The Surface Analysis Working Group at the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance,Metrology in Chemistry and Biology: A successful initiative by Martin Seah

Dr Martin Seah, NPL, was the initiator, founder, and first chairman of the Surface Analysis Working Group (SAWG) at the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance, Metrology in Chemistry and Biology (CCQM) at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), the international organization established by the Metre Convention. This tribute letter summarizes his achievements during his chairmanship and his long-running impact on the successful work of the group after his retirement.     

“元素化学实验”中的“异常”现象(一)--Mn元素化学实验中的“异常”现象及其探析

大一学生在“元素化学实验”教学过程中,对反应条件如温度、催化剂、酸度、浓度或试剂用量等因素的影响考虑不周,可能出现某些实验现象和预想的或理论分析的结果不一致的“异常”现象。本文就学生在Mn元素化学实验过程中遇到的一些“异常”现象进行分析和总结,借助生动直观的演示实验,引导学生探究“异常”现象产生的可能原因和直观认识反应条件对反应结果的影响,培养学生的观察、分析、判断、归纳、推理和解决实际问题的能力。     

极限分析的无搜索数学规划算法

本文研究理想刚塑性介质极限载荷因子的计算方法。根据极限分权理论的上限定理,建立了计算极限载荷因子的一般数学规划有限元格式。针对这种格式的特点,提出了一个求解极限载荷因子的无搜索迭代算法。这个算法中采用逐步识别刚性、塑性分区,不断修正目标函数的方案,克服了目标函数非光滑所导致的困难。本文提出的算法建立于位移模式有限元基础上,有较广的适用范围,且具有计算效率高,稳定性好,格式简单易于程序实现等优点。     

地质灾害图形图象分析系统在天津地面沉降分析中的应用

地质灾害的分布和发生发展过程具有空间特性, 其影响因素具有自身的特点和复杂性。作者开发的地质灾害图象分析系统(GHMIAS)是以典型地质灾害为主要对象、以空间信息管理和分析为主要功能的应用性地理信息系统, 该系统有独特的空间分析模型扩充, 融矢量、栅格和Windows图形用户对象为一体, 支持多种数据格式相互转换, 具有丰富的制图功能和高质量的制图输出, 可以快速生成灾害专题图件。     

结构模态参数的时序分析(ARMAV模型)识别法

本文简述了用时间序列分析(ARMAV 模型)识别结构模态参数的原理,对建模方法进行了分析,并对建模分析中至关重要的初值选择问题进行了讨论,提出了一种有效的初值的选取方法;在模拟计算部分中,用 Wilson-θ积分法模拟了一个三个自由度的振动和低信噪比、大阻尼振动和密集模态等复杂情形,对用时序方法(ARMAV 模型)识别模态参数的能力进行了检验;最后通过对实验数据进行有效的预处理后,用时序方法(ARMAV 模型)识别出一个真实结构(圆盘)的第一、二阶模态参数,并得到结构的完整振型.     

Electron Spin Resonance Study on Grafting of Tetrafluoroethylene onto Polyethylene

An ESR study has been made on the course of grafting of tetrafluoroethylene onto polyethylene. Alkyl and allyl radicals trapped in the polymers were measured under various grafting conditions. It was observed that alkyl radicals decay very rapidly when monomers are in contact with the irradiated polymer, while allyl radicals decay very slowly even in the presence of monomers as in the decay of radicals in irradiated polymers without monomers. The effect of pre-irradiation temperature on grafting was also studied, and the rate of grafting was found to be much faster for lower pre-irradiation temperatures. From these experimental results it was concluded that alkyl radicals play an important Tole in the initiation reaction of grafting.     

Preparation and characterization of a novel green tea essential oil nanoemulsion and its antifungal mechanism of action against Magnaporthae oryzae

Blast is one of the most devastating fungal diseases of rice caused by Magnaporthe oryzae. Plant essential oil (EO) can function as antifungal agents and are regarded as a safe and acceptable method for plant disease control. However, EOs are unstable and hydrophobic, which limits its use. In the present study, we aimed for the preparation and characterization of a nanoemulsion (NE) from green tea essential oil (GTO) by ultrasonication method and determined the antifungal activity of NE on M. oryzae. The particle size and zeta potential of the NE were 86.98 nm and −15.1 mV, respectively. The chemical composition and functional groups of GTO and NE were studied by using GC–MS analysis, portable Raman spectroscopy, and FTIR coupled with chemometric analysis. GC–MS analysis showed the major components in GTO and NE were n-Hexyl cinnamaldehyde and L-α-Terpineol. Both GTO and NE showed good antioxidant activity and total phenol content. Moreover, the NE showed good antifungal activity against M. oryzae which was further confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) examination. Also, confocal Raman micro-spectroscopy (CRM) revealed the antifungal mechanism of GTO and NE on M. oryzae which proves the cell damage. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on the antifungal activity of GTO and NE against M. oryzae and also the use of CRM for the evaluation of the chemical changes in single fungal hyphae in a holistic approach. This study suggests that the prepared NE could be a potential candidate for use as a substitute for synthetic fungicides.     

Heuristics for multi-attribute vehicle routing problems: A survey and synthesis

The attributes of vehicle routing problems are additional characteristics or constraints that aim to better take into account the specificities of real applications. The variants thus formed are supported by a well-developed literature, including a large variety of heuristics. This article first reviews the main classes of attributes, providing a survey of heuristics and meta-heuristics for Multi-Attribute Vehicle Routing Problems (MAVRP). It then takes a closer look at the concepts of 64 remarkable meta-heuristics, selected objectively for their outstanding performance on 15 classic MAVRP with different attributes. This cross-analysis leads to the identification of “winning strategies” in designing effective heuristics for MAVRP. This is an important step in the development of general and efficient solution methods for dealing with the large range of vehicle routing variants.     

Unital affine semigroups

Affine semigroups are convex sets on which there exists an associative binary operation which is affine separately in either variable. They were introduced by Cohen and Collins in 1959. We look at examples of affine semigroups which are of interest to matrix and operator theory and we prove some new results on the extreme points and the absorbing elements of certain types of affine semigroups. Most notably we improve a result of Wendel that every invertible element in a compact affine semigroup is extreme by extending this result to linearly bounded affine semigroups.     

Ranking ranges in cross-efficiency evaluations

The existence of alternate optima for the DEA weights may reduce the usefulness of the cross-efficiency evaluation, since the ranking provided depends on the choice of weights that the different DMUs make. In this paper, we develop a procedure to carry out the cross-efficiency evaluation without the need to make any specific choice of DEA weights. The proposed procedure takes into consideration all the possible choices of weights that all the DMUs can make, and yields for each unit a range for its possible rankings instead of a single ranking. This range is determined by the best and the worst rankings that would result in the best and the worst scenarios of each unit across all the DEA weights of all the DMUs. This approach might identify good/bad performers, as those that rank at the top/bottom irrespective of the weights that are chosen, or units that outperform others in all the scenarios. In addition, it may be used to analyze the stability of the ranking provided by the standard cross-efficiency evaluation.