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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

A Cellulose Liquid Crystal Motor: A Steam Engine Of The Second Kind, Yong Geng, Pedro Lucio Almeida, Cheng Cheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Maria Helena Godinho, Susete Nogueira Fernandes Oct 2013

A Cellulose Liquid Crystal Motor: A Steam Engine Of The Second Kind, Yong Geng, Pedro Lucio Almeida, Cheng Cheng, Peter Palffy-Muhoray, Maria Helena Godinho, Susete Nogueira Fernandes

Peter Palffy-Muhoray

The salient feature of liquid crystal elastomers and networks is strong coupling between orientational order and mechanical strain. Orientational order can be changed by a wide variety of stimuli, including the presence of moisture. Changes in the orientation of constituents give rise to stresses and strains, which result in changes in sample shape. We have utilized this effect to build soft cellulose-based motor driven by humidity. The motor consists of a circular loop of cellulose film, which passes over two wheels. When humid air is present near one of the wheels on one side of the film, with drier air …


Optical Characterization Of The Nematic Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystals: Light Absorption, Birefringence, And Scalar Order Parameter, Yuriy A. Nastishin, H. Liu, T. Schneider, V. G. Nazarenko, Sergij V. Shiyanovskii, Oleg Lavrentovich Oct 2013

Optical Characterization Of The Nematic Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystals: Light Absorption, Birefringence, And Scalar Order Parameter, Yuriy A. Nastishin, H. Liu, T. Schneider, V. G. Nazarenko, Sergij V. Shiyanovskii, Oleg Lavrentovich

Oleg Lavrentovich

We report on the optical properties of the nematic (N) phase formed by lyotropic chromonic liquid crystals (LCLCs) in well aligned planar samples. LCLCs belong to a broad class of materials formed by one-dimensional molecular self-assembly and are similar to other systems such as “living polymers” and “wormlike micelles.” We study three water soluble LCLC forming materials: disodium chromoglycate, a derivative of indanthrone called Blue 27, and a derivative of perylene called Violet 20. The individual molecules have a planklike shape and assemble into rodlike aggregates that form the N phase once the concentration exceeds about 0.1M. The uniform surface …


Just Add Water: Colonisation, Water Governance, And The Australian Inland, Leah M. Gibbs Sep 2013

Just Add Water: Colonisation, Water Governance, And The Australian Inland, Leah M. Gibbs

Leah Maree Gibbs

Water has played a key role in the development of the Australian inland and the nation. For European colonists, the dry and variable landscape challenged ideas about nature imported from northern temperate regions. I argue first, that colonists brought with them ideas for ordering nature and tools for transforming landscapes that led to inappropriate and destructive water management and the silencing of local voices and knowledge systems. Secondly, colonial patterns of ordering and transforming landscapes are ongoing, but new ways of governing water, which challenge colonialism, are emerging. In the first section of the paper I discuss colonial relationships with …


Massive Star Forming Cores And Outflows Found By Analysis Of Astronomical Data, Hontas Farmer Jul 2013

Massive Star Forming Cores And Outflows Found By Analysis Of Astronomical Data, Hontas Farmer

Hontas F Farmer

Like gems hidden in mountains of sand, I have sifted through vast amounts of data which have been gathered by surveys covering wide areas of the sky at particular wavelengths, and found likely star forming cores, hints of circumstellar disk and outflows in regions of massive star formation. The procedural lesson from my masters thesis is that there are discoveries waiting to be made by comparing data sets gathered at different frequencies, and by conducting coordinated multi-spectral surveys of massive star forming regions.


Oxygen Exchange During The Reaction Of Pocl3 And Water, Robert Clark, Robert Morrison, Andrew Thomas, Rebeca Alvarez, Paul Milham May 2013

Oxygen Exchange During The Reaction Of Pocl3 And Water, Robert Clark, Robert Morrison, Andrew Thomas, Rebeca Alvarez, Paul Milham

Robert Clark

To investigate O exchange during the reaction of POCl3 and water, natural abundance POCl3 was reacted with water highly enriched in 18O, and the resulting H3PO4 was isolated as KH2PO4. This reaction was conducted with and without tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a solvent, and was controlled in THF and violent in its absence. Approximately 5 x 10-4M aqueous solutions of the KH2PO4 were analyzed using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, to estimate the proportions of the mass-clumped 16,17,18O isotope analogues of [H2PO4] -. During analysis, ~29% of [H2PO4] - dehydrated to [PO3]-, for which the proportions of the O isotope analogues were …


Catalytic Solar Water Splitting Inspired By Photosynthesis. Homogeneous Catalysts With A Mechanical ("Machine-Like") Action, Gerhard F. Swiegers, G Charles Dismukes, Leone Spiccia, Robin Brimblecombe, Annette Koo, Jun Chen, Gordon G. Wallace Mar 2013

Catalytic Solar Water Splitting Inspired By Photosynthesis. Homogeneous Catalysts With A Mechanical ("Machine-Like") Action, Gerhard F. Swiegers, G Charles Dismukes, Leone Spiccia, Robin Brimblecombe, Annette Koo, Jun Chen, Gordon G. Wallace

Gordon Wallace

Chemical reactions may be controlled by either: the minimum threshold energy that must be overcome during collisions between reactant molecules / atoms (the Activation Energy, Ea), or: the rate at which reactant collisions occur (the Collision Frequency, A) (for reactions with low Ea). Reactions of type (2) are governed by the physical, mechanical interaction of the reactants. Such mechanical processes are unusual, but not unknown in molecular catalysts. We examine the catalytic action and macroscopic properties of several abiological mechanical catalysts and show that they display distinct similarities to enzymes in general. An abiological model of the Photosystem II Water …


Conducting Polymers With Fibrillar Morphology Synthesized In A Biphasic Ionic Liquid/Water System, J.M. Pringle, Orawan Ngamna, Carol M. Lynam, Gordon G. Wallace, Maria Forsyth, Douglas Macfarlane Mar 2013

Conducting Polymers With Fibrillar Morphology Synthesized In A Biphasic Ionic Liquid/Water System, J.M. Pringle, Orawan Ngamna, Carol M. Lynam, Gordon G. Wallace, Maria Forsyth, Douglas Macfarlane

Gordon Wallace

The synthesis of poly(pyrrole), poly(terthiophene), and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) with unusual fibrillar morphologies has been achieved by chemical polymerization in a biphasic ionic liquid/water system. Use of aqueous gold chloride as the oxidant, with the monomers dissolved in a hydrophobic ionic liquid, allows the polymerization to occur at the ionic liquid/water interface. The resultant conducting polymer fibrils are, on average, 50−100 nm wide and can be thousands of nanometers long. The polymers produced in this ionic liquid system are compared to those synthesized in a biphasic chloroform/water system.


Synthesis, Properties And Water Permeability Of Swnt Buckypapers, L J. Sweetman, L Nghiem, I Chironi, G Triani, Marc In Het Panhuis, St F. Ralph Feb 2013

Synthesis, Properties And Water Permeability Of Swnt Buckypapers, L J. Sweetman, L Nghiem, I Chironi, G Triani, Marc In Het Panhuis, St F. Ralph

Long D Nghiem

The ability of macrocyclic ligands to facilitate formation of dispersions of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) was investigated using a combination of absorption spectrophotometry and optical microscopy. Vacuum filtration of aqueous dispersions containing SWNTs and various macrocyclic ligands (derivatised porphyrin, phthalocyanine, cyclodextrin and calixarene) afforded self-supporting membranes known as buckypapers. Microanalytical data and energy dispersive X-ray spectra were obtained for these buckypapers and provided evidence for retention of the macrocyclic ligands within the structure of the membranes. The electrical conductivities of the membranes varied between 30 ± 20 and 220 ± 60 S cm−1, while contact angle analysis revealed they all …


A Spatial Analysis Of Variance Applied To Soil-Water Infiltration, C Gotway, Noel A. Cressie Feb 2013

A Spatial Analysis Of Variance Applied To Soil-Water Infiltration, C Gotway, Noel A. Cressie

Professor Noel Cressie

A spatial analysis of variance uses the spatial dependence among the observations to modify the usual interference procedures associated with a statistical linear model. When spatial correlation is present, the usual tests for presence of treatment effects may no longer be valid, and erroneous conclusions may result from assuming that the usual F ratios are F distributed. This is demonstrated using a spatial analysis of soil-water infiltration data. Emphasis is placed on modeling the spatial dependence structure with geostatistical techniques, and this spatial dependence structure is then used to test hypotheses about fixed effects using a nested linear model. -Authors


A Robust-Resistant Spatial Analysis Of Soil Water Infiltration., Noel A. Cressie, R Horton Feb 2013

A Robust-Resistant Spatial Analysis Of Soil Water Infiltration., Noel A. Cressie, R Horton

Professor Noel Cressie

Concentrates on estimating the spatial correlations between soil water infiltration observations, with special emphasis on resistant methods to remove nonstationarity. After this removal, robust semivariogram estimators are used to examine the spatial dependencies for various tillage treatments. There is some indication that infiltration characteristics inherit different types of spatial dependency, depending on the tillage treatment applied.-from Authors