Determination of radioactive pollution from an open landfill

Summary This paper presents a case study of radioactive pollution of groundwater caused by leachate from an open landfill. Alpha- and beta-radioactivity analysis of the leachate from different points in the region and associated fountain water from a village down stream were carried out during four seasons. The alpha- and beta-radioactivity concentrations were under the detection limit in all samples and ranged between 0.07 and 2.17 Bq/l, respectively. The beta-radioactivity concentration from ¹²⁹I, ¹³⁷Cs and ⁹⁰Sr individual radioisotopes were determined and their annual effective dose was calculated.     

Scintillation properties of dark hollow beams in a weak turbulent atmosphere

The on-axis scintillation index for a circular dark hollow beam (DHB) propagating in a weak turbulent atmosphere is formulated, and the scintillation properties of a DHB are investigated in detail. The scintillation index for a DHB reduces to the scintillation index for a Gaussian beam, an annular beam and a flat-topped beam under certain conditions. It is found that the scintillation index of a DHB is closely related to the beam parameters and can be lower than that of a Gaussian beam, an annular beam and a flat-topped beam in a weak turbulent atmosphere at smaller waist sizes and longer propagation lengths. PACS 42.25.Bs; 42.68.Ay     

Backtracking and exchange of information: Methods to enhance a beam search algorithm for assembly line scheduling

Beam search (BS) is used as a heuristic to solve various combinatorial optimization problems, ranging from scheduling to assembly line balancing. In this paper, we develop a backtracking and an exchange-of-information (EOI) procedure to enhance the traditional beam search method. The backtracking enables us to return to previous solution states in the search process with the expectation of obtaining better solutions. The EOI is used to transfer information accumulated in a beam to other beams to yield improved solutions.     

Stationary State Entanglement of Two Atoms Inside an Optical Cavity under Noise

In this paper, the entanglement properties of a system of two atoms inside an optical cavity in a stochastic interaction with field are studied by the Jaynes-Cummings Model. The phase telegraph noise is considered as a noise term and an exact solution to the model is obtained. The solution reveals the resulting decoherence effects of the noise on the entanglement properties of the system. It shows that under the noise the individual atoms do not entangle with the cavity field. However, a strong atom-atom entanglement is observed in a stationary state. It is seen that a relatively strong noise is cooperative in the construction of the steady state atom-atom entanglement.     

Supplier diversification under binomial yield

We consider supplier diversification in an EOQ type inventory setting with multiple suppliers and binomial yields. We characterize the optimal policy for the model and show that, in this case, it does not pay to diversify, in contrast to previous results in the random yield literature.     

Upper bounds on the coarsening rate of discrete,ill‐posed nonlinear diffusion equations

We prove a weak upper bound on the coarsening rate of the discrete‐in‐space version of an ill‐posed, nonlinear diffusion equation. The continuum version of the equation violates parabolicity and lacks a complete well‐posedness theory. In particular, numerical simulations indicate very sensitive dependence on initial data. Nevertheless, models based on its discrete‐in‐space version, which we study, are widely used in a number of applications, including population dynamics (chemotactic movement of bacteria), granular flow (formation of shear bands), and computer vision (image denoising and segmentation). Our bounds have implications for all three applications. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Mass attenuation coefficients for n-type InSe, InSe:Gd, InSe:Ho and InSe:Er single crystals

Measurements have been made to determine the mass attenuation coefficients of undoped n-type InSe, and Gd, Ho, Er doped n-InSe single crystals using a Si(Li) detector in the energy region 15.746–40.930 keV X-ray energies with energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence systems. InSe, InSe:Gd, InSe:Ho and InSe:Er single crystals were grown by using the stockbarger method. The measured values are graphically compared with the theoretical ones obtained using WinXcom.     

Novel metal complexes containing 6-methylpyridine-2-carboxylic acid as potent α-glucosidase inhibitor: synthesis,crystal structures,DFT calculations,and molecular docking

Molecular Diversity - The World Health Organization (WHO) report shows that diabetes mellitus (DM) will be one of the ten deadly diseases in the near future. The best way to prevent DM is to...     

Copper-catalyzed NH/SH functionalization: A strategy for the synthesis of benzothiadiazine derivatives

A copper-mediated NS bond-forming reaction via NH/SH activation is described. This reaction occurs under mild conditions with high efficiency, step economy, and tolerates a wide variety of functional groups, providing an efficient means of accessing biologically important 1,2,4-benzothiadiazin-3(4H)-ones.