The dynamical response of a tethered semiflexible polymer with self-attractive interactions and subjected to an external force field is numerically investigated by varying stiffness and self-interaction strength. The chain is confined in two spatial dimensions and placed in contact with a heat bath described by the Brownian multi-particle collision method. For strong self-attraction the equilibrium conformations range from compact structures to double-stranded chains, and to rods when increasing the stiffness.

Blue phases are networks of disclination lines, which occur in cholesteric liquid crystals near the transition to the isotropic phase. They have recently been used for the new generation of fast switching liquid crystal displays. Here we study numerically the steady states and switching hydrodynamics of blue phase I (BPI) and blue phase II (BPII) cells subjected to an electric field.

Background Diagnosis and treatment of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) have led to improved life expectancy and achievement of adulthood. Limited data on long-term outcomes reported an increased risk of premature death for cardiovascular causes, even without congenital heart disease (CHD).

The computation of n-point Gaussian quadrature rules for symmetric weight functions is considered in this paper. It is shown that the nodes and the weights of the Gaussian quadrature rule can be retrieved from the singular value decomposition of a bidiagonal matrix of size n/2. The proposed numerical method allows to compute the nodes with high relative accuracy and a computational complexity of O(n). We also describe an algorithm for computing the weights of a generic Gaussian quadrature rule with high relative accuracy. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Wavelet and Fourier regularization methods are effective for the nonparametric regression problem. We prove that the loss function evaluated for the regularization parameter chosen through GCV or Mallows criteria is asymptotically equivalent in probability to its minimum over the regularization parameter. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V.

We investigate the switching dynamics of multistable nematic liquid crystal devices. In particular, we identify a remarkably simple two-dimensional device which exploits hybrid alignment at the surfaces to yield a bistable response. We also consider a three-dimensional tristable nematic device with patterned anchoring, recently implemented in practice, and discuss how the director and disclination patterns change during switching.

Discussion on the meeting on "statistical approaches to inverse problem"

We present computer simulations of the response of a flexoelectric blue phase network, either in bulk or under confinement, to an applied field. We find a transition in the bulk between the blue phase I disclination network and a parallel array of disclinations along the direction of the applied field. Upon switching off the field, the system is unable to reconstruct the original blue phase but gets stuck in a metastable phase. Blue phase II is comparatively much less affected by the field.