Stockpiling under price uncertainty and storage capacity constraints

A model is presented for the operation of an agent whose responsibility is to purchase and perhaps stockpile sufficient quantities of a certain commodity in order to satisfy an exogenous constant demand per time period. This is the situation faced by a state agency which is responsible for the purchasing of oil products to satisfy the demand of a country in which demand for energy has stabilized at a certain level.An important feature of the model is that the price of the commodity is described by a stochastic process. This reflects the volatility of prices of oil products. Furthermore, the model takes storage capacity constraints explicitly into account, and thus can help to assess the optimal level of storage capacity expansion.The relevant stochastic dynamic programming equations are derived and solved for the least cost function, which turns out to be piecewise linear in the inventory level. The storage capacity enters only in the computation of the constant term of the value function. The solution of the dynamic programming equation leads also to the optimal purchasing strategy of agencies with different levels of flexibility in their policy: in the model, an agency can be allowed or not to resell from the stock and it can have finite or infinite storage capacity.     

Nanostructured thin films obtained by ultra-short pulse laser deposition of vanadium carbide

In this paper we will report the results obtained by femtosecond Pulsed Laser Deposition on vanadium carbide. These results, compared with those obtained for another group 5 carbide, tantalum carbide, evidence large analogies between the two systems. Optical emission spectroscopy shows in both cases the presence of particles in the secondary plume and in both cases the films are formed by nanoparticles and present a stoichiometry corresponding to the hemicarbide.     

Mass and heat transfer modeling of bio-substrates during packaging

Perishable bio-substrate behavior can be modeled during packaged storage. Local mass and heattransfer have been coupled to respiration rate and microbial growth. Validating measurements have also been performed, and a multi-objective optimization was employed to tune the model. The model is able to simulate gas composition history and local bacteria spoilage in storage modes commonly adopted by the food industry, depending on product features and temperature. Exploitation of this mathematical tool would allow for informed technical and management decisions.     

anti Ethyl β-thienyl-β-amino-α-hydroxy propionate: a regio and stereoselective ring opening of trans ethyl 2-thienyl-glycidate

anti Ethyl β-thienyl-β-amino-α-hydroxy propionate was obtained regio- and diastereo-selectively in three steps and 45% overall yield, while 95% syn ethyl β-chloro-β-thienyl-α-hydroxy ester was obtained regio-selectively in two steps and 50% overall yield, both from 2-thienyl aldehyde.     

Proton‐conducting electrolytes based on silylated and sulfonated polyetheretherketone: Synthesis and characterization

A derivative of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) having sulfonic acid groups and silicon‐containing substituents covalently bound to the aromatic backbone has been prepared as proton‐exchange membrane material. The polymer 4 (PhSiSPEEK) has been synthesized via (i) sulfonation of PEEK up to 0.9 degree of sulfonation (DS, the number of sulfonic groups per repeat unit), (ii) conversion of sulfonated PEEK 1 (SPEEK09) into sulfonyl chlorinated derivative 2 (PEEKSO₂Cl), (iii) lithiation of 2 and subsequent addition of PhSiCl₃, followed by hydrolysis. The chemical structure of the synthesized polymers has been investigated by ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR and ATR/FTIR spectroscopy and their thermal stability has been evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis. The presence of inorganic moieties increases the thermal stability of 4 with respect to the sulfonated and not silylated product. Despite its very high DS, PhSiSPEEK is insoluble in water but does not possess the plastic properties needed to be used as an electrolyte membrane. Blend membranes made of SPEEK05 (DS = 0.5) and containing 10 and 25 wt % of 4 (DS = 0.9, degree of silylation DSi = 0.1) have been prepared and characterized by water uptake measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The combination of the two functionalized polymers having different properties allows to obtain proton‐conducting electrolytes that are potential candidates for fuel cells applications. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 2178–2186, 2010     

On the stability of a modified Nyström method for Mellin convolution equations in weighted spaces

This paper deals with the numerical solution of second kind integral equations with fixed singularities of Mellin convolution type. The main difficulty in solving such equations is the proof of the stability of the chosen numerical method, being the noncompactness of the Mellin integral operator the chief theoretical barrier. Here, we propose a Nyström method suitably modified in order to achieve the theoretical stability under proper assumptions on the Mellin kernel. We also provide an error estimate in weighted uniform norm and prove the well-conditioning of the involved linear systems. Some numerical tests which confirm the efficiency of the method are shown.