Non-aqueous spectrophotometric determination of citric acid

A non-aqueous spectrophotometric method is described for the determination of citric acid in the presence of carboxylic acids and lactic acid. The method was developed as a result of critical evaluation of the Furth-Herrmann color reaction in a non-aqueous pyridine-acetic anhydride solution. The optimum conditions are described. The absorbance is read at 389 ± 2 mμ. The minimum concentration of citric acid that can accurately be determined is about 2 μg per sample.     

Electron paramagnetic resonance study of partially oriented clay platelets intercalated with copper(II) 1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra of powder and oriented films of montmorillonite, hectorite, and saponite intercalated with [Cu(cyclam)](2+) (cyclam = 1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradecane) exhibit three components: an orientation-dependent component without hyperfine features, an orientation-dependent component with hyperfine features, and an orientation-independent component without hyperfine feature. EPR spectra of [Cu(cyclam)](2+)-saponite, which exhibit only two components and the best resolved hyperfine features, were simulated. The spectra indicate that a large portion of the saponite platelets are inclined to the glass surface, although they tend to align with their basal planes parallel to the glass surface. The orientation-dependent spectra could be simulated by introducing a Gaussian distribution with a standard deviation of 20 degrees for the inclination angle. The standard deviation may be used as a disorder parameter for the microcrystals assembled on glass plates. Spectral simulation also shows that the CuN(4) plane of [Cu(cyclam)](2+) is parallel to the clay layers. EPR spectra of some other partially oriented systems are also discussed.     

Trivalent atom contribution on solid-solid transformation of Ga13 polycation intercalated clay into sodalite investigated by X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Solid-solid transformation mechanism of Ga Keggin-type ion intercalated clay into sodalite has been clarified by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FT-IR spectroscopy, and X-rayabsorption spectroscopy (XAS). To follow the structural evolution precisely by XANES and EXAFS, the XAS active element containing polycation [Ga13O4(OH)24(H2O)12]7+ was intercalated into montmorillonite (MMT). FT-IR and XAS spectra confirm that the formation of sodalite framework is initiated by the delocalized rearrangement between silicate networks and collapsed interlayered Ga species, and is followed by the incorporation of Al in the octahedral sheet of clay (MMT). According to the XAS studies, it is found that the formation of Ga(Al)-O-Si species is strongly influenced by the trivalent cations, which are rapidly changed in the environment, followed by reaction with the silicate network of clay during the solid-solid transformation.     

Quantitative determination of glucose in blood plasma by homonuclear proton decoupled water attenuation transverse relaxation Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (WATR-HDCPMG) NMR spectroscopy

Glucose in 5% D₂O/95% H₂O solution was successfully determined quantitatively by measurements of the ¹H NMR peak height (intensity) of the single peaks at δ(¹H) = 5.22 and 4.64 ppm corresponding to the α-D and the β-D-glucose spectrum, respectively. The single peaks were obtained from decoupling of the high field part of the AX spectrum of the α-D- or the β-D-glucose by incorporation of time shared homonuclear decoupling in the WATR-CPMG method (WATR-HDCPMG) without re-attenuation of the water peak. The method was applied to the determination of total glucose in blood plasma from human subjects undergoing oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in the teaching hospital. The results compared favorably with those obtained from the standard glucose oxidase method obtained in a hospital pathology laboratory. The accuracy of the results obtained using the WATR-HDCPMG method was within 3.5% of the glucose oxidation method.     

Weakly compact operators on function spaces

S — E, F — . C(S, E) S E. : C(S, E) F C(S) . , C(S, E) C(S).     

Thermal conductivity of oriented crystalline polymers

Thermal conductivities of six oriented semicrystalline polymers which range from 0.37 to 0.63 in crystallinity and 1 to 5 in draw ratio λ (up to about 15 for two polymers) have been measured between 100 and 340 K. It was found that for increasing λ the conductivity K_∥ (along the draw direction n?) increases rapidly while K_⊥ (normal to n?) decreases slightly; K_∥ also increases with temperature, but K_⊥ shows no simple pattern in temperature dependence. These general features can be reproduced reasonably well at low draw ratio (λ < 5) by the modified Maxwell model, and the discrepancy in details may be attributed to the fact that the model does not take into account the possible anisotropy of the amorphous phase of the oriented polymers. At high draw ratio the intercrystalline bridge effect becomes important, and one must resort to the Takayanagi model, but the lack of corroborating x-ray data has rendered a detailed comparison impossible.     

Sorption and diffusion of toluene in isotropic and oriented linear polyethylene

Sorption and diffusion of toluene vapor in linear polyethylene with mass-fraction crystallinity between 0.48 and 0.82 and draw ratios λ up to 10 have been studied at 30°C. The sorbed concentration in the amorphous phase C_a is little affected by crystallinity, indicating that the free-volume fraction is roughly the same for all isotropic samples. However, the diffusion path becomes more tortuous with increasing crystalline content, thereby leading to a sixfold drop in the zero-concentration diffusion coefficient D₀. Drawing has more drastic effects, reducing C_a and D₀ by factors of 4 and 60, respectively, as λ increases to 10. These large changes result from the transformation of the initially spherulitic material into a fibrous structure, which is composed of aligned microfibrils with taut tie molecules lying on the outer boundaries. The effects of crystallinity and orientation on the concentration dependence of the diffusion coefficient are also discussed.     

Effect of bias field on the dielectric properties of 0.7Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.3PbTiO3 single crystals with different orientations

Microdomain-macrodomain transformations and phase transitions in 0.7Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-0.3PbTiO₃ single crystals were investigated by studying their relative permittivity under various dc bias at constant heating and cooling rates. The orientation dependence of the bias field effect was revealed by examining the temperature dependence of relative permittivity as a function of crystal orientation (the 111, 011 and 001 directions) and dc bias field. The crystals have a microdomain rhombohedral ferroelectric state in the ferroelectric phase under zero dc bias. External bias field could modulate the domain state and induce a macrodomain state in the crystals. Also, it is proposed that the dc bias applied along the 001 or 011 direction could induce a tetragonal ferroelectric phase or an orthorhombic ferroelectric phase, respectively, in an intermediate temperature range. PACS 77.80.-e; 77.22.-d; 81.40.-z     

Public-key encryption based on generalized synchronization of coupled map lattices

Currently used public-key cryptosystems are based on difficulties in solving certain numeric theoretic problems, in which the way to predict the private key from the knowledge of the public key is computationally infeasible. Here we propose a method of constructing public-key cryptosystems by generalized synchronization of coupled map lattices, in which the difficulty in predicting the synchronous function is used as the trap-door function to deduce the private key from the public key. In specific, we implement this idea on the method of "Merkle's puzzles," and find that, incorporated with the chaotic dynamics, this traditional method is equipped with some new features and can be practical in certain situations.