLYMERIC MATERIALS: SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. "The Back Page" in these proceedings has become a regular nomenclature and terminology column. Additional nomenclature and terminology articles are in preparation by Les and Val Metanomski for the Spring 1999 issues of the POLY and PMSE Preprints, and for the PMSE 75th anniversary commemorative book. Val has also submitted a final manuscript of the chapter on "Nomenclature" for the 4th edition of Wiley's POLYMER HANDBOOK, which introduces the IUPAC source-based and structure-based macromolecular nomenclature, discusses the use of trivial and semisystematic names for polymers, indicates the important features of CA Index names, and provides a list of polymer class names. Three Committee members (Metanomski, Wilks, and Works) attended the annual meeting of the IUPAC Commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature in July 1998 in Sydney, Australia, and actively participated in the generation and review of their new recommendations. The Committee has a WWW page associated with the POLY WWW pages: http://www.chem.umr.edu/~poly/nomenclature.html which lists the Committee members (links are provided to their full and e-mail addresses) and provides the list of "Valid Recommendations on Macromolecular Terminology and Nomenclature". From: Dr. W. V. Metanomski Chemical Abstracts Service 2540 Olentangy River Road P.O. Box 3012 Columbus, Ohio 43210-0012 phone: (614) 447-3631 fax: (614) 447-3713 e-mail: wvmetan@cas.org