An analytical protocol consisting of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, optical microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to study the origin and the nature of the materials (pigments, binders and coating preparation) of the Fundenii Doamnei church mural paint from Bucharest. The main interest of the present study consisted in the original votive paint from narthex, painted in 1757 in a secco technique.During analysis, an unexpected pigment in the votive paint could be detected by the combined analytical techniques: ultramarine blue. Along with this pigment, the presence of gypsum binder based on egg and flax seed oil could also be evidenced. These results demonstrated a secco execution technique of the votive paint and also the presence of a restoration treatment. Moreover, during the present study, the components of the preparation layer and the constitutive pigments from both 1699 and 1757 years mural paints have been analyzed. Hence, the following pigments could be identified: vermilion, azurite, cinnabar, lead white, ochre, natural umber and gold, by using the combination of the analytical techniques.The novelty of our results consists in detecting the composition of the materials used in this church painting (fresco and a secco) during these 254 years since its first restoration.The results of these investigations pointed to the suitability of the non-destructive and semi-destructive analytical techniques in the complex characterization of the paints realized in different techniques, at different periods. Copyright

This article presents the experimental results of a research on six manuscripts (three of the XVIII century and three of XIX century) belonging collection of old religious books to the Moldovan Metropolitan Church of Romania. Non-invasive techniques (optical microscopy [OM], scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray system, X-ray fluorescence analysis, shrinkage temperature, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy/attentuated total reflectance) provided information on the degree of degradation and identification of the leather bookbinding type. Moreover, visual assessment and OM revealed the extent of the surface degradation (wane, biological attack, change color, etc.). The degradation extent of the skin bindings was determined on the 12 samples. The insight on the mechanism of degradation was accomplished by analyzing the deterioration of collagen fibers in terms of shrinkage temperature and chemical modifications induced by oxidative and hydrolytic processes. Shrinkage temperature values were lower compared with the literature data for collagen, indicating that the leather bookbinding suffered intrinsic damage. Morphological analysis was accomplished by microscopy and allowed the identification of skin type and provided information about its processing technique. Mineral elements were identified for leather composition and contributed to the information regarding the origin and the extent of degradation of the leather bookbinding, of the studied manuscripts. The analyzed results were useful in determining the state of preservation and were able to provide an increased efficiency of further restoration. The correlation of the obtained data brought new contributions to the knowledge of the leather covers for the book technique in the XVIII and XIX centuries in monastic workshops of Eastern Europe.

Abstract. Programmed grammars, one of the most important and well investigated classes of grammars with context-free rules and a mechanism controlling the application of the rules, can be described by graphs. We investigate whether or not the restriction to special classes of graphs restricts the generative power of programmed grammars with erasing rules and without appearance checking, too. We obtain that Eulerian, Hamiltonian, planar and bipartite graphs and regular graphs of degree at least three are pr-universal in that sense that any language which can be generated by programmed grammars (with erasing rules and without appearance checking) can be obtained by programmed grammars where the underlying graph belongs to the given special class of graphs, whereas complete graphs, regular graphs of degree 2 and backbone graphs lead to proper subfamilies of the family of programmed languages.

No abstract