Assessing the exchange coupling in binuclear lanthanide(iii) complexes and the slow relaxation of the magnetization in the antiferromagnetically coupled Dy2 derivative

We report here the synthesis and the investigation of the magnetic properties of a series of binuclear lanthanide complexes belonging to the metallacrown family. The isostructural complexes have a core structure with the general formula [Ga₄Ln₂(shi^3–)₄(Hshi^2–)₂(H₂shi^–)₂(C₅H₅N)₄(CH₃OH)_x(H₂O)_x]·xC₅H₅N·xCH₃OH·xH₂O (where H₃shi = salicylhydroxamic acid and Ln = Gd^III1; Tb^III2; Dy^III3; Er^III4; Y^III5; Y^III_0.9Dy^III_0.16). Apart from the Er-containing complex, all complexes exhibit an antiferromagnetic exchange coupling leading to a diamagnetic ground state. Magnetic studies, below 2 K, on a single crystal of 3 using a micro-squid array reveal an opening of the magnetic hysteresis cycle at zero field. The dynamic susceptibility studies of 3 and of the diluted DyY 6 complexes reveal the presence of two relaxation processes for 3 that are due to the excited ferromagnetic state and to the uncoupled Dy^III ions. The antiferromagnetic coupling in 3 was shown to be mainly due to an exchange mechanism, which accounts for about 2/3 of the energy gap between the antiferro- and the ferromagnetic states. The overlap integrals between the Natural Spin Orbitals (NSOs) of the mononuclear fragments, which are related to the magnitude of the antiferromagnetic exchange, are one order of magnitude larger for the Dy₂ than for the Er₂ complex.     

Fast Li-Ion Conduction in Spinel-Structured Solids

Spinel-structured solids were studied to understand if fast Li⁺ ion conduction can be achieved with Li occupying multiple crystallographic sites of the structure to form a “Li-stuffed” spinel, and if the concept is applicable to prepare a high mixed electronic-ionic conductive, electrochemically active solid solution of the Li⁺ stuffed spinel with spinel-structured Li-ion battery electrodes. This could enable a single-phase fully solid electrode eliminating multi-phase interface incompatibility and impedance commonly observed in multi-phase solid electrolyte–cathode composites. Materials of composition Li_1.25M(III)_0.25TiO₄, M(III) = Cr or Al were prepared through solid-state methods. The room-temperature bulk Li⁺-ion conductivity is 1.63 × 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹ for the composition Li_1.25Cr_0.25Ti_1.5O₄. Addition of Li₃BO₃ (LBO) increases ionic and electronic conductivity reaching a bulk Li⁺ ion conductivity averaging 6.8 × 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹, a total Li-ion conductivity averaging 4.2 × 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹, and electronic conductivity averaging 3.8 × 10⁻⁴ S cm⁻¹ for the composition Li_1.25Cr_0.25Ti_1.5O₄ with 1 wt. % LBO. An electrochemically active solid solution of Li_1.25Cr_0.25Mn_1.5O₄ and LiNi_0.5Mn_1.5O₄ was prepared. This work proves that Li-stuffed spinels can achieve fast Li-ion conduction and that the concept is potentially useful to enable a single-phase fully solid electrode without interphase impedance.     

An inviscid model for vortex shedding from a deforming body

An inviscid vortex sheet model is developed in order to study the unsteady separated flow past a two-dimensional deforming body which moves with a prescribed motion in an otherwise quiescent fluid. Following Jones (J Fluid Mech 496, 405–441, 2003) the flow is assumed to comprise of a bound vortex sheet attached to the body and two separate vortex sheets originating at the edges. The complex conjugate velocity potential is expressed explicitly in terms of the bound vortex sheet strength and the edge circulations through a boundary integral representation. It is shown that Kelvin’s circulation theorem, along with the conditions of continuity of the normal velocity across the body and the boundedness of the velocity field, yields a coupled system of equations for the unknown bound vortex sheet strength and the edge circulations. A general numerical treatment is developed for the singular principal value integrals arising in the solution procedure. The model is validated against the results of Jones (J Fluid Mech 496, 405–441, 2003) for computations involving a rigid flat plate and is subsequently applied to the flapping foil experiments of Heathcote et al. (AIAA J, 42, 2196–2204, 2004) in order to predict the thrust coefficient. The utility of the model in simulating aquatic locomotion is also demonstrated, with vortex shedding suppressed at the leading edge of the swimming body.      

On using compressibility to detect when slime mould completed computation

Slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a single cell visible by an unaided eye. The slime mould optimizes its network of protoplasmic tubes in gradients of attractants and repellents. This behavior is interpreted as computation. Several prototypes of the slime mould computers were designed to solve problems of computation geometry, graphs, transport networks, and to implement universal computing circuits. Being a living substrate, the slime mould does not halt its behavior when a task is solved but often continues foraging the space thus masking the solution found. We propose to use temporal changes in compressibility of the slime mould patterns as indicators of the halting of the computation. Compressibility of a pattern characterizes the pattern's morphological diversity, that is, a number of different local configurations. At the beginning of computation the slime explores the space, thus generating less compressible patterns. After gradients of attractants and repellents are detected the slime spans data sites with its protoplasmic network and retracts scouting branches, thus generating more compressible patterns. We analyze the feasibility of the approach on results of laboratory experiments and computer modelling. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 162–175, 2016     

Toward numerical simulations of fluid–structure interactions for investigation of obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a medical condition characterized by repetitive partial or complete occlusion of the airway during sleep. The soft tissues in the airway of OSA patients are prone to collapse under the low-pressure loads incurred during breathing. This paper describes efforts toward the development of a numerical tool for simulation of air–tissue interactions in the upper airway of patients with sleep apnea. A procedure by which patient-specific airway geometries are segmented and processed from dental cone-beam CT scans into signed distance fields is presented. A sharp-interface embedded boundary method based on the signed distance field is used on Cartesian grids for resolving the airflow in the airway geometries. For simulation of structure mechanics with large expected displacements, a cut-cell finite element method with nonlinear Green strains is used. The fluid and structure solvers are strongly coupled with a partitioned iterative algorithm. Preliminary results are shown for flow simulation inside the three-dimensional rigid upper airway of patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Two validation cases for the fluid–structure coupling problem are also presented.     

Synthesis of 1-Hydroxyoxindoles

A convenient synthesis of various substituted 1-hydroxyoxindoles is described.     

Critical Sets of Elliptic Equations

Given a solution u to a linear, homogeneous, second‐order elliptic equation with Lipschitz coefficients, we introduce techniques for giving improved estimates of the critical set ??(u)u {x :|δu|(x) = 0}, as well as the first estimates on the effective critical set ??_r(u), which roughly consists of points x such that the gradient of u is small somewhere on B_r(x) compared to the nonconstancy of u. The results are new even for harmonic functions on ?ⁿ. Given such a u, the standard first‐order stratification {l^k} of u separates points x based on the degrees of symmetry of the leading‐order polynomial of u‐u(x). In this paper we give a quantitative stratification of u, which separates points based on the number of almost symmetries of approximate leading‐order polynomials of u at various scales. We prove effective estimates on the volume of the tubular neighborhood of each , which lead directly to (n‐2 + ?)‐Minkowski type estimates for the critical set of u. With some additional regularity assumptions on the coefficients of the equation, we refine the estimate to give new proofs of the uniform (n‐2)‐Hausdorff measure estimate on the critical set and singular sets of u.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.