Thermodynamic issues associated with combined cyclic voltammetry and wafer curvature measurements in electrolytes

A thermodynamic framework has been provided for the interpretation of combined cyclic voltammetry and surface stress measurements, the latter being obtained from wafer curvature or beam deflection measurements of a solid electrode as a function of applied potential (so-called voltstressograms). Firstly, the derivation of electrocapillarity equations for solid electrodes has been critically reviewed by starting from the Gibbs adsorption equation appropriate for solid–electrolyte interfaces. This allowed us to demonstrate the critical importance of elastic surface strain in the thermodynamic boundary conditions of the partial derivatives intervening in the interpretation of voltstressograms. From these considerations, it was shown for the first time that the electrocapillarity equations for solid electrodes are not appropriate for describing the variation of surface stress with potential obtained from wafer curvature measurements, because such measurements are intrinsically incompatible with the constant strain condition implied in the electrocapillarity equations. An alternative explanation is provided for the experimentally observed proportionality between the current density, measured in cyclic voltammograms, and the first derivative of surface stress with respect to potential, obtained from voltstressograms.     

Hypersurfaces of prescribed mean curvature enclosing a given body

Given a smooth domain Ω in ℝ ^m+1 with compact closure and a smooth integrable functionh: ℝ ^m+1→ℝ satisfyingh(x)≥H _∂Ω (x) on ∂Ω whereH _∂ω denotes the mean curvature of ∂Ω calculated w.r.t. the interior unit normal we show that there is a setA⊂ℝ ^m+1 with the properties andH _∂A=h on ∂A.     

关于两两NQD列的若干极限性质

本文讨论了两两ＮＱＤ列的Ｍａｒｃｉｎｋｉｅｗｉｃｚ型弱大数律及Ｊａｍｉｓｏｎ型加权和的强稳定性，指出了两两ＮＱＤ列与独立列的一个本质性区别，从而提出了解决两两ＮＱＤ旬几乎处处收敛和完全收敛的一种方式。     

Twist-bend nematics,liquid crystal dimers,structure–property relations

ABSTRACT

One of the current challenges in liquid crystal science is to understand the molecular factors leading to the formation of the intriguing twist-bend nematic phase (N_TB) and determine its properties. During our earlier hunt for the N_TB phase created on cooling directly from the isotropic phase and not the nematic phase, we had prepared 30 symmetric liquid crystal dimers. These had odd spacers and methylene links to the two mesogenic groups; desirable but clearly not essential features for the formation of the N_TB. Here, we report the phases that the dimers exhibit and their transition temperatures as functions of both the lengths of the spacer and the terminal chains. In addition we describe the transitional entropies, their optical textures, the X-ray scattering patterns and the ²H NMR spectra employed in characterising the phases. All of which may lead to important properties of the twist-bend nematic phase.     

Binary hairy nanoparticles: Recent progress in theory and simulations

Binary polymer brushes, including mixed homopolymer brushes and diblock copolymer brushes, are an attractive class of environmentally responsive nanostructured materials. Owing to microphase separation of the two chemically distinct components in the brush, multifaceted nanomaterials with functionalized and patterned surfaces can be obtained. This review summarizes recent progress on the theory and simulations related to binary polymer brushes grafted to flat, spherical, and cylindrical substrates, with a focus on patterned morphologies of multifaceted hairy nanoparticles, an intriguing class of hybrid nanostructured particles (e.g., nanospheres and nanorods). In particular, powerful field theory and particle-based simulations suitable for revealing novel structures on these patterned surfaces, including self-consistent field theory and dissipative particle dynamics simulations, are emphasized. The unsolved yet critical issues in this research field, such as dynamic response of binary polymer brushes to environmental stimuli and the hierarchical self-assembly of binary hairy nanoparticles, are briefly discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014 , 52, 1583–1599     

Numerical simulation and convergence analysis for a system of nonlinear singularly perturbed differential equations arising in population dynamics

In this article, we consider a system of nonlinear singularly perturbed differential equations with two different parameters. To solve this system, we develop a weighted monotone hybrid scheme on a nonuniform mesh. The proposed scheme is a combination of the midpoint scheme and the upwind scheme involving the weight parameters. The weight parameters enable the method to switch automatically from the midpoint scheme to the upwind scheme as the nodal points start moving from the inner region to the outer region. The nonuniform mesh in particular the adaptive grid is constructed using the idea of equidistributing a positive monitor function involving the solution gradient. The method is shown to be second order convergent with respect to the small parameters. Numerical experiments are presented to show the robustness of the proposed scheme and indicate that the estimate is optimal.     

Analysis of a meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow

In this paper, the extension of an upwind least‐square based meshless solver to high Reynolds number flow is explored, and the properties of the meshless solver are analyzed both theoretically and numerically. Existing works have verified the meshless solver mostly with inviscid flows and low Reynolds number flows, and in this work, we are interested in the behavior of the meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow, especially in the near‐wall region. With both theoretical and numerical analysis, the effects of two parameters on the meshless solver are identified. The first one is the misalignment effect caused by the significantly skewed supporting points, and it is found that the meshless solver still yields accurate prediction. It is a very interesting property and is opposite to the median‐dual control volume based vertex‐centered finite volume method, which is known to give degraded result with stretched triangular/tetrahedral cells in the near‐wall region. The second parameter is the curvature, and according to theoretical analysis, it is found in the region with both large aspect ratio and curvature, and the streamwise residual is less affected; however, the wall‐normal counterpart suffers from accuracy degradation. In this paper, an improved method that uses a meshless solver for the streamwise residual and finite difference for wall‐normal residual is developed. This method is proved to be less sensitive to the curvature and provides improved accuracy. This work presents an understanding of the meshless solver for high Reynolds number flow computation, and the analysis in this paper is verified with a series of numerical experiments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some classes of Kenmotsu manifolds with respect to semi-symmetric metric connection

In this paper, we study conharmonic curvature tensor in Kenmotsu manifolds with respect to semi-symmetric metric connection and also characterize conharmonically flat, conharmonically semi-symmetric and φ-conharmonically flat Kenmotsu manifolds with respect to semi-symmetric metric connection.     

First stability eigenvalue characterization of CMC Hopf tori into Riemannian Killing submersions

We find out upper bounds for the first eigenvalue of the stability operator for compact constant mean curvature orientable surfaces immersed in a Riemannian Killing submersion. As a consequence, the strong stability of such surfaces is studied. We also characterize constant mean curvature Hopf tori as the only ones attaining the bound in certain cases.