Early Evolution of Gas Chromatography in East Germany. Part I: Beginnings, Instrument and Column Development and Organizations

The early evolution of gas chromatography in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) is surveyed and instrument development is outlined, describing the most important models manufactured in the GDR. The organization of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Gas-Chromatographie (Working Group for GC) is chronicled and its activities are discussed. Subsequent parts of this article will deal with the six symposia organized by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft between 1958 and 1968.     

Utilization of waste solutions in perovskite technology

A scheme for utilization of chloride solutions of complex composition with α-and β-activity of up to 35 and 28 kBq 1^?1, respectively, is suggested.     

A pulsed ion-ion recombination laser

A new mechanism of pulsed laser oscillation based on ion-ion recombination is proposed. The advantages of utilizing this mechanism in a pulsed mode are considered, and the expected characteristics of the proposed lasers are estimated.     

A Network Simulation of High-congestion Road-traffic Flows in Cities with Marine Container Terminals

Port cities where marine cargo terminals are located are generally near urban areas characterized by high-congestion road traffic. Changes in cargo traffic volumes into a marine terminal, or in the surrounding traffic arteries, which carry this traffic, can significantly affect the terminal's operations. Conversely, activity at the terminal can have an impact on the traffic levels and congestion for a considerable distance from the terminal. This paper demonstrates a methodology useful for studying the impact of road traffic flows on marine container terminals located in highly congested areas. This model was developed at the request of the Virginia Center for World Trade and was used to answer three planning questions in the port of Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA-what would be the impact of: opening a new section of interstate highway, a projected doubling of container traffic at one terminal, and a daily unit train in the vicinity of another terminal. The problem was made more challenging by limited data-collection funds. None the less, the model was deemed valid by a panel of traffic experts and officials from several major state and private agencies involved in marine traffic management. The model results were subsequently a factor in two major decisions related to terminal management.     

A distance-regular graph with the intersection array {8, 7, 5; 1, 1, 4} and its automorphisms

Possible orders and subgraphs of the fixed points of a distance-regular graph with the intersection array {8, 7, 5; 1, 1, 4} are found. It is shown that such a graph is not vertex-transitive.     

New efficient numerical procedures for solving stochastic variational problems with a priori maximum pointwise error estimates

In a previous paper we gave a new formulation and derived the Euler equations and other necessary conditions to solve strong, pathwise, stochastic variational problems with trajectories driven by Brownian motion. Thus, unlike current methods which minimize the control over deterministic functionals (the expected value), we find the control which gives the critical point solution of random functionals of a Brownian path and then, if we choose, find the expected value.This increase in information is balanced by the fact that our methods are anticipative while current methods are not. However, our methods are more directly connected to the theory and meaningful examples of deterministic variational theory and provide better means of solution for free and constrained problems. In addition, examples indicate that there are methods to obtain nonanticipative solutions from our equations although the anticipative optimal cost function has smaller expected value.In this paper we give new, efficient numerical methods to find the solution of these problems in the quadratic case. Of interest is that our numerical solution has a maximal, a priori, pointwise error of O(h3/2) where h is the node size. We believe our results are unique for any theory of stochastic control and that our methods of proof involve new and sophisticated ideas for strong solutions which extend previous deterministic results by the first author where the error was O(h²).We note that, although our solutions are given in terms of stochastic differential equations, we are not using the now standard numerical methods for stochastic differential equations. Instead we find an approximation to the critical point solution of the variational problem using relations derived from setting to zero the directional derivative of the cost functional in the direction of simple test functions.Our results are even more significant than they first appear because we can reformulate stochastic control problems or constrained calculus of variations problems in the unconstrained, stochastic calculus of variations formulation of this paper. This will allow us to find efficient and accurate numerical solutions for general constrained, stochastic optimization problems. This is not yet being done, even in the deterministic case, except by the first author.     

Integration of differential forms on manifolds with locally-finite variations. II

In part I of the paper, we have defined n-dimensional C⁰-manifolds in ℝⁿ(m ≥ n) with locally-finite n-dimensional variations (a generalization of locally-rectifiable curves to dimensionn > 1) and integration of measurable differential n-forms over such manifolds. The main result of part II states that an n-dimensional manifold that is C¹-embedded into ℝ^m has locally-finite variations and the integral of a measurable differential n-form defined in part I can be calculated by the well-known formula. Bibliography: 5 titles. __________ Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 333, 2006, pp. 66–85.