Polymer 4D printing: Advanced shape-change and beyond

4D printing is an exciting branch of additive manufacturing. It relies on established 3D printing techniques to fabricate objects in much the same way. However, structures which fall into the 4D printed category have the ability to change with time, hence the “extra dimension.” The common perception of 4D printed objects is that of macroscopic single-material structures limited to point-to-point shape change only, in response to either heat or water. However, in the area of polymer 4D printing, recent advancements challenge this understanding. A host of new polymeric materials have been designed which display a variety of wonderful effects brought about by unconventional stimuli, and advanced additive manufacturing techniques have been developed to accommodate them. As a result, the horizons of polymer 4D printing have been broadened beyond what was initially thought possible. In this review, we showcase the many studies which evolve the very definition of polymer 4D printing, and reveal emerging areas of research integral to its advancement.     

基于不确定控制理论的最优策略研究

本文在不确定理论的框架下,研究一类带背景状态变量的最优控制模型.在乐观值准则下,利用不确定动态规划的方法,证明了不确定最优性原则,得到最优性方程.作为应用,求解一个固定缴费(DC)型养老金的最优投资策略问题,在乐观值准则下,以工资变量为背景状态变量,建立养老金模型.通过求解不确定最优性方程得到最优投资策略和最优支付率.     

Wave-based vibration control of large cable net structures

Large cable net structures have been widely applied in aerospace engineering due to the feature of light-weight, high packaging efficiency, and high thermal stability. Structural vibrations induced by a variety of disturbances are inevitable in the space environment, resulting in the requirement of effective vibration control strategies for large cable net structures. Since the large cable net structures have many closely spaced vibrational modes in the range of low frequencies, traditional modal based control may cause modal truncation and spillover problems. In this paper, a wave-based boundary control strategy is adopted and its effectiveness to control the vibration of cable net structures is investigated, by transfer function analysis and numerical methods. It is found that the structural vibration can be absolutely resisted by applying the wave-based boundary controllers onto all the exterior nodes, when disturbances come from the external boundaries of the cable net. Our results in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for the vibration control of large cable net structures.     

The Szegö kernel on a class of non-compact CR manifolds of high codimension

We generalize Nagel’s formula for the Szegö kernel and use it to compute the Szegö kernel on a class of non-compact CR manifolds whose tangent space decomposes into one complex direction and several totally real directions. We also discuss the control metric on these manifolds and relate it to the size of the Szegö kernel.     

Elongating the area of plasma/fluid interaction of surface nanosecond pulsed discharges

Plasma-assisted flow control is of high industrial interest, but practical applications at full scale require a large surface of interaction. Nanosecond pulsed Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) have demonstrated promising results of flow control, but their interacting region is limited to only a few cm². In this paper, the conditions to extend a surface nanosecond DBD are documented. It is shown that a sliding discharge regime can fully fill an inter-electrode distance of 40 mm. This discharge regime promotes the formation of two hemispheric pressure waves originating from both air-exposed electrodes while an horizontal region of pressure gradient is also observed.     

Assembling hydrodynamic cloaks to conceal complex objects from drag

Transformation hydrodynamics and the corresponding metamaterials have been proposed as a means to exclude the drag force acting on an object. Here, we report a strategy to deploy the hydrodynamic cloaks in a more practical manner by assembling different-shaped cloaking parts. Our strategy is to first model a square-shaped cloak and a carpet cloak and then combine them to conceal a more complex-shaped space in the three-dimensional hydrodynamic flow. With the derivation of transformation hydrodynamics, the coordinate transformations for each hydrodynamic cloaking are demonstrated with the calculated viscosity tensors. The pressure and velocity fields of the square, triangular (carpet), and exemplary three-dimensional house-shaped cloaks are numerically simulated, thus showing a cloaking effect and reduced drag. This study suggests an efficient way of cloaking complex architectures from fluid-dynamic forces.     

Fused vs. spiro: Kinetic,not thermodynamic preference may direct the reaction of α-carbonyl oxonium ylides

Rh(II)-catalyzed decomposition of certain cyclic α-diazocarbonyl compounds in the presence of cyclic ethers has been shown to give bicyclic ring expansion products. These are thought to arise from a [1,4]-alkyl shift toward the carbonyl oxygen atom and are in contrast with the recently observed spirocyclic products of a Stevens-type [1,2]-alkyl shift within the postulated oxonium ylide intermediate. Quantum chemical calculations performed at the B3LYP/6-31G* level of theory showed that the former reaction pathway (toward fused bicycles) is kinetically preferred.     

Unidirectional Quantum Remote Control:Teleportation of Control-State

We investigate the problem of teleportation of unitary operations by unidirectional control-state telepor-tation and propose a scheme called unidirectional quantum remote control. The scheme is based on the isomorphismbetween operation and state. It allows us to store a unitary operation in a control state, thereby teleportation of theunitary operation can be implemented by unidirectional teleportation of the control-state. We find that the probabilityof success for implementing an arbitrary unitary operation on arbitrary M-qubit state by unidirectional control-stateteleportation is 4-M, and 2M ebits and 4M cbits are consumed in each teleportation.     

Optimal Planar Interception with Fixed End Conditions: Approximate Solutions

In a previous paper (Ref. 1), an exact solution of the optimal planar interception with fixed end conditions was derived in closed form. The optimal control was expressed as an explicit function of the state variables and two fixed parameters, obtained by solving a set of nonlinear algebraic equations involving elliptic integrals. In order to facilitate the optimal control implementation, the present paper derives a highly accurate simplified solution assuming that the ratio of the pursuer turning radius to the initial range is small. An asymptotic expansion further reduces the computational workload. Construction of a near-optimal open-loop control, based on the approximations, completes the present paper.     

Exploiting the diversity of time scales in the immune system: A B-cell antibody model

Using the continuous shape space formalism, we develop an immune system model involving both B lymphocytes and antibody molecules. The binding and cross-linking of receptors on B cells stimulates the cells to divide and, with a lag, to secrete antibody. Using the method of multiple scales, we show how to correctly formulate long-time-scale equations for the population dynamics of B cells, the total antibody concentration, and rate of antibody secretion. We compare our model with previous phenomenological formulations.