Abstract: Method for detecting at least one target substance, including converting molecules of at least one of the target substances to a gaseous state and a spectrometric detection of the molecules. The object is to significantly increase the resolving capacity of the method in its detection limit and in its selectivity. This is achieved in that the conversion includes soluble mixing, formation of aerosol and evaporation of at least one of the target substances with a solvent, the molecules being integrated into a gas phase, and the spectrometric detection includes an ionisation of the molecules in the gas phase to form ions.

Abstract: A process for effecting thermal decomposition of explosive nitric acid esters in wastewater effluents of the explosives industry wherein no additional by-products are produced and wherein the danger of explosions is avoided. In this process, the dissolved esters are exposed to a temperature of between 150.degree. and 300.degree. C. under pressure lying above the boiling pressure of the wastewater. During this step, the nitric acid esters are completely decomposed, and the wastewater treated in this way can then be passed on to further processing and purification. In a preferred embodiment, the hot wastewater exiting from a decomposer unit is exploited for preheating the effluent before it enters the decomposer unit.

Abstract: A method for measuring the type of motion and configuration of objects by observation of the objects and evaluation of the observation results, including the steps of: producing data representative of an image of the objects in a selected plane at successive time intervals; deriving, from the data, for each time interval, a representation of only one pair of coordinate values in the plane for each object; producing, from the coordinate values, representations of motion paths for the objects during a plurality of the time intervals; and producing, from the motion path representations, representations of the path traversed by each object, and the average local position, the period of dwell and number of reversals of direction of motion of each object during the plurality of time intervals.