Assessment of single extractions for the determination of mobile forms of metals in highly polluted soils and sediments--analytical and thermodynamic approaches

Highly polluted forest/tilled soils and stream sediments from a mining and smelting area were subjected to single-extraction procedures to determine the extractable contents of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn. The results obtained from four widely used operationally defined single extraction tests were compared: deionised water, 0.01 mol L⁻¹ CaCl₂, 1 mol L⁻¹ NH₄NO₃ and 0.005 mol L⁻¹ DTPA. The analytical data were coupled with measurement of the pH and Eh in extracts, mineralogical investigations and thermodynamic modelling using the PHREEQC-2 code. The changes in the pH of the equilibrated suspensions significantly influenced the metal extractabilities, with higher values in the lower pH regions. Although the DTPA procedure generally extracted the highest amounts of metals, it was found to be unsuitable for highly organic acidic forest soils, where anionic metal-DTPA complexes are assumed to be re-adsorbed on the positively charged surfaces of soil organic matter and oxides. The NH₄NO₃ extraction was also unsuitable due to the high ionic strength (1 mol L⁻¹), limiting the use of the thermodynamic speciation model and the formation of the Cu(NH₃)²⁺ complex, leading to acidification of the suspension. 0.01 mol L⁻¹ CaCl₂ can be proposed as the most appropriate extraction medium, suitable for speciation modelling and analytical determinations using ICP-techniques and having an ionic strength similar to that of the soil solution. The metals are present in free ionic forms or chlorocomplexes in the CaCl₂ extracts, preventing their re-adsorption on the positively charged surfaces of soil solids (organic matter, Fe- and Mn-oxides) in acidic and circum-neutral conditions.     

Monitoring the effect of chemicals on biological communities. The biofilm as an interface

Biofilms can be regarded as early warning systems for detection of the effects of toxicants on aquatic systems, because they have been successfully used for detection of other environmental stressors (e.g. pH, salinity, organic pollution). A variety of methods is used for detection of the effects of toxicants by use of biofilms. The methods range from structurally-based to functionally-based, and from in vitro-based to systemic approaches. Physiological approaches may be appropriate for detection of acute effects. Among these methods, photosynthesis is more related to the effect of toxicants affecting algal communities, directly or indirectly, and extracellular enzyme activity is less specific. Selecting one or the other may depend on the suspected direct effect of the toxicant. Integrated studies have revealed the relevance of toxicants to top-down or bottom-up regulation of the biofilm community. Persistent or chronic effects should affect other biofilm indicators, for example growth or biomass-related factors (e.g. chlorophyll), or community composition. Among these, community composition might better reflect the effects of the toxicant(s), because this may cause a shift from a sensitive to a progressively tolerant community. Community composition-based approaches do not usually adequately reflect cause–effect relationships and require complementary analysis of properties affected in the short-term, for example physiological properties. The current array of methods available must be wisely combined to disentangle the effects of chemicals on biofilms, and whether these effects are transient or persistent, to successfully translate the chemical action of toxicants into the effect they might have on the river ecosystem.     

A microchip device to enhance free flow electrophoresis using controllable pinched sample injections

Micro free flow electrophoresis (µFFE) is a valuable technique capable of high throughput rapid microscale electrophoretic separation along with mild operating conditions. However, the stream flow separation nature of free flow electrophoresis affects its separation performance with additional stream broadening due to sample stream deflection. To reduce stream broadening and enhance separation performance of µFFE, we presented a simple microfluidic device that enables injection bandwidth control. A pinched injection was formed in the reported µFFE system using operating buffer at sample flow rate ratio (r) setting. Initial bandwidth at the entrance of separation chamber can be shrunk from 800 to 30 µm when r increased from 1 to 256. Stream broadening at the exit of separation chamber can be reduced by about 96% when r increased from 4 to 128, according to both theoretical and experimental results. Moreover, the separation resolution for a dye mixture was enhanced by a factor of 4 when r increased from 16 to 128, which corresponded to an 80% reduction in sample initial bandwidth. Furthermore, a similar enhancement on amino acids separation was obtained by using injection control in the reported µFFE device and readily integrated into online/offline sample preparation and/or downstream analysis procedures.     

Inverse design of an organ-oriented RF coil for open,vertical-field,MR-guided,focused ultrasound surgery

The advantages of open, vertical-field, magnetic resonance-guided, focused ultrasound surgery (MRgFUS) are attractive. The inverse technique using the bi-boundary conditions is proposed to design a uterine-oriented intraoperative RF coil with an ultrasound aperture for the MRgFUS system. In the current proposed scheme, the desired magnetic field of the RF coil was set to completely overlap the target organ. The current density distribution on the RF coil surface, accounting for the expected magnetic field, was solved using the inverse technique. The stream function was available through the ‘discretization’ of the current density distribution on the RF coil surface. The coil windings were obtained from the contour plot of the stream function. As a modification of previous designs, the bi-boundary conditions are proposed in the inverse technique for the existence of the ultrasound aperture. Based on the obtained coil windings, a prototype coil was constructed. MR imaging of the phantom and the human body was performed to show the efficacy of the prototype coil. The results of temperature measurement using the prototype coil in a 0.4-T MR system were satisfactory. The performance of the prototype coil improved compared with the previously reported design.     

Efficient RFID authentication protocols based on pseudorandom sequence generators

In this paper, we introduce a new class of PRSGs, called partitioned pseudorandom sequence generators(PPRSGs), and propose an RFID authentication protocol using a PPRSG, called S-protocol. Since most existing stream ciphers can be regarded as secure PPRSGs, and stream ciphers outperform other types of symmetric key primitives such as block ciphers and hash functions in terms of power, performance and gate size, S-protocol is expected to be suitable for use in highly constrained environments such as RFID systems. We present a formal proof that guarantees resistance of S-protocol to desynchronization and tag-impersonation attacks. Specifically, we reduce the availability of S-protocol to pseudorandomness of the underlying PPRSG, and the security of the protocol to the availability. Finally, we give a modification of S-protocol, called S*-protocol, that provides mutual authentication of tag and reader.      

蒸汽喷射式制冷系统模型建立与仿真

对蒸汽喷射制冷工作过程中能量转化进行了深入分析,建立了制冷系统中的三个关键部件——喷射器、冷凝器及蒸发器的热力学模型.以此为基础,结合运行参数,采用Matlab软件,对喷射系数、蒸汽消耗量以及循环水耗量进行仿真计算.探讨了以喷射系数为评定标准时,工作蒸汽压力Pg、冷凝温度Tc、蒸发温度Te对系统性能的影响.分析结果表明...     

X射线荧光光谱法与电感耦合等离子体-原子发射光谱法联用测定土壤、水系沉积物、岩石中21种主、次和痕量元素

建立了X射线荧光光谱-电感耦合等离子体-原子发射光谱法(XRF-ICP-AES)联用技术测定土壤、水系沉积物和岩石中21种主、次和痕量元素的方法.采用复合熔剂熔融制样法,X射线荧光谱法测定其中的主量元素Al、Ca、Fe、Mg、K、Na、Si.熔融玻璃样片经(ψ)=10%(体积分数,下同)的HNO3超声波振荡提取,电感耦...     

The expectation and variance of the joint linear complexity of random periodic multisequences

The linear complexity of sequences is one of the important security measures for stream cipher systems. Recently, in the study of vectorized stream cipher systems, the joint linear complexity of multisequences has been investigated. By using the generalized discrete Fourier transform for multisequences, Meidl and Niederreiter determined the expectation of the joint linear complexity of random N-periodic multisequences explicitly. In this paper, we study the expectation and variance of the joint linear complexity of random periodic multisequences. Several new lower bounds on the expectation of the joint linear complexity of random periodic multisequences are given. These new lower bounds improve on the previously known lower bounds on the expectation of the joint linear complexity of random periodic multisequences. By further developing the method of Meidl and Niederreiter, we derive a general formula and a general upper bound for the variance of the joint linear complexity of random N-periodic multisequences. These results generalize the formula and upper bound of Dai and Yang for the variance of the linear complexity of random periodic sequences. Moreover, we determine the variance of the joint linear complexity of random periodic multisequences with certain periods.