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Croesus Retail Trust Seeks to Revive US$300 Million Singapore IPO

A Japanese real estate fund, which has Marubeni Corp. and Daiwa House Industry Co. as strategic partners, is reviving its initial public offering plans in Singapore that could raise at least US$300 million, people with knowledge of the deal said Monday.




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LVMH Fund Lands Australia’s R.M.Williams Stake

L Capital Asia, a private-equity firm backed by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has made its second investment in Australia, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.




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Citigroup Appoints New Asia Prime Finance Head

Citigroup Inc. has made some changes in its prime finance unit, appointing a new head in Asia.




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OUE Likely To Reload After REIT Listing, Maybank-Kim Eng Says

Overseas Union Enterprise is likely to move ahead with new acquisitions after raising around $680 million by listing a real-estate investment trust listing later in the year, Maybank-Kim Eng says.




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Dish Launches $25.5 Billion Offer for Sprint

Dish Network Corp. will counter Japan's Softbank Corp.'s bid for Sprint Nextel Corp., the WSJ is reporting Monday morning.




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Woori Head’s Resignation Stokes Privatization Hopes

Could the resignation of the head of one of South Korea’s biggest financial groups jumpstart a long-running process to privatize it?





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Citigroup’s Corbat Gets Expenses Down

Chief Executive Michael Corbat is in the early stages of making good on his promise to turn Citigroup Inc. into a more efficient company.




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Citigroup Finally Releases Some Reserves

To release or not to release, that has been the question for Citigroup when it comes to reserves held against roughly $92 billion of North American mortgages that it is trying to sell or wind down.




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Dealpolitik: Dish’s Audacious Topping Bid for Sprint Is No Slam Dunk

Dish has made a stunning bid to buy Sprint for a cash-and -stock deal valuing Dish at $25.5 billion. Last year Softbank agreed to buy Sprint, also for a package of cash and stock. Dish claims its offer is worth 13% more.






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JPM Veteran Corio Joins Miller Buckfire

Restructuring adviser Miller Buckfire & Co. is growing its bankruptcy and restructuring practice once again after prominent bankers departed about two years ago.





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Aerosoles Shoe Chain Seeking Buyer or Partner

The private-equity owner of the Aerosoles shoe chain is seeking a buyer or strategic partner for the company it created about 25 years ago from a cast-off unit of Kenneth Cole Productions Inc.




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Record Number of Banks in One Deal as HK’s IPO Market Heats Up

Hong Kong's IPO market is shifting into high gear this week with two billion-dollar offerings but one deal is crowded with a record number of banks who are being asked to do more to earn business.




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Kyle Bass Keen on Yellow Pages Co. — Sohn Conference

By Emily Glazer The yellow pages business isn't dead yet. That's according to Kyle Bass, principal of Dallas-based hedge fund Hayman Capital Management L.P., who focused his presentation at the Ira Sohn conference Wednesday on directories business Dex Media Inc.




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What to Watch From the Fed Wednesday

In her first press conference as Fed chairwoman, Yellen will likely face questions on the continued reduction in bond purchases and the recent deterioration in economic conditions.




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Trapping bond exchange phenomenon revealed for off-stoichiometry cross-linking of phase-separated vitrimer-like materials

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2961-2968
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00074A, Paper
Takumi Kito, Mikihiro Hayashi
Unusual relaxation and creep properties by the trapping bond exchange phenomenon is revealed for vitrimer-like materials with bond exchangeable domains of quaternized pyridines, in the special case of off- stoichiometric cross-linking condition.
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Kinetics of phase separation and aging dynamics of segregating fluid mixtures in the presence of quenched disorder

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2969-2977
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00204K, Paper
Rounak Bhattacharyya, Bhaskar Sen Gupta
Phase separation of segregating fluid mixtures in the presence of quenched disorder.
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A computational study of nematic core structure and disclination interactions in elastically anisotropic nematics

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2900-2914
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01616A, Paper
Lucas Myers, Carter Swift, Jonas Rønning, Luiza Angheluta, Jorge Viñals
The structure of isolated disclinations and disclination dipoles in anisotropically elastic nematic liquid crystals is explored via a singular potential computational model.
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Preparation of modified humic acid/TiO2/P(AA-co-AM) nanocomposite hydrogels with enhanced dye adsorption and photocatalysis

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2937-2954
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01749D, Paper
Xuankun Gong, Amatjan Sawut, Rena Simayi, Ziyue Wang, Yurou Feng
A novel composite hydrogel with exceptional adsorption and photocatalytic properties was synthesized using modified coal-based humic acid (HA-C), modified titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles, acrylic acid (AA), and acrylamide (AM) as precursors.
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Motion of microswimmers in cylindrical microchannels

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3007-3020
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01480K, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Florian A. Overberg, Gerhard Gompper, Dmitry A. Fedosov
Microswimmers in confinement slow down, and can exert pulling or pushing forces in particular at the end of a closed channel. Simulations and approximate theoretical calculation for the squirmer model are employed to predict this behavior.
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Phenylboronate-salicylate ester cross-linked self-healing hydrogel composed of modified hyaluronan at physiological pH

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2926-2936
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01417G, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Ryotaro Miki, Tsutomu Yamaki, Masaki Uchida, Hideshi Natsume
A self-healing hydrogel can be easily prepared at physiological pH by using phenylboronic acid-modified hyaluronic acid and salicylic acid-modified hyaluronic acid.
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Self-adhesion of uncrosslinked poly(butadiene-co-acrylonitrile), i.e. nitrile rubber, an inhomogeneous and associative polymer

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,2978-2985
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01630G, Paper
Valentine Hervio, Annie Brûlet, Costantino Creton, Gabriel E. Sanoja
The precursor of NBR, poly(acrylonitrile-co-butadiene), experiences thermodynamic forces for self-assembly and kinetic barriers for processing. We introduce three strategies to overcome such barriers and enable polymer self-adhesion in the bulk.
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Correction: Fabricating multi-scale controllable PEDOT:PSS arrays via templated freezing assembly

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3021-3021
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM90038C, Correction
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Yang Lin, Junqiang Mao, Qingrui Fan, Jianjun Wang
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Hydrodynamically induced aggregation of two dimensional oriented active particles

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01670F, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Roee Bashan, Naomi Oppenheimer
We show that in many cases aligned active particles in a two-dimensional fluid attract and form fractal-like clusters.
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Analysis of the adhesive secreting cells of Arion subfuscus: insights into the role of microgels in a tough, fast-setting hydrogel glue

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00071D, Paper
Andrew M. Smith, Patrick Flammang
A model for the rapid setting of a gastropod hydrogel adhesive. Cross-linked microgels mix with microscopic packets of polysaccharides; these flow onto surfaces until the packets rupture, joining the microgels together.
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A bio-inspired co-simulation crawling robot enabled by a carbon dot-doped dielectric elastomer

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00029C, Paper
Yubing Han, Bori Shi, En Xie, Peng Huang, Yaozhong Zhou, Chang Xue, Weijia Wen, Huayan Pu, Mengying Zhang, Jinbo Wu
The introduction of NCDs@SiO2 cluster particles not only improves the mechanical and dielectric properties of an elastomer but also exhibits fluorescence and actuation response under the co-stimulation of UV and electricity, respectively.
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Agent-based modeling of stress anisotropy driven nematic ordering in growing biofilms

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01535A, Paper
Open Access
Changhao Li, Japinder Nijjer, Luyi Feng, Qiuting Zhang, Jing Yan, Sulin Zhang
Our agent-based model reveals complex spatiotemperal evolution of the morphology and internal cell ordering of Vibrio cholerae biofilms.
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Slip of a liquid crystal droplet rotator in viscous fluids

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3066-3072
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01028G, Paper
Keita Saito, Yasuyuki Kimura
The boundary conditions at the droplet surface depend on the surrounding solution. In glycerol solutions, slip occurs at the droplet surface and is enhanced as glycerol concentration increases.
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Conformational and static properties of tagged chains in solvents: effect of chain connectivity in solvent molecules

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3073-3081
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01473H, Paper
Hong-Yao Li, Bokai Zhang, Zhi-Yong Wang
The radius of gyration of tagged polymer chain: effect of chain length in solvent molecules.
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The fractal geometry of polymeric materials surfaces: surface area and fractal length scales

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3082-3096
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01497E, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
H. Eduardo Roman, Federico Cesura, Rabia Maryam, Igor Levchenko, Katia Alexander, Claudia Riccardi
Non-treated (NT) and plasma-treated (PT) polymeric surfaces display self-affine fractal scaling. The plasma increases both the surface area and the fractal length scales, helping the design of PT interfaces with larger surface areas at the nm scale.
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Solutal Marangoni force controls lateral motion of electrolytic gas bubbles

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3097-3106
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01646C, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Hongguang Zhang, Yunqing Ma, Mengyuan Huang, Gerd Mutschke, Xianren Zhang
The MD and CFD indicate that the lateral solutal Marangoni force originating from an asymmetric distribution of dissolved gas causes bubbles oscillation and self-pinning effect.
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Thermoresponsive oil-continuous gels based on double-interpenetrating colloidal-particle networks

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3033-3043
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01582C, Paper
Braulio A. Macias-Rodriguez, Roland Gouzy, Corentin Coulais, Krassimir P. Velikov
Gels of multicomponent building blocks offer promising opportunities for the development of novel soft materials with unique and useful structures and properties.
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Surfactant-induced alterations in optoelectronic properties of perylene diimide dyes: modulating sensing responses in the aqueous environment

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3044-3052
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01694C, Paper
Animesh Pal, Nilanjan Dey
The compartmentalization effect of microheterogeneous systems, like surfactant aggregates, showcases altered optoelectronic properties of a perylene diimide-based chromogenic dye (PDI-Ala) compared to bulk water.
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Disorder-to-order transition of long fibers contained in evaporating sessile drops

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3107-3117
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01735D, Paper
S. Sannyamath, R. Vetter, H. Bonart, M. Hartmann, R. Ganguly, S. Hardt
We demonstrate self-organization of hydrophilic fibers, contained in a sessile droplet in a disordered initial configurations, to transform into an order deposit. Findings suggest new avenues to decorate solid surfaces with filamental structures.
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Shear zones in granular mixtures of hard and soft particles with high and low friction

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3118-3130
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00100A, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Aditya Pratap Singh, Vasileios Angelidakis, Thorsten Pöschel, Sudeshna Roy
Granular materials show inhomogeneous flows characterized by strain localization.
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Self-assembly of rod–coil–rod block copolymers in a coil-selective solvent: coarse-grained simulation results

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3131-3142
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00251B, Paper
Chiraz Toujani, Luis A. Padilla, Nour Alhraki, Su-Mi Hur, Abelardo Ramírez-Hernández
Parameters that govern the self assembly of a symmetric triblock copolymer.
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Dilute gel networks vs. clumpy gels in colloidal systems with a competition between repulsive and attractive interactions

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3143-3153
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01717F, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
M. Gimperlein, Jasper N. Immink, M. Schmiedeberg
Dilute and dense systems differ in the way structural properties emerge. Two regimes of percolation might be responsible for differences. Global and local structural properties give insights into these differences.
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Form II to form I transition in solution-crystallized isotactic polybutene-1

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3191-3202
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00152D, Paper
Peng Fu, Jiaxin Huo, Jingqing Li, Claudio De Rosa, Shichun Jiang
Different polymer chains in a solution or melt have different conformations with corresponding entropy at each moment, which would be confined after crystallization.
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Destructive effect of fluctuations on the performance of a Brownian gyrator

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3154-3160
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01606D, Paper
Pascal Viot, Aykut Argun, Giovanni Volpe, Alberto Imparato, Lamberto Rondoni, Gleb Oshanin
The Brownian gyrator is often called a minimal model of a nano-engine performing a rotational motion, because in non-equilibrium conditions its torque, specific angular momentum  and specific angular velocity  have non-zero mean values.
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Steering droplets on substrates with plane-wave wettability patterns and deformations

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3161-3174
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00213J, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Josua Grawitter, Holger Stark
Motivated by strategies for targeted microfluidic transport of droplets, we investigate how sessile droplets can be steered toward a preferred direction using travelling waves in substrate wettability or deformations of the substrate.
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Axonal tension contributes to consistent fold placement

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3053-3065
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00129J, Paper
Open Access
Xincheng Wang, Shuolun Wang, Maria A. Holland
We propose a novel bilayer finite element model incorporating axonal tension in the subcortex. Our results reveal that axonal tension serves as a perturbation that triggers folding and determines the placement of folds.
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Fabric-based jamming phase diagram for frictional granular materials

Soft Matter, 2024, 20,3175-3190
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01277H, Paper
Yuxuan Wen, Yida Zhang
Fabric-based jamming phase diagram, where Ft and Zt are the fabric anisotropy (deviatoric invariant of the 2nd order fabric tensor) and the coordination number (mean invariant of the 2nd order fabric tensor) of the total-contact network, respectively.
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Mechanical guidance to self-organization and pattern formation of stem cells

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00172A, Paper
Wei-Hua Zhou, Lin-Ru Qiao, She-Juan Xie, Zhuo Chang, Xu Yin, Guang-Kui Xu
We introduce a mechanical model based on the dynamic balance between cell-ECM-culture environment, and demonstrate that it can capture specific phenomena in stem cell pattern formation experiments guided by geometric constraints.
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Can self-propelled objects escape from compression stimulation?

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00288A, Paper
Open Access
Masaki Yoshikai, Muneyuki Matsuo, Nobuhiko J. Suematsu, Hiraku Nishimori, Satoshi Nakata
We studied circular papers impregnated with camphor (CPs) and CPs with magnets (MCPs) as self-propelled objects floating on water under the compression of the water surface as an inanimate system for evacuation in an emergency.
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A microrheological examination of insulin-secreting β-cells in healthy and diabetic-like conditions

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D3SM01141K, Paper
Open Access
Lukas Woolley, Adam Burbidge, Jan Vermant, Fotis Christakopoulos
We provide an insight into the compliance of β-cells and explore structural changes in conditions relevant to type-2 diabetes, showing an altered transport behavior and hindering the effective control of insulin secretion.
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A computational study of cell membrane damage and intracellular delivery in a cross-slot microchannel

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00047A, Paper
Open Access
  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Ruixin Lu, Peng Yu, Yi Sui
The inertial effect increases the cell deformation and membrane damage in the channel cross-slot; however, the enhancement can be reversed by the cell membrane viscosity.
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Divergent self-assembly propensity of enantiomeric phenylalanine amphiphiles that undergo pH-induced nanofiber-to-nanoglobule conversion

Soft Matter, 2024, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4SM00117F, Paper
Manas Kumar Pradhan, Nayanika Misra, Fathima Sahala, Nyaya Prakash Pradhan, Aasheesh Srivastava
Enantiomeric single phenylalanine derivatives demonstrate very different self-assembling propensity and thermodynamic parameters associated with self-assembly.
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