A new μs isomer in 136Sb produced in the projectile fission of 238U

Rapidity correlations in 800 GeV proton interactions with emulsion nuclei are investigated for different targets and multiplicity regions. To study the energy dependence, the results have been compared with proton interactions at 200 GeV and 400 GeV. A common feature of all the interactions is the existence of strong, short-range correlations. However, no dependence of cluster parameters on primary energy or target mass is found. A marginal increase of correlation strength with multiplicity is observed. Received: 30 March 2001 / Accepted: 18 September 2001     

Strategies to cure numerical shock instability in the HLLEM Riemann solver

The HLLEM scheme is a popular contact and shear preserving approximate Riemann solver that is known to be plagued by various forms of numerical shock instability. In this paper, we clarify that the shock instability exhibited by this scheme is primarily triggered by the spurious activation of the antidiffusive terms present in the first and third Riemann flux components on the transverse interfaces adjoining the shock front due to numerical perturbations. These erroneously activated terms are shown to counteract the favorable damping mechanism provided by its inherent HLL-type diffusive terms, causing an unphysical variation of the conserved quantity ρu both along and across the numerical shock. To prevent this, two distinct strategies are proposed termed as S elective W ave M odification and A nti D iffusion C ontrol. The former focuses on enhancing the quantity of the favorable HLL-type dissipation available on these critical flux components by carefully increasing the magnitudes of certain nonlinear wave speed estimates, while the latter focuses on directly controlling the magnitude of these critical antidiffusive terms. A linear perturbation analysis is performed to gauge the effectiveness of these cures and to estimate a von Neumann–type stability bounds on the CFL number associated with their use. Results from a variety of classic shock instability test cases show that the proposed strategies are able to provide excellent shock stable solutions even on grids that are highly elongated across the shock front without compromising the accuracy on inviscid contact or shear dominated viscous flows.     

Pair correlation function and freezing transitions in a two-dimensional system of model ultrasoft colloids

Density functional theory (DFT) of freezing has been used to investigate the freezing transitions in a system of colloidal particles confined to a two-dimensional plane. The particles interact via a model Hertzian type potential of varying softness. The pair-correlation functions (PCFs) needed as input structural information in DFT are calculated by solving hypernetted chain (HNC) integral equation theory. The PCFs thus obtained have been compared with those obtained through experiment and simulations and are found to be in good qualitative agreement. We found that the PCFs are sensitive to the softness of the potential: showing splitting of pair-correlation peak in the harder case and anomalous non-monotonic density dependence in the softer case. Using the common tangent construction method, we have also proposed the fluid-triangular solid phase diagrams in the temperature-density plane. We found that the phase diagram exhibit solid-fluid coexistence region whose thickness decreases with the increasing temperature as well as with increasing softness of the potential. In the temperature and density range of our calculation, DFT fails to produce any reentrance in the phase diagram.     

Boron-Containing Lipids and Liposomes: New Conjugates of Cholesterol with Polyhedral Boron Hydrides

A series of boron-containing lipids were prepared by reactions of cyclic oxonium derivatives of polyhedron boranes and metallacarboranes (closo-dodecaborate anion, cobalt and iron bis(dicarbollides)) with amine and carboxylic acids which are derived from cholesterol. Stable liposomal formulations, on the basis of synthesized boron-containing lipids, hydrogenated soybean l -α-phosphatidylcholine and (HSPC) 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy(polyethylene glycol)-2000] (DSPE-PEG) as excipients, were prepared and then characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS) that revealed the formation of particles to be smaller than 200 nm in diameter. The resulting liposomal formulations showed moderate to excellent loading and entrapment efficiency, thus justifying the design of the compounds to fit in the lipid bilayer and ensuring ease of in vivo use for future application. The liposomal formulations based on cobalt and iron bis(dicarbollide)-based lipids were found to be nontoxic against both human breast normal epithelial cells MCF-10A and human breast cancer cells MCF-7.     

Synthesis and Characterization of New Phosphorus Containing Sulfonated Polytriazoles for Proton Exchange Membrane Application

Sulfonated polytriazoles have drawn a great attention as high performance polymers and their good film forming ability. In the present study, a phosphorus containing new diazide monomer namely, bis-[4-(4′-aminophenoxy)phenyl]phenylphosphine was synthesized and accordingly, a series of phosphorus containing sulfonated polytriazoles (PTPBSH-XX) was synthesized by reacting equimolar amount of this diazide monomer (PAZ) in combination with another sulfonated diazide monomer (DSAZ) and a terminal bis-alkyne (BPALK) by the Cu (I) catalyzed azide–alkyne click polymerization. The polymers were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H, ¹³C, ³¹P NMR) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic techniques. The sulfonic acid content of the copolymers also determined from the different integral values obtained from the ¹H NMR signals. The small-angle X-ray scattering results unfolded the well-separated dispersion of the hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains of the polymers. As a whole, the copolymer membranes displayed sufficient thermal, mechanical, and oxidative stabilities high with high proton conductivity and low water uptake that are essential for proton exchange membrane applications. The copolymers exhibited oxidative stability in the range of 15–24 h and had proton conductivity values were found as high as 38–110 mS cm⁻¹ at 80 °C in completely hydrated condition. Among the all copolytriazoles, PTPBSH-90 (BPALK:DSAZ:PAZ = 100:90:10) having IEC_W = 2.44 mequiv g⁻¹, showed proton conductivity as high as 119 mS cm⁻¹ at 90 °C with an activation energy of 10.40 kJ mol⁻¹ for the proton conduction. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 58, 263–279     

Evaluation of polychromatic image quality of a birefringent lens by means of optical transfer function

Polychromatic or white-light optical transfer function (OTF) is put forward as a criterion to evaluate the performance of a uniaxial birefringent lens sandwiched between two linear polarizers. The optic axis of the birefringent crystal is perpendicular to the lens axis. The results show that the same system may be adapted for both enhanced resolution and apodization just by rotating any of the polarizers included in the system even under broadband illumination. The proposed system may also be exploited for image processing applications under polychromatic input illumination.     

An ellipsometric investigation of Ag/SiO$\mathsf{_2}$ nanocomposite thin films

Dielectric properties of silver/SiO₂ nanocomposite thin films grown by high-pressure d.c. sputtering technique were studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry (300-800 nm). The dielectric behavior of the nanocomposite thin films largely depended on the particle size, its number density and the surrounding environments. The films showed semiconductor-like behavior up to a critical particle size and concentration, beyond which the films exhibited the typical surface plasmon resonance characteristics in their optical properties. The refractive index was also found to have a strong dependence on the particle size and its dispersion in the matrix. The results were found to be consistent with those obtained from UV-VIS optical absorbance data. Bruggeman effective medium theory was used to explain the experimental results.Received: 3 April 2002, Published online: 23 July 2003PACS:   78.67.-n Optical properties of nanoscale materials and structures - 78.67.Bf Nanocrystals and nanoparticles     

DNA transport and delivery in thermal gradients near optofluidic resonators

Heat generation and its impact on DNA transport in the vicinity of an optofluidic silicon photonic crystal resonator are studied theoretically and experimentally. The temperature rise is measured to be as high as 57 K for 10 mW of input power. The resulting optical trapping and biomolecular sensing properties of these devices are shown to be strongly affected by the combination of buoyancy driven flow and thermophoresis. Specifically, the region around the electromagnetic hot spot is depleted in biomolecules because of a high free energy barrier.