Geochemical analysis of Minho Estuary sedimentary record and its contribution to palaeoenvironmental evolution

Two sediment cores (~30 m long) were retrieved at the mouth of the Minho Estuary to assess its palaeoenvironmental evolution for the last millennia. Samples were characterized by Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry and Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis, complemented by sedimentological analyses. Provenance of major and trace element contents (lithogenic or biogenic, continental or marine) is assessed. The influence of grain size effect on total element concentration is discussed. Most of the samples present a negative Eu anomaly. Sedimentological and geochemical parameters allow differentiating four geological units––fluvial, marine, estuarine and sand barrier––which reflects the temporal evolution of the Minho Estuary.     

Quasi-Greedy Triangulations Approximating the Minimum Weight Triangulation

This article settles the following two longstanding open problems:

• What is the worst case approximation ratio between the greedy triangulation and the minimum weight triangulation?

• Is there a polynomial time algorithm that always produces a triangulation whose length is within a constant factor from the minimum?

The answer to the first question is that the known lower bound is tight. The second question is answered in the affirmative by using a slight modification of anO(n log n) algorithm for the greedy triangulation. We also derive some other interesting results. For example, we show that a constant-factor approximation of the minimum weight convex partition can be obtained within the same time bounds.     

Nonlinear shoaling of shallow water waves: perspective in terms of the inverse scattering transform

Summary We study nonlinear interactions in measured surface wave trains obtained in the Northern Adriatic Sea about 16 kilometres from Venice, Italy.Nonlinear Fourier analysis is discussed in terms of the exact spectral solution to the Korteweg-deVries (KdV) equation as given by theinverse scattering transform (IST). For the periodic and/or quasi-periodic boundary conditions assumed herein, the approach may be viewed as a nonlinear, broad-banded generalization of the ordinary, linear Fourier transform. In particular, we study solition interactions, their properties and the nonlinear dynamics of the radiation (or oscillation) modes as found from the inverse scattering transform analysis. We also conduct a number of computer experiments in which measured wave trains are numerically propagated forward in time toward shallow water and backward in time into deep water in order to assess how the nonlinear wave dynamics are influenced by propagation over variable bathymetry. On this basis we develop a scenario for the evolution of nonlinear wave trains, initially far offshore in deep water, as they propagate into shallow water regions. The deep-water waves have a small Ursell number and are hence not very nonlinear; as they propagate toward shallow water, the Ursell number gradually increases in the numerical experiments by about an order of magnitude. A useful parameterization of nonlinearity in these studies is the ?spectral modulus,? a number between 0 and 1, which is associated with each IST spectral frequency. Small values of the modulus mean that a particular spectral component is linear (a sine wave); large values of the modulus (≈1) indicate that the component is nonlinear (a soliton). There is a systematic increase of the modulus as the waves propagate into shallow water where nonlinear effects predominate; we describe how the modulus varies as a function of spectral frequency during this shoaling process. The results suggest that the effect of increasing nonlinearity ?saturates? the IST spectrum (i.e. the modulus ≈1 for all frequencies) to that virtually all spectral components become solitons in sufficiently shallow water.     

一个太阳活动区的频谱

本文得出了活动区AR 2490的射电频谱,波长范围从0.8cm到20cm.在λ≥2.8cm,活动区呈现双重结构.在λ=6cm时出现的回旋共振吸收是该活动区悬浮在黑子上空不透明度的主要源,它在与H_α谱斑相协的射电源中也起着重要的作用.     

Phase relations in the system Bi2O3CdO

Phase relations in the system Bi₂O₃CdO were studied in the composition range from 90-30 mole% Bi₂O₃. A new phase, Bi₂O₃ · CdO, was found to exist up to 925 K. At this temperature it decomposes to form CdO and the 5Bi₂O₃ · 3CdO phase. The 5Bi₂O₃ · 3CdO phase is stable between 925 and 963 K and melts incongruently. Below 925 K it decomposes to Bi₂O₃ · CdO and 6Bi₂O₃ · CdO. The phase 5Bi₂O₃ · 3CdO has cubic symmetry. The Sillenite-type bcc phase 6Bi₂O₃ · CdO forms above 897 K from oxide mixtures in the solid state or from fused oxide mixtures, but the compound could never be prepared as a single phase.     

An operational construction of the sum of two non-commuting observables in quantum theory and related constructions

Letters in Mathematical Physics - The existence of a real linear space structure on the set of observables of a quantum system—i.e., the requirement that the linear combination of two...     

Optimisation of direct laser structuring of printed circuit boards

A model-based optimisation of the process of printed circuit board laser structuring is presented. For this purpose, a comprehensive theoretical model of the interaction between the travelling pulsed laser beam and conductive layer, as well as between the laser beam and the induced plasma plume is employed. The model is used to calculate process speed. Based on the process speed determined, the influence of pulse power, duration, and frequency on process speed is analysed. In addition, an optimal range of process parameters with respect to process speed and quality is defined.     

Large Time Behavior for Vortex Evolution in the Half-Plane

 In this article we study the long-time behavior of incompressible ideal flow in a half plane from the point of view of vortex scattering. Our main result is that certain asymptotic states for half-plane vortex dynamics decompose naturally into a nonlinear superposition of soliton-like states. Our approach is to combine techniques developed in the study of vortex confinement with weak convergence tools in order to study the asymptotic behavior of a self-similar rescaling of a solution of the incompressible 2D Euler equations on a half plane with compactly supported, nonnegative initial vorticity. Received: 28 June 2002 / Accepted: 6 January 2003 Published online: 5 May 2003 RID="⋆" ID="⋆" Research supported in part by CNPq grant 300.962/91-6 RID="⋆⋆" ID="⋆⋆" Research supported in part by CNPq grant 300.158/93-9 Communicated by P. Constantin     

Solving a large-scale crew pairing problem

Airline companies seek to solve the problem of determining an assignment of crews to a pre-determined flight schedule with minimum total cost, called the Crew Pairing Problem (CPP). Most of the existing studies focus on the CPP of North American airlines, which widely differs from that of most European airline companies in terms of the objective function, the flight structure, and the planning horizon. In this study, we develop an optimization-driven heuristic algorithm that can efficiently handle large-scale instances of the CPP that must be solved on a monthly basis. We perform computational experiments using flight schedules of an European airline company to test the performance of the solution method. Our computational results demonstrate that our algorithm is able to provide high-quality solutions to monthly instances with up to 27?000 flight legs.