The prediction of coal properties using compressed infrared data from osculating polynomials

Reduction of the representation of infrared spectra from coal samples by osculating polynomials of degree nine is discussed. The reduced representation contains polynomial coefficients of order zero to four. Mathematical models of the original spectra are obtained by linear combination of the coefficients. These compressed models are statistically correlated to coal properties, namely, volatile matter, fixed carbon, ash content, heating value, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, and maximum vitrinite reflectance, and the results are compared with those previously obtained from second derivatives of the same spectra. The use of compressed data, while giving slightly better correlations for some of the properties, has the advantage of requiring less computational time.     

Melting of heterogeneous vortex matter: The vortex ‘nanoliquid’

Disorder and porosity are parameters that strongly influence the physical behavior of materials, including their mechanical, electrical, magnetic and optical properties. Vortices in superconductors can provide important insight into the effects of disorder because their size is comparable to characteristic sizes of nanofabricated structures. Here we present experimental evidence for a novel form of vortex matter that consists of inter-connected nanodroplets of vortex liquid caged in the pores of a solid vortex structure, like a liquid permeated into a nanoporous solid skeleton. Our nanoporous skeleton is formed by vortices pinned by correlated disorder created by high-energy heavy ion irradiation. By sweeping the applied magnetic field, the number of vortices in the nanodroplets is varied continuously from a few to several hundred. Upon cooling, the caged nanodroplets freeze into ordered nanocrystals through either a first-order or a continuous transition, whereas at high temperatures a uniform liquid phase is formed upon delocalization-induced melting of the solid skeleton. This new vortex nanoliquid displays unique properties and symmetries that are distinct from both solid and liquid phases.     

New fir laser lines and frequency measurements from optically pumped13CD3OH3

We report the discovery of 57 new fir laser lines from¹³CD₃OH molecule optically pumped by a waveguide CO₂ laser of 300 MHz tunability. For all lines, precise frequency offset measurements between the CO₂ line center and the center of the absorbing¹³CD₃OH line were performed using the transferred Lamb-Dip technique. We have also measured directly the frequency of seven FIR laser lines by heterodyning with already known laser lines. We present a complete list of all known laser lines (134) and frequency measurements (24) for this molecule.Work supported by CNPq, FAPESP, FAEP-Brasil, and CNR-Italia     

An Approach to Fuzzy Noncooperative Nash Games

Systems that involve more than one decision maker are often optimized using the theory of games. In the traditional game theory, it is assumed that each player has a well-defined quantitative utility function over a set of the player decision space. Each player attempts to maximize/minimize his/her own expected utility and each is assumed to know the extensive game in full. At present, it cannot be claimed that the first assumption has been shown to be true in a wide variety of situations involving complex problems in economics, engineering, social and political sciences due to the difficulty inherent in defining an adequate utility function for each player in these types of problems. On the other hand, in many of such complex problems, each player has a heuristic knowledge of the desires of the other players and a heuristic knowledge of the control choices that they will make in order to meet their ends.In this paper, we utilize fuzzy set theory in order to incorporate the players' heuristic knowledge of decision making into the framework of conventional game theory or ordinal game theory. We define a new approach to N-person static fuzzy noncooperative games and develop a solution concept such as Nash for these types of games. We show that this general formulation of fuzzy noncooperative games can be applied to solve multidecision-making problems where no objective function is specified. The computational procedure is illustrated via application to a multiagent optimization problem dealing with the design and operation of future military operations.     

Limit Regimes of Braking of Disc-Type Composite Flywheels Made by Filament Winding

A set of invariants describing the limit regimes of braking disk-type wound composite flywheels is suggested. The limit regime is determined by using a linear failure criterion. It is shown that, for generating short-time impulses of very high power, a set of small identical flywheels is more effective than one large flywheel with an equivalent mass. Particular examples illustrating the theory considered are discussed.     

Determination of lead in the urine of exposed and unexposed adults by extraction and flow-injection/atomic absorption spectrometry

Lead is extracted from urine with ammonium pyrrolidien dithiocrbamate into methyl isobutyl ketone, and 20 μl of the extract is injected into a water carrier stream in a flow-injection/atomic absorption system. The procedure is simple, quick, accurate and reproducible. Recoveries are 96–105%. The mean urine lead contents of 20 unexposed and 20 printing-press lead exposed workers was found to be 39.0 ± 8.3 and 71.7 ± 26.3 μg Pb l^?1, respectively.     

Synthesis of a Naphthalimide Functionalized Calix[4]arene; A Host Type Fluorophore for Inclusion Compounds in Organic Medium

This article reports the synthesis and the properties of 5,11,17,23-tetra(t-butyl)-25,27-bis-(ethoxy-1,8-naphthalimide)-26,28-hidroxy-calix[4]arene and the formation of an inclusion compound in organic medium. This functionalized calix[4]arene was conceived as the association of a potential host species with a good fluorophore for optical sensoring purposes. Calix[4]-NI as we will call it, maintains its ‘cone-pinched’ configuration and exhibits typical naphthalimide fluorescence bands in non-polar solvents. Its ability to interact with guest species via hydrogen bonding in its endo-hydrophilic cavity to form inclusion compounds was verified with absorption and fluorescence measurements using N-ethanol-1,8-naphthalimide as guest species, which was projected to fit exactly the host cavity and to interact with its naphthalimide π electrons. For this reason, it was possible to follow the formation of the inclusion compound with electronic spectroscopy.     

Automatic semi-microcolumn liquid chromatographic determination of catecholamines in rat plasma utilizing peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence reaction

A fully automated and highly sensitive method with a semi-microcolumn liquid chromatography system for the determination of rat plasma catecholamines (CAs) was developed. Automated on-line extraction of CAs in diluted plasma using a precolumn packed with strong acidic cation exchange resin was coupled with separation of CAs on a semi-microcolumn (250 x 1.5 mm id). fluorogenic derivatization with ethylenediamine and finally postcolumn peroxyoxalate chemiluminescence detection utilizing bis[2-(3,6,9-trioxadecanyloxycarbonyl)-4-nitrophenyl]oxalate (TDPO) and hydrogen peroxide. The detection limits were 0.91, 0.36 and 1.1 fmol for norepinephrine (noradrenaline), epinephrine (adrenaline) and dopamine, respectively, at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. A good linearity of the calibration curve for each CA was observed in the range of 5.0 to 500 fmol for each CA using N-methyldopamine (N-MeDA) as an internal standard. The RSD for the proposed method (n = 5) were 3.7-9.5% for the intra-day assay and 6.6-10.0% for the inter-day assay. The volume of rat plasma required for the determination of CAs was 10 microliters.     

The mass spectra of [17-13C]phyllocladene and [3-13C]methylenecholestane—III

The mass spectra of [17-¹³C]phyllocladene and [3-¹³C]methylenecholestane have been examined. It is shown that there are some rearrangements at 70 e V as in the case of [17-¹³C]kaurene. However, no extensive randomization is evident at the molecular ion level. The results are interesting because very little is known about ¹³C randomization in polycyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons. The percentage retention of label was calculated for each ion.