Fractional damping enhances chaos in the nonlinear Helmholtz oscillator

Nonlinear Dynamics - The main purpose of this paper is to study both the underdamped and the overdamped dynamics of the nonlinear Helmholtz oscillator with a fractional-order damping. For that...     

On the Physical Origin of Long-Ranged Fluctuations in Fluids in Thermal Nonequilibrium States

Thermodynamic fluctuations in systems that are in nonequilibrium steady states are always spatially long ranged, in contrast to fluctuations in thermodynamic equilibrium. In the present paper we consider a fluid subjected to a stationary temperature gradient. Two different physical mechanisms have been identified by which the temperature gradient causes long-ranged fluctuations. One cause is the presence of couplings between fluctuating fields. Secondly, spatial variation of the strength of random forces, resulting from the local version of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, has also been shown to generate long-ranged fluctuations. We evaluate the contributions to the long-ranged temperature fluctuations due to both mechanisms. While the inhomogeneously correlated Langevin noise does lead to long-ranged fluctuations, in practice, they turn out to be negligible as compared to nonequilibrium temperature fluctuations resulting from the coupling between temperature and velocity fluctuations.     

Solving a multiobjective location routing problem with a metaheuristic based on tabu search. Application to a real case in Andalusia

In this work we present a multiobjective location routing problem and solve it with a multiobjective metaheuristic procedure. In this type of problem, we have to locate some plants within a set of possible locations to meet the demands of a number of clients with multiple objectives. This type of model is used to solve a problem with real data in the region of Andalusia (Spain). Thus, we study the location of two incineration plants for the disposal of solid animal waste from some preestablished locations in Andalusia, and design the routes to serve the different slaughterhouses in this region. This must be done while taking into account certain economic objectives (start-up, maintenance, and transport costs) and social objectives (social rejection by towns on the truck routes, maximum risk as an equity criterion, and the negative implications for towns close to the plant).     

A recursive-faulting model of distributed damage in confined brittle materials

We develop a model of distributed damage in brittle materials deforming in triaxial compression based on the explicit construction of special microstructures obtained by recursive faulting. The model aims to predict the effective or macroscopic behavior of the material from its elastic and fracture properties; and to predict the microstructures underlying the microscopic behavior. The model accounts for the elasticity of the matrix, fault nucleation and the cohesive and frictional behavior of the faults. We analyze the resulting quasistatic boundary value problem and determine the relaxation of the potential energy, which describes the macroscopic material behavior averaged over all possible fine-scale structures. Finally, we present numerical calculations of the dynamic multi-axial compression experiments on sintered aluminum nitride of Chen and Ravichandran [1994. Dynamic compressive behavior of ceramics under lateral confinement. J. Phys. IV 4, 177-182; 1996a. Static and dynamic compressive behavior of aluminum nitride under moderate confinement. J. Am. Soc. Ceramics 79(3), 579-584; 1996b. An experimental technique for imposing dynamic multiaxial compression with mechanical confinement. Exp. Mech. 36(2), 155-158; 2000. Failure mode transition in ceramics under dynamic multiaxial compression. Int. J. Fracture 101, 141-159]. The model correctly predicts the general trends regarding the observed damage patterns; and the brittle-to-ductile transition resulting under increasing confinement.     

Electrochemical determination of minoxidil in different pharmaceutical formulations by flow injection analysis.

The electrochemical behavior and amperometric-FIA quantification of minoxidil at a glassy carbon electrode is described. The procedure is based on electrochemical oxidation at 0.800 V (vs. Ag/AgCl/NaCl(3 M) in a phosphate buffer solution. Minoxidil was determined over the range 1 x 10(-7) - 1 x 10(-4) M. Different analytical parameters and electrode stability were analyzed to obtain the best electrode performance. The optimal conditions were: working potentials, 0.800 V; flow rate, 0.74 mL min(-1); and solution pH 7.0. This system allowed a sampling rate of 120 samples per hour without any pretreatment. The proposed method was used for minoxidil quantification in pharmaceutical preparations with satisfactory results. The accuracy of FIA-amperometric method was established by a comparison with the conventional UV determination technique using a paired t-test indicating the absence of systematic errors.     

Prosthetic heme modification during halide ion oxidation. Demonstration of chloride oxidation by horseradish peroxidase

Myeloperoxidase (MPO), eosinophil peroxidase (EPO), and chloroperoxidase can oxidize iodide, bromide, and chloride, but most peroxidases, including the prototypical horseradish peroxidase (HRP), reportedly only oxidize iodide and, in some cases, bromide. We report here that incubation of HRP with Br(-) and H(2)O(2) at acidic pH results in both bromination of monochlorodimedone and modification of the heme group. Mass spectrometry indicates that the heme 2- and 4-vinyl groups are modified by either replacement of a vinyl hydrogen by a bromide or addition of HOBr to give a bromohydrin. These reactions do not occur if protein-free heme and Br(-) are co-incubated with H(2)O(2) or if the HRP reaction is carried out at pH 7. Surprisingly, similar prosthetic heme modifications occur in incubations of HRP with H(2)O(2) and Cl(-). A mechanism is proposed involving oxidation of Br(-) or Cl(-) to give HOBr or HOCl, respectively, followed by addition to a vinyl group. In the reaction with Cl(-), a meso-chloro heme adduct is also formed. This first demonstration of Cl(-) oxidation by HRP, and the finding that prosthetic heme modification occurs when Br(-) or Cl(-) is oxidized in the absence of a cosubstrate, show that only modest tuning is required to achieve the unique chloride oxidation activity of MPO and EPO. The results raise the question of how the prosthetic hemes of MPO and EPO, whose function is to produce oxidized halide species, escape modification.     

Application of the Kohonen artificial neural network in the identification of proteinaceous binders in samples of panel painting using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Historically, three types of proteinaceous matter--casein, egg and animal glue--were used as binders for pigments or as adhesives in easel and wall painting. The relative percentage content of alanine, glycine, valine, leucine, isoleucine, serine, tyrosine, phenylalanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, lysine, methionine, proline and hydroxyproline, as determined by GC-MS, is used for binder identification. In this paper we analyse the viability of a multivariate modelling using Kohonen's neural network to characterise the wood adhesive in 16 old samples from Italian panel paintings of the 12-16th centuries. As a training set we use the amino acid composition of 141 samples contributed by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure of Florence (Cultural Heritage Ministry, Italy). Of the 141 samples, 113 were used to train the Kohonen neural network and the remaining 28 as the evaluation set. A specificity and sensitivity of 100% was achieved in training and 92-100% in prediction depending on the assignation criteria employed. The neural network thus trained and evaluated was applied to the old samples, achieving identification of all of them. In addition, the map obtained for each amino acid provides relevant information as to its importance in the characterisation of the sample.     

Estimation of the size of liposomes by modified HDC

Internal calibration in modified hydrodynamic chromatography has been realized by the approach of Prieve and Hoysan, i.e. the use of polystyrene monodisperse latexes to evaluate the equivalent capillary radius, R. The value obtained has been used to estimate the average sizes of a variety of liposome samples from egg yolk lecithin.