The overload phenomenon in gas chromatography

The usual concepts of the dynamics of an overloaded solute band fail to explain several phenomena such as the typical “leading-tail” shape and retention deviations exhibited by overloaded peaks, and why these defects are more commonly observed in short columns. These and other related deviations from theory can be rationalized by a non-classical approach to the overloading phenomenon.     

Metastable transitions in the mass spectra of fluoro-ethylenes

Metastable transitions in the mass spectra of six fluoroethylenes are reported. In several cases in which HF is the neutral species lost, 0.4 to 0.7 eV of kinetic energy is liberated. In two fragmentations, it is shown that the kinetic energy release is only about half the minimum energy of activation of the back reaction calculated from thermochemical data. Evidence is presented to support the view that in some cases at least, fragmentation occurs from two or more electronic states of the molecular ion.     

Radiation damage and decay characteristics of zinc selenide emission bands and their equivalence to zinc sulphide emission bands

Irradiation of zinc selenide at ～ 20°K with electrons capable of displacing zinc atoms results in the production of cathodoluminescence emission bands at 610 and 630 nm. Enhancement of the 630 nm emission band by electron damage requires the presence of copper in the samples. These emissions have been shown to give a peak energy shift to lower energies after excitation, as is characteristic of donor-acceptor pair recombination. It is concluded that the 610 and 630 nm emission bands of zinc selenide are equivalent to the self-activated and copper green emission bands of zinc sulphide. The 530 nm emission band of zinc selenide is not sensitive to electron damage, shows no time shift and is thought to be equivalent to the copper blue emission of zinc sulphide.     

Nuclear magnetic resonance and spin relaxation in biological systems

Proton nuclear spin-lattice relaxation in biological systems is generally distinguished from that in inorganic systems such as rocks by the presence of locally disordered macromolecular environments. Rapid exchange of readily observed labile small molecules among differently oriented macromolecular sites generally nearly averages the spectral anisotropies in the small molecule resonances. The biological tissue is generally distinguished from the inorganic matrix by the presence of a significant population of protons in the solid components that are well connected by dipolar spin couplings. Magnetic coupling between the solid and the liquid components generally dominates the magnetic field dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rates observed in the small molecule components which is generally described by a power law in the Larmor frequency. Recent theory involving a modification of the spin-phonon class of relaxation mechanism provides a quantitative understanding of these data in terms of the dynamics of the chain molecules generally present in the solid spin systems, folded proteins for example.     

End-to-end correlation for a C-12 hydrocarbon chain

The 19F nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate constants were measured as a function of magnetic field strength for 1,12-diaminododecane labeled at one end with a nitroxide radical and at the other with a trifluoromethyl group. The magnetic relaxation dispersion profile (MRD) reports the spectral density function appropriate to the end-to-end correlation function for the doubly labeled molecule. After extrapolation to zero concentration to eliminate the intermolecular relaxation contribution to relaxation, the resulting intramolecular MRD profile was compared with several model approaches. The rotational model for the spectral density functions as included in the Solomon-Bloembergen-Morgan equations does not describe the data well. The earlier model of Freed for nuclear spin relaxation induced by a freely diffusing paramagnetic co-solute is not rigorous for this case because the paramagnet is tethered to the observed nuclear spin and only a restricted space in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear spin is accessible for pseudo-translational diffusion of one end of the molecule with respect to the other. A generalization of the Torrey model for magnetic relaxation by translational diffusion developed by Nevzorov and Freed, which includes the effect of restrictions imposed by the finite length of the chain, describes the experiment within experimental errors. A simple modification of the Hwang-Freed model that does not specifically include the dynamical effects of the finite tether also provides a good approximation to the data when the tether chain is sufficiently long.     

An indexed atlas of digital mammograms for computer-aided diagnosis of breast cancer

Computer-aided diagnosis (cad) systems are being developed to assist radiologists in the interpretation of ambiguous mammographic features corresponding to possible signs of early breast cancer. Databases of digital mammograms are needed for testing such systems; we present an overview of a few such databases. Most databases are limited to single-exam sets of two or four mammograms on which the diagnosis was made, some ground-truth information related to the position of diagnostically significant mammographic features, and the diagnosis. We propose the design of a comprehensive, indexed atlas of digital mammograms. The design of an appropriate indexing scheme facilitates the implementation of content-based retrieval techniques needed for efficient access to and retrieval of relevant cases from the atlas. We also propose the use of mobile software agents for facilitating remote consultation of the atlas. Mobile agents can move between data sources such as the atlas and hospital repositories, perform computational tasks at each site, and return only relevant data to the user. These features reduce the computational requirements of the local computer system, bandwidth requirements, and overall network traffic. Proposed applications of the atlas include research, remote consultation, teaching, evaluation ofcad systems, and self-evaluation by radiologists.     

Factorizations of the Complete Graph into C 5-Factors and 1-Factors

In this paper, we show that K_10n can be factored into C₅-factors and 1-factors for all non-negative integers and satisfying 2+=10n–1.Research partially supported by an NSF-AWM Mentoring Travel Grant     

Embeddings in generalized manifolds

We prove that a ()-connected map from a compact PL -manifold to a generalized -manifold with the disjoint disks property, , is homotopic to a tame embedding. There is also a controlled version of this result, as well as a version for noncompact and proper maps that are properly ()-connected. The techniques developed lead to a general position result for arbitrary maps , , and a Whitney trick for separating submanifolds of that have intersection number 0, analogous to the well-known results when is a manifold.