Bases of free metabelian and transmetabelian groups

A definition of the basis of a group written in additive form is given based on P. Hall's collecting process. The bases of free rank 2 groups of the following three types are found: metabelian, transmetabelian of the first type (with an Abelian third term in the lower central series), and transmetabelian of the second type (the nilpotency class of whose derived group is equal to two).Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova Akademiya Nauk SSSR, Vol. 191, pp. 126–139, 1991.     

Parity-locking effect in a strongly-correlated ring

Orbital magnetism in an integrable model of a multichannel ring with long-ranged electron-electron interactions is investigated. In a noninteracting multichannel system, the response to an external magnetic flux is the sum of many diamagnetic and paramagnetic contributions, but we find that for sufficiently strong correlations, the contributions of all channels add constructively, leading to a parity (diamagnetic or paramagnetic) which depends only on the total number of electrons. Numerical results confirm that this parity-locking effect is robust with respect to subband mixing due to disorder.     

Moisture sorption, transport, and hydrolytic degradation in polylactide

Management of moisture penetration and hydrolytic degradation of polylactide (PLA) is extremely important during the manufacturing, shipping, storage, and end-use of PLA products. Moisture transport, crystallization, and degradation, in PLA have been measured through a variety of experimental techniques including size-exclusion chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffraction. Quartz crystal microbalance and dynamic vapor sorption experiments have also been used to measure moisture sorption isotherms in PLA films with varying crystallinity. A surprising result is that, within the accuracy of the experiments, crystalline and amorphous PLA films exhibit identical sorption isotherms.     

Formation of ultrashort microwave pulses in coaxial cavities

We describe shaper cavities for the production of ultrashort microwave pulses with a minimum duration of one period of the high-frequency field and a power of several tens of megawatts. Experimental results are presented.Scientific and Research Insititute for Nuclear Physics at S. M. Kirov Polytechnical Institute, Tomsk. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 38, No. 12, pp. 1250–1256, December, 1995.     

Determination of the thermal stresses in anisotropic shells of revolution

Using the relations of the improved model of layered anisotropic shells based on the straight line assumption taking account of the thermal compression over the thickness we obtain a resolvent system of equations for shells whose properties depend on temperature. We carry out a study of the stresses in a two-layer cylindrical shell formed by winding as a function of the winding angle. Translated fromMatematicheskie Metody i Fiziko-Mekhanicheskie Polya, Issue 35, 1992, pp. 82–85.     

2H NMR spectra of 2-(p-heptylbenzoyloxy)-5-(p-heptylbenzenazo)tropone. A new sigmatropic liquid crystal

Liquid crystals incorporating in their molecular framework a seven-membered ring are still relatively rare [1]. Recently the synthesis and thermal behaviour of a series of liquid crystal materials having a tropone moiety in their mesogenic core have been reported [2-4]. These mesogens, based on a 2-(acyloxy)tropone core structure, show intramolecular migration of the acyl substituents between the two oxygen atoms at C-1 and C-2, an effect already known for simple 2-(acyloxy)tropones in their isotropic solutions [5]. This migration involves a concerted [1, 9]-sigmatropic rearrangement [2]. This rearrangement could play a major role in determining the properties of the mesophases: it has been suggested in fact that, because of this rearrangement, the mesogenic molecules acquire a mean rod-like shape which can sustain the mesophase formation [2].