Dimesogenic liquid crystal consisting of cholesterol and Schiff base moieties: dependence of LC properties on the spacer length and fluorination of the alkoxy tails

The liquid crystalline properties of two series of non-symmetric liquid crystal dimers consisting of cholesterol and Schiff base moieties interconnected by ω-oxyalkanoyl spacers of varying length are compared: one series (SBOC- n ) carry the octyloxy tail on the Schiff base mesogen, and the other (SBOF- n ) a perfluoroheptylmethyloxy tail. In general, compounds with the fluorinated alkoxy tail exhibited mesophases over a much wider temperature range than those with the alkoxy tail. The latter series favoured the formation of more diverse mesophases than the former. SBOC-4, -5 and -7, and SBOF-4, -5 and -10 formed the chiral smectic C phase.     

Tunable AC thermal anemometry

This paper suggests and demonstrates a novel flow measurement technique: tunable AC thermal anemometry, that allows simple integration, robust measurement and extremely high accuracy. The principle and simple theoretical analysis of the technique are presented. To find the optimal condition at which the phase lag becomes most sensitive to the flow speed change, the phase lag was measured scanning the heating frequency from 1 to 100 Hz, while the flow speed of ethanol was increased stepwise from 0 to 40 mm/s. The sensitivity of the phase lag depended on the heating frequency and the flow speed. It was possible to measure the average flow speed of 0.7 mm/s with the resolution of 0.1 mm/s at 4 Hz.     

Role of interfacial interactions on the anomalous swelling of polymer thin films in supercritical carbon dioxide

It has recently been shown that thin polymer films in the nanometer thickness range exhibit anomalous swelling maxima in supercritical CO₂ (Sc‐Co₂) in the vicinity of the critical point of CO₂. The adsorption isotherm of CO₂ on carbon black, silica surfaces, porous zeolites, and other surfaces, is known to exhibit anomalous maxima under similar CO₂ conditions. It is believed that because CO₂ possesses a low cohesive energy density, there would be an excess amount of CO₂ at the surfaces of these materials and hence the CO₂/polymer interface. This might cause excess CO₂ in the polymer films near the free surface, and hence the swelling anomaly. In addition, an excess of CO₂ would reside at the polymer/substrate and polymer/CO₂ interfaces for entropic reasons. These interfacial effects, as have been suggested, should account for an overall excess of CO₂ in a thin polymer film compared to the bulk, and would be responsible for the anomalous swelling. In this study, we use in situ spectroscopic ellipsometry to investigate the role of interfaces on the anomalous swelling of polymer thin films of varying initial thicknesses, h₀, exposed to Sc‐CO₂. We examined three homopolymers, poly(1,1′‐dihydroperflurooctyl methacrylate) (PFOMA), polystyrene (PS), poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), that exhibit very different interactions with Sc‐CO₂, and the diblock copolymer of PS‐b‐PFOMA. We show that the anomalous swelling cannot be solely explained by the excess adsorption of CO₂ at interfaces. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 45: 1313–1324, 2007     

Implementation of an 8ch GbE Multiplexing Transponder

We report the implementation of a transponder to transmit eight channels of a Gigabit Ethernet signal transparently in an Optical Transport Network(OTN). This transponder is based on framing technologies for Ethernet over SDH over OTN. This framing structure offers an attractive option for carrying data traffic over the OTN.     

Inclusion and argument properties for certain subclasses of meromorphic functions associated with a family of multiplier transformations

Making use of a multiplier transformation, which is defined here by means of the Hadamard product (or convolution), the authors introduce some new subclasses of meromorphic functions and investigate their inclusion relationships and argument properties. Some integral-preserving properties in a given sector are also considered.     

Pulsed laser deposition of hard magnetic films

Pulsed laser deposition from elemental targets was used to prepare highly textured hard magnetic Nd–Fe–B and Fe–Pt films with coercivities of 2 T and 5.2 T, respectively. In situ methods such as reflection high energy electron diffraction and Auger electron spectroscopy were applied to analyse film composition and structure during growth. Optimisation of the hard magnetic properties is discussed together with the specific advantages of pulsed laser deposition. PACS 81.15.Fg; 75.50.Ww; 75.50.Vv     

Measurement of Reactive Hydroxyl Radical Species Inside the Biosolutions During Non-thermal Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet Bombardment onto the Solution

Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma jet could generate various kinds of radicals on biosolution surfaces as well as inside the biosolutions. The electron temperature and ion density for this non-thermal plasma jet have been measured to be about 0.8~1.0 eV and 1 × 10¹³ cm^?3 in this experiment, respectively, by atmospheric pressure collisional radiative model and ion collector current. In this context, the hydroxyl OH radical density inside the biosolutions has been also investigated experimentally by ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy when the Ar non-thermal plasma jet has been bombarded onto them. It is found that the emission and absorption profiles for the other reactive oxygen species such as NO (226 nm) and O₂*^? (245 nm) are shown to be very small inside the biosolution in comparison with those for the OH radical species. It is found that the densities of OH radical species inside the biosolutions are higher than those on the surface in this experiment. The densities of the OH radical species inside the deionized water, Dulbecco’s modified eagle medium, and phosphate buffered saline are measured to be about 2.1 × 10¹⁶, 1.1 × 10¹⁶, and 1.0 × 10¹⁶ cm^?3, respectively, at 2 mm downstream from the surface under optimized Ar gas flow of 200 sccm. It is also found that the critical hydroxyl OH radical density for the lung cancer H460 cells to experience an apoptosis is observed to be around 0.3 × 10¹⁶ cm^?3 under 1 min plasma exposure in this experiment.     

An X‐ray absorption spectroscopic study of carbon monoxide‐adsorbed Cu surface

Adsorption/interaction of Carbon monoxide (CO) on a catalytic surface is the key step in electrochemical conversion of CO2 for environmental consideration. Copper (Cu) is known to be the most efficient catalyst for this purpose. Thus, this paper investigates effects of CO adsorption on the electronic/atomic state of polycrystalline Cu surface by using x‐ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). X‐ray absorption near‐edge structure (XANES) tells that the Cu K‐edge shift +0.2 eV on adsorbing CO. Extended x‐ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis informs that CO adsorption disturbs Cu surface, i.e. increase of Cu‐Cu bonding distance and decrease of the coordination number of the first nearest neighbor. Both the results of XANES and EXAFS imply decrease of d‐electron density of Cu on the adsorption. Demonstrated is that XAS is very useful in studying the surface phenomena of a catalyst but requires further efforts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.