Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait—the propensity to compare one’s own success with that of others—expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)–(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.     

Simultaneous determination of cinnamaldehyde and its metabolite in rat tissues by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

Cinnamaldehyde (CA), an active ingredient isolated from the traditional Chinese medicine Cortex Cinnamomi, has a wide range of bioactivities. To clarify the distribution characteristics of CA, a selective and sensitive method utilizing gas chromatography–mass spetrometry was initially developed for simultaneously determining the concentration of CA and its metabolite cinnamyl alcohol in rat tissues. Selected ion masses of m/z 131, 105 and 92 were chosen, and separation of the analytes was performed on a DB‐5 ms (30 m × 0.25 mm, 0.25 µm, thickness) capillary column by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The calibration curves demonstrated good linearity and reproducibility over the range of 20–2000 and 20–4000 ng/mL for various tissue samples. Recoveries ranged from 86.8 to 107.5%, while intra‐ and interday relative standard deviations were all <11.3%. The analysis method was successfully applied in tissue distribution studies for CA and cinnamyl alcohol. As CA and cinnamyl alcohol may inter‐convert to one another, simultaneous determination of both analytes provides a comparative and accurate data for tissue study. The concentrations of CA and cinnamyl alcohol remaining in spleen were the highest among the main organs, including heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney and brain. In addition, there was no long‐term accumulation of CA in rat tissues. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

3D‐morphology reconstruction of nanoscale phase‐separation in polymer memory blends

In many organic electronic devices functionality is achieved by blending two or more materials, typically polymers or molecules, with distinctly different optical or electrical properties in a single film. The local scale morphology of such blends is vital for the device performance. Here, a simple approach to study the full 3D morphology of phase‐separated blends, taking advantage of the possibility to selectively dissolve the different components is introduced. This method is applied in combination with AFM to investigate a blend of a semiconducting and ferroelectric polymer typically used as active layer in organic ferroelectric resistive switches. It is found that the blend consists of a ferroelectric matrix with three types of embedded semiconductor domains and a thin wetting layer at the bottom electrode. Statistical analysis of the obtained images excludes the presence of a fourth type of domains. The criteria for the applicability of the presented technique are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1231–1237     

Morphology and microphase separation of star copolymers

Star copolymers have attracted significant interest due to their different characteristics compared with diblock copolymers, including higher critical micelle concentration, lower viscosity, unique spatial shape, or morphologies. Development of synthetic skills such as anionic polymerization and controlled radical polymerization have made it possible to make diverse architectures of polymers. Depending on the molecular architecture of the copolymer, numerous morphologies are possible, for instance, Archimedean tiling patterns and cylindrical microdomains at symmetric volume fraction for miktoarm star copolymers as well as asymmetric lamellar microdomains for star‐shaped copolymers, which have not been reported for linear block copolymers. In this review, we focus on morphologies and microphase separations of miktoarm (A_mB_n and ABC miktoarm) star copolymers and star‐shaped [(A‐b‐B)_n] copolymers with nonlinear architecture. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1–21     

Lithium Insertion Mechanism in Iron-Based Oxyfluorides with Anionic Vacancies Probed by PDF Analysis

The mechanism of lithium insertion that occurs in an iron oxyfluoride sample with a hexagonal–tungsten–bronze (HTB)-type structure was investigated by the pair distribution function. This study reveals that upon lithiation, the HTB framework collapses to yield disordered rutile and rock salt phases followed by a conversion reaction of the fluoride phase toward lithium fluoride and nanometer-sized metallic iron. The occurrence of anionic vacancies in the pristine framework was shown to strongly impact the electrochemical activity, that is, the reversible capacity scales with the content of anionic vacancies. Similar to FeOF-type electrodes, upon de-lithiation, a disordered rutile phase forms, showing that the anionic chemistry dictates the atomic arrangement of the re-oxidized phase. Finally, it was shown that the nanoscaling and structural rearrangement induced by the conversion reaction allow the in situ formation of new electrode materials with enhanced electrochemical properties.     

均匀磁场下碳离子笔形束的剂量变化分析及位置修正方法

分析外加均匀磁场对于碳离子笔形束剂量分布的影响,并考虑修正这种影响,为磁共振成像引导碳离子放射治疗的临床应用提供指导。本文利用蒙特卡罗方法模拟计算了不同能量碳离子笔形束在不同强度磁场下的剂量分布情况,发现垂直于碳离子束入射方向的均匀磁场对于碳离子笔形束射程缩短的影响很小,磁场对碳离子束的主要影响是引起束流横向偏转,特别是碳离子束布拉格峰位置的横向侧移。横向侧移程度与碳离子束的能量和磁场强度相关,根据模拟结果,得到了一个计算碳离子束布拉格峰在磁场中相对横向偏转的方程,并提出一种校正外加磁场引起的碳离子束布拉格峰横移的角度修正方法。这些结果可用于指导磁共振图像引导碳离子放射治疗计划系统的研发。     

光寻址电位传感器的正交相位检波检测方法

光寻址电位传感器的幅度检测方法易受噪声干扰,灵敏度差,信噪比和精度低,且受调制光源的影响较大,影响检测结果的准确性.为此提出了一种基于正交相位检波的光寻址电位传感器检测方法.该方法是将光寻址电位传感器的输出光电流信号分别与两路正交信号相乘,通过低通滤波提取直流分量并相除,即可得到光寻址电位传感器的输出信号相位信息.与已有的光寻址电位传感器相位检测方法相比,该方法具有算法复杂度低、实时性高的优点.实验研究了调制光源光强对光寻址电位传感器幅度检测和相位检测的影响,对比分析了光寻址电位传感器的传统幅度检测方法与正交相位检波检测方法对pH检测的灵敏度、线性度及信噪比.结果表明,相比于幅度检测方法,调制光源光强对光寻址电位传感器的相位检测影响更小,在频率为10 kHz,pH的范围为1.68~10.01的情况下,相位检测方法比幅度检测方法测得的灵敏度增加了7 mV/pH,精度提高了14.9 mpH,非线性误差减小了0.003%,均方差减少了0.1051×10^-5,信噪比增加了8.2827 dB.该方法特别适用于弱光下的光寻址电位传感器检测.     

Change of evaporation rate of single monocomponent droplet with temperature using time-resolved phase rainbow refractometry

Droplet evaporation characterization, although of great significance, is still challenging. The recently developed phase rainbow refractometry (PRR) is proposed as an approach to measuring the droplet temperature, size as well as evaporation rate simultaneously, and is applied to a single flowing n-heptane droplet produced by a droplet-on-demand generator. The changes of droplet temperature and evaporation rate after a transient spark heating are reflected in the time-resolved PRR image. Results show that droplet evaporation rate increases with temperature, from ?1.28$\times {10}^{?8}$ m²/s at atmospheric 293 K to a range of (?1.5, ?8)$\times {10}^{?8}$ m²/s when heated to (294, 315) K, agreeing well with the Maxwell and Stefan–Fuchs model predictions. Uncertainty analysis suggests that the main source is the indeterminate gradient inside droplet, resulting in an underestimation of droplet temperature and evaporation rate. With the demonstration on simultaneous measurements of droplet refractive index as well as droplet transient and local evaporation rate in this work, PRR is a promising tool to investigate single droplet evaporation in real engine conditions.     

Formation of porous polymer morphology by microsyneresis during divinylbenzene polymerization

This article describes the investigation of the importance of various reaction conditions on microsyneretic pore formation during polymerization of divinylbenzene (DVB) under so‐called “solvothermal” conditions. To induce microsyneretic pore formation, the most important parameter is an unusually high dilution of monomers with a “good” porogen solvating the polymer chains. High dilution and solvation of the growing poly(DVB) chains promote the prolongation of the polymer chains rather than their interconnection by crosslinking. Consequently, when the polymer gel density reaches the point where syneresis starts, the polymer network is geometrically too extensive to be broken up into precipitating entities and, instead, porogen droplets are formed within the continuous polymer gel. The pore geometry created by microsyneresis offers high surface area in wide mesopores and hence, high capacity for supporting functional groups or reactions with much better accessibility than narrow pores between polymer microspheres produced by macrosyneresis in conventional styrenic polymer supports. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 774–781