Dynamical Characteristics of Traveling Wave Packets of Total Electron Content Disturbances

Using the COPHASE method and the GPS interferometry method for travelling ionospheric disturbances, we analyze in detail the spatio-temporal properties of travelling wave packets (TWP) of total electron content (TEC) disturbances. The analysis is performed on the example of a clearest TWP manifestation observed in California, USA, in October 18, 2001, using the GLOBDET technique, developed at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Branch of RAS for global detection and monitoring of natural and technogenic ionospheric disturbances on the basis of TEC variations retrieved from the global network of GPS receivers. In the time domain, TWPs are quasi-periodic TEC oscillations of duration about 1 h, period of 10–20 min, and amplitude exceeding that of the background TEC fluctuations by at least one order of magnitude. The velocity and direction of TWP motion are similar to those of mid-latitude mesoscale travelling ionospheric disturbances, as obtained earlier from the analysis of phase parameters of HF radio signals and the signals of geostationary satellites and discrete space radio sources.     

Temperature and junction-type dependency of Andreev reflection in MgB2

We studied the voltage and temperature dependency of the dynamic conductance of normal metal-MgB₂ junctions obtained either with the point-contact technique (with Au and Pt tips) or by making Ag-paint spots on the surface of MgB₂ samples. The fit of the conductance curves with the generalized BTK model gives evidence of pure s-wave gap symmetry. The temperature dependency of the gap, measured in Ag-paint junctions (dirty limit), follows the standard BCS curve with 2Δ/k_BT_c=3.3. In out-of-plane, high-pressure point-contacts we obtained almost ideal Andreev reflection characteristics showing a single small s-wave gap Δ=2.6±0.2 meV (clean limit).     

Towards Treating Correlations in Bose Condensates

 We use the adiabatic hyperspheric expansion and the Faddeev decomposition of the wave function with only s-waves. We derive for a fixed hyperradius an integro-differential equation for the angular eigenvalue and wave function. The correlations lower the interaction energy for N = 20 by about a factor of 5. Received October 22, 2001; accepted for publication November 5, 2001     

TOPOLOGY DESIGN OF STRUCTURES SUBJECTED TO PERIODIC LOADING

Although a lot of attention in the topology optimization literature has focused on the optimization of eigenfrequencies in free vibration problems, relatively little work has been done on the optimization of structures subjected to periodic loading. In this paper, we propose two measures, one global and the other local, for the minimization of vibrations of structures subjected to periodic loading. The global measure which we term as the “dynamic compliance” reduces the vibrations in an overall sense, and thus has important implications from the viewpoint of reducing the noise radiated from a structure, while the local measure reduces the vibrations at a user-defined point. Both measures bring about a reduction in the vibration level by moving the natural frequencies which contribute most significantly to the measures, away from the driving frequencies, although, as expected, in different ways. Quite surprisingly, the structure of the dynamic compliance optimization problem turns out to be very similar to the structure of the static compliance optimization problem. The availability of analytical sensitivities results in an efficient algorithm for both measures. We show the effectiveness of the measures by presenting some numerical examples.     

Miscibility of bisphenol-A polycarbonate with poly(methyl methacrylate)

The miscibility of bisphenol-A polycarbonate (PC) with poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) has been reexamined using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and optical indications for phase separation on heating, i.e., lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. Various methods have been used to prepare the blends including methylene chloride (CH₂Cl₂) and tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution casting, melt mixing, and precipitation of PC and PMMA simultaneously from THF solution by using the nonsolvents methanol and heptane. It is shown that the resulting phase behavior for PC/PMMA blends is strongly affected by the blend preparation method. However, these blends are miscible over the whole blend composition range (unambiguous single composition-dependent T_g's and LCST behavior) when prepared by precipitation from solution using heptane as the nonsolvent. To the contrary, solution-cast and melt-mixed PC/PMMA blends were all phase separated, which may be attributed to the “solvent” effect and LCST behavior, respectively, not discovered in previous reports. Methanol precipitation does not lead to fully mixed blends, which demonstrates the importance of the choice of nonsolvent when using the precipitation method.     

Reductions of interval nonlinear programming problem

A general nonlinear programming problem with interval functions is considered. Two reductions of this problem to the deterministic nonlinear programming problem are proposed, and illustrative examples are discussed.