Developing reference material for validation of hair spectral analysis reliability

Mineral analysis of human hair is increasingly proposed as a estimation method for the human contamination with environmental mineral pollutants and even as a diagnostic tool for related health problems. It offers a good way of investigating long-term variation in trace element concentration. Many minor and trace elements can be determined in hair samples with good precision and sensitivity by a variety of analytical techniques. An important requirement in such work is the application of suitable analytical quality control, for which the availability of a hair reference material is important. In paper the preparation of the human hair reference material and the initial stages which were taken to confirm its certification are described

Coupled KdV equations derived from atmospherical dynamics

Some types of coupled Korteweg de-Vries (KdV) equations are derived from an atmospheric dynamical system. In the derivation procedure, an unreasonable $y$-average trick (which is usually adopted in literature) is removed. The derived models are classified via Painlev\'e test. Three types of $\tau$-function solutions and multiple soliton solutions of the models are explicitly given by means of the exact solutions of the usual KdV equation. It is also interesting that for a non-Painlev\'e integrable coupled KdV system there may be multiple soliton solutions.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Fresnel filtering in lasing emission from scarred modes of wave-chaotic optical resonators

We study lasing emission from asymmetric resonant cavity (ARC) GaN micro-lasers. By comparing far-field intensity patterns with images of the micro-laser we find that the lasing modes are concentrated on three-bounce unstable periodic ray orbits, i.e. the modes are scarred. The high-intensity emission directions of these scarred modes are completely different from those predicted by applying Snell's law to the ray orbit. This effect is due to the process of ``Fresnel filtering'' which occurs when a beam of finite angular spread is incident at the critical angle for total internal reflection.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (eps), RevTeX 3.1, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett; corrected a minor (transcription) erro

Language attitudes and use in a transplanted setting: Greek Cypriots in London

In this paper we explore language attitudes and use in the Greek Cypriot community in London, England. Our study is based on an earlier survey carried out in Nicosia, Cyprus and we compare attitudes to language and reported language use in the two communities. We thereby highlight the significance of sociolinguistic variables on similar groups of speakers. We further extend our investigation to include codeswitching practices in the London community. \ud Analysis of language attitudes and use within the Greek-Cypriot population of London, and comparisons with findings in Nicosia, reflect symbolic forces operating in the two contexts. Despite obvious differences between the two communities, (most obviously the official languages and distinct cultural backgrounds of the two nations), the Greek Cypriot Dialect continues to play an active role in both. English is however the ‘default choice‘ for young Cypriots in the UK and Standard Modern Greek occupies a much more limited role than in Cyprus. It is argued that differences in language attitudes and use can be interpreted in light of different market forces operating in the nation (i.e. Cyprus) and the Diaspora (i.e. UK)