Chemical action: what is it,and why does it really matter?

Nanotechnology, as with many technologies before it, places a strain on existing legislation and poses a challenge to all administrative agencies tasked with regulating technology-based products. It is easy to see how statutory schemes become outdated, as our ability to understand and affect the world progresses. In this article, we address the regulatory problems that nanotechnology posses for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) classification structure for “drugs” and “devices.” The last major modification to these terms was in 1976, with the enactment of the Medical Device Amendments. There are serious practical differences for a classification as a drug or device in terms of time to market and research. Drugs are classified, primarily, as acting by “chemical action.” We lay out some legal, philosophic, and scientific tools that serve to provide a useful, as well as legally and scientifically faithful, distinction between drugs and devices for the purpose of regulatory classification. These issues we raise are worth the consideration of anyone who is interested in the regulation of nano-products or other novel technologies.     

Equality of two spectra arising in harmonic analysis and semigroup theory

We show that a new notion of a spectrum of a function ( is a Banach space), defined by B. Basit and the first author, coincides with the Arveson spectrum of some shift group, provided is uniformly continuous. We apply this result to prove a new version of a tauberian theorem.     

Continuous variable quantum cryptography: beating the 3 dB loss limit

We demonstrate that secure quantum key distribution systems based on continuous variable implementations can operate beyond the apparent 3 dB loss limit that is implied by the beam splitting attack. The loss limit was established for standard minimum uncertainty states such as coherent states. We show that, by an appropriate postselection mechanism, we can enter a region where Eve's knowledge on Alice's key falls behind the information shared between Alice and Bob, even in the presence of substantial losses.     

Suppression of classic and quantum radiation pressure noise by electro-optic feedback

We present theoretical results that demonstrate a new technique that can be used to improve the sensitivity of thermal noise measurements: intracavity intensity stabilization. It is demonstrated that electro-optic feedback can be used to reduce intracavity intensity fluctuations, and the consequent radiation pressure fluctuations, by a factor of 2 below the quantum-noise limit. We show that this reduction is achievable in the presence of large classic intensity fluctuations in the incident laser beam. The benefits of this scheme are a consequence of the sub-Poissonian intensity statistics of the field inside a feedback loop and the quantum nondemolition nature of radiation pressure noise as a readout system for the intracavity intensity fluctuations.     

Two-photon absorption-induced self-phase modulation in GaAs-AlGaAs waveguides for surface-emitted second-harmonic generation

Performance-limiting asymmetric distortion is observed in the spectra of fundamental pulses transmitted through GaAs-Al(0.9)Ga(0.1)As multilayer waveguides designed for surface-emitted second-harmonic generation. This behavior is attributed to refractive-index changes resulting from the accumulation of free carriers created by two-photon absorption in the GaAs layers. Numerical simulations of the intensity-dependent spectra by use of the separately measured two-photon absorption coefficient are shown to be in good agreement with the observed spectra.     

QPECgen, a MATLAB Generator for Mathematical Programs with Quadratic Objectives and Affine Variational Inequality Constraints

We describe a technique for generating a special class, called QPEC, of mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints, MPEC. A QPEC is a quadratic MPEC, that is an optimization problem whose objective function is quadratic, first-level constraints are linear, and second-level (equilibrium) constraints are given by a parametric affine variational inequality or one of its specialisations. The generator, written in MATLAB, allows the user to control different properties of the QPEC and its solution. Options include the proportion of degenerate constraints in both the first and second level, ill-conditioning, convexity of the objective, monotonicity and symmetry of the second-level problem, and so on. We believe these properties may substantially effect efficiency of existing methods for MPEC, and illustrate this numerically by applying several methods to generator test problems. Documentation and relevant codes can be found by visiting http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/danny/qpecgendoc.html.     

Characterizing domain mixing effects in hydrogen bond-compatibilized polymer blends

The nature and extent of phase mixing in blends of hydroxyl-functionalized polystyrene and poly(ethyl acrylate) (PS/PEA), where the driving force for mixing is hydrogen bonding, are characterized by several techniques. Small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) shows a reduction in average domain size with increasing functionalization level, a result also evident from scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Together, the two techniques reveal a very broad distribution of domain sizes. At high functionalization levels, both SAXS and SEM indicate a high degree of “in-domain” mixing, with little or no pure PS or PEA remaining in the blends. Mathematical modeling of dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) data is employed to quantify this progression. Initially, mixing is primarily interfacial, but as the functionalization level increases, the mixed interphase rapidly grows to occupy the entire material. In agreement with the SAXS and SEM results, DMTA modeling shows that further increases in the functionalization level suppress the amplitude of composition variations in the sample. The onset of extensive in-domain mixing coincides with the marked changes in stress-strain behavior observed previously in these materials. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.