Surfaces of Constant Mean Curvature Bounded by Two Planar Curves

In this paper we study constant mean curvature compact surfaces with two Jordan curves in parallel planes as boundary and we investigate the point at which the surface inherits the symmetries of its boundary.     

Influence of the sulfonate countercation on the thermal stability of nafion perfluorosulfonate membranes

We report a strong dependence of the thermal stability of Nafion® perfluorosulfonate ionomer on the nature of the counterion associated with the fixed sulfonate site. These results were obtained using thermal gravimetric analysis on a series of alkali metal and alkyl ammonium cation-exchanged Nafion films. We have found that the temperature of decomposition of Nafion is inversely dependent on the size of the exchanged cation; i.e., Nafion films show improved thermal stability as the size of the counter cation decreases. We attribute this inverse relationship of thermal stability with counterion size to an initial decomposition reaction which is strongly influenced by the strength of the sulfonate-coun-terion interaction. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Pseudo-epitaxial C60 films prepared by a hot-wall method

We have used both reflection-geometry and grazing-incidence-geometry X-ray scattering to study thin films of C₆₀ evaporated onto mica substrates via a hot-wall technique. The growth mode yields close-packed C₆₀ planes, which are parallel to the substrate surface and which exhibit out-of-plane correlation lengths of 850 Å. In the film plane the C₆₀ is at best pseudo-epitaxial, with a 0.9° distribution of crystallite orientations, a 450 Å in-plane correlation length, and a 3.7% lattice mismatch, better than obtained by other thin film techniques but far from the accepted definition of single crystal thin film epitaxy.     

Spin effects in instanton models

Nonperturbative nolocal structure of QCD vacuum is well described by instanton model. Specific helicity and flavor structure of zero modes of quarks, in instanton field allows simultaneously to explain some important features of low-and high-energy hadron phenomemology. The basic characteristics of hadron spectrum, partonic sum rules, heavyquark potential etc within the instanton liquid model are briefly discussed.     

Surface grating formation and erasing on a-Se films

Surface relief formation at holographic recording on amorphous selenium films was demonstrated and investigated. The presence of this optical phase modulation component is essential for ensuring significant, stable and erasable optical recording in a-Se films at 290–320 K temperatures, where conventional photodarkening was known as insignificant and unstable. Photocrystallization can only be observed in super-exposed a-Se films at the given experimental conditions of hologram recording. Erasing behavior of surface relief gratings under heat treatment was also investigated in order to reveal further details of the mechanism. Photoinduced structural transformations within the amorphous phase, connected to local ordering under the condition of light-induced fluidity, are proposed as an explanation for the relief formation and erasing. The observed reversible optical recording process may be useful for the various optoelectronic applications of photoconductive a-Se layers. Received: 12 June 2000 / Accepted: 6 June 2001 / Published online: 30 August 2001     

Reducing systems of linear differential equations to a passive form

In this paper, an application of the Riquer-Thomas-Janet theory is described for the problem of transforming a system of partial differential equations into a passive form, i.e., to a special form which contains explicitly both the equations of the initial system and all their nontrivial differential consequences. This special representation of a system markedly facilitates the subsequent integration of the corresponding differential equations. In this paper, the modern approach to the indicated problem is presented. This is the approach adopted in the Knuth-Bendix procedure [13] for critical-pair/completion and then Buchberger's algorithm for completion of polynomial ideal bases [13] (or, alternatively, for the construction of Groebner bases for ideals in a differential operator ring [14]). The algorithm of reduction to the passive form for linear system of partial differential equations and its implementation in the algorithmic language REFAL, as well as the capabilities of the corresponding program, are outlined. Examples illustrating the power and efficiency of the system are presented.     

A New Distribution Function for Risk Analysis

This paper presents an alternative to the beta continuous probability distribution for risk analysis. Particular attention has been given to two major applications of distributions, namely project management risk and critical path analysis (PERT). In conjunction with the beta, the triangular and normal distributions are frequently employed in order to give sufficient robustness to risk analysis. The beta distribution, as used in PERT, has a major theoretical implementation flaw. The new distribution was developed to give a possible alternative method of assessing risk. It is shown that the requirement to estimate the most pessimistic variate may be replaced by the probability to exceed the mode. Proposals for other simplifications in risk analysis are discussed. Practical means to validate the most appropriate distributions for risk analysis are outlined, and a cost-data case study is included.     

A statistical approach to the solution of ill-posed problems in geophysics

The article surveys the main results of the statistical approach to the solution of ill-posed problems of mathematical physics, in application to specific ill-posed inverse problems in geophysics.Invited paper presented at the International Seminar on Mathematical Foundations of the Interpretation of Geophysical Fields, Moscow, May–June 1972.Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov Leningradskogo Otdeleniya Matematicheskogo Instituta im. V. A. Steklova AN SSSR, Vol. 79, pp. 67–81, 1978.