Cooling of a viscoelastic film during unsteady extrusion from an annular die

The unsteady extrusion of a viscoelastic film from an annular and axisymmetric die is examined. External, elastic, viscous and inertia forces deform the film, which is simultaneously cooled via forced convection to the ambient air. This moving boundary problem is solved by mapping the liquid/air interfaces onto fixed ones and by employing a regular perturbation expansion for all the dependent variables. The ratio of the film thickness to its inner radius at the exit of the die is used as the small parameter in the perturbation expansion. The fluid mechanical aspects of the process depend on the Stokes, Deborah, Reynolds, and Capillary numbers. The heat transfer in the film and to the environment gives rise to four additional dimensionless groups: the Peclet, Biot and Brinkman numbers and the activation energy, which determines the temperature dependence of fluid viscosity and elasticity. A variable heat transfer coefficient is also considered. For typical fluid properties and process conditions, the Peclet number is very large. In this case it is the ratio of the Biot to the Peclet number, the Stanton number, which arises in the energy conservation equation. It is shown that film cooling becomes important when the Stanton number and/or the activation energy are in the high-end of their typical values. In such cases, the cooling of the parison leads to a more uniform flow and shape for the film. The influence on the process of a variable heat transfer coefficient and the Brinkman number is small. Received: 7 April 1999/Accepted: 10 August 1999     

Ordering of Diblock Copolymer Materials on Patterned Substrates: a Single Chain in Mean Field Simulation Study

Summary: The directed assembly of diblock copolymers on patterned substrates is a way to create nanoscopically structured materials. We study the structure and kinetics of diblock copolymers on patterned substrates by simulating a large ensemble of independent chains in an external field. This external field depends on the density created by the ensemble of molecules and it is frequently updated as to mimic the instantaneous interactions of a molecule with its neighbors. This approximate, particle-based field theoretical method allows (i) to incorporate arbitrary chain architecture (ii) to include fluctuations and (iii) the explicit propagation of the chain conformations in time permits us to study the kinetics of structure formation. The factors that control the accuracy of the method are quantitatively discussed and the reconstruction of the soft morphology at substrate patterns that deviate from the periodic morphology of the diblock in the bulk are illustrated.     

String tension in the three-dimensional Abelian Higgs model

We measure the expectation values of the Wilson loops for the radially active Abelian Higgs Model in three dimensions with Higgs chargeq=1 andq=2. We observe a drastic fall-off of the area term as we pass to the Higgs phase, as well as a peak of the perimetric term at the phase transition. Implications of our results for other Higgs models are also discussed.     

Self-dual supergravity from N = 2 strings

A new heterotic N = 2 string with manifest target space supersymmetry is constructed by combining a conventional N = 2 string in the right-moving sector and a Green-Schwarz-Berkovits type string in the left-moving sector. The corresponding sigma mode] is then obtained by turning on background fields for the massless excitations. We compute the beta functions and we partially check the OPE's of the superconformal algebra perturbatively in t', all in superspace. The resulting field equations describe N = 1 self-dual supergravity.     

The first use of porphyrins as catalysts in cross-coupling reactions: a water-soluble palladium complex with a porphyrin ligand as an efficient catalyst precursor for the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction in aqueous media under aerobic conditions

For the first time, a palladium complex with a porphyrin ligand is used as a catalyst precursor for cross-coupling reactions. The synthesis of a palladium complex with a phosphine-free and water-soluble potassium carboxylate salt of a porphyrin, and its evaluation in the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction of phenylboronic acid with aryl bromides (from electron-rich to electron-poor), in neat water, under aerobic conditions is described. Catalysis is performed at 100 °C for 4 h, using K₂CO₃ as base, and a substrate to catalyst molar ratio of 1000:1, leading to yields of coupling products in the range of 80-100%. The catalyst can be recycled and reused, but unfortunately, with a loss in activity.     

Normal modes of a model radiating system

In order to gain insight into normal modes of realistic radiating systems, we study the simple model problem of a finite string and a semi-infinite string coupled by a spring. As expected there is a family of modes which are basically the modes of the finite string slowly damped by the radiation of energy to infinity on the semi-infinite string. But we also study another family of modes, found by Dyson in a different model problem, which are strongly damped modes of the semi-infinite string itself. These may be analogous to the modes of black holes, and they are likely to be present in relativistic stars as well. The question of whether the instability in these modes which Dyson found is present in realistic stars remains open.     

Criticality features in ULF magnetic fields prior to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake

The criticality of ULF (Ultra-low-frequency) magnetic variations is investigated for the 2011 March 11 Tohoku earthquake (EQ) by natural time analysis. For this attempt, some ULF parameters were considered: (1) F_h (horizontal magnetic field), (2) F_z (vertical magnetic field), and (3) D_h (inverse of horizontal magnetic field). The first two parameters refer to the ULF radiation, while the last parameter refers to another ULF effect of ionospheric signature. Nighttime (L.T. = 3 am ± 2 hours) data at Kakioka (KAK) were used, and the power of each quantity at a particular frequency band of 0.03–0.05 Hz was averaged for nighttime hours. The analysis results indicate that F_h fulfilled all criticality conditions on March 3–5, 2011, and that the additional parameter, D_h reached also a criticality on March 6 or 7. In conclusion, criticality has reached in the pre-EQ fracture region a few days to one week before the main shock of the Tohoku EQ.     

Combined Effect of Temperature and Ternary Mobile Phase Composition on the Retention in Ternary Isocratic and Gradient Elution RP-LC under Isothermal Conditions. Application to the Retention Prediction of Four Macrolide Antibiotics

Retention models considering simultaneously ternary mobile phase organic contents and column temperature (T) were developed by a direct combination of equations expressing separately the dependence of the retention upon each of these factors. Thus, a combination of a linear dependence of the logarithm of the solute retention factor, ln k (T), against 1/T, i.e. ln k (T) = a + b/T, and of either a linear or a quadratic dependence of ln k upon the compositions of a binary mobile phase, gave two different expressions for the logarithm of the solute retention factor in terms of both temperature and organic contents in the ternary mobile phase. The effectiveness of the above models was tested in the prediction of isothermal retention of a mixture of four macrolide antibiotics under ternary isocratic and gradient elution conditions using mobile phases modified by methanol and acetonitrile. The limiting case of using ternary eluents with constant ratio of the concentrations of the two organic modifiers was also tested.     

Impact of Statistical Multiplexing on Voice Quality in Cellular Networks

This paper examines the quality of transmission of voice over cellular, packet-switched networks. The medium access mechanism in the uplink is simulated under various statistical multiplexing scenarios in order to assess the effect of front-end clipping on voice quality. Moreover, the simulation is implemented in a real-time demonstration platform utilized to acquire subjective indicators of voice quality by performing Mean Opinion Score (MOS) tests. Results from the MOS tests are reported, and an analysis of the obtained speech samples is presented. Finally, the results are summarized and potential further directions for the simulation tool and the speech models are discussed.