Lyapunov’s direct method in estimates of topological entropy

An upper estimate for the topological entropy of a dynamical system defined by a system of ODE is obtained. The estimate involves the Lyapunov functions and Losinskii’s logarithmic norm. The proof uses the known fact that the topological entropy of a mapping acting in a compact space K can be estimated via the fractal dimension of K. Bibliography: 28 titles. Translated fromZapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 231, 1995, pp. 62–75. Translated by V. A. Boichenko and G. A. Leonov.     

Rotational discontinuity in magnetohydrodynamics

Novosibirsk. Translated fromSibirskiî Matematicheskiî Zhurnal, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 3–18, May–June, 1993.     

Bases of free metabelian and transmetabelian groups

A definition of the basis of a group written in additive form is given based on P. Hall's collecting process. The bases of free rank 2 groups of the following three types are found: metabelian, transmetabelian of the first type (with an Abelian third term in the lower central series), and transmetabelian of the second type (the nilpotency class of whose derived group is equal to two).Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Vol. 191, pp. 126–139, 1991.     

Parity-locking effect in a strongly-correlated ring

Orbital magnetism in an integrable model of a multichannel ring with long-ranged electron-electron interactions is investigated. In a noninteracting multichannel system, the response to an external magnetic flux is the sum of many diamagnetic and paramagnetic contributions, but we find that for sufficiently strong correlations, the contributions of all channels add constructively, leading to a parity (diamagnetic or paramagnetic) which depends only on the total number of electrons. Numerical results confirm that this parity-locking effect is robust with respect to subband mixing due to disorder.     

Moisture sorption, transport, and hydrolytic degradation in polylactide

Management of moisture penetration and hydrolytic degradation of polylactide (PLA) is extremely important during the manufacturing, shipping, storage, and end-use of PLA products. Moisture transport, crystallization, and degradation, in PLA have been measured through a variety of experimental techniques including size-exclusion chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction. Quartz crystal microbalance and dynamic vapor sorption experiments have also been used to measure moisture sorption isotherms in PLA films with varying crystallinity. A surprising result is that, within the accuracy of the experiments, crystalline and amorphous PLA films exhibit identical sorption isotherms.