Preparation of a biocompatible magnetic film from an aqueous ferrofluid

Very promising nanoparticles for biomedical applications or in medical drug targeting are superparamagnetic nanoparticles based on a core consisting of iron oxides (SPION) that can be targeted through external magnets. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a unique synthetic biocompatible polymer that can be chemically cross-linked to form a gel. Biotechnology applications of magnetic gels include biosensors, targeted drug delivery, artificial muscles and magnetic buckles. These gels are produced by incorporating magnetic materials in the polymer composites. In this paper we report the synthesis of an aqueous ferrofluid and the preparation of a biocompatible magnetic gel with polyvinyl alcohol and glutharaldehyde (GTA). HClO₄ was used to induce the peptization since this kind of ferrofluid does not have surfactant. The magnetic gel was dried to generate a biocompatible film.     

Some remarks on bounds to eigenvalues of Sturm-Liouville problems with discontinuous coefficients

Upper and lower bounds on the eigenvalues of Sturm-Liouville problems with discontinuous coefficients are discussed. Rayleigh-Ritz approximations based both on Rayleigh's quotient and the dual Rayleigh quotient are used for obtaining upper bounds for the eigenvalues. Though previous studies have indicated that such approximations yield poor results when large discontinuities in the coefficients occur, it is shown in this paper by means of numerical examples that thesame rate of convergence can be achieved as for systems with continuous coefficients, provided the trial functions are allowed to have arbitrary jump discontinuities in their derivatives across the points where the coefficients suffer discontinuities. New explicit lower bounds in terms of the coefficients are also established. The accuracy of the new estimates is illustrated by numerical examples.

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Résumé On discute les bornes supérieures et inférieures des valeurs caractéristiques des problèmes de Sturm-Liouville avec des coefficients discontinus. Les approximations de Rayleigh-Ritz, basées sur le quotient de Rayleigh et le quotient jumelé de Rayleigh, sont utilisées pour obtenir les bornes supérieures des valeurs caractéristiques. Bien que les études antérieures aient indiqué que ces approximations donnent des résultats médiocres quand les coefficients ont de grandes discontinuités, on démontre dans cet article par des exemples numériques qu'on peut réaliser le même degré de convergence que pour les systèmes á coefficients continuous, pourvu que les fonctions d'essai admises aient des sauts arbitraires dans leurs dérivées á travers les points où les coefficients subissent des discontinuités. De nouvelles bornes inférieures sont déterminées sous une forme explicite en fonction des coefficients. On montre l'exactitude des nouveaux résultats par des exemples numériques.

     

An intrinsical description of group codes

A (left) group code of length n is a linear code which is the image of a (left) ideal of a group algebra via an isomorphism which maps G to the standard basis of . Many classical linear codes have been shown to be group codes. In this paper we obtain a criterion to decide when a linear code is a group code in terms of its intrinsical properties in the ambient space , which does not assume an “a priori” group algebra structure on . As an application we provide a family of groups (including metacyclic groups) for which every two-sided group code is an abelian group code. It is well known that Reed–Solomon codes are cyclic and its parity check extensions are elementary abelian group codes. These two classes of codes are included in the class of Cauchy codes. Using our criterion we classify the Cauchy codes of some lengths which are left group codes and the possible group code structures on these codes. Research supported by D.G.I. of Spain and Fundación Séneca of Murcia.     

Automorphisms of subrings of RFM (R)

Supported by the DGICYT of Spain (PB90-0300-C02-02).     

Mössbauer analysis of Nd-Co M-type strontium hexaferrite powders with different iron content

The structural analysis of strontium hexaferrites SrFe _x O₁₉ (for x?=?12, 11 and 10) and substituted samples Sr_0.7Nd_0.3Fe_12???y Co_0.3O₁₉ (for y?=?0.3,1.3 and 2.3) prepared through the citrate precursor method is shown. Nd and Co substitution modifies saturation magnetization (M _S ) and increases coercivity (H _c ) in samples heat-treated at 1100°C for two hours. Mössbauer analyses show different iron occupancy and the influence of the Fe^3?+? content is particularly emphasized. Hematite segregation is observed for some compositions. Samples with low Fe^3?+? content show the best magnetic properties with no secondary phase segregation.     

Ionic imprinted polymer for nickel recognition by using the bi-functionalized 5-vinyl-8-hydroxyquinoline as a monomer: Application as a new solid phase extraction support

A new ionic imprinted polymer (IIP) for Ni(II) recognition/pre-concentration was prepared via precipitation polymerization using 2-(diethylamino) ethyl methacrylate (DEM) and divinylbenzene (DVB) as a crosslinking agent in the presence of nickel(II) and 5-vynil-8-hydroxyquinoline (5-VHQ) as a bi-functionalized ligand. An important increase on the selectivity of the synthesised IIP for nickel(II) ions was obtained when comparing to the use of 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) as a ligand. The synthesised IIP was used as a new support for solid phase extraction (SPE) of nickel(II) from seawater before inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) detection. Variables affecting the SPE process, such as pH, load and elution flow rates, and concentration and volume of the eluting solution, were fully evaluated. The optimised procedure consists of a sample loading (100 mL of seawater at a pH of 9.0 ± 0.1) through IIP-SPE cartridges containing 300 mg of the synthesised IIP at a flow rate of 3.0 mL min^{− 1}. Elution was performed by passing 2.5 mL of 2.0 M nitric acid at a flow rate of 1.5 mL min^{− 1}, which gave a pre-concentration factor of 40. The limit of detection (LOD) of the method was 0.26 µg L^{− 1}, while the relative standard deviation (RSD) for eleven replicated measurements was 3%. Accuracy of the method was assessed by analyzing SLEW-3 (estuarine water) and TM-23.3 (lake water) certified reference materials. In addition to the selectivity of the synthesised material for nickel(II) ions against other transition metal ions and major alkaline and alkaline-earth metals (Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺ and Ca²⁺) in seawater, it can be stated that the salt matrix is efficiently removed by using the proposed IIP-SPE procedure.     

Basin topology in dissipative chaotic scattering

Chaotic scattering in open Hamiltonian systems under weak dissipation is not only of fundamental interest but also important for problems of current concern such as the advection and transport of inertial particles in fluid flows. Previous work using discrete maps demonstrated that nonhyperbolic chaotic scattering is structurally unstable in the sense that the algebraic decay of scattering particles immediately becomes exponential in the presence of weak dissipation. Here we extend the result to continuous-time Hamiltonian systems by using the Henon-Heiles system as a prototype model. More importantly, we go beyond to investigate the basin structure of scattering dynamics. A surprising finding is that, in the common case where multiple destinations exist for scattering trajectories, Wada basin boundaries are common and they appear to be structurally stable under weak dissipation, even when other characteristics of the nonhyperbolic scattering dynamics are not. We provide numerical evidence and a geometric theory for the structural stability of the complex basin topology.     

Orientation of Fredholm maps

We introduce a notion of orientation of a Fredholm map on a given compact subset of its domain and show that various approaches to orientation have as outcome the same class of orientable maps.     

Parameter sensitivity analysis of a nonlinear least-squares optimization-based anelastic full waveform inversion method

In a recent article, we described a seismic inversion method for determining the crustal velocity and attenuation of basins in earthquake-prone regions. We formulated the problem as a constrained nonlinear least-squares optimization problem in which the constraints are the equations that describe the forward wave propagation. Here, we conduct a parametric study to investigate the influence of parameters such as the form of the regularization function, receiver density, preconditioning, noise level of the data, and the multilevel continuation technique on the cost and quality of the inversion. We use the same 2D Los Angeles example as in our earlier study.