Stability of asymmetric tetraquarks in the minimal-path linear potential

The linear potential binding a quark and an antiquark in mesons is generalized to baryons and multiquark configurations as the minimal length of flux tubes neutralizing the color, in units of the string tension. For tetraquark systems, i.e., two quarks and two antiquarks, this involves the two possible quark–antiquark pairings, and the Steiner tree linking the quarks to the antiquarks. A novel inequality for this potential demonstrates rigorously that within this model the tetraquark is stable in the limit of large quark-to-antiquark mass ratio.     

A multiaxial constitutive model for concrete in the fire situation: Theoretical formulation

This paper aims to develop a multiaxial concrete model for implementation in finite element software dedicated to the analysis of structures in fire. The need for proper concrete model remains a challenging task in structural fire engineering because of the complexity of the concrete mechanical behavior characterization and the severe requirements for the material models raised by the development of performance-based design. A fully three-dimensional model is developed based on the combination of elastoplasticity and damage theories. The state of damage in concrete, assumed isotropic, is modeled by means of a fourth order damage tensor to capture the unilateral effect. The concrete model comprises a limited number of parameters that can be identified by three simple tests at ambient temperature. At high temperatures, a generic transient creep model is included to take into account explicitly the effect of transient creep strain. The numerical implementation of the concrete model in a finite element software is presented and a series of numerical simulations are conducted for validation. The concrete behavior is accurately captured in a large range of temperature and stress states. A limitation appears when modeling the concrete post-peak behavior in highly confined stress states, due to the coupling assumption between damage and plasticity, but the considered levels of triaxial confinement are unusual stress states in structural concrete.     

Elasto-visco-plastic modeling of mild steels for sheet forming applications over a large range of strain rates

A physically based elasto-visco-plastic constitutive model is presented and compared to experimental results for three different mild steels. The experiments consist of tensile tests ranging from quasi-static conditions up to strain rates of 10³ s^?1 as well as quasi-static simple and reverse shear tests at different amounts of pre-strain. Additional two-step sequential mechanical tests (Bauschinger and orthogonal effects) have been performed to further evaluate the ability of the model to describe strain-path changes at moderate/large strains. The model requires significantly fewer material parameters compared to other visco-plasticity models from the literature, while being able to describe some of the main features of the strain-rate sensitivity of mild steels. Accordingly, the parameter identification is simple and intuitive, requiring a relatively small set of experiments. The strain-rate sensitivity modeling is not restricted to a particular hardening law and thus provides a general framework in which advanced hardening equations can be adopted.     

Onset of landau-level formation in carbon-nanotube-based electronic Fabry-Perot resonators

We report on the onset of Landau-level formation in a carbon nanotube-based Fabry-Perot resonator. Supported by excellent agreement between calculated and measured magnetoconductance patterns, the applied perpendicular magnetic field is shown to modulate the Fabry-Perot conductance oscillations consistently with the formation of a Landau level in the 1D massless Dirac fermions particle excitations.     

Application of biselective refocusing soft pulses to the simplification of heteronuclear correlation spectra

The biselective spin echo technique allows the signals of coupled proton pairs to be extracted from crowded liquid state proton NMR spectra. Its use as a preparation sequence in heteronuclear chemical shift correlation experiments requires the removal of the heteronuclear coupling interaction during the biselective echo time. The discrimination between coupled and uncoupled protons signals is achieved by double quantum filtration, which delivers antiphase magnetization states. The latter are not directly compatible with the design of an HSQC-like pulse sequence. The conversion of antiphase to in-phase magnetization states by a second biselective echo sequence solves this problem. The optimization of spin echo delays is also discussed. Lastly, the article presents modified HSQC and HMBC pulses sequences in which information is obtained solely for the biselectively selected proton pairs. A peracetylated trisaccharide was used as a test molecule.     

A non-linear corotational 4-node plane element

A non-linear corotational 4-node plane element is presented. The main interested of the approach is that accurate and efficient linear elements can be transformed to non-linear elements with little work and without considering the assumptions used to derive these linear elements. Two numerical examples are presented.     

Shear-induced permeation and fusion of lipid vesicles

This paper introduces a novel approach to controlling membrane permeability in free unilamellar vesicles using shearing in the presence of a detergent with a large head-group to tune pore formation. Such shear-induced permeation could offer a simple means of postencapsulating bioactive molecules to prepare vesicle vectors for drug delivery. Using UV absorption, fluorescence emission, dynamic light scattering, and electron microscopy, we investigated the membrane permeability and the morphology of unilamellar lipid vesicles (diameter in the range 50-400 nm) subjected to a shear stress in the presence of a small amount of nonionic surfactant (Brij 76). Shear-induced leakage and fusion events were observed. We analyzed the significance of the vesicle size, the shear rate, and the surfactant-to-lipid ratio for the observed phenomena. The present approach is evaluated for postloading of preformed vesicles.     

Structural and density functional studies of uranium(III) and lanthanum(III) complexes with a neutral tripodal N-donor ligand suggesting the presence of a U-N back-bonding interaction

The crystal structures of two trisiodide octacoordinated uranium(III) complexes of tris[(2-pyrazinyl)methyl]amine (tpza), which differ only by the ligand occupying the eighth coordination site (thf or MeCN), and of their lanthanum(III) analogues have been determined. In the acetonitrile adducts the M-N(pyrazine) distances are very similar for U(III) and La(III), while the U-N(acetonitrile) distance is 0.05 A shorter than the La-N(acetonitrile) distance. In the [M(tpza)I(3)(thf)] complexes in which the monodentate acetonitrile ligand, a weak pi-acceptor ligand, is replaced by a thf molecule, a sigma-donor only, the mean value of the distance U-N(pyrazine) is 0.05 A shorter than the mean value of the La-N(pyrazine) distance. Since we are comparing isostructural compounds of ions with very similar ionic radii, these differences indicate the presence of a stronger M-N interaction in the U(III) complexes and therefore suggest the presence of a covalent contribution to the U-N bonding. The selectivity of the tpza ligand toward U(III) complexation (with respect to that of La(III)) in the presence of sigma-donor-only ligands has been quantified by the value of K(U(tpza))/K(La(tpza)) measured to be 3.3 +/- 0.5. The analysis of the metal-N-donor ligand bonding was carried out by a quasi-relativistic density functional theory study on small model compounds, of formula I(3)M-L (M = La, Nd, U; L = acetonitrile, pyrazine) and I(3)M-(pyrazine)(3) (M = La, U). The structural data obtained from geometry optimizations on these systems reproduce experimental trends, i.e., a decrease in the M-N distance from La to U, combined with an increase of the C-N distance in the acetonitrile derivatives. A detailed orbital analysis carried out on the resulting optimized complexes did not reveal any orbital interaction between the trivalent lanthanide cations (Ln(3+)) and the N-donor ligands. In contrast, a back-donation electron transfer from 5f U(3+) orbitals to the pi* virtual orbital of the ligand was observed for both acetonitrile and pyrazine. Evaluation of the total bonding energy between the MI(3) and L fragments shows that this orbital interaction leads to a stabilization of the uranium(III) system compared to the lanthanide species.     

Nonlinear two- and three-dimensional free surface flows due to moving disturbances

Boundary integral equation methods for computing two- and three-dimensional nonlinear free surface flows are presented. In two dimensions, integral formulations can be derived by using complex variables or Green's functions. Both formulations are shown to yield the same level of accuracy. The formulation based on Green's functions is extended to three dimensions by following Forbes [J. Comput. Phys. 82 (1989) 330–347] and accurate numerical results are presented for moving distributions of pressure and moving submerged disturbances.