Modification of Amaya-Sugiura passive sampling spectrophotometric method of nitrogen dioxide determination in ambient air

Summary On the example of the previously tested method of nitrogen dioxide determination in ambient air two aspects of wind influence on the badge-type sampler performance were discussed: an appropriate design of the sampler eliminating any open recess over the face of the sampler and so called starvation effect i.e. decrease in the mass of analyte absorbed by the sampler at wind velocities below 20 cm/s. The wind effect on the performance of the passive sampler has been diminished from about 150% to maximum 20%.     

Terpenoic acid glycerides from the dorid nudibranch Archidoris montereyensis

Extracts of the dorid nudibranch $\text{Archidoris montereyensis}$ contain a diterpenoic acid glyceride 1 whose structure has been determined by x-ray diffraction analysis. The structure of a minor metabolite, the sesquiterpenoic acid glyceride 2, was determined by chemical correlation.     

Can semi-empirical models describe HCl dissociation in water?

We discuss the failure of commonly used AM1 and PM3 semiempirical methods to correctly describe acid dissociation. We focus our analysis on HCl because of its physicochemical importance and its relevance in atmospheric chemistry. The structure of non-dissociated and dissociated HCl – (H₂O) _n clusters is accounted for. The very bad results obtained with PM3 (and also with AM1) are related to large errors in gas-phase proton affinity of water and gas-phase acidity of HCl. Indeed, estimation of pKa values shows that neither AM1 nor PM3 are able to predict HCl dissociation in liquid water since HCl is found to be a weaker acid than H₃O⁺. We have proposed in previous works a modified PM3 approach (PM3-MAIS) adapted to intermolecular calculations. It is derived from PM3 by reparameterization of the core–core functions using ab initio data. Since parameters for H–Cl and O–Cl core–core interactions were not yet available, we have carried out the corresponding optimization. Application of the PM3-MAIS method to HCl dissociation in HCl–(H₂O) _n clusters leads to a huge improvement over PM3 results. Though the method predicts a slightly overestimated HCl acidity in water environment, the overall agreement with ab initio calculations is very satisfying and justifies efforts to develop new semiempirical methods.     

Solid-phase spectrophotometric microdetermination of iron with ascorbic acid and ferrozine

 A very sensitive and selective method for the determination of trace amounts of iron has been developed, based on the reduction of Fe(III) to Fe(II) by ascorbic acid, followed by chromogenic chelation of Fe(II) with ferrozine. The complex Fe(II)-ferrozine is easily sorbed on a dextran-type anion-exchange gel packed in a 1 mm cell, and the absorbance of the gel is measured directly at 569 and 800 nm. The extended linear range of the determination is 0.5–10 ng ml^-1 of iron (apparent molar absorptivity=4.4×10⁷ l mol^-1 cm^-1) and the precision (RSD) 1.3% for a concentration of 5 ng ml^-1 of iron (n=10). The detection limit for a sample volume of 1000 ml, using 0.040 g of anion-exchanger, corresponds to 0.12 ng ml^-1. The method has been successfully applied to the determination of iron in natural and waste waters, wine, soil extract and previously digested vegetal tissues, drugs and human hair. Received: 20 November 1995/Revised: 23 January 1996/Accepted: 26 January 1996     

Cross-sections of 14 MeV neutron reactions producing short-lived nuclides

The cross-sections for the production of the short-lived nuclides:^26mAl,^197mAu,^136mBa,^79mBr,^139mCe,³⁴Cl,^167mEr,^114m3In,^114m2In,^38mK,^38mCl,²⁶Na,²⁰F,¹⁹²Re,^207mPb,^203mPb,^46mSc,^183mW,^90mZr obtained from (n, 2n), (n, n′), (n, alpha), (n,p) reactions using 14 MeV neutrons, were evaluated by the activation method. The experimental results of this work were compared with those obtained by other authors.     

Determination of the iron content of aluminate liquors from the Bayer alumina process by neutron activation analysis

The behaviour of iron in the Bayer process has been investigated by neutron activation analysis and Ge(Li) spectrometry, using bauxite samples of various origin. The amount of iron impurities in alumina was found to be independent of the origin of the bauxites. Alumina is contaminated by iron in the process of decomposition of aluminate liquors; regardless whether iron is present in ‘dissolved’ form or as a floating impurity, it will pass into the alumina almost completely.     

Voltammetric studies on the interactions between camazepam metabolic series and human serum albumin. Determination of oxazepam using adsorptive stripping voltammetry

The behaviour of oxazepam in adsorptive stripping voltammetry was studied taking into account those conditions which have an influence on the accumulation step (electrolyte, pH, time, potential, drop size and stirring rate), rest time and stripping step (pulse amplitude and scan rate). Oxazepam can be determined at a hanging mercury drop electrode by differential-pulse voltammetry in 0.008 M Britton-Robinson buffer at pH 2.0 with a ?0.50 V accumulation potential. Its detection limit was found to be 3.6 × 10^?10 M (30-s accumulation) and the relative standard deviation for oxazepam concentrations in the range 2.8 × 10^?8?4.0 × 10^?7 M is lower than 2.8% (80-s accumulation). In addition, a procedure using adsorptive stripping voltammetry was developed to study the interactions occurring between human albumin and the camazepam metabolic series (camazepam, temazepam and oxazepam). The interactions decreased in the order temazepam ? oxazepam ? camazepam and the groups and structural modifications favouring interaction were determined.     

Determination of zinc by flow injection with fluorimetric detection in a micellar medium

A room-temperature flow injection spectrofluorimetric method is presented for the determination of Zn(II), based on the use of salicylaldehyde thiocarbohydrazone in the presence of Triton X-100 and sodium acetate-acetic acid buffer. Various physical and chemical variables affecting the reaction in the flow system were evaluated. The proposed method is very selective. The calibration graph is linear over the range 10-1000 ng/ml, with a detection limit of 5 ng/ml and a relative standard deviation at the 50 ng/ml level of 1.8 %. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Zn(II) in drinking waters and biological samples.     

On fixed points of holomorphic automorphisms

Summary Banach M-lattices are studied from the view point whether all the biholomorphic automorphisms of their unit balls admit fixed points when continuously extended to the closure of the unit ball. A characterization of compact topologieal F-spaces is found in terms of the fixed points of the elements of AutB(C()) which enables to establish some particular properties also of the topological automorphisms of compact F-spaces. Finally it is shown that if the M- lattice E admits a predual then each member of Aut B(E) has fixed point if and only if E is isometrically isomorphic with some l-space.     

“Integer-making” theorems

Let X = {x₁, x₂,…} be a finite set and associate to every x_i a real number α_i. Let f(n) [g (n)] be the least value such that given any family $\text{F}$ of subsets of X having maximum degree n [cardinality n], one can find integers α_i, i=1,2,… so that α_i ? α_i|<1 and

$\text{∑}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i\; ?\; E}}\text{a}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{?}\text{∑}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i\; ?\; E}}\text{α}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{≤?(n)}\text{∑}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i\; ?\; E}}\text{a}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{?}\text{∑}\text{x}{}_{\mathrm{i\; ?\; E}}\text{α}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{≤}\text{g(n)}$

for all $\text{E ?}\text{F}$. We prove

$\text{f(n)≤n ? 1 and g(n)≤c(n}\text{log}\text{n)}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$

.