Elaboration and characterization of hybrid organic-inorganic gels obtained by reaction of 1,4-butanediol on tetramethoxysilane

New hybrid organic-inorganic gels have been obtained by reaction of 1,4-butanediol, on tetramethoxysilane Si(OMe)₄ dissolved in CCl₄. This reaction does not require water and leads to the formation of polymeric transparent materials.Infrared, ²⁹Si and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy shows that interchange reactions between OMe groups of alkoxide and -O-(CH₂)₄-O of 1,4-butanediol occurred, leading to the monolithic transparent gels in which both organic (Si-O-(CH₂)₄-O-Si) and inorganic (Si-O-Si) bridges are formed.     

The intersection marker method for 3D interface tracking of deformable surfaces in finite volumes

Currently, the majority of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes use the finite volume method to spatially discretise the computational domain, sometimes as an array of cubic control volumes. The Finite volume method works well with single‐phase flow simulations, but two‐phase flow simulations are more challenging because of the need to track the surface interface traversing and deforming within the 3D grid. Surface area and volume fraction details of each interface cell must be accurately accounted for, in order to calculate for the momentum exchange and rates of heat and mass transfer across the interface. To attain a higher accuracy in two‐phase flow CFD calculations, the intersection marker (ISM) method is developed. The ISM method is a hybrid Lagrangian–Eulerian front‐tracking algorithm that can model an arbitrary 3D surface within an array of cubic control volumes. The ISM method has a cell‐by‐cell remeshing capability that is volume conservative and is suitable for the tracking of complex interface deformation in transient two‐phase CFD simulations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Efficient stochastic FEM for flow in heterogeneous porous media. Part 1: random Gaussian conductivity coefficients

This paper is concerned with the development of efficient iterative methods for solving the linear system of equations arising from stochastic FEMs for single‐phase fluid flow in porous media. It is assumed that the conductivity coefficient varies randomly in space according to some given correlation function and is approximated using a truncated Karhunen–Loève expansion. Distinct discretizations of the deterministic and stochastic spaces are required for implementations of the stochastic FEM. In this paper, the deterministic space is discretized using classical finite elements and the stochastic space using a polynomial chaos expansion. The highly structured linear systems which result from this discretization mean that Krylov subspace iterative solvers are extremely effective. The performance of a range of preconditioned iterative methods is investigated and evaluated in terms of robustness with respect to mesh size and variability of the conductivity coefficient. An efficient symmetric block Gauss–Seidel preconditioner is proposed for problems in which the conductivity coefficient has a large standard deviation.The companion paper, herein, referred to as Part 2, considers the situation in which Gaussian random fields are transformed into lognormal ones by projecting the truncated Karhunen–Loève expansion onto a polynomial chaos basis. This results in a stochastic nonlinear problem because the random fields are represented using polynomial chaos containing terms that are generally nonlinear in the random variables. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discontinuous Galerkin methods on graphics processing units for nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws

We present a novel implementation of the modal DG method for hyperbolic conservation laws in two dimensions on graphics processing units (GPUs) using NVIDIA's Compute Unified Device Architecture. Both flexible and highly accurate, DG methods accommodate parallel architectures well as their discontinuous nature produces element‐local approximations. High‐performance scientific computing suits GPUs well, as these powerful, massively parallel, cost‐effective devices have recently included support for double‐precision floating‐point numbers. Computed examples for Euler equations over unstructured triangle meshes demonstrate the effectiveness of our implementation on an NVIDIA GTX 580 device. Profiling of our method reveals performance comparable with an existing nodal DG‐GPU implementation for linear problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Use of Derivative Thermogravimetry to Estimate Degree of Thermal Degradation

It is difficult to estimate the degree of thermal degradation which has taken place in complex parts composed of cellulosics and polymeric insulation unless complete failure has occurred. There is a definite need for a parameter which can quickly and easily measure the relative degree of thermal attack on organic insulation subjected to various known environmental and processing conditions. This paper reports preliminary work using derivative thermogravimetry to perform this function. Derivative thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used to produce a value, TGA Index, related to the peak height of the major TGA derivative signal. This TGA Index was found to correlate with the copper number of insulating paper measured after thermal degradation. The application of TGA Index to evaluation of polymer degradation after thermal shock, water absorption, and accelerated UV attack is also discussed. Finally, preliminary studies on the use of derivative TGA to evaluate coatings exposed to various outdoor environments around the country are reported.     

Functional Monomers and Polymers. 145. Synthetic Application Based on the Tautomerism of Polymer-Bound Purine and Pyrimidine Bases

Polymer-bound alkylthiopurine and -pyrimidine bases were prepared and used as the polymeric reagents for the reactions of nitrile, olefin, and enone formation. The corresponding low molecular weight compounds were also prepared for comparison. Differences in the reactivity of these reagents were related to the change in tautomerism of the purine and pyrimidine moieties.     

Attapulgite grafted with polystyrene via a simultaneous reverse and normal initiation atom transfer radical polymerization

The surface grafting of attapulgite (ATP) with polystyrene (PS) was established via a simultaneous reverse and normal initiation atom transfer radical polymerization (SR&NIATRP). 4‐(chloromethyl)phenyltrimethoxysilane (CMPTMS) chemical bounded on the surface of ATP (ATP‐Cl, Cl‐I) was prepared via one‐step self‐assembly. SR&NI ATRP of styrene was conducted using CuCl₂ complex tris(2‐(dimethylamino)ethyl)amine (Me₆‐TREN) as the catalytic system, initiated by 2,2‐azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) and ATP‐Cl. FT‐IR, XRD, XPS, TGA and TEM data were consistent with the grafting of benzyl chloride groups and PS chains on ATP surface. The controllability of polymerization was investigated by the kinetics behavior under different molar ratio of AIBN and CuCl₂. The obtained polymer possessed a uniform distribution of molecular weights with a lower polydispersity index of 1.2～1.4. The relationship between polymerization on the surface of ATP and in solution was discussed in detail based on TGA data of hybrid particles and GPC trace of free polymer in solution. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016 , 54, 1508–1516     

Preparation and characterization of new inorganic–organic hybrid catalyst H3PMo12O40/Hyd‐SBA‐15 and its application in the domino multi‐component reaction

We present novel inorganic–organic hybrid catalyst to accomplish domino multi‐component reaction (MCR) for synthesis of 3‐amino‐2′‐oxospiro[benzo[c]pyrano[3,2‐a]phenazine‐1,3′‐indoline]‐2‐carbonitrile/carboxylate derivatives. This methodology offers remarkable development by easy production of H₃PMo₁₂O₄₀/Hyd‐SBA‐15 in regard to solving the problem of using harsh catalysts, also it demonstrates to be impressive and environmentally friendly in term of low reaction times and high yields.     

A comparison of best fit lines for data with outliers

Three techniques for determining a straight line fit to data are compared. The methods are applied to a range of datasets containing one or more outliers, and to a specific example from the field of chemistry. For the method which is the most resistant to the presence of outliers, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, as well as two Matlab routines, are included which can be used to determine the slope and intercept estimates.     

Likelihood Inference under Generalized Hybrid Censoring Scheme with Comp eting Risks

Statistical inference is developed for the analysis of generalized type-II hybrid censoring data under exponential competing risks model. In order to solve the problem that approximate methods make unsatisfactory performances in the case of small sample size, we establish the exact conditional distributions of estimators for parameters by conditional moment generating function(CMGF). Furthermore, confidence intervals(CIs) are constructed by exact distributions, approximate distributions as well as bootstrap method respectively, and their performances are evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. And finally, a real data set is analyzed to illustrate all the methods developed here.