New Raman Spectroscopic Data of the Almahata Sitta Meteorite

The archaeological site of Pintia (Padilla de Duero/Peñafiel, Valladolid), considered one of the first cities on the Iberian Peninsula, has yielded very interesting archaeological records regarding the different functional areas that involve the oppidum. Pottery, metal, and bone/skeletal remains are very well preserved, being optimal for analysis and study of the ancient food contained, such as milk-based products, animal fats, beer, and wine. The combination of Raman Microscopy (RM) with other analytical techniques such as Light Microscopy (LM) and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (ESEM-EDX) becomes a powerful tool to obtain information on the possible content in the ceramic receptacles from historical-archaeological heritage. It can lead to an interpretation of their specific use or functionality. In this work, a unique sample preparation was used for all techniques, which lead to a very simple procedure and documentation. The degradation and aging of natural fibers and the presence of organic matter with low crystallinity and calcium oxalate–related residuals can be studied by these combined techniques. The archaeological residuals can be separated from modern contamination coming from agriculture processes, surrounding land minerals, or fresh vegetal matter.     

Gas chromatographic determination of aromatic amines in water samples after solid-phase extraction and derivatization with iodine: I. Derivatization

A new method for the selective determination of aromatic amines is presented, which is based on the solid-phase extraction at pH 9 and subsequent derivatization of the analytes to the corresponding iodobenzenes. These can selectively and sensitively be determined with gas chromatography and electron-capture detection. Separation of at least 30 compounds in a single chromatographic run in 30 min is possible. With this method, 56 aromatic amines were investigated, and only in six cases no derivatives were obtained. Limits of quantitation were between 0.5 and 8 μg l⁻¹, but may still be lowered with higher sample volumes or different injection techniques. The application to water samples revealed the suitability for the investigation of ground, leachate and wastewater.     

Structure and methyl groups internal rotation of difluorodimethylsilane

The rotational spectra of the normal and ¹³C isotopomers of difluorodimethylsilane have been measured by molecular beam Fourier-transform microwave (FTMW) and free-jet absorption millimeter-wave (FJ-AMMW) spectroscopy. Each rotational transition is split into several component lines due to the two methyl groups internal rotations. The corresponding V₃ barrier has been determined to be 5.256(3) kJ mol⁻¹. A r₀ structure of the heavy atoms skeleton has been obtained. The silicon atom lies—accidentally—on the center of mass of the molecule.     

Convergence conditions for restarted conjugate gradient methods with inaccurate line searches

Convergence properties of restarted conjugate gradient methods are investigated for the case where the usual requirement that an exact line search be performed at each iteration is relaxed.The objective function is assumed to have continuous second derivatives and the eigenvalues of the Hessian are assumed to be bounded above and below by positive constants. It is further assumed that a Lipschitz condition on the second derivatives is satisfied at the location of the minimum.A class of descent methods is described which exhibitn-step quadratic convergence when restarted even though errors are permitted in the line search. It is then shown that two conjugate gradient methods belong to this class.Sponsored by the United States Army under Contract No. DA-31-124-ARO-D-462.     

Expansions and penultimate distributions of maxima of bivariate normal random vectors

It is well known that the marginal maxima of n$n$ standard normal random vectors with correlation coefficient ρ<1$\rho <1$ are asymptotically independent. In this article, the residual dependence will be captured by asymptotic expansions and certain penultimate distributions including the case where ρ(n)↑1$\rho \left(n\right)\uparrow 1$ at a certain rate.