The effect of preparation parameters on performance of polyvinyl alcohol thin‐film composite membrane: Experimental study,modeling, and optimization

To systematically investigate the influence of preparation conditions on pure water permeability (PWP) and solute removal performance of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) thin‐film composite (TFC) membrane, fractional factorial design was applied. The considered conditions were related to 3 steps of the TFC preparation, including support membrane preparation, PVA coating, and cross‐linking. The results showed that among the selected factors, polysulfone concentration (polymer of the support membrane), heat curing time (related to cross‐linking condition), and their interaction have the most significant effects on the both permeability and salt rejection. The effects of significant factors interaction on permeability and solute rejection of PVA TFC membrane were discussed. Finally, optimum preparation conditions were calculated by numerical optimization to achieve maximum permeability and solute removal, simultaneously. The prepared membrane at optimum conditions showed PWP of 1.74 L/m²hbar and 96.19% Na₂SO₄ rejection. It was realized that the prediction of mathematical models at optimum conditions was reliable with absolute average relative error 7.43% and 1.18% for PWP and rejection, respectively.     

Determinants,Grassmanniannians and Elliptic Boundary Problems for the Dirac Operator

We study the relations between different determinants of the Dirac operator over a manifold with boundary considered as sections of a holomorphic line bundle over the Grassmannian of boundary conditions of Atiyah–Patodi–Singer type.     

Some properties of rational approximations of degree (k, 1) in the hardy spaceH 2(D)

We prove that the well-known interpolation conditions for rational approximations with free poles are not sufficient for finding a rational function of the least deviation. For rational approximations of degree (k, 1), we establish that these interpolation conditions are equivalent to the assertion that the interpolation pointc is a stationary point of the functionk(c) defined as the squared deviation off from the subspace of rational functions with numerator of degree k and with a given pole 1/¯c. For any positive integersk ands, we construct a functiong H₂(D) such thatR _k ,1(g)=R _k +s,1(g) > 0. whereR _k ,1(g) is the least deviation ofg from the class of rational function of degree (k, 1).Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 251–259, August, 1998.The author is keenly grateful to N. S. Vyacheslavov, E. P. Dolzhenko, and V. G. Zinov for useful discussions.     

Systems with nonextendable convergence of quasipolynomials

The system , where Λ={λ _n } is the set of zeros (of multiplicitiesm _n ) of the Fourier transform

Pressure representation and boundary regularity of the Navier-Stokes equations with slip boundary condition

We first represent the pressure in terms of the velocity in . Using this representation we prove that a solution to the Navier-Stokes equations is in under the critical assumption that , with r?3, while for r=3 the smallness is required. In [H.J. Choe, Boundary regularity of weak solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations, J. Differential Equations 149 (2) (1998) 211-247], a boundary L^∞ estimate for the solution is derived if the pressure on the boundary is bounded. In our work, we remove the boundedness assumption of the pressure. Here, our estimate is local. Indeed, employing Moser type iteration and the reverse Hölder inequality, we find an integral estimate for L^∞-norm of u.     

Shape evolutions under state constraints: A viability theorem

The aim of this paper is to adapt the Viability Theorem from differential inclusions (governing the evolution of vectors in a finite-dimensional space) to so-called morphological inclusions (governing the evolution of nonempty compact subsets of the Euclidean space).In this morphological framework, the evolution of compact subsets of is described by means of flows along differential inclusions with bounded and Lipschitz continuous right-hand side. This approach is a generalization of using flows along bounded Lipschitz vector fields introduced in the so-called velocity method alias speed method in shape analysis.Now for each compact subset, more than just one differential inclusion is admitted for prescribing the future evolution (up to first order)—correspondingly to the step from ordinary differential equations to differential inclusions for vectors in the Euclidean space.We specify sufficient conditions on the given data such that for every initial compact set, at least one of these compact-valued evolutions satisfies fixed state constraints in addition. The proofs follow an approximative track similar to the standard approach for differential inclusions in , but they use tools about weak compactness and weak convergence of Banach-valued functions. Finally the viability condition is applied to constraints of nonempty intersection and inclusion, respectively, in regard to a fixed closed set .     

Backward stochastic differential equations with reflection and weak assumptions on the coefficients

In this paper, we study reflected BSDE’s with one continuous barrier, under monotonicity and general increasing conditions in y$y$ and non-Lipschitz conditions in z$z$. We prove the existence and uniqueness of a solution by an approximation method.     

Gas hydrate equilibrium dissociation conditions in porous media using two thermodynamic approaches

We employ two thermodynamic approaches, based on the equal fugacities and the equal activities, to predict the gas hydrate equilibrium dissociation conditions in the porous media. The predictions are made for the hydrate systems, CH₄/H₂O, C₂H₆/H₂O, C₃H₈/H₂O, CO₂/H₂O, CH₄/CO₂/H₂O, C₃H₈/CH₄/C₂H₆/H₂O, and CH₄/CH₃OH/H₂O. For the non-hydrate phase, we used the Trebble–Bishnoi equation in the fugacity approach and the Soave–Redlich–Kwong equation in the activity approach. For the hydrate phase, the van der Waals–Platteeuw model incorporated with the capillary model of Llamedo et al. [M. Llamedo, R. Anderson, B. Tohidi, Am. Mineral. 89 (2004) 1264–1270] was used in the two approaches. The predictions are found to be in satisfactory to good agreement with the experimental data. The predictive ability of the fugacity approach is better than that of the activity approach.