Patterns—a fundamental idea of mathematical thinking and learning

Taking advantage of patterns is typical of our everyday experience as well as our mathematical thinking and learning. For example a working day or a morning at school displays a certain structure, which can be described in terms of patterns. On the one hand regular structures give us the feeling of permanence and enable us to make predictions. On the other hand they also provide a chance to be creative and to vary common procedures. School students usually encounter patterns in math classes either as number patterns or geometric patterns. There are also patterns that teachers can find in analyzing the errors students make during their calculations (error patterns) as well as patterns that are inherent to mathematical problems. One could even go so far as to say that identifying and describing patterns is elementary for mathematics (cf. Devlin 2003). Practising good interacting with patterns supports not only the active learning of mathematics but also a deeper understanding of the world in general. Patterns can be explored, identified, extended, reproduced, compared, varied, represented, described and created. This paper provides some examples of pattern utilization and detailed analyses thereof. These ideas serve as “hooks” to encourage the good use of patterns to facilitate active learning processes in mathematics.     

Novel hexadentate imidazolium salts in the rhodium-catalyzed addition of arylboronic acids to aldehydes

Four novel hexadentate imidazolium salts were synthesized from hexakis(bromomethyl)benzene and 1-substituted imidazole. The arylation of aldehydes with arylboronic acids was effected conveniently and in high yields by a catalyst system generated in situ from these hexadentate imidazolium salts, [Rh(COD)Cl]₂ and a base.     

Elliptic equations with BMO coefficients in Reifenberg domains

The inhomogeneous Dirichlet problems concerning divergence form elliptic equations are studied. Optimal regularity requirements on the coefficients and domains for the W^1,p theory, 1 < p < ∞, are obtained. The principal coefficients are supposed to be in the John‐Nirenberg space with small BMO seminorms. The domain is a Reifenberg domain. These conditions for the W^1,p theory not only weaken the requirements on the coefficients but also lead to a more general geometric condition on the domains. In fact, these domains might have fractal dimensions. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Crystallization and morphology of poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) blends. I. Spherulitic morphology and growth by polarized microscopy

The development of the poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) morphology in the presence of already existent poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) spherulites was studied by two‐stage solidification with two separate crystallization temperatures. PVDF formed irregular dendrites at lower temperatures and regular, banded spherulites at elevated temperatures. The transition temperature of the spherulitic morphology from dendrites to regular, banded spherulites increased with increasing PVDF content. A remarkable amount of PHB was included in the PVDF dendrites, whereas PHB was rejected into the remaining melt from the banded spherulites. When PVDF crystallized as banded spherulites, PHB could consequently crystallize only around them, if at all. In contrast, PHB crystallized with a common growth front, starting from a defined site in the interfibrillar regions of volume‐filling PVDF dendrites. It formed by itself dendritic spherulites that included a large number of PVDF spherulites. For blends with a PHB content of more than 80 wt %, for which the PVDF dendrites were not volume‐filling, PHB first formed regular spherulites. Their growth started from outside the PVDF dendrites but could later interpenetrate them, and this made their own morphology dendritic. These PHB spherulites melted stepwise because the lamellae inside the PVDF dendrites melted at a lower temperature than those from outside. This reflected the regularity of the two fractions of the lamellae because that of those inside the dendrites of PVDF was controlled by the intraspherulitic order of PVDF, whereas that from outside was only controlled by the temperature and the melt composition. The described morphologies developed without mutual nucleating efficiency of the components. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 873–882, 2003     

Notiz über Parachloraldehyd

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Mathematical modelling of the oxidation of nickel titanium alloys

A one-dimensional bulk reaction model for the oxidation of nickeltitanium is formulated, with preferential oxidation of titaniumbeing included. The modelling is directed at the better understandingof the dominant mechanisms involved in the oxidation processand their significance for the biocompatibility of the alloy.Two different regimes for the relative diffusivities of oxygenand the metals are investigated. By assuming fast bulk reactions,different asymptotic structures emerge in different parameterregimes and the resulting models take the form of moving boundaryproblems. Different profiles of nickel concentration are obtained:in particular a nickel-rich layer (observed in practice) ispresent below the oxide/metal interface for the case when oxygenand the metals diffuse at comparable rates.     

线性泛函方程解的振动性的新结果

本文研究高阶泛函方程x(g(t))=P(t)x(t)+Q1(t)x(g2(t))+…+Qk(t)x(gk+1(t))解的振动性,得到了一些新的振动条件.改进和推广了已有结果.     

Crystallographic report: catena‐Aqua(2,2′‐bipyrimidine)lithium(I) perchlorate

A lithium(I) coordination polymer has been formed from LiClO₄ and the 2,2′‐bipyrimidine (bpym) ligand in which each square pyramidal lithium(I) atom is coordinated in the basal plane by four nitrogen donor atoms derived from two bpym ligands and one water molecule at the apical position. These are connected into a layer structure via hydrogen‐bonding interactions involving the perchlorate anions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Jensen's inequality for g-expectation: part 1

Briand et al. (Electron. Comm. Probab. 5 (2000) 101–117) gave a counterexample and proposition to show that given g,g-expectations usually do not satisfy Jensen's inequality for most of convex functions. This yields a natural question, under which conditions on g, do g-expectations satisfy Jensen's inequality for convex functions? In this paper, we shall deal with this question in the case that g is convex and give a necessary and sufficient condition on g under which Jensen's inequality holds for convex functions. To cite this article: Z. Chen et al., C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 337 (2003).