Nonisothermal crystallization behaviors of polypropylene with α/β nucleating agents

In this work, the nonisothermal crystallization and subsequent melting behaviors of polypropylene (PP) nucleated with different nucleating agents (NAs) have been studied. α‐phase NA 1,3:2,4‐bis (3,4‐dimethylbenzylidene) sorbitol (DMDBS, Millad 3988), β‐phase NA aryl amides compound (TMB‐5), and their compounds were introduced into PP matrix, respectively. The results show that the nonisothermal crystallization behaviors and crystalline structures of PP with compounded NAs are dependent on the composition of NAs. In the sample of PP with 0.1 wt % DMDBS and 0.1 wt % TMB‐5, the nucleation efficiency (NE) of TMB‐5 is much higher than that of DMDBS and PP crystallizes mainly nucleated by TMB‐5, and in this condition, β‐phase PP is the main crystallization structure. For the sample of PP with 0.2 wt % DMDBS and 0.2 wt % TMB‐5, 0.2 wt % DMDBS has higher NE than 0.2 wt % TMB5, and α‐phase is the main crystalline structure. The cooling rate is proved to be very important in controlling the nonisothermal crystallization behavior and the final crystalline structure of nucleated PP. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 1853–1867, 2008     

Synthesis, structure, and luminescent property of a heterometallic metal-organic framework constructed from rod-shaped secondary building blocks

A new heterometallic MOF compound, [ZnNa(m-BDC)2].NH2(CH3)2 (MOF-CJ2), has been solvothermally synthesized and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, X-ray powder diffraction, ICP, TGA, IR, and photoluminescence spectroscopy analyses. It crystallizes in monoclinic space group C2/c (No. 15) with a=13.277(6) A, b=14.323(7) A, c=11.328(6) A, and beta=111.73(2) degrees. Its framework is constructed from M-O-C (M=Na and Zn) rods composed of alternating six-coordinated Na(I) centers and four-coordinated Zn(II) centers. These rods are linked by m-BDC links to form primitive cubic (pcu) type rod packing. This framework exemplifies the first open-framework heterometallic MOF structure based on the assembly of infinite rod building units.     

Mechanical properties of the plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtering Si-C-N coatings

The mechanical properties of plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtering Si-C-N hard coatings with various compositions are characterized. The effect of chemical composition on the microstructure and properties of coating is investigated. The results show that the microstructure and mechanical properties of Si-C-N coatings are very sensitive to chemical composition. The nanocrystalline/amorphous composite structure is beneficial to the coating's mechanical properties. It also reveals that Si-C-N coating with low Si and high C concentrations has the highest hardness (≥40 GPa) and the best wear property with dry friction coefficient about 0.2.     

Well-posedness of a dissipative nonlinear electrohydrodynamic system in modulation spaces

In this paper we prove the local and global well-posedness of a dissipative nonlinear electrohydrodynamic system in modulation spaces under certain conditions of s, q, and σ.     

Exploration of amphoteric and negative refraction imaging of acoustic sources via active metamaterials

The present work describes the design of three flat superlens structures for acoustic source imaging and explores an active acoustic metamaterial (AAM) to realise such a design. The first two lenses are constructed via the coordinate transform method (CTM), and their constituent materials are anisotropic. The third lens consists of a material that has both a negative density and a negative bulk modulus. In these lenses, the quality of the images is “clear” and sharp; thus, the diffraction limit of classical lenses is overcome. Finally, a multi-control strategy is developed to achieve the desired parameters and to eliminate coupling effects in the AAM.     

Interplay between superconductivity and pseudogap state in bilayer cuprate superconductors

The interplay between the superconducting gap and normal-state pseudogap in the bilayer cuprate superconductors is studied based on the kinetic energy driven superconducting mechanism. It is shown that the charge carrier interaction directly from the interlayer coherent hopping in the kinetic energy by exchanging spin excitations does not provide the contribution to the normal-state pseudogap in the particle–hole channel and superconducting gap in the particle–particle channel, while only the charge carrier interaction directly from the intralayer hopping in the kinetic energy by exchanging spin excitations induces the normal-state pseudogap in the particle–hole channel and superconducting gap in the particle–particle channel, and then the two-gap behavior is a universal feature for the single layer and bilayer cuprate superconductors.     

Transition from fractal to non-fractal scalings in growing scale-free networks

Real networks can be classified into two categories: fractal networks and non-fractal networks. Here we introduce a unifying model for the two types of networks. Our model network is governed by a parameter q. We obtain the topological properties of the network including the degree distribution, average path length, diameter, fractal dimensions, and betweenness centrality distribution, which are controlled by parameter q. Interestingly, we show that by adjusting q, the networks undergo a transition from fractal to non-fractal scalings, and exhibit a crossover from ‘large’ to small worlds at the same time. Our research may shed some light on understanding the evolution and relationships of fractal and non-fractal networks.     

Topologies and Laplacian spectra of a deterministic uniform recursive tree

The uniform recursive tree (URT) is one of the most important models and has been successfully applied to many fields. Here we study exactly the topological characteristics and spectral properties of the Laplacian matrix of a deterministic uniform recursive tree, which is a deterministic version of URT. Firstly, from the perspective of complex networks, we determine the main structural characteristics of the deterministic tree. The obtained vigorous results show that the network has an exponential degree distribution, small average path length, power-law distribution of node betweenness, and positive degree-degree correlations. Then we determine the complete Laplacian spectra (eigenvalues) and their corresponding eigenvectors of the considered graph. Interestingly, all the Laplacian eigenvalues are distinct.     

Random Sierpinski network with scale-free small-world and modular structure

In this paper, we define a stochastic Sierpinski gasket, on the basis of which we construct a network called random Sierpinski network (RSN). We investigate analytically or numerically the statistical characteristics of RSN. The obtained results reveal that the properties of RSN is particularly rich, it is simultaneously scale-free, small-world, uncorrelated, modular, and maximal planar. All obtained analytical predictions are successfully contrasted with extensive numerical simulations. Our network representation method could be applied to study the complexity of some real systems in biological and information fields.     

An empirical study of Chinese language networks

Chinese is spoken by the largest number of people in the world, and it is regarded as one of the most important languages. In this paper, we explore the statistical properties of Chinese language networks (CLNs) within the framework of complex network theory. Based on one of the largest Chinese corpora, i.e. People’s Daily Corpus, we construct two networks (CLN1 and CLN2) from two different respects, with Chinese words as nodes. In CLN1, a link between two nodes exists if they appear next to each other in at least one sentence; in CLN2, a link represents that two nodes appear simultaneously in a sentence. We show that both networks exhibit small-world effect, scale-free structure, hierarchical organization and disassortative mixing. These results indicate that in many topological aspects Chinese language shapes complex networks with organizing principles similar to other previously studied language systems, which shows that different languages may have some common characteristics in their evolution processes. We believe that our research may shed some new light into the Chinese language and find some potentially significant implications.