Hyperbranched polyselenides as glutathione peroxidase mimics

Novel hyperbranched polyselenides with multi-catalytic sites at the branching units have been synthesized which may provide a new approach towards glutathione peroxidase mimics.     

Involutive invariants of the second kind

Let S be a Krull domain which is divisorially étale of degree two over a Krull domain R. The main purpose of this text is to introduce and study involutive invariants of the second kind of S with respect to R, as well as developing techniques allowing to calculate these in terms of other, classical and involutive, invariants.     

Indirect excitons and double electron-hole layers in a wide single GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well in a strong electric field

The recombination spectra of indirect excitons and double electron-hole layers in a wide single quantum well in an electric field are studied. It is found that electrons and holes in the wide well become spatially separated in a sufficiently strong electric field. This leads to a substantial reorganization of the radiative recombination spectrum and to a significant increase in the carrier lifetime. It is shown that the total charge of the electron-hole system can be changed by varying the photoexcitation frequency and the applied electric field, thus passing from the neutral case of indirect excitons to the case of charged double electron-hole layers. The concentration of excess carriers in the well is measured as a function of the electric field strength. The behavior of the excited states of indirect heavy-hole and light-hole excitions is studied for a neutral excitonic system in a strong electric field. It is shown that the electric-field dependences allow the excited states of indirect excitons with a light hole to be distinguished from the excited states with a heavy hole.     

Expert systems for chemical analysis (ESPRIT Project 1570)

Summary This paper gives an overview of the structure and processes going on in the project Expert Systems for Chemical Analysis (ESCA), an international project within the ESPRIT research programme of the European Community. The application area, HPLC method development, is explained and broken down into four domains. The methods used for representing knowledge in the project are discussed.     

Improving the Sensitivity of Forward Light Scattering Technique to Large Particles

The detection of a small number of large particles whose size lies outside the required size distribution is important in the processing of many materials when those particles result in the deterioration of the product quality. Laser diffraction, which is a very popular technique for on-line monitoring and process control, has, however, limited sensitivity to those few large particles. This paper deals with the improvement of this sensitivity. The fluctuations of the signal received by the detectors were analyzed by both experiment and simulation. Two statistical approaches, cross-correlation and principal component analysis (PCA), were applied. A detection procedure is proposed which is based on the combination of sweep selection through PCA and an appropriate deconvolution of the selected sweeps. The preliminary experiments with Al₂O₃ powder showed an improved sensitivity to the large particles.     

Inverse multi-objective combinatorial optimization

Inverse multi-objective combinatorial optimization consists of finding a minimal adjustment of the objective functions coefficients such that a given set of feasible solutions becomes efficient. An algorithm is proposed for rendering a given feasible solution into an efficient one. This is a simplified version of the inverse problem when the cardinality of the set is equal to one. The adjustment is measured by the Chebyshev distance. It is shown how to build an optimal adjustment in linear time based on this distance, and why it is right to perform a binary search for determining the optimal distance. These results led us to develop an approach based on the resolution of mixed-integer linear programs. A second approach based on a branch-and-bound is proposed to handle any distance function that can be linearized. Finally, the initial inverse problem is solved by a cutting plane algorithm.     

Covalently attached monolayers on crystalline hydrogen-terminated silicon: extremely mild attachment by visible light

A very mild method was developed for the attachment of high-quality organic monolayers on crystalline silicon surfaces. By using visible light sources, from 447 to 658 nm, a variety of 1-alkenes and 1-alkynes were attached to hydrogen-terminated Si(100) and Si(111) surfaces at room temperature. The presence and the quality of the monolayers were evaluated by static water contact angles, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and IR spectroscopy. Monolayers prepared by thermal, UV light, or visible light initiation were compared. Additionally, the ability of infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy to study organic monolayers on silicon was explored. A reaction mechanism is discussed on the basis of investigations of the reaction behavior of 1-alkenes with silicon wafers with varying types and levels of doping. Finally, a series of mixed monolayers derived from the mixed solutions of a 1-alkene and an omega-fluoro-1-alkene were investigated to reveal that the composition of the mixed monolayers was directly proportional to the molar ratio of the two compounds in the solutions.