Quantitative axioms for finite affine planes

All axiom systems are derived which define finite affine planes and consist of certain combinatorial inequalities or equalities involving the number of lines connecting two distinct points the number of lines through a point the number of points on a line, the total number of points or the total number of lines. The result given in Dembowski book Finite Geometries are corrected.     

The importance of the surface density of states in the photoemission spectra of the alkali and alkaline earth metals

Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy results are shown to distinguish between the surface and bulk electronic structure of a simple metal. The spectra from Sr at low photon energies (long escape depth) is described by the bulk electronic structure; the spectra at ≈10 eV (short escape depth) is described by the surface electronic structure.     

Heterogeneous ion-exchange membranes

The field of heterogeneous ion exchange membranes is reviewed briefly. Specific advantages and disadvantages of heterogeneous ion exchange membranes are discussed compared with those of homogeneous ion exchange membranes. p]The development of heterogeneous ion exchange membranes is presented in historical perspective. The electrochemistry of ion-selective membranes began with Ostwald in 1890. After the classical work of Michaelis (1925) with collodion membranes, the first fully synthetic ion exchange membranes were prepared by Zhukov (1933) and Wassenegger (1940), based on sulfonated phenol—formaldehyde resins. These initial membranes, which were of the homogeneous type found no practical uses. The era of commercially useful ion exchange membranes began with the work of Wyllie (1948), Juda (1950), Bodamer (1953) and their collaborators who prepared heterogeneous ion exchange membranes by embedding ion exchange particles into polymer matrices. p]Methods for making heterogeneous ion exchange membranes include compression-molding of polymer powders, compounding on hot rolls, latex or solvent blending in situ generation of either the matrix or the ion exchange material. Microheterogeneous ion exchange membranes can be made from block and graft copolymers, interpolymers snake-cage resins, similar techniques and materials. p]Even though the first commercial ion exchange membranes were heterogeneous, the interest in this type of membranes subsided later. As polymer science progressed, speciality monomers and polymers were being made which opened the way to the preparation of quite sophisticated homogeneous ion exchange membranes of satisfactory mechanical strength. However, the possibilities of heterogeneous ion exchange membranes are by no means exhausted and this field may warrant further exploration, applying modern methods and materials and thus progressing beyond the relatively crude heterogeneous ion exchange membranes of the pioneer times.     

Novel photoemission studies of the PtCu alloys

The photoemission spectra of PtCu alloys of a number of different compositions has been measured. A new method of sample preparation by an interdiffusion technique allowed rapid measurement as a function of composition. The results are in general agreement with the coherent potential approximation to the electronic structures of alloys.     

To fold or to assemble?

We introduce a new class of foldable oligomers consisting of alternating rigid and flexible regions. The rigid segments overlap to give pi-stacked folded conformers whose formation is driven mostly by pi-pi molecular orbital overlaps. As the oligomer concentration increases, the folded molecular structures further self-assemble into larger nanostructures. The dynamic processes of folding and self-organization are monitored with absorption, fluorescence, and NMR spectroscopies. Our results show that folding dominates at low concentrations (< approximately 1 mM) and precedes self-assembly, which occurs over the initial concentration range of approximately 1-100 mM.     

On Quasi-Interpolation with Non-uniformly Distributed Centers on Domains and Manifolds

The paper studies quasi-interpolation by scaled shifts of a smooth and rapidly decaying function. The centers are images of a smooth mapping of the hZⁿ-lattice in R^s, sn, and the scaling parameters are proportional to h. We show that for a large class of generating functions the quasi-interpolants provide high order approximations up to some prescribed accuracy. Although in general the approximants do not converge as h tends to zero, the remaining saturation error is negligible in numerical computations if a scalar parameter is suitably chosen. The lack of convergence is compensated for by a greater flexibility in the choice of generating functions used in numerical methods for solving operator equations.     

Uncertainty evaluation of the spectral UV irradiance evaluated by using the UVSPEC radiative transfer model

The radiative transfer models allow calculating the spectral UV irradiance from some set of measured input quantities linked with the surface reflectivity, the solar zenith angle, the ozone column and the characteristics of clouds and aerosols. The spectral irradiance yielded by a model is influenced by errors in the measurement of the input quantities. In this paper, the influences of these errors are characterized and compared with other systematic effects through an uncertainty analysis. We evaluated the uncertainty of the spectral UV irradiance rendered by the UVSPEC model, under cloudless sky conditions. In order to express the uncertainty of the output quantities (the global, direct and diffuse irradiances) in terms of the standard uncertainties of the input quantities, we used a Monte Carlo-based uncertainty propagation technique. We found that the uncertainty of the irradiance in the UV-B part of the spectrum was strongly influenced by the uncertainty attributed to the ozone column datum. Moreover, the uncertainities associated with the aerosol parameters accounted for most of the UV-A global irradiance uncertainty; the latter increased from about 4% under low aerosol conditions, up to about 14% in case of polluted air. We conclude that the UV irradiance evaluation through radiative transfer models requires paying special attention to the assessment of the aerosols properties.     

Surface properties of plasma membrane vesicles isolated from melon (Cucumus melo L.) root cells differing in salinity tolerance

The hypotheses that genotypic differences in salinity tolerance may result from (i) differences in global surface charge density or (ii) from differences in global Ca²⁺ binding were tested. An attempt was made to correlate the differing salinity tolerance of four melon cultivars with surface properties of vesicles extracted from the plasma membrane (PM) of their root cells. Surface characterization involved measurements of electrophoretic mobility and sorption of ⁴⁵Ca²⁺ to the vesicles in the presence of varying concentrations of Ca²⁺, Na⁺ and Mg²⁺. Irrespective of salinity tolerance, vesicles from the four cultivars yielded similar ζ potentials under similar conditions, indicating similar global surface charge densities. Sorption studies with vesicles from two cultivars differing in salinity tolerance predicted independently this result of equal surface charge density. The estimated global binding affinities of Ca²⁺, Na⁺ and Mg²⁺ to the PM of both cultivars were the same with binding coefficients of 50, 0.8 and 9 M⁻¹, respectively. Consequently, the hypotheses enumerated above to interpret genotypic differences in salinity toxicity are rejected. However, vesicles from the salt-resistant strain sorbed 19% more Ca²⁺ per given amount of protein in the membrane, indicating the existence of a larger number of negatively charged surface sites per given amount of protein and a smaller amount of protein per given area of membrane. Genotypic differences in site-specific Ca²⁺-binding affinity (e.g. at ion channels) remain a viable hypothesis for genotypic differences in salinity tolerance.     

Temperature dependence of photoinduced electron transfer within self-associated porphyrin: guanine monophosphate complexes

In the current report, the temperature dependence of photoinduced electron transfer between tetrakis-(4-tetramethylpyridyl)porphine (T4MPyP) and guanine monophosphate (GMP) has been examined. In the presence of GMP the fluorescence lifetime analysis reveals a Lorentzian distribution of lifetimes centered at 0.7 ns with a width of 0.9 ns displaying significant temperature dependence. Fitting temperature dependent data to the Marcus equation gives a reorganizational energy (λ) for the electron transfer reaction of 0.6 eV and an electronic coupling factor (H_AB) of 3×10⁻³ eV. These results suggest conformational regulation of electron transfer within the non-covalent porphyrin:nucleotide complex.