Performance guarantees of forward and reverse greedy algorithms for minimizing nonsupermodular nonsubmodular functions on a matroid

This letter studies the problem of minimizing increasing set functions, equivalently, maximizing decreasing set functions, over the base matroid. This setting has received great interest, since it generalizes several applied problems including actuator and sensor placement problems in control, task allocation problems, video summarization, and many others. We study two greedy heuristics, namely, the forward and reverse greedy. We provide two novel performance guarantees for the approximate solutions obtained by them depending on both submodularity ratio and curvature.     

掺锗提高VO2薄膜的相变温度机理研究

二氧化钒(VO₂)作为一种长久以来备受关注的新型可逆相变材料,发展潜力巨大,其相变温度(T_MIT)的调控一直是研究热点。本文主要利用锗离子作为掺杂离子探索其对VO₂薄膜T_MIT的影响,并尝试解释其内部作用机理。在约1 cm²大小抛光的氧化铝薄片上沉积了一系列含不同比例锗离子VO₂薄膜。研究发现锗离子作为掺杂离子确实有利于T_MIT的提高(本课题T_MIT最大可达84.7 ℃)。T_MIT提高的主要原因是锗离子的引入能够强化单斜态V-V二聚体的稳定性,进而增强单斜态的稳定性,使得低温单斜态向四方金红石态转变更加困难。     

Mechanism of BPh3-Catalyzed N-Methylation of Amines with CO2 and Phenylsilane: Cooperative Activation of Hydrosilane

BPh₃ catalyzes the N-methylation of secondary amines and the C-methylenation (methylene-bridge formation between aromatic rings) of N,N-dimethylanilines or 1-methylindoles in the presence of CO₂ and PhSiH₃; these reactions proceed at 30–40 °C under solvent-free conditions. In contrast, B(C₆F₅)₃ shows little or no activity. ¹¹B NMR spectra suggested the generation of [HBPh₃]⁻. The detailed mechanism of the BPh₃-catalyzed N-methylation of N-methylaniline ( 1 ) with CO₂ and PhSiH₃ was studied by using DFT calculations. BPh₃ promotes the conversion of two substrates (N-methylaniline and CO₂) into a zwitterionic carbamate to give three-component species [Ph(Me)(H)N⁺CO₂⁻⋅⋅⋅BPh₃]. The carbamate and BPh₃ act as the nucleophile and Lewis acid, respectively, for the activation of PhSiH₃ to generate [HBPh₃]⁻, which is used to produce key CO₂-derived species, such as silyl formate and bis(silyl)acetal, essential for the N-methylation of 1 . DFT calculations also suggested other mechanisms involving water for the generation of [HBPh₃]⁻ species.     

Conformational change-modulated spin transport at single-molecule level in carbon systems

Controlling the spin transport at the single-molecule level, especially without the use of ferromagnetic contacts, becomes a focus of research in spintronics. Inspired by the progress on atomic-level molecular synthesis, through first-principles calculations, we investigate the spin-dependent electronic transport of graphene nanoflakes with side-bonded functional groups, contacted by atomic carbon chain electrodes. It is found that, by rotating the functional group, the spin polarization of the transmission at the Fermi level could be switched between completely polarized and unpolarized states. Moreover, the transition between spin-up and spin-down polarized states can also be achieved, operating as a dual-spin filter. Further analysis shows that, it is the spin-dependent shift of density of states, caused by the rotation, that triggers the shift of transmission peaks, and then results in the variation of spin polarization. Such a feature is found to be robust to the length of the nanoflake and the electrode material, showing great application potential. Those findings may throw light on the development of spintronic devices.     

Group completion in the K-theory and Grothendieck–Witt theory of proto-exact categories

We study the algebraic K-theory and Grothendieck–Witt theory of proto-exact categories, with a particular focus on classes of examples of ${\mathbb{F}}_1$-linear nature. Our main results are analogues of theorems of Quillen and Schlichting, relating the K-theory or Grothendieck–Witt theory spaces of proto-exact categories defined using the (hermitian) Q-construction and group completion.     

Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait—the propensity to compare one’s own success with that of others—expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)–(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.