Performance evaluation of fiber Bragg grating sensors by digital holographic technique, strain gauge measurement

In view of the growing interest for non-destructive tests of materials, geodynamical monitoring and in general remote sensing, there is a great effort to bring practical optical sensors from research labs to industrial and environmental applications. In this paper, we employ digital holographic technique as an efficient tool for evaluating the strain measurement capability of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG). A cantilever beam has been employed as a test structure under loading test. The strain measurements results obtained by fiber-based sensors have been compared to those obtained by using full-field digital holographic technique and point-wise strain gauge sensors glued on the same cantilever beam. A simple theoretical model is also presented to interpret and compare the experimental results coming from different techniques.     

Symmetries of BLT-Sets

We do the tentative beginnings of a study of BLT-sets of generalised quadrangles via their symmetries. In particular, the study of whorls about a line leads us to hyperbolic reflections preserving a BLT-set of Q(4, q).     

A remark on Serrin’s Theorem

An approximation theorem for families of weakly coercive convex functions by means of countably many smooth families of convex functions is proved. As a consequence, the classical “three-fold” lower semicontinuity theorem for integral functionals of the Calculus of Variations by James Serrin is unified in one single statement.     

The Nature of Community OR

This paper outlines the results of a study undertaken to investigate the nature of Community Operational Research (COR). The objective was to contact the people involved in COR through a series of personal interviews and a questionnaire survey, in order to clarify many of the issues that have emerged within the profession relating to the practice of OR within the community and voluntary sector. A total of 20 individuals were successfully contacted, and they have been responsible for at least two-thirds of the projects in the COR area.     

Stable hysteretic reflection of light at a nonlinear interface

We have observed a hysteretic (bistable) reflection of a Gaussian laser beam at the interface between glass and a liquid solution of polystyrene microspheres as nonlinear medium with both branches of the hysteretic curve being stable, in contrast to the results of previous experiments.     

Partial regularity for minimisers of certain functionals having nonquadratic growth

We prove partial regularity results for local minimisers of

Fullerohelicates: a new class of fullerene-containing supermolecules

A multicomponent array made of a bis-copper(I) helicate core and two peripheral fullerene subunits has been prepared and electron transfer from the photoexcited Cu(I)-complexed unit to C60 occurs.     

Structure‐Dependent Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Fullerodendrimers with Light‐Harvesting Oligophenylenevinylene Terminals

Oligophenylenevinylene (OPV)‐terminated phenylenevinylene dendrons G1 – G4 with one, two, four, and eight “side‐arms”, respectively, were prepared and attached to C₆₀ by a 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides generated in situ from dendritic aldehydes and N‐methylglycine. The relative electronic absorption of the OPV moiety increases progressively along the fullerodendrimer family C₆₀G1 – C₆₀G4 , reaching a 99:1 ratio for C₆₀G4 (antenna effect). UV/Vis and near‐IR luminescence and transient absorption spectroscopy was used to elucidate photoinduced energy and electron transfer in C₆₀G1 – C₆₀G4 as a function of OPV moiety size and solvent polarity (toluene, dichloromethane, benzonitrile), taking into account the fact that the free‐energy change for electron transfer is the same along the series owing to the invariability of the donor–acceptor couple. Regardless of solvent, all the fullerodendrimers exhibit ultrafast OPV→C₆₀ singlet energy transfer. In CH₂Cl₂, the OPV→C₆₀ electron transfer from the lowest fullerene singlet level (¹C₆₀*) is slightly exergonic (ΔG_CS≈0.07 eV), but is observed, to an increasing extent, only in the largest systems C₆₀G2 – C₆₀G4 with lower activation barriers for electron transfer. This effect has been related to a decrease of the reorganization energy upon enlargement of the molecular architecture. Structural factors are also at the origin of an unprecedented OPV→C₆₀ electron transfer observed for C₆₀G3 and C₆₀G4 in apolar toluene, whereas in benzonitrile, electron transfer occurs in all cases. Monitoring of the lowest fullerene triplet state by sensitized singlet oxygen luminescence and transient absorption spectroscopy shows that this level is populated through intersystem crossing and is not involved in photoinduced electron transfer.     

Dirac's aether in relativistic quantum mechanics

The introduction by Dirac of a new aether model based on a stochastic covariant distribution of subquantum motions (corresponding to a vacuum state alive with fluctuations and randomness) is discussed with respect to the present experimental and theoretical discussion of nonlocality in EPR situations. It is shown (1) that one can deduce the de Broglie waves as real collective Markov processes on the top of Dirac's aether; (2) that the quantum potential associated with this aether's modification, by the presence of EPR photon pairs, yields a relativistic causal action at a distance which interprets the superluminal correlations recently established by Aspect et al.; (3) that the existence of the Einstein-de Broglie photon model (deduced from Dirac's aether) implies experimental predictions which conflict with the Copenhagen interpretation in certain specific testable interference experiments.