K-shell fluorescence yields for potassium and calcium compounds

The K-shell fluorescence yields for potassium and calcium compounds were investigated using a Si(Li) X-ray detector system ( at ). The target samples were excited using gamma rays from an ²⁴¹Am annular source of strength . Chemical effects on K-shell fluorescence yield for potassium and calcium were observed. The values were compared with theoretical values of pure potassium and calcium.     

Stick-slip flow of high density polyethylene in a transparent slit die investigated by laser Doppler velocimetry

The oscillating flow instability of a molten linear high-density polyethylene is carefully studied using a single screw extruder equipped with a transparent slit die. Experiments are performed using laser Doppler velocimetry in order to obtain the local velocities field across the entire die width. At low flow rate, the extrusion is stable and steady state velocity profiles are obtained. During the instability, the velocity oscillates between two steady state limits, suggesting a periodic stick-slip transition mechanism. At high flow rate, the flow is mainly characterized by a pronounced wall slip. We show that wall slip occurs all along the die land. An investigation of the slip flow conditions shows that wall slip is not homogeneous in a cross section of the slit die, and that pure plug flow occurs only for very high flow rates. A numerical computation of the profile assuming wall slip boundary conditions is done to obtain the true local wall slip velocity. It confirms that slip velocities are of the same order of magnitude as those measured with a capillary rheometer.     

A Negative Deviation from Stern–Volmer Equation in Fluorescence Quenching

A negative deviation from the normal Stern-Volmer equation shown in the fluorescence quenching of doxorubicin by adenosine 5' monophosphate is interpreted in terms of doxorubicin exists in two different conformers in the ground state. An estimate of the Stem-Volmer constant for the excited-state quenching is about 218 M(-1). The fluorescence decay of free doxorubicin is a bi-exponential in polar protic and polar aprotic solvents. In the presence of adenosine 5' monophosphate, doxorubicin shows a tri-exponential decay in water.     

Development of an optical trap for microparticle clouds in dilute gases

Long-duration experiments with clouds of microparticles are planned for the ICAPS facility on board the International Space Station ISS. The scientific objectives of such experiments are widespread and are ranging from the simulation of aerosol behaviour in Earths atmosphere to the formation of planets in the early solar system. It is, however, even under microgravity conditions, impossible to sustain a cloud of free-floating, microscopic particles for an extended period of time, due to thermal diffusion and due to unavoidable external accelerations. Therefore, a trap for dust clouds is required which prevents the diffusion of the particles, which provides a source of relative velocities between the dust grains and which can also concentrate the dust to higher number densities that are otherwise not achievable. We are planning to use the photophoretic effect for such a particle trap. First short-duration microgravity experiments on the photophoretic motion of microscopic particles show that such an optical particle-cloud trap is feasible. First tests of a two-dimensional trap were performed in the Bremen drop tower.     

A novel fluorometric detection of Cu(2+) based on self-assembled bilayers

Fluorescent reagent sodium 1-naphthylamine diacetate (NADA) was assembled onto gold electrodes via its electrostatic interaction with cysteine (Cys) that was directly assembled on the gold electrode surface. Formation of the self-assembled bilayers was confirmed and primarily characterized by cyclic voltammetry and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS). The Cys modification of the gold electrode prevented direct adsorption of NADA onto the gold electrode and hence eliminated fluorescence quenching by gold. Strong fluorescence was observed from the NADA self-assembled bilayers at gold surface and was highly efficiently quenched by Cu²⁺ that allowed for an extremely highly sensitive detection of Cu²⁺ with a detection limit of 0.2 ppt and quantitative detection range of 0.5–9 ppt. The fluorescence from NADA/Cys/Au can be easily regenerated and therefore the present report showed a reusable method for immobilizing reagent in fabricating fluorescent chemosensors.     

Ultrasonic agitation in microchannels

This paper describes an acoustic method for inducing rotating vortex flows in microchannels. An ultrasonic crystal is used to create an acoustic standing wave field in the channel and thus induce a Rayleigh flow transverse to the laminar flow in the channel. Mixing in microchannels is strictly diffusion-limited because of the laminar flow, a transverse flow will greatly enhance mixing of the reactants. This is especially evident in chemical microsystems in which the chemical reaction is performed on a solid phase and only one reactant is actually diffusing. The method has been evaluated on two different systems, a mixing channel with two parallel flows and a porous silicon micro enzyme reactor for protein digestion. In both systems a significant increase of the mixing ratio is detected in a narrow band of frequency for the actuating ultrasound.     

Beam-injection flame furnace AAS: comparison of different nozzle types for beam generation and application of sub-critical liquid carbon dioxide as carrier and gas pressure pump

In beam injection flame furnace AAS (BIFF-AAS) the sample is introduced as a free-flying high-speed liquid beam into an AAS flame-heated nickel tube, resulting in a considerable improvement in the power of detection. For optimization of beam generation different nozzle types (smooth jet nozzles, turbulent working nozzles) have been compared at different pressures. It was found that the type of the nozzle hardly influences the analytical signal. However, the flow rates resulting from the different inner diameters of the nozzles and the applied pressures led to drastic changes in the analytical signal. For these investigations a recently developed 0.6 MPa (84 psig) diaphragm pump system was used. Furthermore, for the first time ever sub-critical liquid carbon dioxide has been used simultaneously as a liquid gas-pressure pump, as carrier in a flow-injection system (FIA), and for the beam generation. Transport of the carrier takes place as a result of the head pressure (6 MPa) of the liquid CO₂ in the gas cylinder. For volatile elements (e.g. Cd, Hg, Pb, and Tl) detection limits between 0.2 µg L^–1 (Cd) and 28 µg L^–1 (Hg) were found, the standard deviation was from 0.6% to 3.2% depending on the element, concentration, and sample volume used. The use of liquid CO₂ as a carrier in FIA systems opens up new possibilities for online sample pretreatment and trace preconcentration.     

An Incremental Algorithm for the Maximum Flow Problem

An incremental algorithm may yield an enormous computational time saving to solve a network flow problem. It updates the solution to an instance of a problem for a unit change in the input. In this paper we have proposed an efficient incremental implementation of maximum flow problem after inserting an edge in the network G. The algorithm has the time complexity of O((n)² m), where n is the number of affected vertices and m is the number of edges in the network. We have also discussed the incremental algorithm for deletion of an edge in the network G.     

Flow Polynomials and Their Asymptotic Limits for Lattice Strip Graphs

We present exact calculations of flow polynomials F(G,q) for lattice strips of various fixed widths L _y 4 and arbitrarily great lengths L _x , with several different boundary conditions. Square, honeycomb, and triangular lattice strips are considered. We introduce the notion of flows per face fl in the infinite-length limit. We study the zeros of F(G,q) in the complex q plane and determine exactly the asymptotic accumulation sets of these zeros in the infinite-length limit for the various families of strips. The function fl is nonanalytic on this locus. The loci are found to be noncompact for many strip graphs with periodic (or twisted periodic) longitudinal boundary conditions, and compact for strips with free longitudinal boundary conditions. We also find the interesting feature that, aside from the trivial case L _y =1, the maximal point, q _cf , where crosses the real axis, is universal on cyclic and Möbius strips of the square lattice for all widths for which we have calculated it and is equal to the asymptotic value q _cf =3 for the infinite square lattice.