Continuously coupled parametric generators and their quantum statistics

In this paper the quantum-statistical properties of light beams propagating in a directional nonlinear coupler are investigated. This device is composed of a pair of linearly coupled nonlinear waveguides operating by means of degenerate parametric downconversion. The possibility of generation of nonclassical states of light in single and compound modes, using the short-length approximation, is discussed. Influence of linear and nonlinear mismatches for generation of nonclassical light is taken into account. This work was supported by Project LN00A015, Research Project No. CEZ: J14/98 and the COST project OC P11.003 of the Czech Ministry of Education.     

Geometry of an Accelerated Rotating Disk

We analyze the geometry of a rotating disk with a tangential acceleration in the framework of the theory of Special Relativity, using the kinematic linear differential system that verifies the relative position vector of time-like curves in a Fermi reference. A numerical integration of these equations for a generic initial value problem is made up and the results are compared with those obtained in other works.     

Elimination of man-made radionuclides from natural waters by applying a standard coagulation-flocculation process

We studied the effectiveness of potable water treatment processes that consist of the stages of coagulation-flocculation-decantation, using iron-based coagulants, in eliminating gamma-emitting man-made radioisotopes of cesium, strontium, and americium from two natural waters with different degrees of mineralization. The resulting decontamination was found to depend on the chemical behavior of each of the radionuclides considered, on the pH at which the process of coagulation is carried out, and on the concentration of the other stable cations present. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Recent advances in the analysis of steroid hormones and related drugs.

The development during the last 15 years and the state-of-the-art in the analysis of bulk steroid hormone drugs and hormone-like structures and pharmaceutical formulations made thereof are summarized. Other steroids (sterols, bile acids, cardiac glycosides, vitamins D) as well as biological-clinical aspects and pharmacokinetic and metabolic studies are excluded from this review. The state-of-the-art is summarized based on comparisons of monographs in the latest editions of the European Pharmacopoeia, United States Pharmacopoeia and the Japanese Pharmacopoeia. This is followed by sections dealing with new developments in the methodology for the fields of spectroscopic and spectrophotometric, chromatographic, electrophoretic and hyphenated techniques as well electroanalytical methods. The review is terminated by two problem-oriented sections: examples on impurity and degradation profiling as well as enantiomeric analysis.     

Book Review

Structural Chemistry -     

Augmented Lagrangian Algorithms Based on the Spectral Projected Gradient Method for Solving Nonlinear Programming Problems

The spectral projected gradient method SPG is an algorithm for large-scale bound-constrained optimization introduced recently by Birgin, Martínez, and Raydan. It is based on the Raydan unconstrained generalization of the Barzilai-Borwein method for quadratics. The SPG algorithm turned out to be surprisingly effective for solving many large-scale minimization problems with box constraints. Therefore, it is natural to test its perfomance for solving the sub-problems that appear in nonlinear programming methods based on augmented Lagrangians. In this work, augmented Lagrangian methods which use SPG as the underlying convex-constraint solver are introduced (ALSPG) and the methods are tested in two sets of problems. First, a meaningful subset of large-scale nonlinearly constrained problems of the CUTE collection is solved and compared with the perfomance of LANCELOT. Second, a family of location problems in the minimax formulation is solved against the package FFSQP.