Performance of a silicon monochromator under high heat load

The performance of a cryogenically cooled double‐crystal silicon monochromator was studied under high‐heat‐load conditions with total absorbed powers and power densities ranging from 8 to 780 W and from 8 to 240 W mm^?2, respectively. When the temperature of the first crystal is maintained close to the temperature of zero thermal expansion of silicon, the monochromator shows nearly ideal performance with a thermal slope error of 0.6 µrad. By tuning the size of the first slit, the regime of the ideal performance can be maintained over a wide range of heat loads, i.e. from power densities of 110 W mm^?2 (at total absorbed power of 510 W) to 240 W mm^?2 (at total absorbed power of 240 W).     

Metric Distance Function and Profit: Some Duality Results

In this paper, we intend to establish relations between the way efficiency is measured in the literature on efficiency analysis and the notion of distance in topology. To this effect, we are interested particularly in the Hölder norm concept, providing a duality result based upon the profit function. Along this line, we prove that the Luenberger shortage function and the directional distance function of Chambers, Chung, and Färe appear as special cases of some l _p distance (also called Hölder distance), under the assumption that the production set is convex. Under a weaker assumption (convexity of the input correspondence), we derive a duality result based on the cost function, providing several examples in which the functional form of the production set is specified.     

A remark on the energy conditions for Hawking’s area theorem

Hawking’s area theorem is a fundamental result in black hole theory that is universally associated with the null energy condition. That this condition can be weakened is illustrated by the formulation of a strengthened version of the theorem based on an energy condition that allows for violations of the null energy condition. With the semi-classical context in mind, some brief remarks pertaining to the suitability of the area theorem and its energy condition are made.     

Determination of sulbutiamine and its disulfide derivatives in human plasma by HPLC using on-line post-column reactors and fluorimetric detection

Summary A new direct HPLC procedure for the simultaneous determination of sulbutiamine (Arcalion) and other thiamine disulfides in human plasma has been developed. The method involves an automated solidphase extraction on octadecylsilyl (C18) cartridges and chromatographic separation of the compounds on an RP Select B column with gradient elution using methanol and phosphate buffer. Detection was by fluorescence of the resulting thiochromes obtained from two on-line post-column reactors. Optimization of post-column reaction parameters has been achieved. This method has been proved to be highly selective for the determination of the thiamine disulfide derivatives and quantitation limits of 5 ng·ml^–1 were obtained for each compound in human plasma. Linearity was in the range 5–200 ng·ml^–1. Precision and accuracy were also demonstrated by within-day and between-day assays, and showed the good reliability of the method.     

Single-Period Markowitz Portfolio Selection,Performance Gauging,and Duality: A Variation on the Luenberger Shortage Function

The Markowitz portfolio theory (Ref. 1) has stimulated research into the efficiency of portfolio management. This paper studies existing nonparametric efficiency measurement approaches for single-period portfolio selection from a theoretical perspective and generalizes currently used efficiency measures into the full mean-variance space. We introduce the efficiency improvement possibility function (a variation on the shortage function), study its axiomatic properties in the context of the Markowitz efficient frontier, and establish a link to the indirect mean-variance utility function. This framework allows distinguishing between portfolio efficiency and allocative efficiency; furthermore, it permits retrieving information about the revealed risk aversion of investors. The efficiency improvement possibility function provides a more general framework for gauging the efficiency of portfolio management using nonparametric frontier envelopment methods based on quadratic optimization.