Nonlinear effects of electrolyte diodes and transistors in a polymer gel medium

The polarization curve of an acid-base interface in a hydrogel medium has a diode characteristic. Two of each such electrolyte diodes can be combined to give an electrolyte transistor. When a salt is added to the alkaline or to the acidic part of a reverse biased electrolyte diode, the current response is highly nonlinear. If the salt is added to the acidic side, even bistability can be observed. This bistability can generate complex oscillations in a base-acid-base electrolyte transistor. These nonlinear effects are studied experimentally and theoretically. While the nonlinear salt effect can be explained with the Nernst-Planck equations, to understand the bistable behavior further investigations are necessary. (c) 1999 American Institute of Physics.     

Variable-priority queue and doughnut routing

This paper proposes a new data structure called a variable-priority queue. The queue supports, in addition to the ordinary queue operations, an operation MIN to find an item of minimum key and three operations to change keys of items. Any sequence of these m operations can be processed in O(m) time. Furthermore, as its application, this paper presents two efficient algorithms for network problems. The first finds multicommodity flows in cycles in linear time. The second, using the first, finds edge-disjoint paths connecting terminal pairs in a doughnut-shaped grid. The grid is bounded by two nested rectangles, and terminals are specified on the two rectangular boundaries outside the four corners. If there are k terminal pairs and all the terminals are ordered in clockwise order around rectangles, then the algorithm decides in O(k) time whether there are edge-disjoint paths connecting terminals in the grid, and actually finds edge-disjoint paths in O(k log k) time.     

Fundamental constants and higher-dimensional universe

In order to study the origin of the fundamental constants and Dirac's large number, a cosmological solution in vacuum is presented in a seven-dimensional universe which is defined by adding extra three coordinates (e ² G/c ⁴)^1/2, (hG/c ³)^1/2 and (Gm/c ²) to the four-dimensional spacetime coordinates. It has common features with Chodos-Detweiler's solution. The parameters appearing in this theory are estimated to meet the conditions required by the cosmological first-order phase transition and Dirac's large number hypothesis.     

A novel cyclodimerization of 3-methyl-3-butenenitrile. An efficient synthesis of 4-cyanoisophorone

Dimerization of 3-methyl-3-butenenitrile (1) by lithium dialkylamide gave selectively 3,5,5-trimethyl-1-amino-4-cyanocyclohexa-1,3-diene (2), which was easily hydrolyzed by aqueous acid to afford 4-cyanoisophorone (3,5,5-trimethyl-4-cyano-cyclohex-2-enone) (3) quantitatively.