Development of uniformly grown ZnO NPs films using single precursor solution by pulsed spray pyrolysis technique

In this article, we have reported the controlled synthesis of uniformly grown zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) films by a simple, low-cost, and scalable pulsed spray pyrolysis technique. From the surface analysis it is noticed that the as-deposited films have uniformly dispersed NPs-like morphology. The structural studies reveal that these NPs films have highly crystalline hexagonal crystal structure, which are preferentially orientated along the (001) planes. The size of the NPs varied between 5 and 100 nm, and exhibited good stoichiometric chemical composition. Raman spectroscopic analysis reveals that these ZnO NPs films have pure single phase and hexagonal crystal structure. These unique nanostructured films exhibited a low electrical resistivity (5 Omega cm) and high light transmittance (90 %) in visible region.

The HORMA domain: an evolutionarily conserved domain discovered in chromatin-associated proteins, has unanticipated diverse functions

The HORMA domain (for Hop1p, Rev7p and MAD2) was discovered in three chromatin-associated proteins in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This domain has also been found in proteins with similar functions in organisms including plants, animals and nematodes. The HORMA domain containing proteins are thought to function as adaptors for meiotic checkpoint protein signaling and in the regulation of meiotic recombination. Surprisingly, new work has disclosed completely unanticipated and diverse functions for the HORMA domain containing proteins. A. M. Villeneuve and colleagues (Schvarzstein et al., 2013) show that meiosis-specific HORMA domain containing proteins plays a vital role in preventing centriole disengagement during Caenorhabditis elegans spermatocyte meiosis. Another recent study reveals that S. cerevisiae Atg13 HORMA domain acts as a phosphorylation-dependent conformational switch in the cellular autophagic process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

K-plane regression

In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for piecewise linear regression which can learn continuous as well as discontinuous piecewise linear functions. The main idea is to repeatedly partition the data and learn a linear model in each partition. The proposed algorithm is similar in spirit to k-means clustering algorithm. We show that our algorithm can also be viewed as a special case of an EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation under a reasonable probability model. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by comparing its performance with that of the state of art algorithms on various datasets. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lower bounds for testing triangle-freeness in Boolean functions

Given a Boolean function , we say a triple (x, y, x + y) is a triangle in f if . A triangle-free function contains no triangle. If f differs from every triangle-free function on at least points, then f is said to be -far from triangle-free. In this work, we analyze the query complexity of testers that, with constant probability, distinguish triangle-free functions from those -far from triangle-free. Let the canonical tester for triangle-freeness denotes the algorithm that repeatedly picks x and y uniformly and independently at random from , queries f(x), f(y) and f(x + y), and checks whether f(x) = f(y) = f(x + y) = 1. Green showed that the canonical tester rejects functions -far from triangle-free with constant probability if its query complexity is a tower of 2's whose height is polynomial in . Fox later improved the height of the tower in Green's upper bound to . A trivial lower bound of on the query complexity is immediate. In this paper, we give the first non-trivial lower bound for the number of queries needed. We show that, for every small enough , there exists an integer such that for all there exists a function depending on all n variables which is -far from being triangle-free and requires queries for the canonical tester. We also show that the query complexity of any general (possibly adaptive) one-sided tester for triangle-freeness is at least square root of the query complexity of the corresponding canonical tester. Consequently, this means that any one-sided tester for triangle-freeness must make at least queries.

Scaling Functions In Conical Indentation Of Elastic-Plastic Solids

The finite element method was used to simulate the conical indentation of elastic-plastic solids with work hardening. The ratio of the initial yield strength to the Young's modulus Y/E ranged from 0 to 0.02. Based on the calculation results, two sets of scaling functions for non-dimensional hardness H/K and indenter penetration h are presented in the paper, which have closed simple mathematical form and can be used easily for engineering application. Using the present scaling functions, indentation hardness and indentation loading curves can be easily obtained for a given set of material properties. Meanwhile one can use these scaling functions to obtain material parameters by an instrumented indentation load-displacement curve for loading and unloading if Young's modulus E and Poisson's ratio nu are known.

Anisotropic, gradient and metal-like mechanical behaviors of teeth and their implications on tooth functions

The anisotropy and gradient of the elastic modulus and the hardness of teeth were investigated by means of instrumented indentation method. Such properties are attributed to the unique microstructures of teeth based on scanning electron microscopic analysis. By comparing the relationship between the ratio of hardness to the reduced elastic modulus and the ratio of elastic unloading work to the total work of teeth in course of indentation to those of other materials, we found that the material behaviors of teeth display metal-like characteristics rather than ceramics as considered traditionally. These material behaviors and relevant functions are discussed briefly.

On Best Proximity Point Theorems and Fixed Point Theorems for p-Cyclic Hybrid Self-Mappings in Banach Spaces

This paper relies on the study of fixed points and best proximity points of a class of so-called generalized point-dependent (K-Lambda)hybrid p-cyclic self-mappings relative to a Bregman distance Df, associated with a Gâteaux differentiable proper strictly convex function f in a smooth Banach space, where the real functions Lambda and K quantify the point-to-point hybrid and nonexpansive (or contractive) characteristics of the Bregman distance for points associated with the iterations through the cyclic self-mapping.Weak convergence results to weak cluster points are obtained for certain average sequences constructed with the iterates of the cyclic hybrid self-mappings.

Locally convex Riesz spaces and Archimedean quotient spaces

A Riesz space with a Hausdorff, locally convex topology determined by Riesz seminorms is called a locally convex Riesz space. A sequence {x_n} in a locally convex Riesz space L is said to converge locally to x ϵ L if for some topologically bounded set B and every real r ˃ 0 there exists N (r) and n ≥ N (r) implies x – x_n ϵ r^b. Local Cauchy sequences are defined analogously, and L is said to be locally complete if every local Cauchy sequence converges locally. Then L is locally complete if and only if every monotone local Cauchy sequence has a least upper bound. This is a somewhat more general form of the completeness criterion for Riesz – normed Riesz spaces given by Luxemburg and Zaanen. Locally complete, bound, locally convex Riesz spaces are barrelled. If the space is metrizable, local completeness and topological completeness are equivalent.

Two measures of the non-archimedean character of a non-archimedean Riesz space L are the smallest ideal A_o (L) such that quotient space is Archimedean and the ideal I (L) = { x ϵ L: for some 0 ≤ v ϵ L, n |x| ≤ v for n = 1, 2, …}. In general A_o (L) ᴝ I (L). If L is itself a quotient space, a necessary and sufficient condition that A_o (L) = I (L) is given. There is an example where A_o (L) ≠ I (L).

A necessary and sufficient condition that a Riesz space L have every quotient space Archimedean is that for every 0 ≤ u, v ϵ L there exist u₁ = sup (inf (n v, u): n = 1, 2, …), and real numbers m₁ and m₂ such that m₁ u₁ ≥ v₁ and m₂ v₁ ≥ u₁. If, in addition, L is Dedekind σ – complete, then L may be represented as the space of all functions which vanish off finite subsets of some non-empty set.

A generalized Hausdorff dimension for functions and sets

Let E be a compact subset of the n-dimensional unit cube, 1_n, and let C be a collection of convex bodies, all of positive n-dimensional Lebesgue measure, such that C contains bodies with arbitrarily small measure. The dimension of E with respect to the covering class C is defined to be the number

d_C(E) = sup(β:H_{β, C}(E) > 0),

where H_{β, C} is the outer measure

inf(Ʃm(C_i)^β:UC_i Ↄ E, C_i ϵ C) .

Only the one and two-dimensional cases are studied. Moreover, the covering classes considered are those consisting of intervals and rectangles, parallel to the coordinate axes, and those closed under translations. A covering class is identified with a set of points in the left-open portion, 1’_n, of 1_n, whose closure intersects 1_n - 1’_n. For n = 2, the outer measure H_{β, C} is adopted in place of the usual:

Inf(Ʃ(diam. (C_i))^β: UC_i Ↄ E, C_i ϵ C),

for the purpose of studying the influence of the shape of the covering sets on the dimension d_C(E).

If E is a closed set in 1₁, let M(E) be the class of all non-decreasing functions μ(x), supported on E with μ(x) = 0, x ≤ 0 and μ(x) = 1, x ≥ 1. Define for each μ ϵ M(E),

d_C(μ) = lim/c → inf/0 log ∆μ(c)/log c , (c ϵ C)

where ∆μ(c) = v/x (μ(x+c) – μ(x)). It is shown that

d_C(E) = sup (d_C(μ):μ ϵ M(E)).

This notion of dimension is extended to a certain class Ӻ of sub-additive functions, and the problem of studying the behavior of d_C(E) as a function of the covering class C is reduced to the study of d_C(f) where f ϵ Ӻ. Specifically, the set of points in 1₁,

(*) {d_B(F), d_C(f)): f ϵ Ӻ}

is characterized by a comparison of the relative positions of the points of B and C. A region of the form (*) is always closed and doubly-starred with respect to the points (0, 0) and (1, 1). Conversely, given any closed region in 1₂, doubly-starred with respect to (0, 0) and (1, 1), there are covering classes B and C such that (*) is exactly that region. All of the results are shown to apply to the dimension of closed sets E. Similar results can be obtained when a finite number of covering classes are considered.

In two dimensions, the notion of dimension is extended to the class M, of functions f(x, y), non-decreasing in x and y, supported on 1₂ with f(x, y) = 0 for x · y = 0 and f(1, 1) = 1, by the formula

d_C(f) = lim/s · t → inf/0 log ∆f(s, t)/log s · t , (s, t) ϵ C

where

∆f(s, t) = V/x, y (f(x+s, y+t) – f(x+s, y) – f(x, y+t) + f(x, t)).

A characterization of the equivalence d_C1(f) = d_C2(f) for all f ϵ M, is given by comparison of the gaps in the sets of products s · t and quotients s/t, (s, t) ϵ C_i (I = 1, 2).

The global optimization of phase-incoherent signals

The problem of global optimization of M phase-incoherent signals in N complex dimensions is formulated. Then, by using the geometric approach of Landau and Slepian, conditions for optimality are established for N = 2 and the optimal signal sets are determined for M = 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12.

The method is the following: The signals are assumed to be equally probable and to have equal energy, and thus are represented by points ṡ_i, i = 1, 2, …, M, on the unit sphere S₁ in C^N. If W_ik is the halfspace determined by ṡ_i and ṡ_k and containing ṡ_i, i.e. W_ik = {ṙϵC^N:| ≥ | ˂ṙ, ṡ_k˃|}, then the Ʀ_i = ∩/k≠i W_ik, i = 1, 2, …, M, the maximum likelihood decision regions, partition S₁. For additive complex Gaussian noise ṅ and a received signal ṙ = ṡ_ie^jϴ + ṅ, where ϴ is uniformly distributed over [0, 2π], the probability of correct decoding is P_C = 1/π^N ∞/ʃ/0 r^2N-1e^-(r2+1)U(r)dr, where U(r) = 1/M M/Ʃ/i=1 Ʀ_i ʃ/∩ S₁ I₀(2r | ˂ṡ, ṡ_i˃|)dσ(ṡ), and r = ǁṙǁ.

For N = 2, it is proved that U(r) ≤ ʃ/C_α I₀(2r|˂ṡ, ṡ_i˃|)dσ(ṡ) – 2K/M. h(1/2K [Mσ(C_α)-σ(S₁)]), where C_α = {ṡϵS₁:|˂ṡ, ṡ_i˃| ≥ α}, K is the total number of boundaries of the net on S₁ determined by the decision regions, and h is the strictly increasing strictly convex function of σ(C_α∩W), (where W is a halfspace not containing ṡ_i), given by h = ʃ/C_α∩W I₀ (2r|˂ṡ, ṡ_i˃|)dσ(ṡ). Conditions for equality are established and these give rise to the globally optimal signal sets for M = 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12.