Processing the capillary viscometry data of fluids with yield stress

The capillary viscometer is used to measure the shear stress-shear rate relationship of a wide range of purely viscous fluids. It is however not considered as an appropriate instrument for obtaining the yield stress and the post-yield behaviour of fluids that have a yield stress. This is partly because conventional methods of processing the capillary viscometry data of purely viscous fluids cannot be applied to similar data of fluids with yield stress. The unavoidable experimental noise in the capillary data, particularly at low shear rates, also makes it difficult to obtain a reliable estimate of the yield stress from capillary data. In this investigation the problem of converting the capillary viscometry data of yield stress fluids into a shear stress-shear rate curve and a yield stress is formulated as a Volterra integral equation of the first kind. This is an ill-posed problem i.e. noise in the data will be amplified by inappropriate methods of data processing. A method, based on Tikhonov regularisation that takes into account the ill-posed nature of the problem, is then developed to solve this problem for fluids with yield stress. The performance of this method is assessed by applying it to a set of “synthetic” capillary viscometry data with added random noise and to a set of experimental data for a concentrated suspension of TiO₂ taken from the literature. In both cases Tikhonov regularisation was able to extract the complete shear properties of these fluids from capillary viscometry data alone. Received: 22 November 1999/Accepted: 17 December 1999     

Transmission properties of electromagnetic metamaterials: From split-ring resonator to fishnet structure

We experimentally presented the electromagnetic behavior of transformative magnetic metamaterials: from the early invented split-ring resonator to its improvement, the cut-wire pair, for providing a negative magnetic permeability. By adding the continuous wire to cut-wire pair structure, the left-handed (LH) transmission made by doubly negative permittivity and permeability was demonstrated in combined structure. Interestingly, until the width of cut-wire pair increases to be physically merged with the adjacent continuous wire, in other words, to form the so-called fishnet structure, the LH behavior is still observed. This result indicates that in a broad sense, the essence of the electromagnetic response in the fishnet structure is similar to that in a combined structure. Our experimental results show a good agreement with previous theoretical study.     

Natural anti-HIV agents. Part 3: Litseaverticillols A-H, novel sesquiterpenes from Litsea verticillata

Bioassay directed-fractionation led to the identification of litseaverticillols A-H (1-8) from the leaves and twigs of Litsea verticillata Hance. These new sesquiterpenes possess a unique skeleton that was recently designated as ‘litseane’. The structures of these compounds were determined by spectroscopic means including 1D and 2D NMR data. Structural configurations were determined by ROESY experiments. Mosher ester reactions and optical rotation measurements established the sesquiterpenes 1-8 as racemates. Isolates 1-8 inhibited HIV-1 replication in HOG.R5 cells with IC₅₀ values ranging from 2 to 15 μg/ml (8-58 μM) while affecting the growth of HOG.R5 at concentrations 2-3-fold higher. Based on this data, structure-activity relationships can be discerned, suggesting compounds of this class are good candidates for analog production.     

Small subgraphs of random regular graphs

The main aim of this short paper is to answer the following question. Given a fixed graph H, for which values of the degree d does a random d-regular graph on n vertices contain a copy of H with probability close to one?     

Decay mild solutions for two-term time fractional differential equations in Banach spaces

In this paper, we deal with the nonlocal Cauchy problem for a class of two-term time fractional differential equations in Banach spaces. By constructing a suitable measure of noncompactness on the space of solutions, we prove the existence of a compact set containing decay mild solutions to the mentioned problem.     

LIOUVILLE RESULTS FOR STABLE SOLUTIONS OF QUASILINEAR EQUATIONS WITH WEIGHTS

This paper is devoted to the quasilinear equation ■where p 2,Ω is a(bounded or unbounded) domain of R~N,w_1,w_2 are nonnegative continuous functions and f is an increasing function. We establish a Liouville type theorem for nontrivial stable solutions of the equation under some mild assumptions on Ω,w_1, w_2 and f, which extends and unifies several results on this topic.     

Structural Analysis of Unsaturated Glycosphingolipids Using Shotgun Ozone-Induced Dissociation Mass Spectrometry

Glycosphingolipids are essential biomolecules widely distributed across biological kingdoms yet remain relatively underexplored owing to both compositional and structural complexity. While the glycan head group has been the subject of most studies, there is paucity of reports on the lipid moiety, particularly the location of unsaturation. In this paper, ozone-induced dissociation mass spectrometry (OzID-MS) implemented in a traveling wave-based quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-ToF) mass spectrometer was applied to study unsaturated glycosphingolipids using shotgun approach. Resulting high resolution mass spectra facilitated the unambiguous identification of diagnostic OzID product ions. Using [M+Na]⁺ adducts of authentic standards, we observed that the long chain base and fatty acyl unsaturation had distinct reactivity with ozone. The reactivity of unsaturation in the fatty acyl chain was about 8-fold higher than that in the long chain base, which enables their straightforward differentiation. Influence of the head group, fatty acyl hydroxylation, and length of fatty acyl chain on the oxidative cleavage of double bonds was also observed. Application of this technique to bovine brain galactocerebrosides revealed co-isolated isobaric and regioisomeric species, which otherwise would be incompletely identified using contemporary collision-induced dissociation (CID) alone. These results highlight the potential of OzID-MS in glycosphingolipids research, which not only provides complementary structural information to existing CID technique but also facilitates de novo structural determination of these complex biomolecules.

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Synthesis of novel ferrocene-containing 1,3-thiazinan-2-imines: One-pot reaction promoted by ultrasound irradiation

A simple one-pot synthesis of new ferrocene-containing 1,3-thiazinan-2-imines from 3-arylamino-1-ferrocenylpropan-1-ols and phenyl isothiocyanate has been developed. The key intermediate β-hydroxy thioureas were generated in situ using ultrasound irradiation and subsequent cyclization was achieved by the addition of acetic acid. The scope of the reaction towards various 3-arylamino-1-ferrocenylpropan-1-ols has been explored and the corresponding 3-aryl-6-ferrocenyl-N-phenyl-1,3-thiazinan-2-imines were obtained in moderate to high yields (52–90%).     

Invertibility of a linear combination of two matrices and partial orderings

In this paper, we present some results relating different matrix partial orderings and the invertibility of a linear combination of EP matrices.     

An Initial-Boundary Value Problem for the Korteweg–de Vries Equation with Dominant Surface Tension

We consider the initial-boundary value problem (IBVP) for the Korteweg–de Vries equation with zero boundary conditions at x=0 and arbitrary smooth decreasing initial data. We prove that the solution of this IBVP can be found by solving two linear inverse scattering problems (SPs) on two different spectral planes. The first SP is associated with the KdV equation. The second SP is self-conjugate and its scattering function is found in terms of entries of the scattering matrix s(k) for the first SP. Knowing the scattering function, we solve the second inverse SP for finding the potential self-conjugate matrix. Consequently, the unknown object entering coefficients in the system of evolution equations for s(k,t) is found. Then, the time-dependent scattering matrix s(k,t) is expressed in terms of s(k)=s(k,0) and of solutions of the self-conjugate SP. Knowing s(k,t), we find the solution of the IBVP in terms of the solution of the Gelfand–Levitan–Marchenko equation in the first inverse SP.