A theoretical investigation on optimal structures of ethane clusters (C2H6)n with n ≤ 25 and their building-up principle

Geometry optimization of ethane clusters (C(2)H(6))(n) in the range of n ≤ 25 is carried out with a Morse potential. A heuristic method based on perturbations of geometries is used to locate global minima of the clusters. The following perturbations are carried out: (1) the molecule or group with the highest energy is moved to the interior of a cluster, (2) it is moved to stable positions on the surface of a cluster, and (3) orientations of one and two molecules are randomly modified. The geometry obtained after each perturbation is optimized by a quasi-Newton method. The global minimum of the dimer is consistent with that previously reported. The putative global minima of the clusters with 3 ≤ n ≤ 25 are first proposed and their building-up principle is discussed.     

杂合型全局优化法优化水分子团簇结构

基于遗传算法、快速模拟退火及共轭梯度方法提出了一种快速的杂合型全局优化方法(fast hybrid global optimization algorithm, FHGOA),并将这一方法应用于TIP3P和TIPS2模型水分子团簇(H2O)n结构的优化.在进行TIP3P模型水分子团簇结构的优化过程中,发现了能量比文献值更低的团簇结构,且执行效率有较大提高.把该方法应用到优化TIPS2模型的水分子团簇,发现最优结构和采用TTM2-F模型优化的水分子团簇结构在n < 17时完全相同,为全表面结构;而在n=17、19、22时为单中心水分子笼状结构;在n=25、27时为双中心水分子笼状结构.说明随着团簇中水分子个数的增加,采用TIPS2和TTM2-F势能函数优化的团簇最优结构有相同的变化趋势.     

Generation and characterization of low‐energy structures in atomic clusters

Factors relevant for controlling the structures determined in the local optimization of argon clusters are investigated. In particular, the role of volume and shape for the box where initial structures are generated is assessed. A thorough characterization of the optimization is also presented, based on a nearest‐neighbor analysis, in clusters ranging from 30 to 55 atoms. This includes the assessment of the degree of preservation of aspects of the initial randomly generated structure in the final optimized counterpart, and the correlation between optimized energy and the number of nearest neighbors and average departure from the diatomic reference distance. The usefulness of this analysis to explore the energy landscape of atomic clusters is also highlighted. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010     

Global hysteresis in ferroelectrics with incommensurate phases

A review of the basic experimental results connected with the formation of long-living metastable states in the incommensurate phases of ferroelectric crystals and related phenomena is given. The interpretation and appropriate physical mechanisms underlying the global hysteresis phenomena associated with these states are considered.     

A perturbed martingale approach to global optimization

A new global stochastic search, guided mainly through derivative-free directional information computable from the sample statistical moments of the design variables within a Monte Carlo setup, is proposed. The search is aided by imparting to the directional update term additional layers of random perturbations referred to as ‘coalescence’ and ‘scrambling’. A selection step, constituting yet another avenue for random perturbation, completes the global search. The direction-driven nature of the search is manifest in the local extremization and coalescence components, which are posed as martingale problems that yield gain-like update terms upon discretization. As anticipated and numerically demonstrated, to a limited extent, against the problem of parameter recovery given the chaotic response histories of a couple of nonlinear oscillators, the proposed method appears to offer a more rational, more accurate and faster alternative to most available evolutionary schemes, prominently the particle swarm optimization.     

Global existence and time decay estimate of solutions to the Keller–Segel system

We consider the chemotaxis‐Navier–Stokes system 1.1-1.4 (Keller–Segel system) in the whole space, which describes the motion of oxygen‐driven bacteria, eukaryotes, in a fluid. We proved the global existence and time decay estimate of solutions to the Cauchy problem 1.1-1.2 in with the small initial data. Moreover, when the fluid motion is described by the Stokes equations, we established the global weak solutions to 1.3-1.4 in with the potential function ? is small and the initial density n₀(x) has finite mass.     

A note on the finite fractal dimension of the global attractors for dissipative nonlinear Schrödinger‐type equations

In this article, we present, throughout two basic models of damped nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS)–type equations, a new idea to bound from above the fractal dimension of the global attractors for NLS‐type equations. This could answer the following open issue: consider, for instance, the classical one‐dimensional cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation $$u_t+i{u}_{xx}+i|u{|}^{2}u+\gamma u=f,f\in {\mathrm{??}}^2(?).$$ “How can we bound the fractal dimension of the associate global attractor without the need to assume that the external forcing term f has some decay at infinity (that is belonging to some weighted Lebesgue space)?”     

Study of the Molecular Mobility in Polymers with the Thermally Stimulated Recovery Technique—A Review

Thermally stimulated recovery (TSR) is a non‐conventional mechanical spectroscopy technique that allows to analyse in detail the relaxation processes of polymeric systems in the low frequency region. This work reviews the main aspects and potentialities of this technique. The different kinds of TSR experiments that can be performed, global and thermal sampling (TS) experiments, are described and illustrated with several examples. Also, the different methods for the determination of the thermokinetic parameters (activation energy and pre‐exponential factor) of the thermal sampling (TS) procedure are explained and compared. In this context, the compensation phenomenon, which always appears in TSR results when the studies are performed in the glass transition region of a given system, is discussed. Examples of the application of this technique to different polymeric systems during the last 20 years are provided. An emphasis will be made on the analysis of the effect of crystallinity degree and crosslink density on the TSR response. A comparison between the results (characteristic times and activation energies) obtained by different techniques, namely TSR, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), is made.