Costas Soukoulis: An outline of his research work

I present a summary of Costas Soukoulis' research work and I point out the most significant of his contributions. His recent work on the Casimir interaction, in which I was involved, is summarized.     

Comparison of solid-phase extraction sorbents for the fractionation and determination of important free and glycosidically-bound varietal aroma compounds in wines by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A critical comparison was made of seven solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbents for the fractionation and isolation of 21 important free and glycosidically-bound varietal volatile aroma compounds. The sample was subjected to SPE and the free aromatics were eluted with dichloromethane followed by elution of the glucoconjugates with methanol; after fractionation, the free fraction was analyzed directly by GC-MS while the sugar-bound fraction was enzymatically hydrolyzed to liberate the free compounds before analysis by GC-MS. The extraction efficiency for the free compounds was evaluated based on the analytes’ signal recovery and for the glycosidically-bound compounds in terms of the relative peak areas. The best results for both the free and bound fractions were obtained with the Isolute ENV+ resin. Following selection of the most efficient SPE material, a GC-MS method was validated (in terms of selectivity, linearity, limits of detection (LODs) and limits of quantification (LOQs), recovery, repeatability, within-laboratory reproducibility and uncertainty) for the quantitative determination of the free primary volatiles in white wines. Validation results are presented at 4 fortification levels (10, 50, 200 and 500 μL^?1). Regarding linearity, the correlation coefficient of the matrix-matched calibration plots was ≥0.99 for all the compounds. The LOQs were in the range 0.6–17.5 μg L^?1. Recoveries ranged from 61% to 120% while the% relative standard deviation of the within-laboratory reproducibility was in the range 1.3% to 17.7%. Finally, the% expanded uncertainty ranged from 3.1% to 40.3%. The method has been successfully applied to the analysis of 20 white wine samples.      

Algorithmic approximations for the busy period distribution of the M/M/c retrial queue

In this paper we deal with the main multiserver retrial queue of M/M/c type with exponential repeated attempts. This model is known to be analytically intractable due to the spatial heterogeneity of the underlying Markov chain, caused by the retrial feature. For this reason several models have been proposed for approximating its stationary distribution, that lead to satisfactory numerical implementations. This paper extends these studies by developing efficient algorithmic procedures for calculating the busy period distribution of the main approximation models of Wilkinson [Wilkinson, R.I., 1956. Theories for toll traffic engineering in the USA, The Bell System Technical Journal 35, 421–514], Falin [Falin, G.I., 1983. Calculations of probability characteristics of a multiline system with repeated calls, Moscow University Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics 1, 43–49] and Neuts and Rao [Neuts, M.F., Rao, B.M., 1990. Numerical investigation of a multiserver retrial model, Queueing Systems 7, 169–190]. Moreover, we develop stable recursive schemes for the computation of the busy period moments. The corresponding distributions for the total number of customers served during a busy period are also studied. Several numerical results illustrate the efficiency of the methods and reveal interesting facts concerning the behavior of the M/M/c retrial queue.     

Editorial for Focus Issue on Enabling Science and Technology for High-Speed Optical Communications

<正>Fiber optics underpins the communications infrastructure for the information society today. Cables consisting of hair-like fibers speed data around the globe in the form of rapid pulses of light. Modern telecom     

Nonlinear polarization effects and mitigation in polarization-division-multiplexed coherent transmission systems

Using numerical simulations, the nonlinear transmission performance of polarization-division-multiplexed quadrature-phase-shift-keying （PDM-QPSK） coherent systems is studied. It is found that inter-channel cross-polarization modulation （XPolM） induced nonlinear polarization scattering can significantly degrade the transmission performance of PDM-QPSK coherent systems and change the perspective of dispersion management in optical coherent transmission systems. Some techniques to mitigate nonlinear polarization scattering in dispersion-managed PDM coherent transmission systems are discussed, including the use of time-interleaved return-to-zero （RZ） PDM formats, the use of periodic-group-delay PGD dispersion compensators, and the judicious addition of some polarization-mode-dispersion （PMD） in the transmission link. It is shown that if nonlinear polarization scattering can be well mitigated, a polarization multiplexed optical coherent transmission system with dispersion management could perform better than that without it.     

Electronic localization in disordered systems

A brief review is given of the current understanding of the electronic structure, transport properties and the nature of the electronic states in disordered systems. A simple explanation for the observed exponential behaviour in the density of states (Urbach tails) based on short-range Gaussian fluctuations is presented. The theory of Anderson localization in a disordered system is reviewed. Basic concepts, and the physics underlying the effects of weak localization, are discussed. The scaling as well as the self-consistent theory of localization are briefly reviewed. It is then argued that the problem of localization in a random potential within the so-called ladder approximation is formally equivalent to the problem of finding a bound state in a shallow potential well. Therefore all states are exponentially localized in d=1 and d=2. The fractal nature of the states is also discussed. Scaling properties in highly anisotropic systems are also discussed. A brief presentation of the recently observed metal-to-insulator transition in dequals;2 is given and, finally, a few remarks about interaction effects in disordered systems are presented.