Stress monitoring in a Guinness 10-day scuba dive

Nowadays, there is high demand for sensitive gas sensors both for human and environmental monitoring. This paper deals with a high-resolution (0.2 ppb) laser-based photoacoustic spectroscopic system realized at ENEA Frascati, Italy, applied for monitoring stress in scuba divers during sustained immersion by analyzing breath samples. Blood tests and psychometric tests for scuba divers were performed at Catholic University in Rome. Results will be reported and discussed.     

Quantum wire heterostructure for optoelectronic applications

Quantum wire (QWR) heterostructures suitable for optoelectronic applications should meet a number of requirements, including defect free interfaces, large subband separation, long carrier lifetime, efficient carrier capture. The structural and opticl properties of GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/GaAs quantum wire (QWR) heterostructures grown by organometallic chemical vapor deposition on nonplanr substrates, which satisfy many of these criteria, are described. These crescent-shaped QWRs are formed in situ during epitaxial growth resulting in virtually defect free interfaces. Effective wire widths as small as 10nm have been achieved, corresponding to electron subband separations greater than K_BT at room temperature. The enhanced density of states at the QWR subbands manifests itself in higher optical absorption and emission as visualized in photoluminescence (PL), PL excitation, amplified spontaneous emission and lasing spectra of these structures. Effective carrier capture into the wires via connected quantum well regions, which is important for enhancing the otherwise extremely small capture cross section of these wires, has also been observed. Room temperature operation of GaAs/AlGaAs and strained InGaAs/GaAs QWR lasers with threshold currents as low as 0.6mA has been demonstrated.     

Characterization and Thermal Behaviour of Garnets from Almandine–Pyrope Series at 1200°C

Hyperfine Interactions - The natural garnets from almandine (Fe3Al2Si3O12)–pyrope (Mg3Al2Si3O12) series with the iron to magnesium atomic ratio ranging from 0.2 to 1 were characterised and...     

Photoreflectance investigations of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures with a two dimensional electron gas

Undoped AlGaN/GaN heterostructures with different content and thickness of AlGaN layer are investigated by photoreflectance (PR) spectroscopy. We have observed PR resonances related to an absorption in both GaN and AlGaN layers. The character of these resonances has been analyzed, and PR lines associated with excitonic and band-to-band absorption in the GaN layer and band-to-band absorption in the AlGaN layer have been identified. The transition related to band-to-band absorption possesses characteristic Franz–Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) associated with a built-in electric field. The electric field in the AlGaN layer obtained on the basis of the analysis of FKOs has been found to be in the range of 244–341 kV/cm. The value of the field has been found to decrease with the increase in AlGaN thickness and to increase with the increase in Al concentration. The surface potential for AlGaN layers has been found to increase with the increase in Al mole fraction and has been estimated to be in the range of 1.0–1.7 eV.     

What is a design? How should we classify them?

Design theory crosses the boundary between mathematics and statistics, and includes a wide range of disparate types of design. In this paper we present a classification scheme which aims to include as many important types as possible, based on a balance among concept, representation and use.     

Asymptotic conditions for the electromagnetic form factors of hadrons represented by the VMD model

A system of linear homogeneous algebraic equations for the coupling constant ratios of vector mesons to hadrons is derived by imposing the assumed asymptotic behavior upon the VMD pole parameterization of an hadron electromagnetic form factor. A similar system of equations with a simpler structure of the coefficients, taken as even powers of the vector-meson masses, is derived by means of integral superconvergent sum rules for the imaginary part of the considered form factor using its appropriate -function approximation. Although both systems have been derived starting from different properties of the electromagnetic form factor and they each have their own appearances, it is shown explicitly that they are fully equivalent. Received: 20 March 2002 / Revised version: 3 December 2002 / Published online: 7 March 2003     

20-relative neighborhood graphs are hamiltonian

For any two points p and q in the Euclidean plane, define LUN_pq = { v | v ∈ R², d_pv < d_pq and d_qv < d_pq}, where d_uv is the Euclidean distance between two points u and v . Given a set of points V in the plane, let LUN_pq(V) = V ∩ LUN_pq. Toussaint defined the relative neighborhood graph of V, denoted by RNG(V) or simply RNG, to be the undirected graph with vertices V such that for each pair p,q ∈ V, (p,q) is an edge of RNG(V) if and only if LUN_pq (V) = ?. The relative neighborhood graph has several applications in pattern recognition that have been studied by Toussaint. We shall generalize the idea of RNG to define the k-relative neighborhood graph of V, denoted by kRNG(V) or simply kRNG, to be the undirected graph with vertices V such that for each pair p,q ∈ V, (p,q) is an edge of kRNG(V) if and only if | LUN_pq(V) | < k, for some fixed positive number k. It can be shown that the number of edges of a kRNG is less than O(kn). Also, a kRNG can be constructed in O(kn₂) time. Let E_c = {e_pq| p ∈ V and q ∈ V}. Then G_c = (V,E_c) is a complete graph. For any subset F of E_c, define the maximum distance of F as max_epq∈Fd_pq. A Euclidean bottleneck Hamiltonian cycle is a Hamiltonian cycle in graph G_c whose maximum distance is the minimum among all Hamiltonian cycles in graph G_c. We shall prove that there exists a Euclidean bottleneck Hamiltonian cycle which is a subgraph of 20RNG(V). Hence, 20RNGs are Hamiltonian.