Holographic sensors for the determination of ionic strength

Holographic sensors for monitoring ionic strength have been fabricated from charged sulphonate and quaternary ammonium monomers, incorporated into thin, polymeric hydrogel films which were transformed into volume holograms. The diffraction wavelength or reflected colour of the holograms was used to characterise their swelling or de-swelling behaviour as a function of ionic strength in various media. The effects of co-monomer structure, buffer composition, ion composition, pH and temperature were evaluated, whilst the reversibility and reproducibility of the sensor was also assessed. An acrylamide-based hologram containing equal molar amounts of negatively and positively charged monomers was shown to be able to quantify ionic strength independent of the identity of the ionic species present in the test solution. The sensor was fully reversible, free of hysteresis and exhibited little response to pH between 3 and 9 and temperature within the range 20-45 °C. The system was successfully used to quantify the ionic strength of milk solutions, which contain a complex mixture of ions and biological components.     

Anionic iron(II) alkoxides as initiators for the controlled ring‐opening polymerization of lactide

Hetero‐bimetallic Fe(II) alkoxide/aryloxides were evaluated as initiators for the ring‐opening polymerization of rac‐lactide. [(THF)NaFe(O^tBu)₃]₂ ( 1 ) and [(THF)₄Na₂Fe(2,6‐diisopropylphenolate)₄] ( 2 ) (THF = tetrahydrofuran) both polymerized lactide efficiently at room temperature, with complex 1 affording better control over the molecular weight parameters of the resultant polymer. At conversions below 70%, a linear increase in molecular weight with conversion was observed, indicative of a well‐controlled polymerization process. Complex 2 is the first example of a dianionic Fe(II) alkoxide and has been structurally characterized to reveal a distorted square planar FeO₄ array in which both Na counterions bridge two aryloxide ligands and are further complexed by two THF ligands. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 3798–3803, 2003     

Noise Path Synthesis with Nonlinear Joints

An efficient synthesis approach is developed which permits thecalculation of the steady-state frequency response of an assembly whichis comprised of linear components and nonlinear joints. Receptancematrices are used to characterize the linear components, which permitscondensation of the system to just the joint degrees-of-freedom.Furthermore, the calculated nonlinear joint forces are then used tostudy the power flow in the assembly, as well as detailed dynamicbehavior within the components. Integrated into the technique is acontinuation scheme which permits efficient parametric studies.     

The many facets of linear programming

We examine the history of linear programming from computational, geometric, and complexity points of view, looking at simplex, ellipsoid, interior-point, and other methods. Received: June 22, 2000 / Accepted: April 4, 2001?Published online October 2, 2001     

Local algorithms in exterior tomography

Exterior tomographic data are taken over lines outside a central region, and such data occur in the industrial nondestructive evaluation of large objects such as rockets. We explain, using microlocal analysis, which singularities are well reconstructed from exterior data, and we explain how this phenomenon is reflected in the singular value decomposition for the exterior transform [E.T. Quinto, Singular value decompositions and inversion methods for the exterior Radon transform and a spherical transform, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 95 (1983) 437–448]. We extend Lambda Tomography to exterior data and to limited angle exterior data. The algorithm is tested on industrial data from Perceptics, Inc.     

Xor on one‐defect systems

We present a network experiment that investigates the computational power of cellular automata on the simplest irregular lattice. One cellular automaton whose apparent complexity increased is Rule 60, the left neighbor Xor operator. It went from being nested to complex. That makes Xor a candidate for universal computational power. We present the evidence in terms of the size of cycle lengths, transients, and size of boolean expressions. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 12: 13–29, 2006     

A Relaxation Scheme for Solving the Boltzmann Equation Based on the Chapman-Enskog Expansion

Abstract In [16] a visco-elastic relaxation system, called the relaxed Burnett system, was proposed by Jinand Slemrod as a moment approximation to the Boltzmann equation. The relaxed Burnett system is weaklyparabolic, has a linearly hyperbolic convection part, and is endowed with a generalized eotropy inequality. Itagrees with the solution of the Boltzmann equation up to the Burnett order via the Chapman-Enskog expansion. We develop a one-dimensional non-oscillatory numerical scheme based on the relaxed Burnett system forthe Boltzmann equation. We compare numerical results for stationary shocks based on this relaxation scheme,and those obtained by the DSMC (Direct Simulation Monte Carlo), by the Navier-Stokes equations and bythe extended thermodynamics with thirteen moments (the Grad equations). Our numerical experiments showthat the relaxed Burnett gives more accurate approximations to the shock profiles of the Boltzmann equationobtained by the DSMC, for a range of Mach numbers for hypersonic flows, th