Anodic stripping coulometry with collection for absolute trace analysis of lead, using flow-through electrochemical cells with porous working electrodes

Summary Flow-through electrochemical cells with porous working electrodes made of crushed reticulated vitreous carbon and plated with mercury were used for absolute analysis of trace amounts of lead by anodic stripping coulometry with collection (ASCWC) in a flow system. The role of mercury coating, flow rate and pH were investigated. The coulombic content of the collection peak corresponded to the theoretical values calculated by Faraday's law in a concentration range from about 10^–9 to 10^–6 mol/l. The relative error and the relative standard deviation was +0.15% and 0.8%, respectively for 2×10^–6 mol/l analyte concentration. The absolute detection limit (3 s) was 0.1 ng of Pb, the linear response range 7×10⁴. One leave from: Department of Analytical Chemistry, Slovak Technical University, CS-812 37 Bratislava, Czechoslovakia     

REGULAR RELATIONS AND MONOTONE NORMAL ORDERED SPACES

In this paper the classical theorem of Zareckii about regular relations is generalized and an intrinsic characterization of regularity is obtained. Based on the generalized Zareckii theorem and the intrinsic characterization of regularity, the authors give a characterization of monotone normality of ordered spaces. A new proof of the Urysohn-Nachbin lemma is presented which is quite different from the classical one.     

ESTIMATE OF THE UPPER CRITICAL FIELD AND CONCENTRATION FOR SUPERCONDUCTOR

The effect of an applied magnetic field on an inhomogeneous superconductor is studied and the value of the upper critical magnetic field Hc3 at which superconductivity can nucleate is estimated. In addition, the authors locate the concentration of the order parameter, which depends on the inhomogeneous term a(x). Unlikely to the homogeneous case, the order parameter may concentrate in the interior of the superconducting material, due to the influence of the inhomogeneous term a(x).     

α-FUZZY PAIRWISE RETRACT OF L-VALUED PAIRWISE STRATIFICATION SPACES

The notion of a fuzzy retract was introduced by Rodabaugh (1981). The notion of a fuzzy pairwise retract was introduced in 2001. Some weak forms and some strong forms of α-continuous mappings were introduced in 1988 and 1997. The authors extend some of these forms to the L-fuzzy bitopological setting and construct various α-fuzzy pairwise retracts. The concept of weakly induced spaces in the case L = [0,1] was introduced by Martin (1980). Liu and Luo (1987) generalized this notion to the case that L is an arbitrary F-lattice and introduced the notion of induced L-fts. Several results are obtained, especially, for L-valued pairwise stratification spaces.     

FORWARD-BACKWARD STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH STOPPING TIME

The existence and uniqueness results of fully coupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations with stopping time (unbounded) is obtained. One kind of comparison theorem for this kind of equations is also proved.     

Discrete global descent method for discrete global optimization and nonlinear integer programming

A novel method, entitled the discrete global descent method, is developed in this paper to solve discrete global optimization problems and nonlinear integer programming problems. This method moves from one discrete minimizer of the objective function f to another better one at each iteration with the help of an auxiliary function, entitled the discrete global descent function. The discrete global descent function guarantees that its discrete minimizers coincide with the better discrete minimizers of f under some standard assumptions. This property also ensures that a better discrete minimizer of f can be found by some classical local search methods. Numerical experiments on several test problems with up to 100 integer variables and up to 1.38 × 10¹⁰⁴ feasible points have demonstrated the applicability and efficiency of the proposed method.     

Crystallographic report: Bis(norfloxacin)dilead(II) tetranitrate, [Pb2(H‐Norf)2(ONO2)4]

The centrosymmetric binuclear structure of [Pb₂(H‐Norf)₂(ONO₂)₄]shows the geometry around each lead(II) atom to be distorted trigonal bipyramidal with Pb–O distances ranging from 2.357(3) to 2.769(4) Å. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enhancement effect of iron addition for the decomposition of organic mercury as studied by continuous flow analysis with cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometric detection

Summary A continuous flow analysis is described for the determination of total mercury by cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry. Organic mercury compounds such as methylmercury(II) chloride, ethylmercury(II) chloride and phenylmercury(II) chloride were decomposed by potassium peroxodisulphate with addition of ferric chloride as catalytic reagent. The reducing reagent used was tin(II) chloride in sodium hydroxide solution. With 1,000 mg Fe/l added in the decomposition process, we found that methylmercury(II) chloride and ethylmercury(II) chloride gave response signals similar to those of mercury(II) chloride. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of total mercury in waste water. Permanent address: Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Andalas University, Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia