Particle Characterization by Projected Area Determination

The projected areas of non-spherical particles do not represent an unambiguous particle characteristic. Depending on the orientation towards a constant observational direction, different projected areas result. The spectrum of all projected area values of a particle, if determined representatively, gives the probability with which a certain value is obtained by a single measurement. In this work, the frequency distributions of different examples of test objects were both calculated and measured. The objects were a cube, a rectangular parallelepiped and also three model agglomerates consisting of spheres of the same size. Instead of just one projected area, during each measuring procedure three projected areas from three orthogonal directions can be obtained. A mean value is then calculated to reduce the ambiguity of the particle characteristic and enhance the resolution. A suitable measurement set-up is introduced. The results of calculation and measurement are compared for observation from just one direction and also simultaneous observation from three directions. The frequency distributions of the equivalent diameters of the particle projected areas show a characteristic trend of the total curve with remarkable properties. The simultaneous measurement of three values from mutually orthogonal directions and their mean value calculation result in a much narrower distribution. In this case, a non-sphericity factor can additionally be calculated, whose frequency distribution contains information in a characteristic manner about the degree to which the particle shape differs from a sphere.     

Some Decidability and Undecidability Results on Green's Relations for Automatic Monoids

We consider the problem of deciding Green's relations for various types of finitely presented automatic monoids. We establish some decidability as well as some undecidability results.     

Runge–Kutta Methods for Itô Stochastic Differential Equations with Scalar Noise

A general class of stochastic Runge–Kutta methods for Itô stochastic differential equation systems w.r.t. a one-dimensional Wiener process is introduced. The colored rooted tree analysis is applied to derive conditions for the coefficients of the stochastic Runge–Kutta method assuring convergence in the weak sense with a prescribed order. Some coefficients for new stochastic Runge–Kutta schemes of order two are calculated explicitly and a simulation study reveals their good performance.     

Second order Runge–Kutta methods for Stratonovich stochastic differential equations

The weak approximation of the solution of a system of Stratonovich stochastic differential equations with a m–dimensional Wiener process is studied. Therefore, a new class of stochastic Runge–Kutta methods is introduced. As the main novelty, the number of stages does not depend on the dimension m of the driving Wiener process which reduces the computational effort significantly. The colored rooted tree analysis due to the author is applied to determine order conditions for the new stochastic Runge–Kutta methods assuring convergence with order two in the weak sense. Further, some coefficients for second order stochastic Runge–Kutta schemes are calculated explicitly. AMS subject classification (2000)  65C30, 65L06, 60H35, 60H10     

A new group of fluorescent pH-indicators for an extended pH-range

Summary The pH versus fluorescence intensity profiles of a series of new pH-indicators are reported. They are characterized by two pK_a-values in the 3.7–4.9 and 6.9–7.9 range, respectively. The strong change in fluorescence intensity with pH allows the determination of pH's over a much wider range (typically 2–9) than with one-step indicators. They are therefore considered to be of potential utility for measurement of pH over the neutral and slightly acidity range which occurs, for instance, in bioliquids such as urine.

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Eine neue Gruppe fluorescierender pH-Indicatoren für einen erweiterten pH-Bereich

Zusammenfassung Die Fluorescenzintensitätsprofile als Funktion des pH-Wertes einer Reihe von neuen pH-Indicatoren werden untersucht. Sie sind charakterisiert durch zwei pK_a-Werte im Bereich 3,7–4,9 bzw. 6,9–7,9. Die gefundene starke Änderung der Fluorescenzintensität mit dem pH-Wert erlaubt eine pH-Bestimmung über einen viel weiteren Bereich (typischerweise 2 – 9) als mit einstufigen Indicatoren. Aus diesem Grund werden sie als potentiell nützlich angesehen zur Messung von pH-Werten im neutralen und schwach sauren Bereich, wie er z.B. in biologischen Flüssigkeiten, etwa im Urin, gegeben ist.