Extrusion of pastes with a piston extruder for the determination of the local solid and fluid concentration, the local porosity and saturation and displacement profiles by means of NMR imaging

 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) was used to investigate the extrusion behaviour of PTFE pastes in a ram extruder. By means of ¹H-NMR imaging (MRI) it is possible to determine the local proton density and therefore, the local fluid concentration. The ¹⁹F-MRI provides the local solid concentration. Thus the local saturation and the local porosity can be calculated with the information of the local fluid and solid concentration. Furthermore displacement profiles can be derived from NMR images by means of correlation techniques without any preparation or marking of the pastes. Received: 8 May 2000   Accepted: 1 May 2001     

Theory of interfacial phase transitions in surfactant systems

The spin-1 Ising model, which is equivalent to the three-component lattice gas model, is used to study wetting transitions in three-component surfactant systems consisting of an oil, water, and a nonionic surfactant. Phase equilibria, interfacial profiles, and interfacial tensions for three-phase equilibrium are determined in mean field approximation, for a wide range of temperature and interaction parameters. Surfactant interaction parameters are found to strongly influence interfacial tensions, reducing them in some cases to ultralow values. Interfacial tensions are used to determine whether the middle phase, rich in surfactant, wets or does not wet the interface between the oil-rich and water-rich phases. By varying temperature and interaction parameters, a wetting transition is located and found to be of the first order. Comparison is made with recent experimental results on wetting transitions in ternary surfactant systems.This paper is dedicated to J. K. Percus in honor of his 65th birthday.     

Application of stochastic optimal control to the suboptimal design of thrust-mass profiles

Stochastic optimal control techniques are applied to compare the performance of identical medium-range air-to-air missiles which have different thrust-mass profiles. The measure of the performance is the probability of reaching a lock-on-point with a favorable range of guidance and flight parameters, during a fixed time interval [0,t _f ], given that, during the flight, the trajectories of the missile are subjected to a variety of constraints including dynamic pressure constraints.     

Mathematical modeling of two-photon thermal fields in laser–solid interaction

In this paper, we have developed an analytical model to study the temperature distributions in IR optical materials heated by laser pulses. Our model takes into account the two-photon absorption (TPA). The calculations are based on a three-dimensional model of heat diffusion in solids using the integral transform method. We find out the rigorous analytical expression of the thermal field when one considers both one- and two-photon absorption. The model is valid for any laser–solid system whose interaction can be described by the generalized Beer–Lambert law. Specific results are presented for an application of the model to ZnSe sample. We find out that TPA can produce detectable temperature variation.     

Corner spontaneous magnetization

Details are given of a new method allowing an exact calculation of the spontaneous magnetization in the corner as well as along the edge at an arbitrary distance of the corner for a rectangular planar Ising ferromagnet.     

A graph-theoretic approach to modeling metabolic pathways

Summary The metabolic pathways of medazepam, oxazepam, and diazepam were modeled using graph-theoretic transforms which are incorporable into computer-assisted metabolic analysis programs. The information, represented in the form of a graph-theoretic transform kit, which was obtained from these pathways was then used to predict the metabolites of other benzodiazepine compounds. The transform kits gave statistically significant predictions with respect to a statistical method for evaluating the performance of the transform kits.     

The role of TLC in the screening of inherited metabolic diseases

Summary Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) is a rapid, reliable and inexpensive screening technique for diagnosis of inherited metabolic diseases (IMD). Our screening program encompasses five main situations where the use of TLC is considered to be vindicated: (i) analysis of amino acids; (ii) screening for sugar defects; (iii) detection of pathological oligosaccharidurias; (iv) screening for organic acid disorders; and (v) detection of abnormalities in tryptophan metabolism. Examples are presented of chromatograms obtained from pathological samples. Presented at the 21^st ISC held in Stuttgart, Germany, 15^th–20^th September, 1996     

Interpretation of the Metabolic Enthalpy Change, ΔHmet,Calculated for Microbial Growth Reactions in Soils

The microcalorimetric method was used to calculate the metabolic enthalpy change per mol of glucose degraded by soil microorganisms, ΔH _met. This parameter has been calculated by microcalorimetry for many organic, inorganic and biochemical reactions, but there is only some information about its quantification for microbial growth reactions in soils. Values of ΔH _met were calculated for different soil samples collected in Galicia (Spain) and Campinas (Săo Paolo, Brazil). Exponential microbial growth was stimulated in all soil samples by the addition of glucose and power-time curves were recorded. Results showed changes in the values of ΔH _met calculated for all the soil samples, suggesting a dependence of this value with the microbial growth rate constant, with the percentage of growth, with the initial number of microorganisms of soil samples, with the quantity of glucose added and with the strain of bacteria growing in soil. The interpretation of variations of ΔH _met provides important qualitative and quantitative information. It reports data that allow to interpret from a qualitative point of view, the increase in biomass as a consequence of the degradation of the organic matter in soil, to understand changes in the percentages of soil organic matter and to know if the microbial population growing in differential soil samples is homogeneous. Therefore, to report that value would be very important in ecological studies, but beforehand, it is necessary to solve some problems that can appear in the experiments done to make the quantification . This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

生物催化在绿色化学和新药开发中的应用

近年来生物技术领域有了突破性进展，如: 公共基因数据库(GenBank)和蛋白质数据库(PDB)中序列的指数增长，高效基因克隆和表达平台的建立，可有效改进生物催化剂专一性、选择性和稳定性的酶定向进化技术的应用。这些进展使生物催化在化学合成中日趋重要[1]。本文综述了生物催化在如下领域的成功应用：在药物生产中用于开发经济的化学酶法合成工艺，在绿色化学领域中最大程度的减少废物的产生和危险试剂的应用，在天然化学领域中对天然产物进行修饰以发现具有更好生物活性的新药物。     

Objective comparison of concentration profiles in solids by means of mathematical statistics

To compare concentration profiles in solids in an objective manner, a multi-dimensional generalization of the comparison of two means by Student'st-test is proposed. The approach is based on piecewise modelling the profiles using rougha priori information, estimating the model parameters and their covariance matrix and comparing the estimated parameters by use of multidimensional test variables. The piecewise modelling is treated in the most important cases in such a way that the partial functions are straight lines or cubic polynoms (splines) with continuity at all knots in each case. It enables us to compare whole profiles as well as the most relevant parts of them. Two ways of estimating the covariance matrix as a generalization of the variance estimation are discussed. The approach is useful for any kind of line profiles if rough information on the profile type is available. As an example SIMS depth-profiles of aluminum obtained from thin-layer systems after different technological heat treatments are considered. These profiles are modeled by three straight lines.