Estimates for transition probabilities on a compact manifold

The purpose of this note is to describe a procedure for transferring familiar estimates for transition probabilities on RN to transition probabilities on compact manifolds.     

Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis transitions of partially and fully substituted cellulose fatty esters

The main transitions of cellulose fatty esters with different degrees of substitution (DSs) were investigated with dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. Two distinct main relaxations were observed in partially substituted cellulose esters (PSCEs). They were attributed to the glass‐transition temperature and to the chain local motion of the aliphatic substituents. The temperatures of both transitions decreased when DS or the number of carbon atoms (n) of the acyl substituent increased. Conversely, all the transitions of fully substituted cellulose esters occurred within a narrow temperature range, and they did not vary significantly with n. This phenomenon was explained by the formation of a crystalline phase of the fatty substituents. The presence of few residual OH groups in PSCEs was responsible for a large increase in the storage bending modulus, and it eliminated the effect of n on damping. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 281–288, 2003     

Effect of maltodextrins on the surface activity of small-molecule surfactants

We report on the effect of commercially important polysaccharides (maltodextrins with variable dextrose equivalent (Paselli SA-2, MD-6 and MD-10) on the surface activity at the air–water interface of small-molecule surfactants (sms), possessing different hydrophobic–lipophilic balance ((SSL (Na⁺), the main component is a sodium salt of stearol–lactoyl lactic acid, and PGE (080), polyglycerol ester of C18 fatty acid), and widely used in food products. A marked change of the surface activity of sms was found in the presence of maltodextrins by tensiometry. The combined data of laser multiangle light scattering and mixing calorimetry have suggested that this result is governed by specific complex formation between maltodextrins and sms in aqueous medium. Measurements have been made of the molar mass, the second virial coefficient and the enthalpy of intermolecular interactions in aqueous solutions. The implication of a degree of polymerization of maltodextrins in this phenomenon was shown. The interrelation between the molecular parameters of the formed complexes and their surface activity at the air–water interface has been revealed and discussed.     

Research problems

This section appears from time to time. Contributions are invited, and should be submitted to R. C. Thompson, Mathematics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106.     

Numerical study of simultaneous natural convection heat transfer from both surfaces of a uniformly heated thin plate with arbitrary inclination

 Numerical studies were conducted to investigate the natural convection heat transfer around a uniformly heated thin plate with arbitrary inclination in an infinite space. The numerical approach was based on the finite volume technique with a nonstaggered grid arrangement. For handling the pressure–velocity coupling the SIMPLE-algorithm was used. QUICK scheme and first order upwind scheme were employed for discretization of the momentum and energy convective terms respectively. Plate width and heating rate were used to vary the modified Rayleigh number over the range of 4.8×10⁶ to 1.87×10⁸. Local and average heat transfer characteristics were compared with regarding to the inclination angle. The empirical expressions for local and average Nusselt number were correlated. It has been found that for inclination angle less than 10^∘, the flow and heat transfer characteristics are complicated and the average Nusselt number can not be correlated by one equation while for inclination angle larger than 10^∘, the average Nusselt number can be correlated into an elegant correlation. Received on 18 April 2001 / Published online: 29 November 2001     

Finite element method in the solution of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations for internal flow

Finite element solutions of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations are presented, using a simple dissipation model. The discretization is based on the weak-Galerkin weighted residual method and equal interpolation functions for all the unknowns are permitted. The nonlinearity is iterated upon using a Newton method and at each iteration the linear algebraic system is solved by a direct solver with all unknowns fully coupled. Results are presented for two-dimensional transonic inviscid flows and two- and three-dimensional incompressible viscous flows. Convergence of the algorithm is shown to be quadratic, reaching machine accuracy in very few iterations. The inviscid results demonstrate the existence of nonunique numerical solutions to the steady Euler equations.     

A note on dephasing and pair-breaking

It is shown that the dephasing which suppresses the weak localization correction to the conductivity has the same physical origin than pair-breaking in superconductors and thus-following de Gennes-may be expressed in terms of the correlation function of the operator for time reversal.     

A globally convergent multi-grid algorithm for moving boundary problems of two-phase Stefan type

In this paper we deal with the numerical solution of movingboundary problems of two-phase Stefan type. Based on an implicitdiscretization in time and the use of continuous, piecewiselinear finite elements in the space variables with respect tothe weak formulation of the problem, a globally convergent multi-gridalgorithm is developed. That algorithm strongly relies on thevariational characterization of the fully discretized problemas the unconstrained minimization of a subdifferentiable convexobjective functional. Numerical results indicate a significantimprovement in efficiency compared with previous multi-gridapproaches.