Raman studies of molten salt hydrates: the beryllium and aluminium nitrate-water systems

Raman spectra of the liquid systems Be(NO₃)₂ · 20H₂O, Be(NO₃)₂ · 4H₂O, Al(NO₃)₃·20H₂O, and Al(NO₃)₃ · 9H₂O have been recorded. The spectra are analysed in terms of vibrational modes arising from water, the nitrate ion, the aquated metal ions and hydrolysis products. For the concentrated beryllium system, though not for the aluminium system, the spectra suggest a significant degree of proton transfer from [Be(OH₂)₄]²⁺ to NO₃^?. Solvent-separated metal-nitrate ion pairs appear to be present in all the systems studied.     

Determination of aluminium in blood plasma or serum by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

A carbon-furnace atomic absorption method is used to determine aluminium in blood serum or plasma, diluted (1 + 2) with purified water prior to injection (20 μl) into the furnace. Procedures are described to reduce contamination during sample collection, storage and preparation of samples. A study of the interferences of inorganic ions shows that the temperature programme developed minimises these, allowing the use of aqueous standards for calibration. Ashing at 1400°C, prior to atomisation, also removes non-specific background effects, and optical correction is not required. A sample throughput of 50 duplicate analyses per day is possible and the precision (between batch) at 24 μg Al l^-1 was 11.2% (n = 10) and at 340 μg Al l^-1 was 6.3% (n = 18). Down to 4 μg Al l^-1 can be determined. Reference values for a healthy population were 4.1–20 μg Al l^-1 (mean 10.2).     

Recombination of carbon monoxide and oxygen atoms

The recombination of carbon monoxide and oxygen atoms was studied in reflected shock waves in H₂:O₂:CO:Ar = 0.1:1:24:75 with 1300 < T₅ 2200 K and 2 < P₅ < 4 atm. Reaction progress was monitored by observations of the carbon monoxide flame spectrum near 435 nm and carbon dioxide thermal emission near 4.2 μm. Data analysis was accomplished with the aid of computer modeling using a 27-reaction mechanism. Computer modeling experiments also showed that these measurements were sensitive primarily to the rate of the reaction CO + O + M = CO₂ + M and only slightly sensitive to the rates of other reactions. The best fit to the data was achieved with a rate constant for this reaction of 7.7 × 10^?35 exp[19 kJ/RT] cm⁶ s for the temperature range of these experiments. Correlation of this result and previous data covering the temperature range 250 < T < 11,000 K confirms that this recombination reaction is governed by a nonadiabatic curve crossing with an activation barrier of about 20 kJ and subsequent deactivation of a singlet CO₂ molecule.     

Graph-theoretic techniques for macromolecular docking

We propose a solution to the problem of docking two macromolecules. We represent each of two proteins as a set of potential hydrogen bond donors and acceptors and use a clique-detection algorithm to find maximally complementary sets of donor/acceptor pairs. Preliminary results are presented which demonstrate the feasibility of the method.     

Imprimitive distance-regular graphs and projective planes

We investigate a class of (imprimitive) covering graphs Γ of complete bipartite graphs K_k,k and show that they are in one-to-one correspondence with triples (P, l, P), where P is a projective plane of order k and (l, P) is a distinguished flag of P. If Γ is distance-transitive, then P ? l is a self-dual rank three translation plane and may be coordinatised by a semifield.     

Homogeneoys graphs

Let Γ be a finite graph with vertex set VΓ, and let U, V be arbitrary subsets of VΓ. Γ is homogeneoys (resp. ultrahomogeneous) if whenever the induced subgraphs 〈U〉, 〈V〉 are isomorphic, some isomorphism (resp. every isomorphism) of 〈U〉 onto 〈V〉 extends to an automorphism of Γ. We extend a theorem of Sheehan on ultrahomogeneous graphs to the homogeneous case, and complete his classification of ultrahomogenous graphs.     

Asymptotic normality of a variance estimator of a linear combination of a function of order statistics

Summary An estimator of the asymptotic variance of (a randomly stopped) linear combination of a function of order statistics is considered and its asymptotic normality is studied under appropriate regularity conditions. A comparative study of the regularity conditions pertaining to the asymptotic normality and strong convergence of linear combinations of functions of order statistics and their estimated asymptotic variances is also made.Research supported by the Office of Naval Research under ONR Contract N00014-79-C-0522This research is dedicated to Professor Leopold Schmetterer on the occasion of his 60th birthday