Aligned carbon cones in free‐standing UV‐Curable polymer composite

A concept where an alternating electric field (dielectrophoresis) is used to assemble and align carbon nanocone particles (CNCs) into microscopic wires in self‐supporting polymer films is demonstrated. The particle fraction is kept low (one‐tenth of the percolation threshold of isotropic mixture), which allows uniform dispersion and efficient UV curing. The alignment leads to the conductivity enhancement of three to four orders of magnitude (from ～10^?7 to ～10^?3 S/m) in the alignment direction. It does not require passing current so the material can be isolated from the alignment electrodes. This prevents electrodes attaching to the film, if the film is adhesive in nature. The alignment can be done using either in‐plane or out‐of‐plane geometries. It is proposed that this concept could be applied in areas such as electrostatic discharge applications where inexpensive conductive or dissipative materials and macroscopic uniformity are prerequisites. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011     

Limit spaces and transfinite types

 We give a characterisation of an extension of the Kleene-Kreisel continuous functionals to objects of transfinite types using limit spaces of transfinite types. Received: 24 August 1999 / Published online: 12 July 2002     

Spirane-bridged ansa η-cyclopentadienyl-η-fluorenyl-zirconocene precatalysts

Synthesis of rigid ansa-zirconocene precatalyst systems with a C₂-bridge embedded in a spirane scaffold is described. Fulvenes were key intermediates in regio- and stereoselective preparation of the appropriate spirane ligands. Substitution in the cyclopentadienyl group in the ligand was effected by fulvene methodology. The zirconocenes were active precatalysts for the polymerisation of propene when activated with MAO. The structure of the parent zirconocene dichloride has been verified by X-ray crystal analysis.     

Experiments on sound generation in corrugated pipes with flow

The article reports acoustic measurements on short corrugated pipes with flow. Such pipes might generate high sound levels associated with length resonances. One of the main objectives of the study was to estimate the location of the effective sources by studying the energy flow through the pipes. It was found that a short section of corrugations will only produce sound effectively when placed at the inflow end, while for fully corrugated pipes, the sound-producing regions are located around the pressure maxima of the observed standing waves. It was further found that the net energy flow is in the upstream direction for nearly the complete length of pipe.     

Studies on the mechanism of the Carr-Price blue colour reaction

The reaction of retinoids (retinol, retinyl acetate and anhydroretinol) with Br?nsted acids was studied as a model system for the Carr-Price reaction. The anhydroretinylic cation was characterised by VIS and 2D NMR spectroscopy, including an estimate of the charge distribution and region of bond inversion, observed in a mixture of identified E/Z isomers. Products obtained by quenching with NaOMe-MeOH were identified by HPLC and MS. The classical Carr-Price reaction between retinol (vitamin A) and the Lewis acid SbCl(3) in saturated chloroform solution was reinvestigated by VIS, NMR, EPR, dynamic light scattering and chemical quenching. Whereas product instability and failure to provide informative NMR spectra indicated a radical cation, EPR results excluded free-radical species. Dynamic light scattering experiments, in comparison with model systems, revealed strong aggregation for the Carr-Price complex, rationalizing the low stability, NMR problems and dimerisation observed by chemical quenching. The VIS data support structural similarity of the blue Carr-Price product with the delocalized anhydroretinylic cation, and a detailed structure of the antimony complex is evaluated.     

Optimised assembly mode reconfiguration of the 5-DOF Gantry-Tau using mixed-integer programming

This paper presents a systematic approach based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming for finding an optimal singularity-free reconfiguration path of the 5-DOF Gantry-Tau parallel kinematic machine. The results in the paper demonstrate that singularity-free reconfiguration (change of assembly mode) of the machine is possible, which significantly increases the usable workspace. The method has been applied to a full-scale prototype and the singularity-free path has been verified both in simulations and with physical experiments using real-time control of the prototype. The toolpoint positions have been verified by using measurements from a high precision laser tracker.     

A matrix-based ranking method with application to tennis

We introduce, and investigate, a ranking methodology which may be of interest in sports like tennis. The approach may also be of interest in decision-making situations based on pairwise comparisons. The method is based on linear algebra and one computes a score for each player by solving a certain linear system of equations – from these scores one finds the ranking. The input is a set of matches, and weights representing the importance of the matches; this is represented by a weighted directed graph. We prove a number of properties of the method, including uniqueness of scores, connection to M-matrices and combinatorial interpretations. A case study from ranking in professional tennis is discussed in detail.