The phase diagram of a polydisperse mixture of uniaxial rodlike and platelike hard parallelepipeds is determined for aspect ratios kappa=5 and 15. All particles have equal volume, and polydispersity is introduced in a highly symmetric way. The corresponding binary mixture is known to have a biaxial phase for kappa=15, but to be unstable against demixing into two uniaxial nematics for kappa=5. T...

We determine the bifurcation phase diagrams with isotropic (I), uniaxial (N(U)) and biaxial (N(B)) nematic phases for model bent-core mesogens using Onsager-type theory. The molecules comprise two or three Gay-Berne interacting ellipsoids of uniaxial and biaxial shape and a transverse central dipole. The Landau point is found to turn into an I-N(B) line for the three-center model with a large d...

This paper introduces an exploration to permuting ability of a 2D torus under deterministic XY routing. The research is carried out for a number of communication models, namely, unidirectional uniaxial, bidirectional uniaxial, unidirectional biaxial, and bidirectional biaxial. Necessary and sufficient conditions of blocking occurrence in a 2D torus for uniaxial models are expressed mathematical...

Monte Carlo and theoretical studies of thin 3D films of biaxial and uniaxial nematics with tangential boundary conditions show distinct differences in structure and evolution of topological defects. In the uniaxial films, defects of strength k=+/-1 are point defects that bear no bulk singularity and disappear by annihilation with each other. In the biaxial films, k=+/-1 defects are true singula...

A mesoscopic, extended Doi theory for  ows of nematic liquid crystals (LCs) has been successfully applied by Rey to study extensional  ow-induced, homogeneous phase transitions both for rod-like and disc-like molecular geometry. Rey analysed the two order parameters (eigenvalues) of the orientation tensor. Recently the authors generalized the  ow-phase diagram (nematic concentration vs.  ow...

Nematic liquid crystals possess three different phases: isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial. The ground state of most nematics is either isotropic or uniaxial, depending on the external temperature. Nevertheless, biaxial domains have been frequently identified, especially close to defects or external surfaces. In this paper we show that any spatially varying director pattern may be a source of bia...

A peristaltically actuated device, PADeMIS, composed of silicone rubber (SR) is under development for use in minimally invasive surgery. During locomotion, the device will be subject to a few thousand load changes involving varying, sometimes high, strains. The design is being optimised by finite element analysis, for which a constitutive law for the mechanical behaviour of silicone rubber is r...

Chirality permeates the entire fabric of the biological world. Indeed, life as we know it could not exist without chirality. The function of fundamental components of the cell, like actin, myosin, proteins, and lipids, relies upon their being chiral. The handedness of a molecule can affect its odor, potency, and toxicity. Thus the synthesis of a single enantiomer of a compound is crucial for th...

This paper introduces an exploration to the permuting ability of a 2D torus under deterministic XY routing. The research is carried out for a number of communication models, namely, unidirectional uniaxial, bidirectional uniaxial, unidirectional biaxial, and bidirectional biaxial. Necessary and sufficient conditions of blocking occurrence in a 2D torus for uniaxial models are expressed mathemat...