Characterization of soft stripe-domain deformations in Sm-C and Sm-C* liquid-crystal elastomers

The neoclassical model of Sm-C (and Sm-C*) elastomers developed by Warner and Adams predicts a class of “soft” (zero energy) deformations. We find and describe the full set of stripe domains—laminate structures in which the laminates alternate between two different deformations—that can form between pairs of these soft deformations. All the stripe domains fall into two classes, one in which the smectic layers are not bent at the interfaces, but for which—in the Sm-C* case—the interfaces are charged, and one in which the smectic layers are bent but the interfaces are never charged. Striped deformations significantly enhance the softness of the macroscopic elastic response

A Conversation with George G. Roussas

George G. Roussas was born in the city of Marmara in central Greece, on June 29, 1933. He received a B.A. with high honors in Mathematics from the University of Athens in 1956, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964. In 1964--1966, he served as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the California State University, San Jose, and he was a faculty member of the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1966--1976, starting as an Assistant Professor in 1966, becoming a Professor in 1972. He was a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Director of the Laboratory of Applied Mathematics at the University of Patras, Greece, in 1972--1984. He was elected Dean of the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Patras in 1978, and Chancellor of the university in 1981. He served for about three years as Vice President-Academic Affairs of the then new University of Crete, Greece, in 1981--1985. In 1984, he was a Visiting Professor in the Intercollege Division of Statistics at the University of California, Davis, and he was appointed Professor, Associate Dean and Chair of the Graduate Group in Statistics in the same university in 1985; he served in the two administrative capacities in 1985--1999. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute since 1974, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society since 1975, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics since 1983, and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association since 1986. He served as a member of the Council of the Hellenic Mathematical Society, and as President of the Balkan Union of Mathematicians.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS299A the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Chaotic Planning Solutions in the Textbook Model of Labor Market Search and Matching

This paper demonstrates that cyclical and chaotic planning solutions are possible in the standard textbook model of search and matching in labor markets. More specifically, it takes a discretetime adaptation of the continuous-time matching economy described in Pissarides (1990, 2001), and computes the solution to the dynamic planning problem.The solution is shown to be completely characterized by a first-order, non-linear map with a unique stationary solution.Additionally, the existence of a large number of periodic and even aperiodic non-stationary solutions is shown.Even when the well-known Li-Yorke and three-period cycle conditions for chaos are violated, we are able to verify the new Mitra (2001) su.cient condition for topological chaos.The implication is that even in a simple economy characterized by search and matching frictions, an omniscient social planner may have to contend with a fairly robust and bewildering variety of possible dynamic paths.labour market;planning;matching;chaos;job search

What do Information Frictions Do?

Numerous researchers have incorporated labor or credit market frictions within simple neoclassical models to (i) facilitate quick departures from the Arrow-Debreu world, thereby opening up the role for institutions, (ii) inject some realism into their models, and (iii) explain cross country di.erences in output and employment.We present an overlapping generations model with production in which a labor market friction (moral hazard) coexists along with a credit market friction (costly state verification).The simultaneous presence and interaction of these two frictions is studied.We show that credit frictions have a multiplier effect on economic activity, by directly a.ecting investment and indirectly through the unemployment rate.The labor market friction, on the other hand, a.ects unemployment in the short- and long-run but has only a short-run effect on capital accumulation.information;labour market;employment;moral hazard;credit markets;unemployment

The cD galaxy in Abell cluster 1775

Over the last 20 years, a number of workers have studied the multiple nuclei cD galaxy in the rich Abell cluster 1775, trying to discover its nature. In all the cases though, very little has been published concerning its morphology. The majority of arguments about the nature of this object have been based on the relative radial velocities of the 2 components with each other and with the other galaxies in the cluster, or its radio morphology. Very little work has been done on the optical morphology. To rectify that lack of data, the authors have obtained charge coupled device (CCD) images of the cD. The authors find from the CCD data that the cD is unlikely to be a bound object and that there is strong evidence for a collision

Hydrodynamic interactions of spherical particles in suspensions confined between two planar walls

Hydrodynamic interactions in a suspension of spherical particles confined between two parallel planar walls are studied under creeping-flow conditions. The many-particle friction matrix in this system is evaluated using our novel numerical algorithm based on transformations between Cartesian and spherical representations of Stokes flow. The Cartesian representation is used to describe the interaction of the fluid with the walls and the spherical representation is used to describe the interaction with the particles. The transformations between these two representations are given in a closed form, which allows us to evaluate the coefficients in linear equations for the induced-force multipoles on particle surfaces. The friction matrix is obtained from these equations, supplemented with the superposition lubrication corrections. We have used our algorithm to evaluate the friction matrix for a single sphere, a pair of spheres, and for linear chains of spheres. The friction matrix exhibits a crossover from a quasi-two-dimensional behavior (for systems with small wall separation H) to the three-dimensional behavior (when the distance H is much larger than the interparticle distance L). The crossover is especially pronounced for a long chain moving in the direction normal to its orientation and parallel to the walls. In this configuration, a large pressure buildup occurs in front of the chain for small values of the gapwidth H, which results in a large hydrodynamic friction force. A standard wall superposition approximation does not capture this behavior

Statistical modeling of the fluid dual to Boulware-Deser Black hole

In this work we study the statistical and thermodynamic properties of the horizon fluid corresponding to the Boulware-Deser (BD) black hole of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity. Using mean field theory, we show explicitly that the BD fluid exhibits the coexistence of two phases, a BEC and a non-condensed phase corresponding to the Einstein term and the Gauss-Bonnet term in the gravity action, respectively. In the fluid description, the high-energy corrections associated to Gauss-Bonnet gravity are modeled as excitations of the fluid medium. We provide statistical modeling of the excited part of the fluid and explicitly show that it is characterized by a generalized dispersion relation which in $D=6$ dimensions corresponds to a non-relativistic fluid. We also shed light on the ambiguity found in the literature regarding the expression of the entropy of the horizon fluid. We provide a general prescription to obtain the entropy and show that it is indeed given by Wald entropy