A special problem of large scale forest management

The continuously growing need for forestry products and the limited availability of forests have raised the question of how best the forest economy should be managed. In what follows, it will be assumed that a group of cellulose factories will be built in a forest region of a country, where the forest will be cultivated, solely with the needs of the factories in mind. Since large forestry machines will be used, a selective felling of tress will not be possible; a machine removes all the trees from an area being harvested. After that, new trees are planted immediately. This obviously necessitates the forest being divided into smaller subforests, which produce raw material for the factories in a sufficiently continuous manner. the optimal dimensioning of such a system of forests in the steady state is discussed. The basic difference from present practice is the assumption that the time needed for the transportation of wood is negligible; the cost aspect is not considered in this paper.     

Chelation of a proton by an aliphatic tertiary diamine

A series of monoprotonated aliphatic diamines has been examined, which crystallize in three general motifs: salt-bridged, cyclic, or clustered. The monoprotonated triflic acid salt of Me2N(CH2)4NMe2 forms a proton-bridged cyclic cation. The internal N-N distance is 2.66 A, with the bridging proton in the middle, having an NHN angle >/=172 degrees. The triflate oxygens lie more than 4 A away from the midpoint between the nitrogen atoms, indicating that a salt bridge does not form. The average NH distance in a solid sample was determined by measuring the 15N-H dipolar coupling in the triflic acid salt of the completely deuterated diamine (CD3)2N(CD2)4N(CD3)2. The value of the dipolar coupling constant, 5250 +/- 90 Hz, corresponds to an average NH distance of 1.32 A, nearly half-the NN distance. That result agrees with DFT calculations, which give a double-well potential minimum for proton transit between the two amino groups, having a zero-point vibrational level close to the barrier top. Theory predicts that the maximum value of the zero point vibrational wave function is almost coincident with a local potential energy maximum, consistent with the experimental findings.     

Almost common priors

What happens when priors are not common? We introduce a measure for how far a type space is from having a common prior, which we term prior distance. If a type space has δ prior distance, then for any bet f it cannot be common knowledge that each player expects a positive gain of δ times the sup-norm of f, thus extending no betting results under common priors. Furthermore, as more information is obtained and partitions are refined, the prior distance, and thus the extent of common knowledge disagreement, can only decrease. We derive an upper bound on the number of refinements needed to arrive at a situation in which the knowledge space has a common prior, which depends only on the number of initial partition elements.     

Review paper: imaging lidar by digital micromirror device

Optical Review - Applications of digital micromirror device for lidar are overviewed. A large Lagrange invariant value makes DMD as one of the attractive beam steering transmitter and receiver...     

The speech of a postlingually deafened teenager during the first year of use of a multichannel cochlear implant

The speech of a profoundly postlingually deafened teenager was recorded before, immediately after, 3 months after, and 1 year after electrical stimulation with a Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant. Listener tests of target words revealed significant improvement in overall quality over the year. Spectrograms showed less aspiration and better definition of the lower formants. Acoustic measurements indicated immediate change in F0 and gradual changes in syllable duration and some aspects of voicing and manner of articulation. Vowel space shrank steadily over the year, with both first- and second-formant frequencies dropping. Prestimulation results are discussed relative to the literature on the speech of the congenitally hearing impaired. Effects of multichannel electrical stimulation on speech are compared with studies of single-electrode stimulation.     

Structural, energetic, and vibrational properties of NO(x) adsorption on Ag(n), n = 1-8

The density functional theory is used to explore structural, electronic, and vibrational properties of NO, NO(2), and NO(3) adsorption on small silver clusters, Ag(n), with n =1-8. Generally, NO adsorbs in a top configuration, whereas NO(2) and NO(3) are adsorbed in bridge configuration. NO2 and NO3 introduce pronounced structural relaxations in the clusters. In particular, the transition size from planar to three-dimensional structures is modified. For each cluster size, the adsorption energies follow the trend E(a) (NO) < E(a) (NO(2)) < E(a) (NO(3)). The adsorption energies show a marked odd/even alternation with a stronger bonding to odd clusters. Analysis of the electronic structure reveals an ionic bond mechanism for NO(2) and NO(3). Odd/even effects are also present in vibrational properties of the adsorbed radicals. With respect to the gas phase, the largest shifts are calculated for adsorption on odd clusters. Possible implications of the results for Ag/Al(2)O(3) HC-SCR catalysts are discussed.     

Capillary electrophoresis off-line matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation mass spectrometry of intact and digested proteins using cationic-coated capillaries

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) was coupled off-line with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) for the analysis of proteins and peptides. CE fractions were collected directly on a matrix-coated MALDI target, using a sheath-flow interface. Protein adsorption during CE separations was prevented by coating the capillaries with the physically adsorbed, cationic polymer PolyE-323. The CE/MALDI-MS system was used for the analysis of model proteins and peptides at physiological pH as well as analysis of proteins in tear fluid. Moreover, tryptic on-target digestion of the collected protein fractions, with subsequent MALDI-MS and MS/MS peptide analysis, was demonstrated.