Chemical Constituents of Ligusticum sinensis Oliv.

The new phenylpropanoid diglycoside ligusinenoside A ( 1 ), and the two new 8,4′‐oxyneolignan(‘8‐O‐4′‐neolignan’) diglycosides ligusinenosides B ( 2 ) and C ( 3 ), together with nine known compounds, were isolated from the rhizomes of Ligusticum sinensis Oliv. The structures of 1 – 3 were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analyses.     

Isothermal crystallization kinetics of poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate)/layered double hydroxide nanocomposites

Poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB)/layered double hydroxides (LDHs) nanocomposites were prepared by mixing PHB and poly(ethylene glycol) phosphonates (PEOPAs)‐modified LDH (PMLDH) in chloroform solution. Both X‐ray diffraction data and TEM micrographs of PHB/PMLDH nanocomposites indicate that the PMLDHs are randomly dispersed and exfoliated into the PHB matrix. In this study, the effect of PMLDH on the isothermal crystallization behavior of PHB was investigated using a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy. Isothermal crystallization results of PHB/PMLDH nanocomposites show that the addition of 2 wt % PMLDH into PHB induced more heterogeneous nucleation in the crystallization significantly increasing the crystallization rate and reducing their activation energy. By adding more PMLDH into the PHB probably causes more steric hindrance of the diffusion of PHB, reducing the transportation ability of polymer chains during crystallization, thus increasing the activation energy. The correlation among crystallization kinetics, melting behavior and crystalline structure of PHB/PMLDH nanocomposites can also be discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 3337–3347, 2006     

Measuring length of business cycles across countries using a new non‐stationary unit‐root cyclical approach

This article examines the length of the cycles in the gross domestic product (GDP) real per capita series of 15 countries by means of new statistical techniques based on unit root cycles. We propose tests for unit root cycles at each of the frequencies of the process. Using this approach, we are able to approximate the number of periods per cycle. The results show that the cycles have a periodicity of approximately six years when the disturbances are white noise. However, if we permit autocorrelation, they may also occur at smaller intervals of time. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An implicit method for linear ill‐posed problems with perturbed operators

An implicit iterative method is applied to solving linear ill‐posed problems with perturbed operators. It is proved that the optimal convergence rate can be obtained after choosing suitable number of iterations. A generalized Morozov's discrepancy principle is proposed for the problems, and then the optimal convergence rate can also be obtained by an a posteriori strategy. The convergence results show that the algorithm is a robust regularization method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thermal and dielectric behaviors of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) copolymers at the curie transition

The thermal and dielectric behaviors of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) copolymers near the ferroelectric-to-paraelectric phase transition are investigated for samples with 20, 25, 30, and 40 mol% trifluoroethylene (TrFE). The data suggest that the transition becomes continuous for a particular composition near 50 mol% TrFE. Experimental data are sensitive to thermal history (kinetics of crystallization, and kinetics and cycling over the structural transition). It is found that several anomalies are present at the structural change, and in particular the 30 mol% TrFE sample shows the most marked anomalies. These phenomena can be attributed to defects, but another possibility would be the existence of an intemediate supplementary phase. Both hypotheses are discussed.     

Almost global existence for Hamiltonian semilinear Klein‐Gordon equations with small Cauchy data on Zoll manifolds

This paper is devoted to the proof of almost global existence results for Klein‐Gordon equations on Zoll manifolds (e.g., spheres of arbitrary dimension) with Hamiltonian nonlinearities, when the Cauchy data are smooth and small. The proof relies on Birkhoff normal form methods and on the specific distribution of eigenvalues of the Laplacian perturbed by a potential on Zoll manifolds. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Directed and elliptic flow in 197Au+197Au at intermediate energies

Directed and elliptic flow for the ¹⁹⁷Au+¹⁹⁷Au system at incident energies between 40 and 150 MeV per nucleon has been measured using the INDRA 4π multi-detector. For semi-central collisions, the excitation function of elliptic flow shows a transition from in-plane to out-of-plane emission at around 100 MeV per nucleon. The directed flow changes sign at a bombarding energy between 50 and 60 MeV per nucleon and remains negative at lower energies. Molecular dynamics calculations (CHIMERA) indicate sensitivity of the global squeeze-out transition on the σ _NN and demonstrate the importance of angular momentum conservation in transport codes at low energies.