Highly soluble and optically transparent poly (ether imide)s based on 2,6‐ or 2,7‐bis(3,4‐dicarboxyphenoxy)naphthalene dianhydride and aromatic bis(ether amine)s bearing trifluoromethyl groups

Two series of novel fluorinated poly(ether imide)s (coded IIIA and IIIB ) were prepared from 2,6‐bis(3,4‐dicarboxyphenoxy)naphthalene dianhydride and 2,7‐bis(3,4‐dicarboxyphenoxy)naphthalene dianhydride, respectively, with various trifluoromethyl‐substituted aromatic bis(ether amine)s by a standard two‐step process with thermal or chemical imidization of the poly(amic acid) precursors. These fluorinated poly(ether imide)s showed good solubility in many organic solvents and could be solution‐cast into transparent, flexible, and tough films. These films were nearly colorless, with an ultraviolet–visible absorption edge of 364–386 nm. They also showed good thermal stability with glass‐transition temperatures of 221–298 °C, 10% weight loss temperatures in excess of 489 °C, and char yields at 800 °C in nitrogen greater than 50%. The 2,7‐substituted IIIB series also showed better solubility and higher transparency than the isomeric 2,6‐substituted IIIA series. In comparison with nonfluorinated poly (ether imide)s, the fluorinated IIIA and IIIB series showed better solubility, higher transparency, and lower dielectric constants and water absorption. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 5909–5922, 2006     

CONFLICT AND COOPERATION IN UTILIZING A COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCE

Noncooperative games are used to demonstrate that, while free riding is always an option, the “tragedy of the commons” is not inevitable. When the decision to cooperate or free ride is considered in a dynamic setting, there is no intermediate case where some cooperate and others free ride. The game is only stabilized in either full cooperation or full defection. The important factor in obtaining a cooperative outcome is the critical number of players that decide to cooperate. The concept of commitment is used to demonstrate the necessary and sufficient conditions for full cooperation. Although the analysis is based on a shared water resource, it can be extended to other natural resources with common costs and private benefits, especially in the cases where there are no international authorities or treaties that internalize the externalities involved in privatizing the resource.     

Congruences,equational theories and lattice representations

We survey results concerning the representations of lattices as lattices of congruences and as lattices of equational theories. Recent results and open problems will be mentioned.To László Fuchs on the occasion of his 70th birthday     

Differential graded Lie algebras and singularities of level sets of momentum mappings

The germ of an analytic varietyX at a pointxX is said to bequadratic if it is bi-analytically isomorphic to the germ of a cone defined by a system of homogeneous quadratic equations at the origin. Arms, Marsden and Moncrief show in [2] that under certain conditions the analytic germ of a level set of a momentum mapping is quadratic. We discuss related ideas in a more algebraic context by associating to an affine Hamiltonian action a differential graded Lie algebra, which in the presence of an invariant positive complex structure, is formal in the sence of [5].Dedicated to the memory of Bruce Reinhart     

Velocity inversion: A case study in infinite-dimensional optimization

The goal of seismic velocity inversion is the estimation of seismic wave velocities inside the earth by attempting to predict, in a least-error sense, seismic waveforms measured at its surface. We present velocity inversion as a case study in the various infinite-dimensional pathologies which may afflict practically important problems of distributed parameter identification, treated as optimization problems in function spaces. These features differentiate various problem formulations far beyond the degree one would expect for finite- (small-) dimensional problems. We illustrate this differentiation by comparing the characteristics of three different least-squares formulations of velocity inversion.     

On the principal axes of diffusion in difference schemes for 2d transport problems

Via Taylor series, we associate with a difference stencil L^h approximating Lu := au_x + bu_y its modified equation:

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. By rotating axes to eliminate the 2Bu_xy term, the principle axes through which the diffusion in L^h acts is calculated. Interestingly, for many schemes proposed for 2D transport problems these axes have little to do with the “streamline” and ”crosswind” directions of the continuous problem. Several examples are considered from this point of view.