A comparative study of the desorption efficiencies in the UV irradiation of molecular van der Waals films above and below the ablation threshold

In the irradiation of thick films of aromatics (C₆H₅Cl and C₆H₅CH₃ enriched with dopants of varying volatilities), the attainment of the threshold is shown to result in qualitatively different ejection characteristics. In particular, the comparison of the desorption efficiencies either of species premixed in the film or of photoproducts formed by the irradiation shows that below the threshold only highly volatile species desorb. In contrast, above the threshold, even highly involatile species are found to be ejected efficiently. The efficient ejection of these species cannot be accounted for by a change in the absorbed energy. Instead, the operation of a non-thermal ejection mechanism is strongly indicated. The results are consistent with the delineation drawn by molecular dynamics simulations [12] for surface vaporization at fluences below the ablation threshold and ejection as a result of pressure buildup above it.     

Thermoresponsive terpolymers based on methacrylate monomers: Effect of architecture and composition

A series of amphiphilic thermoresponsive copolymers was synthesized by group transfer polymerization. Seven copolymers were prepared based on the nonionic hydrophobic n‐butyl methacrylate (BuMA), the ionizable hydrophilic and thermoresponsive 2‐(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) and the nonionic hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol)methyl methacrylate (PEGMA). In particular, one diblock copolymer and six tricomponent copolymers of different architectures and compositions, one random and five triblock copolymers, were synthesized. The polymers and their precursors were characterized in terms of their molecular weight and composition using gel permeation chromatography and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, respectively. Aqueous solutions of the polymers were studied by turbidimetry, hydrogen ion titration, and light scattering to determine their cloud points, pK_as, and hydrodynamic diameters and investigate the effect of the polymers' composition and architecture. The thermoresponsive behavior of the copolymers was also studied. By increasing the temperature, all polymer solutions became more viscous, but only one polymer, the one with the highest content of the hydrophobic BuMA, formed a stable physical gel. Interestingly, the thermoresponsive behavior of these triblock copolymers was affected not only by the terpolymers' composition but also by the terpolymers' architecture. These findings can facilitate the design and engineering of injectable copolymers for tissue engineering that could enable the in situ formation of physical gels at body temperature. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 775–783, 2010     

Capillarity effects on crystallization kinetics: insulin

During layerwise growth of crystals, capillarity governs the generation of new crystal layers. Theory predicts that the line tension of the layer edge determines, via the characteristic two-dimensional capillary length L(c), the rates of generation and initial growth of the new layers. To test the correlation between L(c) and the rate of layer generation, we used in situ Tapping Mode Atomic Force Microscopy (TM-AFM) to study the generation and spreading of layers during crystallization of rhombohedral, R3, porcine insulin. We show that crystallization of this insulin form is uniquely suitable for such an investigation due to the linear kinetics of step growth it exhibits. This linear kinetics reflects the abundance of the incorporation sites along the rough steps, the lack of long-range step-step interactions, and the transport control of the growth kinetics. The kinetic coefficients are 7 x 10(-)(3) and 4 x 10(-)(2) cm s(-)(1), respectively, in the absence and presence of the cosolvent acetone-somewhat high for proteins and comparable to values for inorganic systems. We show that (i). the relevant capillary length, the size of a critical quadrangular 2D nucleus L(c), is the main scaling factor for the density of growth steps, while (ii). all steps longer than L(c) grow with a rate determined only by the supersaturation and independent of their length. We explain the divergence of (ii). from theoretical predictions with the high supersaturations typical of the growth of this protein system.     

Using simulation modelling to support decisions in hail suppression programmes with airborne means

This article presents the development and implementation of a stochastic discrete event simulation model. The project aims to analyse and improve the operational processes of a Hail Suppression Programme with airborne means. The main objective of the programme is the minimization of crop damages because of hailstorms. The project involves a simulation model as part of the decision support analysis, which investigates costs and effectiveness of various operational scenarios concerning the interception and neutralization of hailstorms, using airborne seeding. Apart from estimating responses and metrics under miscellaneous scenarios, the model facilitates what-if analysis to inspect and reveal relations between service (interception) times, number of aircrafts, and acceptable values of efficiency metrics. Subsequently, the model has been used to estimate a regression function that has been further implemented in the assessment process for new technologies and materials.     

A Branch-and-Bound Algorithm for Concave Network Flow Problems

In this paper a Branch-and-Bound (BB) algorithm is developed to obtain an optimal solution to the single source uncapacitated minimum cost Network Flow Problem (NFP) with general concave costs. Concave NFPs are NP-Hard, even for the simplest version therefore, there is a scarcity of exact methods to address them in their full generality. The BB algorithm presented here can be used to solve optimally single source uncapacitated minimum cost NFPs with any kind of concave arc costs. The bounding is based on the computation of lower bounds derived from state space relaxations of a dynamic programming formulation. The relaxations, which are the subject of the paper (Fontes et al., 2005b) and also briefly discussed here, involve the use of non-injective mapping functions, which guarantee a reduction on the cardinality of the state space. Branching is performed by either fixing an arc as part of the final solution or by removing it from the final solution. Computational results are reported and compared to available alternative methods for addressing the same type of problems. It could be concluded that our BB algorithm has better performance and the results have also shown evidence that it has a sub-exponential time growth.     

New orthogonal designs of order 56

Amicable sets of eight matrices are very useful in the construction of orthogonal designs using the Kharaghani array. In this article we use a simple procedure to construct many new amicable sets of eight matrices of order 7 and then new orthogonal designs of order 56. Some of these are restricted to be short amicable sets of two or four circulant matrices.. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 10: 387–393, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10030     

Optimal expansion of an existing network

Given an existing network, a list of arcs which could be added to the network, the arc costs and capacities, and an available budget, the problem considered in this paper is one of choosing which arcs to add to the network in order to maximize the maximum flow from a sources to a sinkt, subject to the budgetary constraint. This problem appears in a large number of practical situations which arise in connection with the expansion of electricity or gas supply, telephone, road or rail networks. The paper describes an efficient tree-search algorithm using bounds calculated by a dynamic programming procedure which are very effective in limiting the solution space explicitly searched. Computational results for a number of medium sized problems are described and computing times are seen to be very reasonable.     

Numerical simulation of the extrusion of strongly compressible Newtonian liquids

The axisymmetric and plane extrusion flows of a liquid foam are simulated assuming that the foam is a homogeneous compressible Newtonian fluid that slips along the walls. Compressibility effects are investigated using both a linear and an exponential equation of state. The numerical results confirm previous reports that the swelling of the extrudate decreases initially as the compressibility of the fluid is increased and then increases considerably. The latter increase is sharper in the case of the exponential equation of state. In the case of non-zero inertia, high compressibility was found to lead to a contraction of the extrudate after the initial expansion, similar to that observed experimentally with liquid foams and to decaying oscillations of the extrudate surface. The time-dependent calculations show that the oscillatory steady-state solutions are stable. These steady-state oscillatory solutions are not affected by the length of the extrudate region nor by the boundary condition along the wall.