Molecularly imprinted polymer-based potentiometric sensor for degradation product of chemical warfare agents: Part I. Methylphosphonic acid

A biomimetic potentiometric sensor for the specific recognition of methylphosphonic acid (MPA), the degradation product of nerve agents sarin, soman, VX, etc., was designed. This involves the preparation of MPA imprinted polymer particles and removal of the template by soxhlet extraction. Subsequently, the leached MIP particles were dispersed in 2-nitrophenyloctyl ether (plasticizer) and embedded in polyvinyl chloride matrix. The sensor responds to MPA in the concentration range 5 × 10⁻⁸ to 1 × 10⁻⁴ and 1 × 10⁻³ to 1 × 10⁻¹ M with a detection limit of 5 × 10⁻⁸ M. The selectivity of the sensor has been tested with respect to chemical analogues such as phosphoric acid, sodium dihydrogen phosphate, organophosphorous pesticide and triazine herbicides. The utility of the sensor was tested for field monitoring of MPA in spiked ground water.     

Effect of ventilation on the flowfield around a sphere

The flowfield around a sphere with and without ventilation was investigated in a wind tunnel over a range of Reynolds numbers in an incompressible flow. At supercritical Re, the pressure drag of a sphere can be nearly nullified by venting only 2% of the frontal area of the sphere to the base through a smooth internal duct. The drag reduction is achieved by increased pressures in the separated flow region close to the base. At high Re, the vent flow breaks through the near wake and brings about symmetry in the global flowfield. When the internal shear is increased by using a rough internal duct, the base pressure is unchanged, but the external flow is accelerated to velocities beyond that achieved by the potential flow around the basic sphere. The findings can be explained by a flow model in which the near wake is aerodynamically streamlined by a pair of counterrotating vortex rings at the base. A roughness element can be made to partially destroy the vortex system at the base and result in a steady asymmetric wake. A 1.2 mm diameter wire placed at 70° was found to overtrip the boundary layer and completely destroy the vortex system. Simultaneously, the turbulent separation is advanced and the drag increased.At subcritical Re, ventilation marginally increases static pressures all over the surface. Since the large pressure differential between the windward and leeward sides is not reduced, the internal flow has a rapid acceleration to a velocity close to that of the free stream. The reverse flow associated with the near wake forces the vent flow to rest within itself and the wake profile is unchanged. The main features of subcritical flow around the basic sphere are retained in spite of ventilation. The upstream effects of ventilation are greater for subcritical flow than for supercritical flow.The work reported was carried out under a study grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Bonn. The authors wish to thank the Director of DAAD in Bonn for the same. Thanks are due to Dr. F. R. Grosche and colleagues at DLR in Göttingen who assisted in the design, fabrication and wind tunnel testing of the sphere model. Thanks are also due to Prof. D. G. Mabey, visiting Professor, Imperial College, London for useful discussions. The many useful discussions with the research advisors of the first author viz., Dr. P. R. Viswanath of National Aerospace Laboratories and Prof. A. Prabhu of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore are acknowledged with thanks. The support given by the Head, Experimental Aerodynamics Division, National Aerospace Laboratories is thankfully acknowledged.     

Upper semicontinuity of set-valued functions

Various types of upper semcontinuity properties for set-valued functions have been used in the past to obtain closure and lower closure theorems in optimal control theory as well as selection theorems and fixed-point theorems in topology. This paper unifies these various concepts by using semiclosure operators, extended topologies, and lattice theoretic operations and obtains general closure theorems. In addition, analytic criteria are given for this generalized upper semicontinuity. In particular, set-valued functions which are maximal in terms of certain properties (e.g., maximal monotone multifunctions) are shown to be necessarily upper semicontinuous.     

Closure theorems without seminormality conditions

The authors give a variety of conditions under which there is no need to explicity require seminormality conditions in closure and lower closure theorems, and corresponding lower semicontinuity theorems. Both Lipschitz-type conditions and growth-type conditions are taken into consideration in classesL _p andL _∞ .     

On the functional equationS(m,n)F[n/(m,n)] =F(n)h[n/(m,n)]

In this paper, we discuss the pairs (f, h) of arithmetical functions satisfying the functional equation in the title, whereF is the product off andh under the Dirichlet convolution; that is,F(n) = Σ _d|n ?(d)h(n/d) andS(m n) = Σd|(m, n) ?(d)h(n/d). The well-known Hölder's identity is a special case of this functional equation (?(n) =n, h(n) = μ(n)). We also generalize the functional equation in the title to any arbitrary regular arithmetical convolution and discuss the pairs of solutions (f, h) of the generalized functional equation and pose some problems relating to the characterization of all pairs of solutions.     

Strength and stiffness of sandwich beams in bending

This investigation is concerned with the experimental versus analytical correlation of the mechanical properties of sandwich-beam specimens. Such sandwich structures are commonly employed in the aircraft industry. Four-point and three-point load tests were conducted on a large number of sandwich-beam specimens, fabricated by using fiber-glass reinforced plastics (both unidirectional and woven-glass cloth) and DTD 685 aluminum alloy for the facings with aluminum honeycomb core and polyurethane foam cores and the indigenously available Araldite as the bonding medium between the core and the facings.The flexural stiffness of the composite sandwich specimens used in this investigation compared favorably with theoretical predictions. The shear stiffness was found to be about 55 percent and 45 percent of the theoretically predicted values for FRP (fiberglass-reinforced-plastic) cloth and FRP unidirectional laminates with aluminum honeycomb core sandwich, respectively. The failure load as determined by experiments was less than the theoretically predicted safe load. There was a loss of strength as well as a steep decrease in the failure load in the case of low density foam core.It was concluded that FRP facing plates with aluminum honeycomb core sandwich structure may be preferred to similar aluminum-alloy facing sandwich construction if high flexural stiffness and shear stiffness properties are required at less cost and weight. Indigenously available Araldite was quite satisfactory for bonding the core to the facings.This investigation has confirmed the importance of experiments in the field of sandwich structures which can effectively replace other conventional uneconomical structural or machine members which are currently in use.     

Multilevel Monte Carlo simulation for Lévy processes based on the Wiener–Hopf factorisation

In Kuznetsov et al. (2011) a new Monte Carlo simulation technique was introduced for a large family of Lévy processes that is based on the Wiener–Hopf decomposition. We pursue this idea further by combining their technique with the recently introduced multilevel Monte Carlo methodology. Moreover, we provide here for the first time a theoretical analysis of the new Monte Carlo simulation technique in Kuznetsov et al. (2011) and of its multilevel variant for computing expectations of functions depending on the historical trajectory of a Lévy process. We derive rates of convergence for both methods and show that they are uniform with respect to the “jump activity” (e.g. characterised by the Blumenthal–Getoor index). We also present a modified version of the algorithm in Kuznetsov et al. (2011) which combined with the multilevel methodology obtains the optimal rate of convergence for general Lévy processes and Lipschitz functionals. This final result is only a theoretical one at present, since it requires independent sampling from a triple of distributions which is currently only possible for a limited number of processes.     

A mesh-free convex approximation scheme for Kohn–Sham density functional theory

Density functional theory developed by Hohenberg, Kohn and Sham is a widely accepted, reliable ab initio method. We present a non-periodic, real space, mesh-free convex approximation scheme for Kohn–Sham density functional theory. We rewrite the original variational problem as a saddle point problem and discretize it using basis functions which form the Pareto optimum between competing objectives of maximizing entropy and minimizing the total width of the approximation scheme. We show the utility of the approximation scheme in performing both all-electron and pseudopotential calculations, the results of which are in good agreement with literature.     

Crystalline constituents from euphorbiaceae—XIII : The structure of a new triterpene from Euphorbia nerifolia L.

From the leaves and stems of Euphorbia nerifolia Linn., a new triterpene was isolated besides friedelan-3α- andβ-ols, and taraxerol. From a study of its chemical reactions and spectral data, the new triterpene was shown to be glut-5(10)-en-1-one(3).