latex

latex, emulsion of a polymer (e.g., rubber) in water (see colloid). Natural latexes are produced by a number of plants, are usually white in color, and often contain, in addition to rubber, various gums, oils, and waxes. Balata, caoutchouc, chicle, and gutta-percha are produced from natural latexes. Synthetic latexes may be prepared in two ways: the polymer may be prepared as an emulsion (emulsion polymerization), or the dry, powdered polymer may be dispersed in water. Both natural and synthetic latexes are widely used, especially in the production of rubber goods. Latex paints, sometimes called rubber-base paints, consist of a latex colored by the addition of a pigment.

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latex

Any of several natural or synthetic colloidal suspensions (see colloid). Some latexes occur naturally in the cells of plants such as chicle and rubber trees. They are complex mixtures of organic compounds, including various gum resins, fats, or waxes and, in some instances, poisonous compounds, suspended in a watery medium with dissolved salts, sugars, tannins, alkaloids, enzymes, and other substances from which the latex (or natural rubber, the only available rubber until 1926) can be concentrated, coagulated, and vulcanized. Synthetic latexes (e.g., neoprene), made by emulsion polymerization from styrene-butadiene copolymer, acrylate resins, polyvinyl acetate, or other materials, are used as paints and coatings; the plastic, dispersed in the water, forms films by fusion as the water evaporates.

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(LAmport TeX) A document preparation system based on the TeX language developed by Leslie Lamport at SRI International. LaTeX provides a macro language for TeX that lets the user concentrate on the logical structure of the document rather than the format codes. See TeX.

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(language, text, tool)

LaTeX - (Lamport TeX) Leslie Lamport <lamport@pa.dec.com>'s document preparation system built on top of TeX. LaTeX was developed at SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory and was built to resemble Scribe. LaTeX adds commands to simplify typesetting and lets the user concentrate on the structure of the text rather than on formatting commands. BibTeX is a LaTeX package for bibliographic citations. Lamport's LaTeX book has an exemplary index listing every symbol, concept and example in the book. The index in the, now obsolete, first edition includes (on page 221) the mysterious entry "Gilkerson, Ellen, 221". The second edition (1994) has an entry for "infinite loop" instead. ["LaTeX, A Document Preparation System", Leslie Lamport, A-W 1986, ISBN 0-201-15790-X (first edition, now obsolete)].