Stress in polycrystalline GaN films prepared by r.f sputtering

Undoped, Be-doped and Si-doped polycrystalline GaN films were deposited by R.F. sputtering onto fused silica substrates. The films were deposited at various deposition temperatures ranging from 300 K to 623 K and characterized by optical measurements while the microstructural information was obtained from SEM and XRD studies. The compositional study for the GaN film was carried out using SIMS. Residual stresses in these films were evaluated from the band tail of the absorption spectra as well as from direct measurements of hardness by commercially available depth sensing indentometer. It was observed that undoped GaN films had the highest hardness followed by that for Be-doped and Si-doped films. The values of hardness obtained form the above optical measurement tallied quite well with those obtained from direct indentation measurement.     

Cardiac-induced physiologic noise in tissue is a direct observation of cardiac-induced fluctuations

Recent studies have shown that in certain cases, cardiac and respiratory rate fluctuations in BOLD-weighted MRI time courses may be an artifact unique to rapid sampled acquisitions and may not be present in longer repetition-time acquisitions. The implication of this is that, in these cases, cardiac and respiratory rate fluctuations are not aliased into data that undersample these effects and do not affect the resulting time course measurements. In this study, we show that these cases are specific to regions of large cerebrospinal fluid content and are not generally true for gray matter regions of the brain. We demonstrate that in many brain regions of interest, these fluctuations are directly observed as BOLD fluctuations and thus will affect measurements that undersample these effects.     

Highly efficient epoxidation method of olefins with hydrogen peroxide as terminal oxidant, bicarbonate as a co-catalyst and oxodiperoxo molybdenum(VI) complex as catalyst

A combination of the newly synthesized and structurally characterized compound, [MoO(O2)2(saloxH)](saloxH2= salicylaldoxime) as catalyst, H2O2 as terminal oxidant and NaHCO3 as co-catalyst when stirred in CH3CN (10 cm3) at room temperature (rt) shows a very pronounced efficiency epoxidation of olefinic compounds, the method being green and economical.     

An ellipsometric investigation of Ag/SiO$\mathsf{_2}$ nanocomposite thin films

Dielectric properties of silver/SiO₂ nanocomposite thin films grown by high-pressure d.c. sputtering technique were studied by spectroscopic ellipsometry (300-800 nm). The dielectric behavior of the nanocomposite thin films largely depended on the particle size, its number density and the surrounding environments. The films showed semiconductor-like behavior up to a critical particle size and concentration, beyond which the films exhibited the typical surface plasmon resonance characteristics in their optical properties. The refractive index was also found to have a strong dependence on the particle size and its dispersion in the matrix. The results were found to be consistent with those obtained from UV-VIS optical absorbance data. Bruggeman effective medium theory was used to explain the experimental results.Received: 3 April 2002, Published online: 23 July 2003PACS:   78.67.-n Optical properties of nanoscale materials and structures - 78.67.Bf Nanocrystals and nanoparticles     

Testing for Unit Roots in a Nearly Nonstationary Spatial Autoregressive Process

The limiting distribution of the normalized periodogram ordinate is used to test for unit roots in the first-order autoregressive model _st= _s-1,t+_s,t-1- _s-1,t-1+_st. Moreover, for the sequence _n = e ^c/n , _n = e ^d/n of local Pitman-type alternatives, the limiting distribution of the normalized periodogram ordinate is shown to be a linear combination of two independent chi-square random variables whose coefficients depend on c and d. This result is used to tabulate the asymptotic power of a test for various values of c and d. A comparison is made between the periodogram test and a spatial domain test.     

Entry distribution, fission barrier, and formation mechanism of 254102No

The entry distribution in angular momentum and excitation energy for the formation of 254No has been measured after the 208Pb(48Ca,2n) reaction at 215 and 219 MeV. This nucleus is populated up to spin 22Planck's over 2pi and excitation energy greater, similar6 MeV above the yrast line, with the half-maximum points of the energy distributions at approximately 5 MeV for spins between 12Planck's over 2pi and 22Planck's over 2pi. This suggests that the fission barrier is greater, similar5 MeV and that the shell-correction energy persists to high spin.     

Directly writing with nanoparticles at the nanoscale using dip-pen nanolithography

Well-defined nanostructures were written with quantum dots and magnetic nanoparticles on gold and mica surfaces using dip-pen nanolithography at room temperature. The structures with both the nanoparticles were characterised by in situ topography measurements, and the quantum dot structures were mapped by fluorescence mapping. It is demonstrated that structures of various kinds such as dots and lines can be prepared using such nanoparticles on suitably prepared surfaces.     

Conditional VaR estimation using Pearson’s type IV distribution

This paper presents a new value at risk (VaR) estimation model for equity returns time series and tests it extensively on Stock Indices of 14 countries. Two most important stylized facts of such series are volatility clustering, and non-normality as a result of fat tails of the return distribution. While volatility clustering has been extensively studied using the GARCH model and its various extensions, the phenomenon of non-normality has not been comprehensively explored, at least in the context of VaR estimation. A combination of extreme value theory (EVT) and GARCH has been explored to analyze financial data showing non-normal behavior. This paper proposes a combination of the Pearson’s Type IV distribution and the GARCH (1, 1) approach to furnish a new method with superior predictive abilities. The approach is back tested for the entire sample as well as for a holdout sample using rolling windows.     

On the problematic rising ratio of cosmic-ray positrons at ultra-high energies

Summary The rising ratio of cosmic-ray positrons at ultra-high energies of interactions seems to have puzzled the theorists to a great extent. We have made here a somewhat successful attempt to interpret the behaviour of this ratio,R=e⁺/(e⁺+e⁻), by putting into use the main physical ideas from our two previous works. The importance and the implications of this observation have also been highlighted and emphasized in the proper background.

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Riassunto Il crescente rapporto dei positroni dei raggi cosmici ad energie ultra-alte di interazioni sembra aver non poco confuso i teorici. Qui si tenta con un certo successo di interpretare il comportamento di questo rapportoR=e⁺/(e⁺+e⁻) usando i principali concetti fisici dei nostri due precedenti lavori. L'importanza e le implicazioni di questa osservazione sono state sottolineate ed enfatizzate nell'appropriato contesto.

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Резюме Увеличивающиеся отношение позитронов космических лучей при ультравыс оких энергиях, по-видимому, представляет загадку для теоретиков. В этой статье мы предпринимает отчасти успешную попытку интерпретировать поведение этого отношенияR=e⁺/(e⁺+e⁻), используя основные физические идеи из наших двух предыдущих публикаций. Отмчаются важностя и приложения полученных результатов.