On-Line LC-GC for the Analysis of the Minor Components in Edible Oils and Fats – The Direct Method Involving Silylation

The previous on-line LC-GC method for the direct analysis of the minor components in oils and fats (without cleavage of esters) was modified: The free alcohols/sterols were silylated instead of acylated, and the LC fraction transferred to GC is widened to range from the beginning of the LC chromatogram up to the sterol esters. Silylation eliminated the problem that acylation may esterify some free alcohols with free fatty acids from the oil if the oil or fat is of high acidity. Widening of the LC fraction to include squalene and the tocopherols added information to that previously obtained.     

Symbolic analysis of linear polyhedra

This paper concerns several analytical problems related to linear polyhedra in euclidean three-dimensional-space. Symbolic formulas for line, surface, and volume integration are given, and it is shown that domain integrals are computable in polynomial time. In particular, it is shown that mass, first and second moments, and products of inertia are computable inO(E) time, whereE is the number of edges of the boundary. Simple symbolic expressions for the normal derivatives of domain integrals are also derived. In particular, it is shown that they are closely linked to the topology of the integration domain, as well as that they are expressible as combinations of domain integrals over lower-order domains (faces, edges, and vertices). The symbolic results presented in this paper may lead to an easy incorporation of integral constraints, for example, concerning mass and inertia, in the engineering designing process of solid objects.     

On requirement verification for evolving Statecharts specifications

Software development processes have been evolving from rigid, pre-specified, and sequential to incremental, and iterative. This evolution has been dictated by the need to accommodate evolving user requirements and reduce the delay between design decision and feedback from users. Formal verification techniques, however, have largely ignored this evolution and even when they made enormous improvements and found significant uses in practice, like in the case of model checking, they remained confined into the niches of safety-critical systems. Model checking verifies if a system’s model \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfies a set of requirements, formalized as a set of logic properties \(\Phi\) . Current model-checking approaches, however, implicitly rely on the assumption that both the complete model \(\mathcal{M}\) and the whole set of properties \(\Phi\) are fully specified when verification takes place. Very often, however, \(\mathcal{M}\) is subject to change because its development is iterative and its definition evolves through stages of incompleteness, where alternative design decisions are explored, typically to evaluate some quality trade-offs. Evolving systems specifications of this kind ask for novel verification approaches that tolerate incompleteness and support incremental analysis of alternative designs for certain functionalities. This is exactly the focus of this paper, which develops an incremental model-checking approach for evolving Statecharts. Statecharts have been chosen both because they are increasingly used in practice natively support model refinements.     

Practical and theoretical molecular weights in polyaddition reactions of ethylene and propylene oxide

The addition reactions of ethylene oxide and/or propylene oxide catalyzed by KOH and initiated with compounds containing free hydroxyls are followed by secondary reactions which vary the expected molecular weight. By using ethylene oxide, diols are formed and by using propylene oxide, both diols and unsaturated monofunctional compounds are formed. These products are usually characterized by their hydroxyl number. The average molecular weight is found by taking into consideration the starter functionality only. There are often some behavioral differences among similar products owing to the different quantity and chain length of the secondary products contained therein. The secondary products are analyzed and the quantity of the secondary products were determined from the hydroxyl number values and from the unsaturation of reagents and products. In the case of monofunctional adducts using the calculation method, the results have been experimentally confirmed.     

Lecithin-protein interaction in the GTP-dependent acyl-CoA synthase

The enzymic activity of the GTP-dependent acyl-CoA synthase isolated from rat liver mitochondria is affected by removal and addition of lecithin (3). Purified preparations of this enzyme contain bound lecithin. In this presentation the nature of the lecithin-protein interaction is examined. From binding measurements at different temperatures it is possible to postulate which type of secondary valence bonds is holding the protein and lecithin together. Presented at AOCS Meeting, Chicago, October 1967.     

Mocking Ads through Mobile Web Services

The need for creativity is ubiquitous, and mobile devices connected to Web services can help us. Linguistic creativity is widely used in advertisements to surprise us, to get our attention, and to stick concepts in our memory. However, creativity can also be used as a defense. When we walk in the street, we are overwhelmed by messages that try to get our attention with any persuasive device at hand. As messages get ever more aggressive, often our basic cognitive defenses—trying not to perceive those messages—are not sufficient. One advanced defensive technique is based on transforming the perceived message into something different (for instance, making use of irony or hyperbole) from what was originally meant in the message. In this article, we describe an implemented application for smartphones, which creatively modifies the linguistic expression in a virtual copy of a poster encountered on the street. The mobile system is inspired by the subvertising practice of countercultural art.     

Recommending multimedia visiting paths in cultural heritage applications

The valorization and promotion of worldwide Cultural Heritage by the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies represent nowadays some of the most important research issues with a large variety of potential applications. This challenge is particularly perceived in the Italian scenario, where the artistic patrimony is one of the most diverse and rich of the world, able to attract millions of visitors every year to monuments, archaeological sites and museums. In this paper, we present a general recommendation framework able to uniformly manage heterogeneous multimedia data coming from several web repositories and to provide context-aware recommendation techniques supporting intelligent multimedia services for the users—i.e. dynamic visiting paths for a given environment. Specific applications of our system within the cultural heritage domain are proposed by means of real case studies in the mobile environment related both to an outdoor and indoor scenario, together with some results on user’s satisfaction and system accuracy.     

Conceptual aspects of geometric quantum computation

Geometric quantum computation is the idea that geometric phases can be used to implement quantum gates, i.e., the basic elements of the Boolean network that forms a quantum computer. Although originally thought to be limited to adiabatic evolution, controlled by slowly changing parameters, this form of quantum computation can as well be realized at high speed by using nonadiabatic schemes. Recent advances in quantum gate technology have allowed for experimental demonstrations of different types of geometric gates in adiabatic and nonadiabatic evolution. Here, we address some conceptual issues that arise in the realizations of geometric gates. We examine the appearance of dynamical phases in quantum evolution and point out that not all dynamical phases need to be compensated for in geometric quantum computation. We delineate the relation between Abelian and non-Abelian geometric gates and find an explicit physical example where the two types of gates coincide. We identify differences and similarities between adiabatic and nonadiabatic realizations of quantum computation based on non-Abelian geometric phases.