Breakup temperature of target spectators in 197Au + 197Au collisions at E/A = 1000 MeV

Breakup temperatures were deduced from double ratios of isotope yields for target spectators produced in the reaction ¹⁹⁷Au + ¹⁹⁷Au at 1000 MeV per nucleon. Pairs of ^3,4He and ^6,7Li isotopes and pairs of ^3,4He and H isotopes (p, d and d, t) yield consistent temperatures after feeding corrections, based on the quantum statistical model, are applied. The temperatures rise with decreasing impact parameter from 4 MeV for peripheral to about 10 MeV for the most central collisions. The good agreement with the breakup temperatures measured previously for projectile spectators at an incident energy of 600 MeV per nucleon confirms the universality established for the spectator decayat relativistic bombarding energies. The measured temperatures also agree with the breakup temperatures predicted by the statistical multifragmentation model. For these calculations a relation between the initial excitation energy and mass was derived which gives good simultaneous agreement for the fragment charge correlations. The energy spectra of light charged particles, measured at τ_lab = 150°, exhibit Maxwellian shapes with inverse slope parameters much higher than the breakup temperatures. The statistical multifragmentation model, because Coulomb repulsion and sequential decay processes are included, yields light-particle spectra with inverse slope parameters higher than the breakup temperatures but considerably below the measured values. The systematic behavior of the differences suggests that they are caused by light-charged-particle emission prior to the final breakup stage.     

Cationic crosslinking of solid dgeba resins with ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate as initiator

Solid bisphenol-A epoxy resin of medium molecular mass was cured using a Lewis acid initiator (ytterbium(III) trifluoromethanesulfonate) in three different proportions (0.5, 1 and 2 phr). A kinetic study was performed in a differential scanning calorimeter. The complete kinetic triplet was determined (activation energy, pre-exponential factor, and integral function of the degree of conversion) for each system. A kinetic analysis was performed with an integral isoconversional procedure (free model), and the kinetic model was determined both with the Coats-Redfern method (the obtained isoconversional value being accepted as the effective activation energy) and through the compensation effect. All the systems followed the same isothermal curing model simulated from non-isothermal ones. The growth-of-nuclei Avrami kinetic model A_3/2 has been proposed as the polymerization kinetic model. The addition of initiator accelerated the reaction especially when 2 phr was added. 0.5 and 1 phr showed very few kinetic differences between them.     

An age-structured model for the spread of epidemic cholera: Analysis and simulation

Occasional outbreaks of cholera epidemics across the world demonstrate that the disease continues to pose a public health threat. Traditional models for the spread of infectious diseases are based on systems of ordinary differential equations. Since disease dynamics such as vaccine efficacy and the risk for contracting cholera depend on the age of the humans, an age-structured model offers additional insights and the possibility of studying the effects of treatment options. The model investigated is given as a system of hyperbolic (first-order) partial differential equations in combination with ordinary differential equations. First, using a representation from the method of characteristics and a fixed point argument, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a solution to our nonlinear system. Then we present a finite difference approximation to the model and study the effect of high and low rates of shedding of cholera vibrios on the dynamics of the spread of the disease. The simulations demonstrate the explosive nature of cholera outbreaks that is observed in reality. The contrast of results for high and low rates of shedding of vibrios suggest a possible underlying cause for this effect.