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Producing crystals of the desired form (polymorph) is currently a challenge as nucleation is yet to be fully understood. Templated crystallisation is an efficient approach to achieve polymorphs selectivity; however, it is still unclear how to design the template to achieve selective crystallisation of specific polymorphs. More insights into the nanoscale interactions happening during nucleation are needed. In this work we investigate crystallisation of glycine using graphene, with different surface chemistry, as a template. We show that graphene induces the preferential crystallisation of the metastable α-polymorph, compared to the unstable β-form, at the contact region of an evaporating droplet. Computer modelling indicates the presence of a small amount of oxidised moieties on graphene to be responsible for the increased stabilisation of the α-form. In conclusion, our work shows that graphene could become an attractive material for polymorph selectivity and screening, by exploiting its tunable surface chemistry.

In order to have a better understanding of the real contact area of granular materials, the white light interference method is applied to explore the real surface morphology of clay soils under high stress. Analysis of the surface profile indicates that there exists a support point height z0 with the highest distribution frequency. A concept of a real contact region (from z0 to z0 + d90, d90 represents the particle size corresponding to 90% of the volume fraction) is proposed by combining a surface profile with the particle size distribution of clay soil. It was found that under the compressive stress of 106 MPa&ndash, 529 MPa, the actual contact area ratio of clay soil varies between 0.375 and 0.431. This demonstrates an increasing trend with the rise of stress. On the contrary, the apparent porosity decreases with an increasing stress, varying between 0.554 and 0.525. In addition, as the compressive stress increases, the cumulative frequency of apparent profile height (from z0 &minus, d90 to z0 + d90) has a concentrated tendency with a limited value of 0.9.

General formulae for double initial and caustic curves (reflected and transmitted) are obtained in the case of smooth contact of two cylindrical elastic bodies of arbitrary radii. Namely, based on the method of reflected and transmitted caustics, the conditions for the development of double initial and contact caustic curves are established as functions of six independent para­meters, while easy-to-use closed-form expressions are given for obtaining the contact length. An experimental protocol is then implemented in the case a thin cylindrical transparent disc is compressed between the jaws of the Inter­na­tional Society for Rock Mechanics suggested device for the execution of the Brazilian-disc test. The experimental method of caustics can provide the con­tact length quite accurately, even in the case of double curves which seem that are not always a consequence of a wide contact region.

When a colloidal suspension droplet evaporates from a solid surface, it leaves a characteristic deposit in the contact region. These deposits are common and important for many applications in printing, coating, or washing. By the use of superamphiphobic surfaces as a substrate, the contact area can be reduced so that evaporation is almost radially symmetric. While drying, the droplets maintain a nearly perfect spherical shape. Here, we exploit this phenomenon to fabricate supraparticles from bidisperse colloidal aqueous suspensions. The supraparticles have a core-shell morphology. The outer region is predominantly occupied by small colloids, forming a close-packed crystalline structure. Toward the center, the number of large colloids increases and they are packed amorphously. The extent of this stratification decreases with decreasing the evaporation rate. Complementary simulations indicate that evaporation leads to a local increase in density, which, in turn, exerts stronger inward forces on the larger colloids. A comparison between experiments and simulations suggest that hydrodynamic interactions between the suspended colloids reduce the extent of stratification. Our findings are relevant for the fabrication of supraparticles for applications in the fields of chromatography, catalysis, drug delivery, photonics, and a better understanding of spray-drying.

Please cite this article as: A. Romero, C. Jiménez, J. González, P. López-Varo, M.J. Deen, J.A. Jiménez-Tejada, Compact modeling of the effects of illumination on the contact region of organic phototransistors, Organic Electronics, (2019), 70, 113-121., A good modeling of degrading effects in an electronic device, such as the contact region of organic phototransistors (OPTs), can be favorably used to better describe and optimize the performance of the whole device. Furthermore, a proper design of the contacts can enhance the exciton dissociation and the extraction of photogenerated charge in the device. In this work, a compact model for OPTs is developed. This model is valid for all the operation regimes of the transistors. It includes a model for the contact region of the device that incorporates the effects of illumination. The compact model and the contact region model are validated with published experimental data from several OPTs under different illumination conditions. The tool used to validate the model is an evolutionary parameter extraction procedure developed in a previous work. The results show that both photoconductive and photovoltaic effects impact the intrinsic region of the transistor, as well as the electrical behavior of the contact region. The parameters used in the contact region model are linked to these photovoltaic and photoconductive effects., This work was supported by projects MAT2016-76892-C3-3-R and TIN2015-67020-P funded by the Spanish Government and European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and by “Beca de Iniciación a la Investigación para estudiantes de Grado” given by the University of Granada.

The copper/aluminum (Cu/Al) clad sheets were produced on a horizontal twin-roll caster and then were multi-pass rolled and annealed. The thickness of the as-cast clad sheet was 8 mm. Rolling was performed with total reductions of 12.5%, 25%, 37.5%, 50%, and 62.5%, separately. The effects of the rolling and annealing processes on the interface and peel strength of the Cu/Al clad sheets were investigated. The evolution of the interface and crack propagation were studied. The interface thickness of the as-cast clad sheet reached 9 &mu, m to 10 &mu, m. The average peel strength (APS) was only 9 N/mm. After multi-pass rolling, the peel strength first slightly increased and then gradually decreased with the increase of the rolling pass number. After annealing, the peel strength remarkably improved. The APS reached 25 N/mm when the rolled thickness was 7 mm. The improvement in the peel strength was due to the following three factors: (1) mechanical locking formed in the Cu/Al direct contact region after rolling, (2) the region of the Al matrix fracture, and (3) mechanical biting from the Cu/Al direct contact region.

Thesis presents the results of simulations, aiming at examining the influence of chosen Novikov gear parameters on its contact region. The parameters which influence have been established include the overlap ratio, ratio of radius of teeth profiles, ratio of convex tooth profile radius to pitch radius, normal pressure angle, translation of convex tooth profile along the contact line and axes distance error. Knowledge of the influence of gear parameters on its contact pattern enable to efficient establishing these parameters, which allows to compensate assembly errors or edge contact.

A novel test is reported which allows the measurement of the friction of molten chocolate in a model tongue–palate rubbing contact. Friction was measured over a rubbing period of 150 s for a range of commercial samples with different cocoa content (85–5% w/w). Most of the friction curves had a characteristic pattern: initially a rapid increase occurs as the high-viscosity chocolate melt is sheared in the contact region followed by friction drop as the film breaks down. The exceptions were the very high (85%) and very low (~ 5%) cocoa content samples which gave fairly constant friction traces over the test time. Differences were observed in the initial maximum and final friction coefficients depending on chocolate composition. Generally, the initial maximum friction increased with increasing cocoa content. At the end of the test, the rubbed films on the lower slide were examined by optical microscopy and infrared micro-reflection spectroscopy. In the rubbed track, the chocolate structure was severely degraded and predominately composed of lipid droplets, which was confirmed by the IR spectra. The new test provides a method to distinguish between the friction behaviour of different chocolate formulations in a rubbing low-pressure contact. It also allows us to identify changes in the degraded chocolate film that can be linked to the friction profile. Further development of the test method is required to improve simulation of the tongue–palate contact including the effect of saliva and this will be the next stage of the research.

The northwest Pacific marginal seas are a primary center of phylogeographic and evolutionary research, because of their dynamic geographic history of falling and rising sea levels during the glaciations and interglaciations of the last one million years. Here we present new molecular and morphological data for geographic samples of the four-eyed sleeper (Bostrychus sinensis), which reinforce the evidence for secondary contact and hybridization between two phylogeographic lineages in the East China Sea. Specifically, we find that the secondary contact region is characterized by a low frequency of hybridization, where mitochondrial DNA introgression is relatively common, whereas F1 hybrids are correspondingly scarce. Furthermore, the adult standard lengths of the two phylogeographic lineages vary geographically in a manner that is consistent with reproductive character displacement. Collectively, the molecular and morphological data document that sleeper hybridization conforms to the classic “tension zone” model, where alleles are lost via reduced hybrid viability and/or positive assortative mating but are then replenished by dispersal from south of the secondary contact region. They also indicate that the two phylogeographic lineages are at an incipient stage of the speciation process. These results and conclusions for the four-eyed sleeper are presented as a case study for future research on the vicariance, secondary contact, and hybridization of marine groups in the northwest Pacific marginal seas.

Interactions between protein molecules are essential for the assembly, function, and regulation of proteins. The contact region between two protein molecules in a protein complex is usually complementary in shape for both molecules and the area of the contact region can be used to estimate the binding strength between two molecules. Although the area is a value calculated from the three-dimensional surface, it cannot represent the three-dimensional shape of the surface. Therefore, we propose an original concept of two-dimensional contact area which provides further information such as the ruggedness of the contact region. We present a novel algorithm for calculating the binding direction between two molecules in a protein complex, and then suggest a method to compute the two-dimensional flattened area of the contact region between two molecules based on the binding direction.

A finite element model of cold pilgering with elastic roll dies have been developed and used to investigate the influence of roll die deformation on the material flow, contact region, roll separating force and tube dimensions. Full scale experiments were performed to validate the contact surface and tube dimensions. The results show that the influence of roll die flattening is not significant on the contact length. However, elastic deformation of roll die has strong influence on both the wall thickness reduction and roll separating force. Thus it is recommended to consider elasticity of roll dies when forces and tube dimensions are estimated. Konferensartikel i tidskrift

A new regularisation of non-elliptical contact patches has been introduced, which enables building the look-up table called by us the Kalker book of tables for non-Hertzian contact (KBTNH), which is a fast creep force generator that can be used by multibody dynamics system simulation programs. The non-elliptical contact patch is regularised by a simple double-elliptical contact region (SDEC). The SDEC region is especially suitable for regularisation of contact patches obtained with approximate non-Hertzian methods for solving the normal contact problem of wheel and rail. The new regularisation is suitable for wheels and rails with any profiles, including worn profiles.The paper describes the new procedure of regularisation of the non-elliptical contact patch, the structure of the Kalker book of tables, and parameterisation of the independent variables of the tables and creep forces.A moderate volume Kalker book of tables for SDEC region suitable for simulation of modern running gears has been comp...

Dragonflies are fast and manoeuvrable fliers and this ability is reflected in their unique wing morphology. Due to the specific lightweight structure, with the crossing veins joined by rubber-like resilin patches, wings possess strong deformability but can resist high forces and large deformations during aerial collisions. The computational results demonstrate the strong influence of resilin-containing vein joints on the stress distribution within the wing. The presence of flexible resilin in the contact region of the veins prevents excessive bending of the cross veins and significantly reduces the stress concentration in the joint.

Summary Purpose . In this study the temporal texture differentia tion associated with the bone formation properties, around loaded oral implants after Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) employment, was investigated in Panoramic Radi ographs. Materials and methods . Thirty eligible patients are ran domly assigned to two groups. The test group received PRP application around new implants, while in the con trol group no PRP treatment was made. The bone-to-im plant contact region was analyzed in a clinical sample of 60 Digitized Panoramic Radiographs, 30 corresponding to immediate implant loading (Class-I) and 30 after an 8 month follow-up period (Class-II). This region was sam pled by 1146 circular Regions-of-Interest (ROIs), result ing from a specifically designed segmentation scheme based on Markov-Random-Fields (MRF). From each ROI, 41 textural features were extracted, then reduced to a subset of 4 features due to redundancy and employed as input to Receiver-Operating-Characteristic (ROC) analy sis, to assess the textural differentiation between two classes. Results . The selected subset, achieved Area-UnderCurve (AUC) values ranging from 0.77-0.81 in the PRP group, indicating the significant temporal textural differ entiation has been made. In the control group, the AUC values ranged from 0.56-0.68 demonstrating lesser os seo integration activity. Conclusion . This study provides evidences that PRP ap plication may favor bone formation around loaded dental implants that could modify the dental treatment plan ning.

International audience; Via a novel experiment, Liu et al. [Phys. Rev. B 85, 205418 (2012)] estimated the graphite binding energy, specifically the cleavage energy, an important physical property of bulk graphite. We reexamine the data analysis and note that within the standard Lennard-Jones model employed, there are difficulties in achieving internal consistency in the reproduction of the graphite elastic properties. By employing similar models which guarantee consistency with the elastic constant, we find a wide range of model dependent binding energy values from the same experimental data. We attribute some of the difficulties in the determination of the binding energy to: (i) limited theoretical understanding of the van der Waals dispersion of graphite cleavage, (ii) the mis-match between the strong bending stiffness of the graphite-SiO2 cantilever and the weak asymptotic inter-layer forces that are integrated over to produce the binding energy. We find, however, that the data do support determination of a maximum inter-layer force that is relatively model independent. We conclude that the peak force per unit area is 1.1 +/- 0.15 GPa for cleavage, and occurs at an inter-layer spacing of 0.377 +/- 0.013 nm.

Unexpectedly, under certain conditions, sessile drops from different but completely miscible liquids do not always coalesce instantaneously upon contact: the drop bodies remain separated in a temporary state of noncoalescence, connected through a thin liquid bridge. Here we investigate the transition between the states of instantaneous coalescence and temporary noncoalescence. Experiments reveal that it is barely influenced by viscosities and absolute surface tensions. The main system control parameters for the transition are the arithmetic means of the three-phase angles, $\overline{\Theta}_a$ and the surface tension differences $\Delta\gamma$ between both liquids. These relevant parameters can be combined into a single system parameter, a speciffic Marangoni number $\widetilde{M} = 3\Delta\gamma / (2\overline{\gamma}\overline{\Theta}_a^2)$. This $\widetilde{M}$ universally characterizes the coalescence respectively transition behavior as a function of both, the physicochemical liquid properties and the shape of the liquid body in the contact region. The transition occurs at a certain threshold value $\widetilde{M}_t$ and is sharp within the experimental resolution. The experimentally observed threshold value of $\widetilde{M}_t \approx 2$ agrees quantitatively with values obtained by simulations assuming authentic real space data. The simulations indicate that the absolute value of $\widetilde{M}_t$ very weakly depends on the molecular diffusivity., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

We study the distribution of interfacial separations P(u) at the contact region between two elastic solids with randomly rough surfaces. An analytical expression is derived for P(u) using Persson's theory of contact mechanics, and is compared to numerical solutions obtained using (a) a half-space method based on the Boussinesq equation, (b) a Green's function molecular dynamics technique and (c) smart-block classical molecular dynamics. Overall, we find good agreement between all the different approaches., 25 pages, 12 figures

We present experimental evidence of sub-GHz spin-transfer oscillations in metallic nano-contacts that are due to the translational motion of a magnetic vortex. The vortex is shown to execute large-amplitude orbital motion outside the contact region. Good agreement with analytical theory and micromagnetics simulations is found., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

Twelve finds from archaeological excavations carried out in the Aosta region (Italy) were studied by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray detection (SEM-EDS). The archaeological samples were shards of glazed pottery dating from the fourth to the seventh century AD. Analysis of ceramic bodies revealed a general homogeneity in composition among the studied samples and the use of a noncalcareous clay for their manufacture; however, two shards stand out due to their high iron contents. Glazes proved to be high-lead products with more than 70% PbO in all of the samples investigated but one. For the latter, a composition poorer in lead and richer in silicon, aluminium and iron was found. SEM observation of the contact region between body and glaze suggests that the vitreous coatings were mostly obtained by applying the glazing components onto the unfired clay body; moreover, a comparison between clay and glaze compositions suggests the use of a lead compound mixed with a silica-rich material, not a lead compound by itself.

Quantum interference has dramatic effects on electronic transport through nanotube contacts. In optimal configuration the intertube conductance can approach that of a perfect nanotube (formula presented) The maximum conductance increases rapidly with the contact length up to 10 nm, beyond which it exhibits long-wavelength oscillations. This is attributed to the resonant interference phenomena in the contact region. For two concentric nanotubes symmetry breaking can reduce the maximum intertube conductance from (formula presented) to (formula presented) The phenomena discussed here can serve as a foundation for building nanotube electronic circuits and high-speed nanoscale electromechanical devices.

The rail wheel, which is acted upon by mechanical forces also experiences thermal stresses due to braking, during service. The coupled nature of these forces is analysed using a three-dimensional elasto-plastic finite element model. Contact stresses at the rail-wheel interaction location are analysed using a global-local approach on a three-dimensional elasto-plastic finite element model. The paper also brings out the size and shape of the plastic zone at the contact region. Commercial finite element code ABAQUS has been used for the analysis and SDRC's I-DEAS has been used for modelling. American Association of Railroad's standards, available for the purpose of analytical evaluation of the rail wheel, has also been critically evaluated in this work. ? 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The presence of a three-phase region, where three immiscible phases are in mutual contact, causes additional difficulties in the investigation of many fluid mechanical problems. To surmount these difficulties some assumptions or specific hydrodynamic models have been used in the contact region (inner region). In the present paper an approach to the numerical solution of dynamic contact-line problems in the outer region is described. The influence of the inner region upon the outer one is taken into account by means of a solution of the integral mass and momentum conservation equations there. Both liquid–fluid–liquid and liquid–fluid–solid dynamic contact lines are considered. To support the consistency of this approach tests and comparisons with a number of experimental results are performed by means of finite-element numerical simulations.

In this paper the indentation of an elastic layer by a rigid stamp is treated under conditions of complete adhesion beneath the stamp, where the ratio of the half-width of the contact region and the thickness of the layer is assumed to be small. The cases of a flat stamp and a polynomial one are considered successively and two applications are treated. Die vorliegende Arbeit befaßt sich mit dem Eindringen eines starren Stempels in eine elastische Schicht für den Fall, daß die Unterseite des Stempels auf der Schicht befestigt ist. Dabei wird angenommen, daß die halbe Breite des Berührungsgebietes klein ist gegenüber der Dicke der Schicht. Zwei Sonderfälle werden näher untersucht: der flache Stempel und der polynomförmige Stempel. Zwei Anwendungen werden behandelt.