Motional narrowing and ergodic bands in excited superdeformed states of 194Hg

The E(gamma) - E(gamma) coincidence spectra from the electromagnetic decay of excited superdeformed states in (194)Hg reveal surprisingly narrow ridges, parallel to the diagonal. A total of 100-150 excited bands are found to contribute to these ridges, which account for nearly all the unresolved E2 decay strength. Comparison with theory suggests that these excited bands have many components in their wave functions, yet they display remarkable rotational coherence. This phenomenon can be explained in terms of the combination of shell effects and motional narrowing.     

Turbulence characterisation of a confined jet using PIV

The turbulence in the bulk free region of a confined jet is investigated using a simple video-based particle image velocimetry technique. The latter, which relies on the interlacing properties of video filming and simple particle tracking concepts, is suitable for less dense seeding levels and lower flow velocities. The results obtained for the turbulence intensity variation in the jet agree with known data from literature. Spatially resolved integral length scales are calculated, and a relation for Eulerian-type length scales is proposed.     

Preparation and characterization of plasma-polymerized N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone films

Thin films (< 1 μm) of plasma polymerized N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (PPNVP) have been prepared, using an inductively coupled RF glow discharge in a flow-through reactor system. PPNVP films were hydrophilic, smooth, and appeared morphologically homogeneous. The polymer deposition rate was found to increase linearly with NVP flow rate, and to decrease with the distance from the induction coil. ATR–FT–IR spectral studies suggested a highly branched polymer structure and included absorptions at 2150 and 1540 cm^?1 which were unique to the plasma polymer and derived from lactam ring opening/breaking reactions. ESCA studies demonstrated that, under a given set of plasma reaction conditions, the surface composition was consistent throughout the reactor. However, polymer composition was influenced by larger changes in the plasma energy, since the nitrogen content was found to decrease with increasing W/FM. This corresponded to concomitant increases in the advancing water contact angles and to small but reproducible changes in the IR spectrum.     

A study of the antitumor activity of four dibutyltin(IV)-N-arylidene-α-amino acid complexes

This paper reports the activity of four dibutyltin(IV)–N-arylidene-α-amino acid complexes against the National Cancer Institute (NCI) panel of 60 cell lines. The results indicated that three of the organotin complexes (C₁₇H₂₅NO₃Sn, C₁₈H₂₇NO₃Sn and C₂₀H₃₁NO₃Sn) exhibit their highest cytotoxic effect on the NCI-522 (non-small cell lung cancer) cell line. The fourth complex, C₂₁H₂₇NO₃Sn, exhibits its highest cytotoxic activity on the cell line RXF-631L (renal cancer). In general, a low to moderate cellular response was observed for all the organotin complexes, with at least one cell line in each subpanel of cells exhibiting a very low growth inhibition response to all the organotin complexes. The low-responding cell lines included HOP-62 (non-small lung cancer), DLD-1 (colon cancer), SF-539 (CNS cancer), SK-MEL-5 (melanoma), IGROV-1 (ovarian cancer) and RPMI-8226 (leukemia). The results also indicated that the compounds did not exhibit any significant subpanel activity and suggested that the compounds were not active in all the cell lines contained in any subpanel. The low to moderate activity of these compounds across the cell lines was attributed to the presence of nitrogen-bearing ligands which prevented the dissociation of the compound and the subsequent binding to DNA. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of Ultrahigh Permeance Hollow Fiber Membranes via Simple Surface Coating for CO2/CH4 Separation

Most researchers focused on developing highly selective membranes for CO₂/CH₄ separation, but their developed membranes often suffered from low permeance. In this present work, we aimed to develop an ultrahigh permeance membrane using a simple coating technique to overcome the trade-off between membrane permeance and selectivity. A commercial silicone membrane with superior permeance but low CO₂/CH₄ selectivity (in the range of 2–3) was selected as the host for surface modification. Our results revealed that out of the three silane agents tested, only tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) improved the control membrane’s permeance and selectivity. This can be due to its short structural chain and better compatibility with the silicone substrate. Further investigation revealed that higher CO₂ permeance and selectivity could be attained by coating the membrane with two layers of TEOS. The surface integrity of the TEOS-coated membrane was further improved when an additional polyether block amide (Pebax) layer was established atop the TEOS layer. This additional layer sealed the pin holes of the TEOS layer and enhanced the resultant membrane’s performance, achieving CO₂/CH₄ selectivity of ~19 at CO₂ permeance of ~2.3 × 10⁵ barrer. This performance placed our developed membrane to surpass the 2008 Robeson Upper Boundary.     

N-Bridged Acyclic Trimeric Poly-Cyclodiphosphazanes: Highly Tuneable Cyclodiphosphazane Building Blocks

We have synthesized a completely new family of acyclic trimeric cyclodiphosphazane compounds comprising NH, NⁱPr, N^tBu and NPh bridging groups. In addition, the first NH-bridged acyclic dimeric cyclophosphazane has been produced. The trimeric species display highly tuneable characteristics so that the distance between the terminal N(H)R moieties can be readily modulated by the steric bulk present in the bridging groups (ranging from ≈6 to ≈10 Å). Moreover, these species exhibit pronounced topological changes when a weak non-bonding NH⋅⋅⋅π aryl interaction is introduced. Finally, the NH-bridged chloride binding affinities have been calculated and benchmarked along with the existing experimental data available for monomeric cyclodiphosphazanes. Our results underscore these species as promising hydrogen bond donors for supramolecular host–guest applications.     

Model reduction for reacting flow applications

A model reduction approach based on Galerkin projection, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), and the discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) is developed for chemically reacting flow applications. Such applications are challenging for model reduction due to the strong coupling between fluid dynamics and chemical kinetics, a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, highly nonlinear chemical kinetics, and long simulation run-times. In our approach, the POD technique combined with Galerkin projection reduces the dimension of the state (unknown chemical concentrations over the spatial domain), while the DEIM approximates the nonlinear chemical source term. The combined method provides an efficient offline–online solution strategy that enables rapid solution of the reduced-order models. Application of the approach to an ignition model of a premixed H₂/O₂/Ar mixture with 19 reversible chemical reactions and 9 species leads to reduced-order models with state dimension several orders of magnitude smaller than the original system. For example, a reduced-order model with state dimension of 60 accurately approximates a full model with a dimension of 91,809. This accelerates the simulation of the chemical kinetics by more than two orders of magnitude. When combined with the full-order flow solver, this results in a reduction of the overall computational time by a factor of approximately 10. The reduced-order models are used to analyse the sensitivity of outputs of interest with respect to uncertain input parameters describing the reaction kinetics.     

Activity coefficients in aqueous mixtures of hydrochloric acid and lanthanum chloride at 25°C

Activity coefficients of hydrochloric acid in aqueous solutions of lanthanum chloride were determined by an emf method at 25°C over an ionic strength range 0.05–3 mol-kg^–1. Harned's rule was obeyed within experimental error by the acid in all the mixtures. However, the fit with Pitzer's equations was not as good as the Harned rule fit, even though the effects of higher-order electrostatic terms were considered. Activity coefficients for the salt in the mixtures were derived using the Pitzer equations and fitted to the Harned equation, whereupon Harned's rule was found to be valid for the salt up to an ionic strength of 0.3 mol-kg^–1 only.     

The absolute instability of boundary-layer flow over viscoelastic walls

The linear stability of boundary-layer flow over a viscoelastic-layer wall is considered. A companion matrix technique is used to formulate the stability problem as a linear matrix eigenvalue problem for complex frequency and all the eigenvalues may be determined without any initial guess values. The eigenvalues are compared with those obtained with an accurate shooting method. The instability character of the boundary-layer flow is further investigated with the purpose of finding the conditions under which the instability of the flow could become absolute. The mapping technique of Kupferet al. (1987) is used to identify the occurrence of absolute instability eigenvalues. Absolute instabilities are discovered for cases of soft damped wall over certain ranges of Reynolds number. The effects of wall material stiffness, damping coefficient, thickness of layer, and Reynolds number on the occurrence of absolute instability are examined and presented.