Determination of 17 kinds of banned organochlorine pesticides in water by activated carbon fiber-solid phase microextraction coupled with GC-MS.

Activated carbon fiber (ACF) as extraction fiber for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and its application for the analysis of banned organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) were investigated. Firstly, ACF was activated by different concentration of zinc chloride, which indicated that ACF activated by 60% zinc chloride had a reasonable specific surface area, pore volume and pore distribution. Secondly, the parameters for the ACF-SPME procedure, the adsorption and desorption conditions, were also optimized when coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Thirdly, the ACF-SPME was used to analyze 17 kinds of OCPs in water. The linearity of most pesticides was found to be between 0.2 and 50 microg/l with GC-MS under the selected ion monitoring (SIM) acquisition mode. The limits of detection (LOD) at the sub microg/l were obtained. The work demonstrated here shows that ACF is a promising alternative for the SPME procedure.     

Hybrid cam mechanisms

This paper investigates the problem of driving a machine with several reciprocating heavy inertias. The drive should also realize some programmable flexibility of the motion, so that the operation of the machine, e,g., synchronization between different motions and duration of standstills, can easily be modified. The use of a single servomotor for every motion is not the best solution, since it does not allow for energy recuperation. This means that the installed servomotor power will be much higher than the required net peak power for the machine as a whole. The presented solution, however, reduces the servomotor peak torque and power by one order of magnitude, and makes energy transfer between the motions possible. The hybrid cam mechanism consists of a hybrid drive, which is a combination of a servomotor, a constant velocity motor and a cam follower mechanism. The operation principle exploits the nonlinear characteristics of the cam to add flexibility at low cost of energy. The hybrid solution is particularly successful for motions involving high peak acceleration. In addition, the concept can be used to reject disturbances. Simulations show the performance of the hybrid cam mechanism.     

Minimum audible movement angle as a function of signal frequency and the velocity of the source

Thresholds for the detection of the direction of travel of a moving sound source were determined in a single-interval, forced-choice paradigm. Both the rate at which the sound source is displaced (8 degrees-128 degrees/s) and the frequency of the signal to be localized (500-3700 Hz) affect dynamic spatial resolution. There is an inverse relationship between spatial resolution and the rate of travel, a finding that replicates an earlier observation on performance with sources displaced at high velocities [Perrott and Musicant, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 62, 1463-1466 (1977)]. However, the magnitude of this effect depends on the actual velocities employed. Relatively small changes in spatial resolution are apparent for velocities below approximately 32 degrees/s. The significant frequency effect can be summarized as follows: Dynamic spatial resolution is better for signals below 1000 Hz than for signals above this value (within the range tested). Particularly poor resolution is evident for signals between 1300-2000 Hz. The present results indicate that signal frequency affects dynamic spatial resolution in a fashion similar to that which has been observed in the more common "static" localization test situation. There is no indication of an interaction between these two variables. These results provide additional support for the hypothesis that both static and dynamic spatial discrimination functions are dependent upon the same underlying mechanisms. The effects of velocity upon the spatial resolution problem, a unique aspect of the dynamic paradigm, can probably be explained without the necessity of additional hypothetical mechanisms in the auditory system (e.g., a specialized motion detector).     

Excitation functions for some output channels following the p +55Mn interaction atE p=1·3–2·0 MeV

Excitation functions for the⁵⁵Mn(p, p )⁵⁵Mn,⁵⁵Mn(p, n )⁵⁵Fe and⁵⁵Mn(p, )⁵⁶Fe reactions are studied for proton beam energyE _p=1·3–2 MeV. The excitation functions are established from yield functions for -rays emitted from the first excited states of final nuclei. Many resonances are observed and competition of their decay into all three output channels is analysed. Spin-parity assignment for some resonant states in the⁵⁶Fe compound nucleus is deduced.Participated partly in the course of his work on a Thesis.The authors wish to thank the staff of the Van de Graaff accelerator at Charles University in Prague for the efficient operation of the machine and dr. I. Wilhelm for the valuable technical help in the early period of the experimental work. One of us (N. A. N.) acknowledges the staff of the Dept. of Nuclear Physics of Charles University in Prague for the excellent working conditions.     

Proton-proton correlations at small relative momentum in neon-nucleus collisions at E/A=400 and 800 MeV

Proton-proton small angle correlations have been measured in neon-nucleus collisions, using the 4 pi detector Diogene, at 400 and 800 MeV per nucleon incident energies. Values of the size of the emitting region are obtained by comparison with the Koonin formula, taking into account the biases of the apparatus. The dependence of the density on target mass and incident energy is also analysed.     

Seven-pinhole tomography of the thyroid

In this paper we introduce a new application of the sevenpinhole (7P) collimator: tomographic imaging of the thyroid. The collimator design has been reoptimized for this particular application by diminishing the distance from the collimator plate to the crystal and by choosing a smaller pinhole diameter. To reconstruct thyroid images from the two-dimensional projection data we use a method which we developed for 7P tomographic imaging of the heart [1]. Phantom experiments and patient studies demonstrate that this new device is capable of producing tomographic images of good quality and high resolution. Therefore, it seems to offer a promising alternative to conventional planar imaging of the thyroid (using a single-pinhole collimator).     

Time-coded aperture tomography: experimental results

In this paper, we discuss the applicability of a time-coded aperture system especially designed for thyroid tomography on the basis of phantom experiments. Our studies show that 1) the quality of the reconstructions is high (e.g., a cold spot of 6 mm diameter in a thyroid phantom can easily be detected), and 2) the reconstruction can be carried out in less than 11 min on a standard 16 bit minicomputer (HP1000). It is therefore concluded that the clinical potentiality of the device is good.