Dynamic response of permalloy/Cu/Co magnetoresistive sandwiches

The dynamic response of trilayer magnetoresistive permalloy/Cu/Co films was studied by high-frequency permeability spectra measurements. The resonance frequency is shown to depend on the interlayer copper thickness. This dependence is related to exchange coupling between permalloy and cobalt and the interaction field is estimated using the Landau–Lifschitz–Gilbert model.     

Working group report: Collider Physics

This is summary of the activities of the working group on collider physics in the IXth Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-9) held at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India in January 2006. Some of the work subsequently done on these problems by the subgroups formed during the workshop is included in this report.     

Optimal stopping problems by two or more decision makers: a survey

A review of the optimal stopping problem with more than a single decision maker (DM) is presented in this paper. We classify the existing literature according to the arrival of the offers, the utility of the DMs, the length of the sequence of offers, the nature of the game and the number of offers to be selected. We enumerate various definitions for this problem and describe some dynamic approaches. Fouad Ben Abdelaziz is on leave from the Institut Superieur de Gestion, University of Tunis, Tunisia e-mail: foued.benabdelaz@isg.run.tn.     

Monstrous Branes

 We study D-branes in the bosonic closed string theory whose automorphism group is the Bimonster group (the wreath product of the Monster simple group with ℤ₂). We give a complete classification of D-branes preserving the chiral subalgebra of Monster invariants and show that they transform in a representation of the Bimonster. Our results apply more generally to self-dual conformal field theories which admit the action of a compact Lie group on both the left- and right-moving sectors. Received: 20 February 2002 / Accepted: 17 August 2002 Published online: 19 December 2002 Communicated by R.H. Dijkgraaf     

On Donaldson’s flow of surfaces in a hyperkähler four-manifold

We prove some basic properties of Donaldson’s flow of surfaces in a hyperkähler 4-manifold. When the initial submanifold is symplectic with respect to one Kähler form and Lagrangian with respect to another, we show that certain kinds of singularities cannot form, and we prove a convergence result under a condition related to one considered by M.-T. Wang for the mean curvature flow.     

Robust locally testable codes and products of codes

We continue the investigation of locally testable codes, i.e., error‐correcting codes for which membership of a given word in the code can be tested probabilistically by examining it in very few locations. We give two general results on local testability: First, motivated by the recently proposed notion of robust probabilistically checkable proofs, we introduce the notion of robust local testability of codes. We relate this notion to a product of codes introduced by Tanner and show a very simple composition lemma for this notion. Next, we show that codes built by tensor products can be tested robustly and somewhat locally by applying a variant of a test and proof technique introduced by Raz and Safra in the context of testing low‐degree multivariate polynomials (which are a special case of tensor codes). Combining these two results gives us a generic construction of codes of inverse polynomial rate that are testable with poly‐logarithmically many queries. We note that these locally testable tensor codes can be obtained from any linear error correcting code with good distance. Previous results on local testability, albeit much stronger quantitatively, rely heavily on algebraic properties of the underlying codes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2006     

Improved bounds for sampling contingency tables

We study the problem of sampling contingency tables (nonnegative integer matrices with specified row and column sums) uniformly at random. We give an algorithm which runs in polynomial time provided that the row sums r_i and the column sums c_j satisfy r_i = Ω(n^3/2m log m), and c_j = Ω(m^3/2n log n). This algorithm is based on a reduction to continuous sampling from a convex set. The same approach was taken by Dyer, Kannan, and Mount in previous work. However, the algorithm we present is simpler and has weaker requirements on the row and column sums. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 21: 135–146, 2002     

Synthesis of unsaturated polyester resins for large sized composites

A series of unsaturated polyesters based on phthalic anhydride (PHA), maleic anhydride (MA), ethylene glycol (EG), diethylene glycol (DG), triethylene glycol (TG), propylene glycol (PG), styrene (Sty) and acrylonitrile (AN) were prepared. The molecular weights of the prepared polyesters were determined by end-group analysis. The effect of the structure of the resin on its curing behavior has been investigated. On the basis of the experimental study, the following were concluded: (1) The maximum curing temperature (T_max) is related to the molecular weight of the glycol incorporated in these castings. In this context the T_max was found to decrease with increasing the molecular weight. Meanwhile the time to peak temperature t_max was increasing. (2) The higher the percentage of AN in the crosslinking monomer system, the slower a resin cures. (3) The values of T_max were found to be influenced to a large extent by the percentage of AN.     

Thermal reaction of clCH2CONH2 in molten acetamide

Mixtures composed of amides and electrolytes exhibit interesting properties such as viscoelastic behaviour and a megavalue of the dielectric constant. In order to improve the dielectric properties, the authors are investigating a large number of molten mixtures of CF₃COONa with different types of amides, including the ternary system sodium trifluoroacetate-chloroacetamide-acetamide. The experimental measurements showed that the ternary mixtures are thermally unstable. A yellow oily product is formed; this was purified and tested by means of IR and NMR techniques. The formula and the kinetic mechanism are proposed.