Characterization of raw and stabilized waste in relation to toxic metals mobility in realistic landfilling scenarios

Toxic metal release in simple leaching tests has been studied in this paper to assess waste behaviour in realistic landfilling scenarios. The waste is a galvanic sludge, raw or cement stabilized. Six different leachants were taken into account: distilled water, CO2-saturated solution, Olsen solution, Mehlich No. 3 solution, acid or alkaline soil circulating solution. Dynamic leaching tests of different duration were used for raw and stabilized waste. The results have shown that, with the exception of Mehlich No. 3 solution, when the waste comes into contact with waters of composition similar to that of the solutions studied, the potential environmental contamination should not be of concern.     

Injection molded microfluidic chips featuring integrated interconnects

An injection molding process for the fabrication of disposable plastic microfluidic chips with a cycle time of 2 min has been designed, developed, and implemented. Of the sixteen commercially available grades of cyclo-olefin copolymer (COC) that were screened for autofluorescence and transparency to ultraviolet (UV) light, Topas 8007 x 10 was identified as the most suitable for production. A robust solid metal mold insert defining the microfluidic channels was rapidly microfabricated using a process that significantly reduces the time required for electroplating. No wear of the insert was observed even after over 1000 cycles. The chips were bonded by thermal fusion using different bonding conditions. Each condition was tested and its suitability evaluated by burst pressure measurements. The COC microfluidic chips feature novel, integrated, reversible, standardized, ready-to-use interconnects that enable operation at pressures up to 15.6 MPa, the highest value reported to date. The suitability of these UV transparent, high pressure-resistant, disposable devices was demonstrated by in situ preparation of a high surface area porous polymer monolith within the channels.     

A Hartogs type theorem for separately Cr functions

The main step in the proof of Hartogs’ theorem on separate analyticity (see [3], [4], [5]) consists in showing that if a function f defined in Δ × Δ is holomorphic for |z ₂| < ε and separately holomorphic in z ₂ when z ₁ is kept fixed, then it is jointly holomorphic; the normal convergence of the Taylor series of f is obtained through the celebrated Hartogs’ lemma on subharmonic functions.     

Upper and lower bounds for higher order eigenvalues of some semilinear elliptic equations

We prove upper and lower bounds on the eigenvalues (as the norm of the eigenfunction tends to zero) in bifurcation problems for a class of semilinear elliptic equations in bounded domains of R^N. It is shown that these bounds are computable in terms of the eigenvalues of the associated linear equation.     

Raman phonon spectra and lattice dynamics of 9,10-dinitroanthracene under pressure

Abstract

Raman phonon spectra of 9, 10-dinitroanthracene have been recorded in the pressure range 0-6GPa. No phase transition is detected up to the maximum pressure studied. Quasi Harmonic Lattice Dynamics calculations, based on an atom-atom potential previously modeled on homologous 9,10-disubstituted anthracenes, have been performed. The optimized potential was used to calculate the equilibrium geometry and the lattice phonon frequencies as a function of pressure. The calculated structure at ambient conditions closely resembles the experimental one. The calculated phonon frequencies show a good agreement with the experimental values at all pressures measured.     

Analysis of Simulated Fluorescence Intensities Decays by a New Maximum Entropy Method Algorithm

A new algorithm for the Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) is proposed for recovering the lifetime distribution in time-resolved fluorescence decays. The procedure is based on seeking the distribution that maximizes the Skilling entropy function subjected to the chi-squared constraint χ ²?~?1 through iterative linear approximations, LU decomposition of the Hessian matrix of the lagrangian problem and the Golden Section Search for backtracking. The accuracy of this algorithm has been investigated through comparisons with simulated fluorescence decays both of narrow and broad lifetime distributions. The proposed approach is capable to analyse datasets of up to 4,096 points with a discretization ranging from 100 to 1,000 lifetimes. A good agreement with non linear fitting estimates has been observed when the method has been applied to multi-exponential decays. Remarkable results have been also obtained for the broad lifetime distributions where the position is recovered with high accuracy and the distribution width is estimated within 3 %. These results indicate that the procedure proposed generates MEM lifetime distributions that can be used to quantify the real heterogeneity of lifetimes in a sample.     

Brans–Dicke geometry

We reveal the non-metric geometry underlying ω→0$\omega \to 0$ Brans–Dicke theory by unifying the metric and scalar field into a single geometric structure. Taking this structure seriously as the geometry to which matter universally couples, we show that the theory is fully consistent with solar system tests. This is in striking contrast with the standard metric coupling, which grossly violates post-Newtonian experimental constraints.