The benefits calibration and testing laboratories may gain from ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation

By definition (effectiveness through efficiency), quality is a business interest, not a supreme value in its own right. Quality systems must be beneficial to the organization operating them. In this paper, the possible tangible advantages (both business- and operations-related) an accredited laboratory may draw from formal accreditation is viewed. Also, an attempt is made to roughly classify laboratories into those which are more likely, or less so, to benefit from accreditation.     

New uniqueness theorems for trigonometric series

A uniqueness theorem is proved for trigonometric series and another one is proved for multiple trigonometric series. A corollary of the second theorem asserts that there are two subsets of the -dimensional torus, the first having a countable number of points and the second having points such that whenever a multiple trigonometric series ``converges' to zero at each point of the former set and also converges absolutely at each point of the latter set, then that series must have every coefficient equal to zero. This result remains true if ``converges' is interpreted as any of the usual modes of convergence, for example as ``square converges' or as ``spherically converges.'

     

Inverse problems for scattering by periodic structures

Suppose the 3-dimensional space is filled with three materials having dielectric constants ? ₁ above S ₁={x ₂=f ₁(x ₁), x ₃ arbitrary}, ? ₂ below S ₂ = {x ₂ =f ₂(x ₁), x ₃ arbitrary} and ? _o in {f ₂(x ₁) <x ₂ 1(x ₁), x ₃ arbitrary} where f ₁ f ₂ are periodic functions. Suppose for a plane wave incident on S ₁ from above we can measure the reflected and transmitted waves of the corresponding time-harmonic solution of the Maxwell equations, say at x ₂=±b,b large. To what extent can we infer from these measurements the location of the pair (S ₁, S ₂ ? In this paper, we establish a local stability: If ( $\tilde S_1 ,\tilde S_2$ ) is another pair of periodic curves “close” to (S ₁, S₂), then, for any δ>0, if the measurements for the two pairs are δ-close, then $\tilde S_1$ and $\tilde S_2$ are 0(δ)-close to S ₁ and S ₂, respectively.     

Light transmission through a circular metallic grating under broadband radial and azimuthal polarization illumination

We studied the characteristics of a circular metallic grating illuminated by broadband radial and azimuthal polarizations. We demonstrated that this scenario is the cylindrical analogue of a one-dimensional Cartesian grating illuminated by TM and TE polarizations. We measured the transmission spectra of this structure and observed strong polarization selectivity and, specifically, a resonance for radial polarization excitation, indicating a strong coupling to surface plasmons. The structure may be attractive for applications where pure radial polarization is needed, such as tight focusing, material processing, and particle trapping.     

On the dynamics of radially symmetric granulomas

A granuloma is a collection of macrophages that contains bacteria or other foreign substances that the body?s immune response is unable to eliminate. In this paper we present a simple mathematical model of radially symmetric granuloma dynamics. The model consists of a coupled system of two semi-linear parabolic equations for the macrophage density, and the bacterial density. The boundary of the granuloma is free. This simple framework makes it possible to conduct a mathematical analysis of the system dynamics. In particular, we show that the model system has a unique solution, and that, depending on the biological parameters; the bacterial load either disappears over time or persists. We use numerical methods to establish the existence of stationary solutions and examine how a stationary solution changes with the reproductive rate of the bacteria. These simulations show that the structure of the granuloma breaks down as the reproductive rate of the bacteria increases.     

Optimal design of an optical lens

We wish to construct an optimal optical lens, in the sense that it focuses all rays from a given source onto a given focal point. The construction can be reduced mathematically to a global study of a system of two nonlinear functional differential equations. We prove that this system has precisely two analytic solutions.