Practical improvements in soil redox potential (Eh) measurement for characterisation of soil properties. Application for comparison of conventional and conservation agriculture cropping systems

The soil redox potential (Eh) can provide essential information to characterise soil conditions. In practice, however, numerous problems may arise regarding: (i) Eh determination in soils, especially aerobic soils, e.g. variations in the instrumentation and methodology for Eh measurement, high spatial and temporal Eh variability in soils, irreversibility of the redox reaction at the surface electrode, chemical disequilibrium; and (ii) measurement interpretation.     

Salting out of alcohols by alkali halides at the freezing temperature

The freezing-point depression of the ternary systems water-alkali halidesalcohols was measured with a precision Advanced Instrument osmometer. From the corresponding freezing-point depression of the binary systems the salting-out constantsk _s were calculated. The effect of ionic size was investigated withtert-butanol, and the effect of alcohol chain length with NaCl. The trends ofk _s with ionic size are similar to those of typical nonelectrolyte systems, andk _s varies linearly with the volumes of the normal alcohols.     

Quantization of the Sphere with Coherent States

Current views link quantization with dynamics. The reason is that quantum mechanics or quantum field theories address to dynamical systems, i.e., particles or fields. Our point of view here breaks the link between quantization and dynamics: any (classical) physical system can be quantized. Only dynamical systems lead to dynamical quantum theories, which appear to result from the quantization of symplectic structures.     

On the Brownian motion of a massive sphere suspended in a hard-sphere fluid. II. Molecular dynamics estimates of the friction coefficient

The friction coefficient exerted by a hard-sphere fluid on an infinitely massive Brownian sphere is calculated for several size ratios , where and are the diameters of the Brownian and fluid spheres, respectively. The exact microscopic expression derived in part I of this work from kinetic theory is transformed and shown to be proportional to the time integral of the autocorrelation function of the momentum transferred from the fluid to the Brownian sphere during instantaneous collisions. Three different methods are described to extract the friction coefficient from molecular dynamics simulations carried out onfinite systems. The three independent methods lead to estimates of which agree within statisticalerrors (typically 5%). The results are compared to the predictions of Enskog theory and of the hydrodynamic Stokes law. The former breaks down as the size ratio and/or the packing fraction of the fluid increase. Somewhat surprisingly, Stokes' law is found to hold withstick boundary conditions, in the range 1/4.5 explored in the present simulations, with a hydrodynamic diameterd=. The analysis of the moleuclar dynamics data on the basis of Stokes' law withslip boundary conditions is less conclusive, although the right trend is found as / increases.     

Polytope des independants d'un graphe serie-parallele

A graph is said to be serie-parallel if it doesn't contain an homeomorph to K₄. The aim of the paper is the demonstration of Chvatal's conjecture on the polytope of independent set of vertices in such graphs. This is done classically by using LP-duality, the algorithm for constructing the primal-dual solution having the nice property to be linear in the number of vertices.     

Entanglement Between Demand and Supply in Markets with Bandwagon Goods

Whenever customers’ choices (e.g. to buy or not a given good) depend on others choices (cases coined ‘positive externalities’ or ‘bandwagon effect’ in the economic literature), the demand may be multiply valued: for a same posted price, there is either a small number of buyers, or a large one—in which case one says that the customers coordinate. This leads to a dilemma for the seller: should he sell at a high price, targeting a small number of buyers, or at low price targeting a large number of buyers? In this paper we show that the interaction between demand and supply is even more complex than expected, leading to what we call the curse of coordination: the pricing strategy for the seller which aimed at maximizing his profit corresponds to posting a price which, not only assumes that the customers will coordinate, but also lies very near the critical price value at which such high demand no more exists. This is obtained by the detailed mathematical analysis of a particular model formally related to the Random Field Ising Model and to a model introduced in social sciences by T.C. Schelling in the 70’s.     

Discriminant and Clifford algebras

The centralizer of a square-central skew-symmetric unit in a central simple algebra with orthogonal involution carries a unitary involution. The discriminant algebra of this unitary involution is shown to be an orthogonal summand in one of the components of the Clifford algebra of the orthogonal involution. As an application, structure theorems for orthogonal involutions on central simple algebras of degree 8 are obtained. Received: 30 January 2001; in final form: 28 May 2001 / Published online: 1 February 2002     

Light-driven directed motion of azobenzene-coated polymer nanoparticles in an aqueous medium

Azobenzene-coated polymer nanoparticles in the 16-nm-diameter range act as phototriggered nanomotors combining photo to kinetic energy conversion with optical control through light intensity gradients. The grafted dyes act as molecular propellers: their photoisomerization supplies sufficient mechanical work to propel the particles in an aqueous medium toward the intensity minima with velocities of up to 15 μm/s. It is shown that nanoparticles can be driven over tens of micrometers by translating the intensity gradients in the plane. The analysis of the particles motion demonstrates the decisive role of photoisomerization in the transport with a measured driving force that is 3 to 4 orders of magnitude higher than optical forces.     

Mass effect on the equienergetic high-spin/low-spin states of spin-crossover in 4,4'-bipyridine-bridged iron(II) polymeric compounds: synthesis,structure, and magnetic,Mössbauer,and theoretical studies

The suitability of the system [Fe(4,4'-bipy)(H(2)O)(2)(NCX)(2)].(4,4'-bipy), where 4,4'-bipy stands for 4,4'-bipyridine and X = S (1) and Se (2), as a precursor for the synthesis of new polymeric spin-crossover compounds has been studied. The reaction of 1 or 2 with bt (2,2'-bithiazoline) afforded the polymeric compounds of formula [Fe(4,4'-bipy)(bt)(NCX)(2)] (X = S (3), Se (4)). Compounds 3 and 4 are isostructural, but only the crystal structure of 3 has been fully determined. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, Fdd2 space group, Z = 24, with a = 38.962(8) A, b = 11.545(2) A, c = 30.889(6) A, V = 13895(5) A(3). The structure consists of linear chains constituted by trans-4,4'-bipy linked iron(II) ions; two cis equatorial positions are occupied by two pseudohalide ligands, and the remaining positions are filled by the bidentate bt ligand. Investigation of their magnetic properties and M?ssbauer spectra has revealed the occurrence of a low-spin (LS) <--> high-spin (HS) conversion involving 12% (3, S) and 20% (4, Se) of the Fe(II) ions. The thermal variation of the HS fraction is gradual with onset temperatures as low as 60 K. A theoretical approach based on the Ising-like model, completed with molecular vibrations, through harmonic oscillators, fits the data successfully, leading to an energy gap of 65 cm(-1) (3) and 86 cm(-1) (4) between the lowest LS and HS levels, and an average vibration frequency ohgrmacr;(LS) of 382 cm(-1) (3) and 365 cm(-1) (4) in the LS state. The ca. 1.05 omega(LS(3))/omega(LS(4)) ratio is close to the ca. 1.09 Se/S molar mass ratio. The simple electrovibrational Ising-like model permits us to explain, for the first time, a mass effect through the molecular vibrations in a spin-crossover complex that is in the unusual situation of equienergy among the HS and LS states.