Effect of spectral diffusion on saturation kinetics of dilute ruby samples

We report experimental evidence of the effectiveness of spectral diffusion in the inhomogeneous resonance lines of dilute ruby crystals in high magnetic fields (∥c axis). The value of the spectral diffusion rate is inferred from the experimental data. The relationship to recent experiments on narrow optical hole recovery is also examined.     

Some Isoperimetric Inequalities in Electrochemistry and Hele Shaw Flows

Isoperimetric inequalities are applied to a moving-boundaryproblem for doubly-connected domains. This problem occurs forexample in electrochemistry, in which case the domains in questionare the electrolyte of an electrolytic cell. The two electrodessurrounding the electrolyte are assumed to grow or dissolve,at different rates in general, by electrochemical reaction.We obtain optimal estimates showing, for example, that the leastchange in volume of each electrode always occurs in sphericalsymmetry.     

Improved extraction of vegetable oils under high-intensity ultrasound and/or microwaves

Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) and microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) techniques have been employed as complementary techniques to extract oils from vegetable sources, viz, soybean germ and a cultivated marine microalga rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Ultrasound (US) devices developed by ourselves, working at several frequencies (19, 25, 40 and 300 kHz), were used for US-based protocols, while a multimode microwave (MW) oven (operating with both open and closed vessels) was used for MAE. Combined treatments were also studied, such as simultaneous double sonication (at 19 and 25 kHz) and simultaneous US/MW irradiation, achieved by inserting a non-metallic horn in a MW oven. Extraction times and yields were compared with those resulting from conventional procedures. With soybean germ the best yield was obtained with a ‘cavitating tube’ prototype (19 kHz, 80 W), featuring a thin titanium cylinder instead of a conventional horn. Double sonication, carried out by inserting an immersion horn (25 kHz) in the same tube, improved the yield only slightly but halved the extraction time. Almost comparable yields were achieved by closed-vessel MAE and simultaneous US/MW irradiation. Compared with conventional methods, extraction times were reduced by up to 10-fold and yields increased by 50–500%. In the case of marine microalgae, UAE worked best, as the disruption by US of the tough algal cell wall considerably improved the extraction yield from 4.8% in soxhlet to 25.9%. Our results indicate that US and MW, either alone or combined, can greatly improve the extraction of bioactive substances, achieving higher efficiency and shorter reaction times at low or moderate costs, with minimal added toxicity.     

Symmetry alteration of ensemble return distribution in crash and rally days of financial markets

We select the n stocks traded in the New York Stock Exchange and we form a statistical ensemble of daily stock returns for each of the k trading days of our database from the stock price time series. We study the ensemble return distribution for each trading day and we find that the symmetry properties of the ensemble return distribution drastically change in crash and rally days of the market. In crash and rally days, the distribution becomes asymmetric. In particular for crashes the positive tail is steeper than the negative one whereas the reverse is observed in rally days. Received 25 February 2000     

MODELING CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE EFFECT ON THE NORWEGIAN SALMON FARMING INDUSTRY

Abstract Global warming is expected to affect the ecosystem in the Northeast Atlantic, and substantial changes will also affect the aquaculture industry. Farming of salmon and trout is the biggest aquaculture industry in Norway, with an export value of about 3 billion US dollars in 2007. The objective of the paper is to analyze the potential economic effect a general increase in sea temperature can have on the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry. The assessment of the economic impact of global warming is made possible by estimating a growth function, which explicitly includes sea water temperature. The analysis compares the economic effect of a climate change on fish farming plants in the south and the north of Norway. The scenarios are based on a model with monthly seasonal variation in temperature.     

Hierarchical structure in financial markets

I find a hierarchical arrangement of stocks traded in a financial market by investigating the daily time series of the logarithm of stock price. The topological space is a subdominant ultrametric space associated with a graph connecting the stocks of the portfolio analyzed. The graph is obtained starting from the matrix of correlation coefficient computed between all pairs of stocks of the portfolio by considering the synchronous time evolution of the difference of the logarithm of daily stock price. The hierarchical tree of the subdominant ultrametric space associated with the graph provides a meaningful economic taxonomy. Received 24 March 1999 and Received in final form 28 June 1999