Homogeneity and Curvatures of Geodesic Spheres

We study some scalar curvature invariants on geodesic spheres and use them to characterize several kinds of Riemannian manifolds such as homogenous manifolds and in particular, the two-point homogeneous spaces and the Damek-Ricci spaces.     

Broadening compensation for ultrashort pulses in photonic crystals

Extremely large group velocity dispersion of both signs can be achieved at the band edges of guided modes in photonic crystal waveguides. The selection of a proper value and sign of this parameter allows the design of short-length waveguides to compensate for pulse broadening. This pulse broadening can be caused, for instance, when a photonic crystal delay line is introduced. We present a theoretical study of the possibilities of using photonic crystal waveguides as intra-circuital dispersion compensation elements for ultrashort pulses, so the width of a transmitted pulse can be reduced. However, we also demonstrate that recovering the original pulse shape is not possible for these large-bandwidth pulses due to higher-order dispersion terms.     

Local Isoperimetric Inequalities for Sectors on Surfaces and Cones

On surfaces we give conditions under which the solution of a restricted local isoperimetric problem for sectors with small solid angle is the circular sector and we characterize these surfaces. Also we study this problem for general spherical cones on hypersurfaces in higher dimensional Riemannian manifolds.     

Chemiluminescent determination of the pesticide bromoxynil by on-line photodegradation in a flow-injection system.

A new, robust and simple method is proposed for the chemiluminescent determination of the pesticide Bromoxynil. The empirical procedure is performed with the aid of a flow-injection manifold provided with an on-line photo-reactor to obtain chemiluminescent photofragments. After a period of 12 s of irradiation with an 8 W low-pressure mercury lamp, a chemiluminescent oxidation was performed with the system potassium permanganate in a polyphosphoric acid medium. The photolysis required a basic medium (KOH 0.014 mol l(-1)) with ethanol (1%) as a sensitizer. The method allowed the determination of 134 samples (h-1) of Bromoxynil in a wide interval of concentrations, over the range 5 x 10(-3) - 1 mg l(-1); the detection limit was 5 x 10(-3) mg l(-1). The RSD (n=24) at 0.25 mg l(-1) of the pesticide level was 2.3%. The method was applied to a water sample and to a formulation.     

TiO2-based photocatalysts impregnated with metallo-porphyrins employed for degradation of 4-nitrophenol in aqueous solutions: role of metal and macrocycle

Photodegradation of organic compounds in water solutions by means of economically advantageous and environment-friendly processes is a topic of growing interest. In recent years a great attention has been devoted to TiO₂-based photocatalysts for the oxidative degradation of various organic pollutants. In this context, we have prepared new photo-catalytic polycrystalline TiO₂ systems impregnated with sensitizers, i.e., copper, iron or manganese porphyrins, and investigated their photoactivity for 4-nitrophenol oxidation compared with that of bare TiO₂. A significant improvement of the photoreactivity was observed in the case of TiO₂ impregnated with copper porphyrin, while only a slight beneficial effect was observed in the case of iron porphyrin. In contrast, the presence of manganese porphyrin appeared to be detrimental.     

Evaluating Individual Market Power in Electricity Markets via Agent-Based Simulation

We use agent-based simulation in a coordination game to analyse the possibility of market power abuse in a competitive electricity market. The context of this was a real application to the England and Wales electricity market as part of a Competition Commission Inquiry into whether two particular generators could profitably influence wholesale prices. The research contributions of this paper are both in the areas of market power and market design policy issues for electricity markets, and in the methodological use of large industry-wide evolutionary simulation models.