Metastability of a circular o-ring due to intrinsic curvature

An o-ring takes spontaneously the shape of a chair when strong enough torsion is applied in its tangent plane. This state is metastable, since work has to be done on the o-ring to return to the circular shape. We show that this metastable state exists in a Hamiltonian where curvature and torsion are coupled via an intrinsic curvature term. If the o-ring is constrained to be planar (2d case), this metastable state displays a kink-anti-kink pair. This state is metastable if the ratio is less than , where C and A are the torsion and the bending elastic constants [#!landau!#]. In three dimensions, our variational approach shows that . This model can be generalized to the case where the bend is induced by a concentration field which follows the variations of the curvature. Received: 27 August 1997 / Revised: 23 October 1997 / Accepted: 12 November 1997     

Testing deviations from the inverse square law with a freely falling gravity gradiometer at balloon altitudes

Summary We discuss a null experiment to search for the fifth force at ranges around 10 km. It is proposed to use a three-axis gravity gradiometer to measure the trace of the Earth gravity tensor from a freely falling elevator dropped by a balloon. The main error sources are considered to some extent. Paper presented at the V Cosmic Physics National Conference, S. Miniato, November 27–30, 1990.     

Cyclic reduction and FACR methods for piecewise hermite bicubic orthogonal spline collocation

Cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction (FACR) methods are presented for the solution of the linear systems which arise when orthogonal spline collocation with piecewise Hermite bicubics is applied to boundary value problems for certain separable partial differential equations on a rectangle. On anN×N uniform partition, the cyclic reduction and Fourier analysis-cyclic reduction methods requireO(N ²log₂ N) andO(N ²log₂log₂ N) arithmetic operations, respectively.     

耗散系统不可逆过程中的可拓展广义相对论时空关系

在引入非保守非惯性系的基础上对不可逆过程建立非保守系等效性假设，在引入广域度规的基础上对具有复杂行为的时空建立非保守系协变性假设；利用密度分布的不均匀度h(ρ)和粗粒熵S（ρtε）及推导的多标度因数η*计算式，引入非保守惯性质量和非保守引力质量.分析表明，新结果使引力理论与非平衡态统计理论和非线性动力学达到应有的谐和，发展并修正广义相对论. 关键词： 时空关系 耗散系统 不可逆性 可拓展广义相对论 非保守引力质量     

Transesterification of an RNA model in buffer solutions in H2O and D2O

Transesterification of a phosphodiester bond of RNA models has been studied in various buffer solutions, under neutral and slightly alkaline conditions in H₂O and D₂O. The results show that imidazole is the only buffer system where a clear buffer catalysis on the cleavage of a phosphodiester bond is observed. The rate enhancement in sulphonic acid buffers is smaller, and a sulphonate base, particularly, is inactive as a catalyst. The rate‐enhancing effect of imidazole is, however, catalytic, and the catalytic inactivity of sulphonate buffers can be attributed to their structure and/or charge. The catalysis by imidazole is a complex system which, in addition to first‐order reactions, involves a process that shows a second‐order dependence in imidazole concentration. The latter reaction becomes significant in acidic imidazole buffers (pH < pK_a), as the buffer concentration increases. The kinetic solvent deuterium isotope effect k_H/k_D, referring to first‐order catalysis by imidazole base, is 2.3 ± 0.3. That referring to second‐order catalysis is most probably much larger, but an accurate value could not be obtained. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differentiators and the geometry of polynomials

In 1959, Davis introduced the concept of a differentiator of an operator on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. We prove that every such operator possesses a differentiator. We also use the theory of differentiators to solve several problems in the geometry of polynomials. For instance, we answer in the affirmative a twenty year old unsolved conjecture of Schoenberg, a related conjecture of Katsoprinakis and a fifty year old unsolved conjecture of De Bruijn and Springer.     

Special representations of the group SP(4,q) with minimal degrees

Let G be a finite group. Let p(G) denote the minimal degree of a faithful permutation representation ofG and let q(G) and c(G) denote the minimal degree of a faithful representation of G by quasi-permutation matrices over the rational and the complex numbers, respectively. Finally r(G) denotes the minimal degree of a faithful rational valued complex character of G. The purpose of this paper is to calculate p(G), q(G), c(G) and r(G) for the group SP(4,q). This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Perturbed recurrence relations II the general case

In this paper, we give some new explicit relations between two families of polynomials defined by recurrence relations of all order. These relations allow us to analyze, even in the Sobolev case, how some properties of a family of orthogonal polynomials are affected when the coefficients of the recurrence relation and the order are perturbed. In a paper we have already given a method which allows us to study the polynomials defined by a three-term recurrence relation. Also here some generalizations are given.     

Constructing orthogonal pandiagonal Latin squares and panmagic squares from modular n‐queens solutions

In this article, we show how to construct pairs of orthogonal pandiagonal Latin squares and panmagic squares from certain types of modular n‐queens solutions. We prove that when these modular n‐queens solutions are symmetric, the panmagic squares thus constructed will be associative, where for an n × n associative magic square A = (a_ij), for all i and j it holds that a_ij + an?i?1,n?j?1 = c for a fixed c. We further show how to construct orthogonal Latin squares whose modular difference diagonals are Latin from any modular n‐queens solution. As well, we analyze constructing orthogonal pandiagonal Latin squares from particular classes of non‐linear modular n‐queens solutions. These pandiagonal Latin squares are not row cyclic, giving a partial solution to a problem of Hedayat. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 15: 221–234, 2007     

Regularization of some linear ill-posed problems with discretized random noisy data

For linear statistical ill-posed problems in Hilbert spaces we introduce an adaptive procedure to recover the unknown solution from indirect discrete and noisy data. This procedure is shown to be order optimal for a large class of problems. Smoothness of the solution is measured in terms of general source conditions. The concept of operator monotone functions turns out to be an important tool for the analysis.