Novel Technique for All-Optical Clock Extraction Using Fiber Bragg Gratings

We demonstrate a simple passive technique, using phase shifted fibre Bragg gratings, for extraction of optical clock signals from RZ optical data signals . The generation of an optical clock signal at 12.5 GHz from a 12.5 Gbs RZ optical data stream is experimentally demonstrated with simulation of optical clock extraction at 10 GHz fro m 40 Gbs OTDM data streams .     

High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of morphine and its 3- and 6-glucuronide metabolites: improvements to the method and application to stability studies

Improvements to previously reported methods for the determination of morphine, morphine-3-glucuronide (M3G) and morphine-6-glucuronide (M6G) in human plasma are described. The improved methods involve the use of a solid-phase extraction cartridge and a chromatographic system which uses paired-ion reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with a radially compressed column. Only one cartridge is used to prepare each sample for chromatography and each cartridge may be used for at least fourteen 1-ml plasma samples. The recovery is greater than 85%. The improvements to the method of sample pretreatment and in the chromatographic conditions have allowed determination of morphine, M3G and M6G in human plasma down to 13.3 nmol/l (coefficient of variation = 9.3%), 108 nmol/l (6.6%) and 41 nmol/l (6.7%), respectively, using ultraviolet detection alone. It was shown that all three compounds were stable in plasma for up to 101 weeks when stored at -20 degrees C.     

Fragmentation during the formic acid/formaldehyde (eschweiler-clarke) methylation of polyamines

Eschweiler-Clarke methylations of both acyclic and cyclic polyamines can lead to methylation products of fragments of the original polyamine; thus 1,5,9,13-tetra-azatridecane yields 1,1,3,3-tetramethylpropanediamine exclusively and 1,5,9-triazacyclododecane gives 45% 1,5,9-trimethyl-1,5,9-triazacyclodecane and 45% 2,6,10-trimethyl-2,6,10-triazaundecane.     

Transfer matrix approach of vibration isolation analysis of periodic composite structure

The transmission properties of elastic waves propagating in a three-dimensional composite structure embedded periodically with spherical inclusions are analyzed by the transfer matrix method in this paper. Firstly, the periodic composite structures are divided into many layers, the transfer matrix of monolayer structure is deduced by the wave equations, and the transfer matrix of the entire structure is obtained in the case of boundary conditions of displacement and stress continuity between layers. Then, the effective impedance of the structure is analyzed to calculate its reflectivity and transmissivity of vibration isolation. Finally, numerical simulation is carried out; the experiment results validate the accuracy and feasibility of the method adopted in the paper and some useful conclusions are obtained. Project (No. 50075029) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

Application of a separating transformation to estimates of inner radii of open sets

We obtain solutions of new extremal problems of the geometric theory of functions of a complex variable related to estimates for the inner radii of nonoverlapping domains. Some known results are generalized to the case of open sets. __________ Translated from Ukrains’kyi Matematychnyi Zhurnal, Vol. 59, No. 10, pp. 1313–1321, October, 2007.     

AI and OR in management of operations: history and trends

The last decade has seen a considerable growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for operations management with the aim of finding solutions to problems that are increasing in complexity and scale. This paper begins by setting the context for the survey through a historical perspective of OR and AI. An extensive survey of applications of AI techniques for operations management, covering a total of over 1200 papers published from 1995 to 2004 is then presented. The survey utilizes Elsevier's ScienceDirect database as a source. Hence, the survey may not cover all the relevant journals but includes a sufficiently wide range of publications to make it representative of the research in the field. The papers are categorized into four areas of operations management: (a) design, (b) scheduling, (c) process planning and control and (d) quality, maintenance and fault diagnosis. Each of the four areas is categorized in terms of the AI techniques used: genetic algorithms, case-based reasoning, knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic and hybrid techniques. The trends over the last decade are identified, discussed with respect to expected trends and directions for future work suggested.     

Convergence of generalized conjugate partial Fourier integrals

Generalized conjugate partial Fourier integrals are used to find jumps of functions. The rate of convergence is studied and sharp results are obtained.     

Clustering of spectra and fractals of regular graphs

We exhibit a characteristic structure of the class of all regular graphs of degree d that stems from the spectra of their adjacency matrices. The structure has a fractal threadlike appearance. Points with coordinates given by the mean and variance of the exponentials of graph eigenvalues cluster around a line segment that we call a filar. Zooming-in reveals that this cluster splits into smaller segments (filars) labeled by the number of triangles in graphs. Further zooming-in shows that the smaller filars split into subfilars labeled by the number of quadrangles in graphs, etc. We call this fractal structure, discovered in a numerical experiment, a multifilar structure. We also provide a mathematical explanation of this phenomenon based on the Ihara-Selberg trace formula, and compute the coordinates and slopes of all filars in terms of Bessel functions of the first kind.