Determination of major and trace elements in iron reference materials using k0-NAA

Major and trace element contents in iron ore reference materials were investigated using k ₀-instrumental neutron activation analysis (k ₀-INAA). To avoid iron interferences, radiochemical separation was developed (k ₀-RNAA). The determination of the investigated elements in the inorganic phase from hydrochloric acid solution was performed after radiochemical separation of iron by diisopropyl ether. It was found that after the Fe elimination, the limit of detection for some elements was much lower that enables their direct determination. The distribution of 39 elements (with intermediate/medium and long half-life radionuclides) after Fe removal was investigated.     

Gold nanoparticle-initiated free radical oxidations and halogen abstractions

We report on the use of EPR spectroscopy and spin trapping technique to detect free radical intermediates formed in the presence of gold nanoparticles. Phosphine- and amine-protected gold nanoparticles were found to initiate air oxidation of organic substrates containing active hydrogen atoms, such as amines and phosphine oxides. Nanoparticles protected by stronger bound ligands (e.g., thiols) were inactive in these reactions. We also found that gold nanoparticles are able to abstract a halogen atom from the halogenated compounds, presumably due to the high affinity of gold metal for halogens. Reaction of Au nanoparticles with chloroform showed an unusual inverse isotope effect. The trichloromethyl spin adduct was observed when Au nanoparticles were mixed with CDCl(3) but not with CHCl(3). This unexpected behaviour suggests that C-H bond breaking is not the rate-determining step in Au-initiated hydrogen abstraction.     

An Extension of the Admissibility-Type Conditions for the Exponential Dichotomy of C 0-Semigroups

In the present paper we obtain a sufficient condition for the exponential dichotomy of a strongly continuous, one-parameter semigroup , in terms of the admissibility of the pair . It is already known the equivalence between the -admissibility condition and and the hyperbolicity of a C ₀-semigroup , when we assume a priori that the kernel of the dichotomic projector (denoted here by X ₂) is T(t)-invariant and is an invertible operator. We succeed to prove in this paper that the admissibility of the pair still implies the existence of an exponential dichotomy for a C ₀-semigroup even in the general case where the kernel of the dichotomic projector, X ₂, is not assumed to be T(t)-invariant.      

Covariance-based approaches to aeroacoustic noise source analysis

In this paper, several covariance-based approaches are proposed for aeroacoustic noise source analysis under the assumptions of a single dominant source and all observers contaminated solely by uncorrelated noise. The Crame?r-Rao Bounds (CRB) of the unbiased source power estimates are also derived. The proposed methods are evaluated using both simulated data as well as data acquired from an airfoil trailing edge noise experiment in an open-jet aeroacoustic facility. The numerical examples show that the covariance-based algorithms significantly outperform an existing least-squares approach and provide accurate power estimates even under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. Furthermore, the mean-squared-errors (MSEs) of the so-obtained estimates are close to the corresponding CRB especially for a large number of data samples. The experimental results show that the power estimates of the proposed approaches are consistent with one another as long as the core analysis assumptions are obeyed.     

Electrochemical preparation and characterization of a cobalt oxide–platinum composite with promising capacitive and electrocatalytic features

In the present work, boron-doped diamond polycrystalline films were used as support for direct anodic deposition of the cobalt oxide, and continuous Co₃O₄ coatings with reasonably good conductivity were obtained by appropriately adjusting the deposition charge. Further electrochemical deposition of platinum particles on the oxide substrate enabled the formation of a stable composite with a specific capacitance of ca. 431 F?cm^?3 that compares well with that available with similar materials obtained by non-electrochemical methods. Additional advantages of electrochemically obtained composites are the lower content of noble metal, the uniform distribution of the charge over an extended potential range, and, importantly, the simplicity of the preparation method. It was also found that when deposited on a Co₃O₄ substrate, Pt particles show, besides an enhanced active surface area, an improved catalytic activity for methanol anodic oxidation. This behavior was tentatively ascribed to the presence of a high amount of platinum-oxidized species.     

Some remarks on the dynamics of the underwater vehicle

The stability problem, the existence of periodic solutions and the numerical integration via the Lie-Trotter integrator of the Kirchhoff equations are discussed and some of their properties are pointed out.     

Analytic description of enhanced backscattering and negative polarization from a cloud of dipoles

We develop a second-order model of the light scattered by a cloud of randomly positioned dipoles and consider the interference of reciprocal rays that lead to enhanced backscatter and negative polarization. For large pathlength separations, we derive analytic expressions for the individual polarization intensities.     

A New Crown Compound with Multifunctional Capabilities

A new crown ether, derived from the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free radical (DPPH) and diaza-18-crown-6 (kryptofix 22) was synthesized.The physico-chemical properties of this new compound were studied using ¹H- and ¹³C-NMR, EPR, UV-Vis, and IR spectroscopy. The compound has acid-base and redox properties, each of these involving a colour change (i.e., fromyellow to red-brown for acid-base processes, and from yellow to violet for redox processes).The transport properties of the compound were studied by means of biphasic (l/l or s/l) systems. Thus, by an acid-base process alkaline cations were transported into an organic phase, as well as arginine; by a redox process, short-lived freeradicals such as ^.C₆H₅ and ^.H were generated and observed by the EPR spin-trapping technique, using t-butyl-phenyl-nitrone (PBN) as spin-trap.     

Some problems concerning the evaluation of non-isothermal kinetic parameters

The validity of isoconversional methods used to evaluate the activation energy is discussed. The authors have shown that the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa and Friedman methods give results that agree with each other only if the activation energy does not change with the degree of conversion. A criterion for the reaction mechanism as expressed by the differential conversion function is suggested too.