The existence of howell designs of siden+1 and order 2n

AHowell design of side s andorder 2n, or more briefly, anH(s, 2n), is ans×s array in which each cell either is empty or contains an unordered pair of elements from some 2n-set, sayX, such that (a) each row and each column is Latin (that is, every element ofX is in precisely one cell of each row and each column) and (b) every unordered pair of elements fromX is in at most one cell of the array. Atrivial Howell design is anH(s, 0) havingX=? and consisting of ans×s array of empty cells. A necessary condition onn ands for the existence of a nontrivialH(s, 2n) is that 0<n≦s≦2n-1. AnH(n+t, 2n) is said to contain a maximum trivial subdesign if somet×t subarray is theH(t, 0). This paper describes a recursive construction for Howell designs containing maximum trivial subdesigns and applies it to settle the existence question forH(n+1, 2n)’s: forn+1 a positive integer, there is anH(n+1, 2n) if and only ifn+1 ∉ {2, 3, 5}.     

Die Tropfzeitabhängigkeit der polarographischen Halbstufen-potentiale von 2-Phenylchinoxalin

Reversible redox reactions which are followed by irreversible steps give often polarographic waves with drop life dependent shapes. A mathematical model is proposed which is capable to describe the change of the polarographic waves of quinoxalines, even at short drop lives and slow reactions of the irreversible step.     

Nuclear charge radii from X-ray transitions in muonic atoms of carbon,nitrogen and oxygen

Energies of muonic X-rays of the K-series of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen have been measured with an accuracy of about 15 eV. Root mean square radii of the nuclear charge distributions were deduced. The results 2.49±0.05 fm for carbon, 2.55±0.03 fm for nitrogen and 2.71 ±0.02 fm for oxygen are in good agreement at comparable accuracy with recent electron scattering data.     

Heat Stabilizers as Activators in Coordination Polymerization

Summary: The solvent‐free syndiospecific styrene polymerization as an example of a coordination polymerization has been investigated with a catalyst system consisting of η⁵‐octahydrofluorenyl titanium trimethoxide as a transition metal catalyst, MAO as a cocatalyst, and TIBA, in the presence of reaction products of sterically hindered phenolic compounds, usually applied as heat stabilizers of polymers. Unexpectedly, such reaction products led to a significant increase in polymerization activity of the catalyst system. Second, after deactivation of the catalyst system, such activators result in a significantly enhanced thermal stability of the syndiotactic polymers received.

Effect of the P₈‐activator on polymerization activity in dependence on polymerization time (molar ratio–styrene:MAO:TIBA:P:Ti = 700 000:50:25:25:1; molar ratio–phenolic compound:TIBA = 1:3.2; polymerization temperature: 50 °C).     

Systematics of nuclear charge radii of the stable molybdenum isotopes from muonic atoms

The results of precise measurements of the energies of the $\text{2}\text{p}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{?1}\text{s}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{and}\text{2}\text{p}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{?1}\text{s}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$ muonic X-ray transitions of ⁹²Mo, ⁹⁴Mo, ⁹⁵Mo, ⁹⁶Mo, ⁹⁷Mo, ⁹⁸Mo and ¹⁰⁰Mo are reported. The data were analyzed in terms of the Barrett moments 〈r^ke^?αr〉 of the nuclear charge distributions from which the equivalent nuclear radii R_k and the differences ΔR_k between neighboring isotopes were computed. Systematic shell effects have been observed at the neutron numbers N = 50 and N = 56.     

Parameter identification based on multiple inhomogeneous experiments of practical relevance

Existing procedures to identify material parameters are based on experiments with simple specimens. Additionally, the load distribution is approximately homogeneous. But there are only few feasible experiments which produce homogeneous or almost homogeneous load distributions. Furthermore, deviations from homogeneity and their consequences cannot be avoided, but are often ignored. We present a solution algorithm which takes several different experimental results into account. Thereby, the experiments are performed on specimens which respond with inhomogeneous distributions of strains and stresses. The restriction to homogeneous loads is not necessary. Thus, it is possible to use different measured data of multiple load cases on one and the same test specimen. The component-oriented design of the specimen permits to consider the specific properties of product groups, the load types and the effect of the manufacturing process on the final material properties already during the identification process. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Age-related changes in talker recognition with reduced spectral cues

Temporal information provided by cochlear implants enables successful speech perception in quiet, but limited spectral information precludes comparable success in voice perception. Talker identification and speech decoding by young hearing children (5-7 yr), older hearing children (10-12 yr), and hearing adults were examined by means of vocoder simulations of cochlear implant processing. In Experiment 1, listeners heard vocoder simulations of sentences from a man, woman, and girl and were required to identify the talker from a closed set. Younger children identified talkers more poorly than older listeners, but all age groups showed similar benefit from increased spectral information. In Experiment 2, children and adults provided verbatim repetition of vocoded sentences from the same talkers. The youngest children had more difficulty than older listeners, but all age groups showed comparable benefit from increasing spectral resolution. At comparable levels of spectral degradation, performance on the open-set task of speech decoding was considerably more accurate than on the closed-set task of talker identification. Hearing children's ability to identify talkers and decode speech from spectrally degraded material sheds light on the difficulty of these domains for child implant users.     

Nuclear charge radii from muonic X-ray transitions in F,Na, Al,Si, P,S and K

Energies of muonic X-rays of the Lyman series of seven light natural elements (F, Na, Al, Si, P, S and K) have been determined with an accuracy of between 15 and 30 eV. Equivalent charge radii have been deduced. For μ^?-K, transitions to the 2s state allowed an additional constraint on the Fermi c-t diagram. The results are in good agreement with, and generally of an order of magnitude higher precision than, comparable electron scattering data.