IMEP in support of the comparability of measurement results across the Romanian chemical metrology infrastructure

On the basis of quantitative chemical measurements many important decisions are made in support of legislation or in industrial processes or social aspects. For this reason it is important to improve the quality of chemical measurement results and thus make them comparable and acceptable everywhere. The measurement quality is important to enable an equivalent implementation of the European Union regulations and directives across an enlarged EU. In this context, the European Commission–Joint Research Centre–Institute for Reference Materials and Measurement (EC-JRC-IRMM) set up a programme to improve the scientific basis for metrology in chemistry (MiC) in EU candidate countries in the framework of EU enlargement. Several activities were initiated, such as training, fellowships, sponsoring of seminars, conferences and participation in interlaboratory comparisons. To disseminate measurement traceability, IRMM provides through its International Measurement Evaluation Programme (IMEP) an interlaboratory tool to enable the benchmarking of laboratory performance. IMEP emphasizes the metrological aspects of measurement results, such as traceability and measurement uncertainty. In this way it has become a publicly available European tool for MiC. The Romanian Bureau of Legal Metrology – National Institute of Metrology (BRML-INM) actively supports the participation of Romanian authorized and field laboratories in IMEP interlaboratory comparisons. This paper describes the interest of Romanian laboratories participating in this programme, the analytical and metrological problems that became relevant during these exercises and some actions for improvement. The results from Romanian laboratories participating in IMEP-12 (water), IMEP-16 (wine), IMEP-17 (human serum) and IMEP-20 (tuna fish) are presented. To conclude, the educational and training activities at national level organized jointly by the Romanian National Institute of Metrology (INM) and IRMM are also mentioned.     

A MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF POLY（DIVINYLBENZENE-co-ACRYLIC ACID） IN CROSSLINKING PRECIPITATION POLYMERIZATION

Divinylbenzene-80 （DVB-80） and polar monomer acrylic acid （AA） having hydrogen bonding at a total monomer loading of 5 vol% were precipitated-copolymerized in a variety of organic solvents with 2,2＇-azobis（isobutyronitrile） （AIBN） as initiator. The experiments were investigated from a two-dimensional matrix, i.e., the actual crosslinking degree of DVB varying from 0 to 80% and the solvent composition varying from 0 to 100% of toluene mixture with acetonitrile, when the mixture of acetonitrile and toluene was used as the reaction solvent. Under various reaction conditions, six distinct morphologies including soluble polymers, swellable microgels, coagulum, irregular microparticles, and nano-/micrometer microspheres were formed and the structures of these polymer architectures were described. A morphological map was utilized to discuss the effects of both crosslinking degree of DVB and composition of solvent on the transitions between morphology domains. The results demonstrated that the microspheres are formed by an internal contraction due to the marginal solvency of the continuous phase and the crosslinking of the polymer network through the covalent bonding from DVB as well as the interchain hydrogen-bonding between the carboxylic acid units.     

EFFECTS OF COUPLING AGENTS ON THE CRYSTALLIZATION BEHAVIOR OF PP/T-ZnOw COMPOSITES

The objectives of this paper are to understand the crystallization behavior of polypropylene(PP)composites with surface modified tetra-needle-shaped zinc oxide whisker(T-ZnOw).T-ZnOw was surface modified with different coupling agents,such as silane coupling agents(KH-550,KH-560)and titanate coupling agent(NDZ-105),in order to improve the compatibility between PP and T-ZnOw.DSC and POM were used to characterize the melt and crystallization behavior and the crystalline structures of the composites,respectively.The results show that the surface modified T-ZnOw acts as a nucleating agent of PP crystallization,depending on the coupling agent used for modification.KH-550 and KH-560 have more apparent role in improving the interfacial interaction than NDZ-105 and induce PP crystallization at higher temperature and with smaller spherulites size.The results also suggest that the crystallization behavior depends on not only the content of coupling agent,but also the content of the surface modified T-ZnOw used in the composites.     

RATE OF INTRA-MOLECULAR CONTACT FORMATION IN SHORT TWO-DIMENSIONAL COMPACT POLYMERS CHAINS

It is important to know the rate of intra-molecular contact formation in proteins in order to understand how proteins fold clearly. Here we investigate the rate of intra-molecular contact formation in short two-dimensional compact polymer chains by calculating the probability distribution p(r) of end-to-end distance r using the enumeration calculation method and HP model on two-dimensional square lattice. The probability distribution of end-to-end distance p(r) of short two-dimensional compact polymers chains may consist of two parts, i.e. p(r) = p1(r) p2(r), where p1(r) and p2(r) are different for small r. The rate of contact formation decreases monotonically with the number of bonds N, and the rate approximately conforms to the scaling relation of k(N) ∝ N-α. Here the value of α increases with the contact radius a and it also depends on the percentage of H (hydrophobic) residues in the sequences of compact chains and the energy parameters of εHH, εHP and εPP . Some comparisons of theoretical predictions with experimental results are also made. This investigation may help us to understand the protein folding.     

ADSORPTION OF 2,4-D ON MODIFIED HYPERCROSSLINKED POLYSTYRENE （NDA-99） AND XAD-4 RESIN

The adsorption behavior of pesticide 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in aqueous solution has been investigated using a hypercrosslinked polystyrene adsorbent (NDA-99) modified by dimethylamine group as well as a nonionic macroporous adsorbent (XAD-4). The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were employed to fit the experimental data to describe adsorption mechanism. It shows that NDA-99 resin exhibits an adsorption affinity for 2,4-D higher than XAD-4 resin owing to its exceptional micropore structure and the amine group of the hypercrosslinked matrix.Further studies indicate that the hydrogen bonding interaction and the stronger π-π conjugation play a significant role in the course of the adsorption of 2,4-D on NDA-99 resin, which is in agreement with the IR spectroscopic results and the △E values of HOMO (the highest occupied molecular orbit) of adsorbent and LUMO (the lowest unoccupied molecular orbit) of adsorbate calculated from the MINDO/3 model.     

Practical aspects of the uncertainty and traceability of spectrochemical measurement results by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry

The determination of trace elements concentration in water by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS) is a common and well established technique in many chemical testing laboratories. However, the evaluation of measurement uncertainty results is not systematically implemented. The paper presents an easy step-by-step example leading to the evaluation of the combined standard uncertainty of copper determination in water using ETAAS. The major contributors to the overall measurement uncertainty are identified due to amount of copper in water sample that mainly depends on the absorbance measurements, due to certified reference material and due to auto-sampler volume measurements. The practical aspects how the traceability of copper concentration in water can be established and demonstrated are also pointed out.     

High speed liquid chromatography with small bore columns

Using a specially designed column system, we have systematically investigated the effect of mobile phase velocity on column efficiency. The performance of small bore columns operated at different linear velocities of mobile phase was examined for three different types of injection system. Using the value of H^∞/u or n^∞/t${}_{\text{r}}^{\text{º}}$ as a criterion of a high speed separation, we calculated values of n/t${}_{\text{r}}^{\text{º}}$ for different solutes according to the equation \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ {{\rm n}\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{\rm n} {{\rm t}_{\rm r}^ \circ }}}\right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {{\rm t}_{\rm r}^ \circ }} = {{{\rm n}^\infty } \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{{\rm n}^\infty } {{\rm t}_{\rm r}^ \circ }}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {{\rm t}_{\rm r}^ \circ }}\left({\frac{{1 + {\rm k'}}}{{{\rm k' + }\beta }}} \right)^2 $\end{document}; the results obtained are in agreement with the experimentally determined values. These systematic investigations culminated in the separation of seven compounds in less than 10 s; the respective chromatogram is shown.     

On concentration of solution to a Schrödinger logarithmic equation with deepening potential well

In this work, we prove the existence of positive solution for the following class of problems where λ>0 and is a potential satisfying some conditions. Using the variational method developed by Szulkin for functionals, which are the sum of a C¹ functional with a convex lower semicontinuous functional, we prove that for each large enough λ>0, there exists a positive solution for the problem, and that, as λ→+∞, such solutions converge to a positive solution of the limit problem defined on the domain Ω=int(V^?1({0})).     

Unconditionally Superclose Analysis of a New Mixed Finite Element Method for Nonlinear Parabolic Equation

This paper develops a framework to deal with the unconditional superclose analysis of nonlinear parabolic equation. Taking the finite element pair $Q_{11}/Q_{01} × Q_{10}$ as an example, a new mixed finite element method (FEM) is established and the $τ$ -independent superclose results of the original variable $u$ in $H^1$-norm and the flux variable $\mathop{q} \limits ^{\rightarrow}= −a(u)∇u$ in $L^2$-norm are deduced ($τ$ is the temporal partition parameter). A key to our analysis is an error splitting technique, with which the time-discrete and the spatial-discrete systems are constructed, respectively. For the first system, the boundedness of the temporal errors is obtained. For the second system, the spatial superclose results are presented unconditionally, while the previous literature always only obtain the convergent estimates or require certain time step conditions. Finally, some numerical results are provided to confirm the theoretical analysis, and show the efficiency of the proposed method.     

我国渔业企业经济效益分析研究——以2013年我国上市渔业公司数据为例

随着居民收入水平的提高,我国水产品消费数量不断增加.水产品消费需求的增加,一方面导致水产品养殖企业数量增多,水产品养殖产业初具规模;另一方面也导致了市场竞争压力的增大,使得水产品养殖企业经济效益降低.利用2013年我国上市渔业公司财务数据,基于因子分析法研究了我国上市渔业公司经济效益水平.研究结果显示,2013年大湖股份、国联水产各公共因子及综合因子得分都较高,表明其公司盈利能力、偿债能力及运营能力较强,企业后期发展前景较好.而好当家、武昌鱼的综合因子得分较低,需要引起公司重视.最后针对2013年我国上市渔业公司的整体得分情况,提出了提高我国渔业企业经济效益水平的建议.