Geometry and temperature effects of the interfacial thermal conductance in copper- and nickel-graphene nanocomposites

Graphene has excellent mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. Recently, graphene-metal composites have been proposed as a means to combine the properties of metals with those of graphene, leading to mechanically, electrically and thermally functional materials. The understanding of metal-graphene nanocomposites is of critical importance in developing next-generation electrical, thermal and energy devices, but we currently lack a fundamental understanding of how their geometry and composition control their thermal properties. Here we report a series of atomistic simulations, aimed at assessing the geometry and temperature effects of the thermal interface conductance for copper- and nickel-graphene nanocomposites. We find that copper-graphene and nickel-graphene nanocomposites have similar thermal interface conductances, but that both cases show a strong performance dependence on the number of graphene layers between metal phases. Single-graphene-layer nanocomposites have the highest thermal interface conductance, approaching ~500 MW m(-2) K(-1). The thermal interface conductance reduces to half this value in metal-bilayer graphene nanocomposites, and for more than three layers of graphene the thermal interface conductances further reduces to ~100 MW m(-2) K(-1) and becomes independent with respect to the number of layers of graphene. This dependence is attributed to the relatively stronger bonding between the metal and graphene layer, and relatively weaker bonding between graphene layers. Our results suggest that designs combining metal with single graphene layers provide the best thermal properties.     

Generalized parton distributions of the photon for nonzero skewness

We present a calculation of the generalized parton distributions of the photon when there is nonzero momentum transfer both in the transverse and longitudinal directions. We consider only the contributions when the photon helicity is not flipped and calculate those at leading order in electromagnetic coupling α and zeroth order in the strong coupling αs. We keep the leading logarithmic terms as well as the quark mass terms in the vertex. By taking Fourier transforms of the GPDs with respect to the transverse and longitudinal momentum transfer, we obtain the parton distributions of the photon in position space.     

Manifestation and post hoc correction of gradient cross-term artifacts in DTI

Cross-terms between imaging and diffusion gradients, unaccounted for during tensor calculations, can lead to erroneous estimation of diffusivity and fractional anisotropy (FA) in regions of isotropic and anisotropic diffusion. Cross-term of magnitude 136.8±1.6 s/mm(2), artificially introduced in the slice-encode direction, caused an increase in FA in isotropic phantom from 0.0546±0.0001 to 0.0996±0.0001, while the change in chimpanzee brain depended on the orientation of the white matter (WM). Mean diffusivity (MD) remained unchanged in isotropic phantom, but increased by ～20% in the WM due to cross-terms. A bias was observed in the principal eigenvectors in both phantom and chimpanzee brain, resulting in significant increase in midline crossing fibers along the bias than perpendicular to it in tractography in chimpanzee brain. Post hoc correction of these artifacts was achieved by estimating the cross-term factors using calibration scans on an isotropic phantom and modifying the b-matrix before tensor calculation. Upon correction, the FA and MD values closely resembled the values obtained from sequence without cross-terms, and the bias in principal eigenvectors was eliminated. Customized sequences involving large b-values, high-resolution imaging, or long diffusion or echo times should therefore be evaluated and any residual cross-terms corrected before implementation.     

Computation of Control for Linear Approximately Controllable System Using Tikhonov Regularization

Computation of control for a controlled partial differential equation is a di?cult task, especially when the control problem is ill posed. In this paper, we propose a method of computing the regularized control of a diffusion control system using Tikhonov regularization approach when the system is approximately controllable. The method proposed here for choosing regularization parameter guarantees the convergence of the proposed control.     

Synthesis and characterizations of nano sized MgO and its nano composite with poly(vinyl alcohol)

Magnesium oxide (MgO) nano particle was synthesized by ultrasound assisted one pot method and thus synthesized nano MgO was mixed with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) to prepare the polymer nano composite. The influence of the nano sized MgO on the structural modification of PVA was evaluated. The particle size and morphology of MgO was confirmed by High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM). The properties of PVA/MgO nano composite materials were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared analysis (FTIR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) like analytical tools.     

Ratio dynamic programs

This paper considers a finite serial multistage system where the measure of effectiveness of the system is a ratio of two return functions. The numerator of the ratio is an additive return function whereas the denominator is a multiplicative one. Because of the difference in the nature of the separability of the two factors, standard parametric approaches do not generate returns which are separable. Hence, the resulting formulation cannot be solved by dynamic programming. We consider an associated two-criteria dynamic program and show that the optimal solution is a nondominated solution of the two criteria program. An efficient search algorithm through the nondominated solutions is presented to solve this class of serial multistage decision systems. Computational results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.     

Thermal decomposition of γ-irradiated lead nitrate

The thermal decomposition of unirradiated and -irradiated lead nitrate was studied by the gas evolution method. The decomposition proceeds through initial gas evolution, a short induction period, an acceleratory stage and a decay stage. The acceleratory and decay stages follow the Avrami-Erofeyev equation. Irradiation enhances the decomposition but does not affect the shape of the decomposition curve.     

A facile three-component reaction of dicarbomethoxycarbene, aldehydes and o-quinones: synthesis of novel spiro-dioxolanes

Successful trapping of the carbonyl ylides generated from dicarbomethoxycarbene and aldehydes with 1,2-diones is described.     

Electrophilic substitution reactions of trisheteroarylmethanes: an efficient strategy to develop novel synthons for organic synthesis

Trisheteroarylmethanes are interesting molecules for the construction of three dimensionally complex systems. From this vantage point, we studied electrophilic substitution reactions on tris-2-thienylmethane and tris-2-furylmethane. During the bromination reaction, we have isolated the tris-bromosubstituted tris-2-thienylmethane in the former case and brominated furanones in the latter case, which may be of synthetic and biological importance.