Effective Relaxations and Partitioning Schemes for Solving Water Distribution Network Design Problems to Global Optimality

In this paper, we address the development of a global optimization procedure for the problem of designing a water distribution network, including the case of expanding an already existing system, that satisfies specified flow demands at stated pressure head requirements. The proposed approach significantly improves upon a previous method of Sherali et al. (1998) by way of adopting tighter polyhedral relaxations, and more effective partitioning strategies in concert with a maximal spanning tree-based branching variable selection procedure. Computational experience on three standard test problems from the literature is provided to evaluate the proposed procedure. For all these problems, proven global optimal solutions within a tolerance of 10^–4% and/or within 1$ of optimality are obtained. In particular, the two larger instances of the Hanoi and the New York test networks are solved to global optimality for the very first time in the literature. A new real network design test problem based on the Town of Blacksburg Water Distribution System is also offered to be included in the available library of test cases, and related computational results are presented.     

High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatographic Analysis of Bicalutamide in Bulk Drug and Liposomes

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - A sensitive, accurate, precise, and specific high-performance thinlayer chromatographic (HPTLC) method for analysis of bicalutamide...     

Kinetics of isotopic exchange between chloramine-B and radioactive chloride

The kinetics of chlorine isotope exchange between chloramine-B /CAB/ and chloride has been studied using ion-exchange separation and tracer technique. McKay's plot are linear. The exchange reaction is fast in acidic medium, very slow in neutral medium and does not take place in alkaline medium. In the acidic range the exchange is maximum at pH 3.3. The rate of exchange decreases at pH >3.3 and <3.3. The order with respect to CAB and chloride is unity. The order with respect to [H⁺] is unity at pH>5. Addition of neutral salt or parent compound has no effect on the rate of exchange. Activation energy and activation entropy for this exchange reaction have been calculated.     

The effect of external forces on the initial dissociation of RDX (1,3,5‐trinitro‐1,3,5‐triazine): A mechanochemical study

Experimental and theoretical studies have proposed different initiation reactions for the decomposition of hexahydro‐1,3,5‐trinitro‐1,3,5‐triazine (RDX). Three primary reactions are considered to start RDX decomposition: homolytic N? N bond fission, HONO elimination, and concerted fission of C? N bonds. The focus of this article is to study the effect of external forces on the energy barrier and reaction energies of all three mechanisms. We used the Nudged Elastic Band method along with ab initio Density Functional Theory within the framework of a generalized force‐modified potential energy surface (G‐FMPES) to calculate the minimum energy paths at different compressive (corresponding to pressure between approximately 6 and 294 MPa) and expansive force values (between 10 and 264 pN). For all three reactions, the application of an expansive force increases the exothermicity and lowers the energy barriers to different extents, while a compressive force decreases the exothermicity and raises the energy barrier to different extents.     

Numerical simulation of partially coherent broadband optical imaging using the finite-difference time-domain method

Rigorous numerical modeling of optical systems has attracted interest in diverse research areas ranging from biophotonics to photolithography. We report the full-vector electromagnetic numerical simulation of a broadband optical imaging system with partially coherent and unpolarized illumination. The scattering of light from the sample is calculated using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) numerical method. Geometrical optics principles are applied to the scattered light to obtain the intensity distribution at the image plane. Multilayered object spaces are also supported by our algorithm. For the first time, numerical FDTD calculations are directly compared to and shown to agree well with broadband experimental microscopy results.     

Studies on evaporated titanium oxide thin films for oxygen gas detection

Present work deals with the preparation of TiO₂ thin films of different thicknesses by PVD technique using an electron beam and to characterize the films for oxygen gas detection. The films were characterized using optical transmission measurements, XRD and atomic force microscopy. From the spectral data, the extinction, absorption coefficient and refractive index of the films are evaluated and reported. The optical band gap energy varies between 3 and 3.68 eV. The XRD pattern confirms the formation of polycrystalline anatase structure of Titanium with preferred orientation of (110) plane. The AFM images indicate the presence of coarse and fine grains with uniform as well as smooth surfaces over the entire range of the analyzed surface. Response characteristics of TiO₂ thin films for oxygen gas detection are studied, which indicate a low response time of 120 seconds and high sensitivity of 16 at the operating temperature 450 °C. Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Ionic Devices, Anna University, Chennai, India, Nov. 28–30, 2003.     

A Randomized Parallel Algorithm for Single-Source Shortest Paths

We give a randomized parallel algorithm for computing single-source shortest paths in weighted digraphs. We show that the exact shortest-path problem can be efficiently reduced to solving a series of approximate shortest-path subproblems. Our algorithm for the approximate shortest-path problem is based on the technique used by Ullman and Yannakakis in a parallel algorithm for breadth-first search.