Synthesis and mesomorphic behaviour of comb-like polymers based on lipopeptides with two hydrophobic chains

Polymerizable lipopeptides with two hydrophobic chains were synthesized and transformed into comb-like polymers by radical polymerization. The structure of dry polymerizable lipopeptides and comb-like polymers and of their aqueous solutions was determined by X-ray diffraction. Comb-like polymers exhibit both thermotropic and lyotropic properties. Three types of mesomorphic structure were resolved: smectic B, smectic A and cylindrical hexagonal. The domains of stability of the mesophases and the values of their structural parameters were established.     

Cyclic reduction and FACR methods for piecewise hermite bicubic orthogonal spline collocation

Cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction (FACR) methods are presented for the solution of the linear systems which arise when orthogonal spline collocation with piecewise Hermite bicubics is applied to boundary value problems for certain separable partial differential equations on a rectangle. On anN×N uniform partition, the cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction methods requireO(N ²log₂ N) andO(N ²log₂log₂ N) arithmetic operations, respectively.     

Straightforward conversion of alcohols into dibenzenesulfonimides

The reaction of various alcohols with N-fluorodibenzenesulfonimide and triphenylphosphine leads to the corresponding dibenzenesulfonylated amines in high yields.     

Multiple recurrence and nilsequences

Aiming at a simultaneous extension of Khintchine(X,X,m,T)(X,\mathcal{X},\mu,T) and a set A ? XA\in\mathcal{X} of positive measure, the set of integers n such that A T^2nA T^knA)(A)^k+1-\mu(A{\cap} T^{n}A{\cap} T^{2n}A{\cap} \ldots{\cap} T^{kn}A)>\mu(A)^{k+1}-\epsilon is syndetic. The size of this set, surprisingly enough, depends on the length (k+1) of the arithmetic progression under consideration. In an ergodic system, for k=2 and k=3, this set is syndetic, while for kòf(x)f(Tⁿx)f(T²ⁿx)? f(T^knx)  dm(x)\int{f(x)f(T^{n}x)f(T^{2n}x){\ldots} f(T^{kn}x) \,d\mu(x)} , where k and n are positive integers and f is a bounded measurable function. We also derive combinatorial consequences of these results, for example showing that for a set of integers E with upper Banach density d^*(E)>0 and for all {n ? \mathbbZ\colon d^*(E?(E+n)?(E+2n)?(E+3n)) > d^*(E)⁴-e}\big\{n\in\mathbb{Z}{\colon} d^*\big(E\cap(E+n)\cap(E+2n)\cap(E+3n)\big) > d^*(E)^4-\epsilon\big\}     

Inverse gas chromatography of lignocellulosic fibers coated with a thermosetting polymer: Use of peak maximum and conder and young methods

The Conder and Young (CY) and the peak maximum (PM) methods were used to estimate the retention time of n-alkane probes on chemithermomechanical pulp (CTMP) wood fibers treated with a low molecular weight grade phenol-formaldehyde resin (PFR). Thermodynamic functions (ΔH_a^o, ΔG_a^o, and ΔS_a^o) and the London dispersive component of the surface energy were derived from these retention times. Treated wood fibers show a high energy surface due to the presence of the thermoset resin on their surface. Values of ΔH_a^o obtained from the CY method were higher than those obtained with the PM method at relatively high temperatures and with relatively low molecular weight alkanes. The results from the two methods were identical at low temperature (293 K) and with the relatively high molecular weight alkane n-undecane.     

Photothermal microanalysis of thermal discontinuities in metallic samples

Modeling the behavior of a protective coating during a thermal shock not only requires the knowledge of its own thermophysical characteristics, but also those of the coating–substrate discontinuity. According to its nature, this discontinuity can be modeled as a zero-thickness interface (thermal contact resistance) or a finite thickness layer (thermal third body). This paper presents an experimental device and two associated thermal transfer models developed in view of the microscale characterization of such discontinuities.     

Robinson-Trautman equations and Chandrasekhar's special perturbation of the Schwarzschild metric

A perturbation wave solution of the Robinson-Trautman equations is proved to be a perturbation of the Schwarzschild black hole which describes an outgoing axial gravitational wave and corresponds to a special case of Chandrasekhar's algebraically special perturbation of the Schwarzschild metric.     

Convergence of interval-type algorithms for generalized fractional programming

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the convergence of interval-type algorithms for solving the generalized fractional program. They are characterized by an interval [LB _k , UB _k ] including*, and the length of the interval is reduced at each iteration. A closer analysis of the bounds LB _k and UB _k allows to modify slightly the best known interval-type algorithm NEWMODM accordingly to prove its convergence and derive convergence rates similar to those for a Dinkelbach-type algorithm MAXMODM under the same conditions. Numerical results in the linear case indicate that the modifications to get convergence results are not obtained at the expense of the numerical efficiency since the modified version BFII is as efficient as NEWMODM and more efficient than MAXMODM.This research was supported by NSERC (Grant A8312) and FCAR (Grant 0899).