Grating coatings with gain

Using an integral theory of grating diffraction we calculate efficiencies greater than 100% if a coating with gain is taken into account. A connection with guided modes is conjectured. The application in optical computing seems to be possible.     

A New Distribution Function for Risk Analysis

This paper presents an alternative to the beta continuous probability distribution for risk analysis. Particular attention has been given to two major applications of distributions, namely project management risk and critical path analysis (PERT). In conjunction with the beta, the triangular and normal distributions are frequently employed in order to give sufficient robustness to risk analysis. The beta distribution, as used in PERT, has a major theoretical implementation flaw. The new distribution was developed to give a possible alternative method of assessing risk. It is shown that the requirement to estimate the most pessimistic variate may be replaced by the probability to exceed the mode. Proposals for other simplifications in risk analysis are discussed. Practical means to validate the most appropriate distributions for risk analysis are outlined, and a cost-data case study is included.     

Existence and Stability for Spherical Crystals Growing in a Supersaturated Solution

We consider the growth of a spherical crystal in a supersaturatedsolution. In the first part, existence and uniqueness resultsfor radially symmetric growth are obtained, provided that thesupersaturation is not too large; conversely, when the far-fieldsupersaturation exceeds a critical value, it is shown that theradially symmetric solution ceases to exist in finite time.In the second part, we examine the linear stability of a radiallysymmetric similarity solution (in which the radius grows ast?) to shape perturbations. The results are compared with previousquasi-static analyses, and, in particular, the critical radiusat which the crystal becomes unstable is found to be largerfor small supersaturations, but smaller for large supersaturations,than those predicted by the quasi-static analysis     

Transport as a consequence of state-dependent diffusion

Overdamped particles subject to a drift in a force field with sinusoidal space dependence and also a sinusoidally modulated space-dependent diffusion, with the same period as the drift, experience a net driving force. The resulting current depends on the amplitude of the modulation of the diffusion and is a periodic function of the phase difference between the sinusoidal drift and the sinusoidal modulation of the diffusion. For small modulation amplitudes a particle subject to state-dependent noise behaves the same way as a particle subject to thermal noise but with a drift which, in addition to the sinusoidal term, contains a net force term.Dedicated to Professor Harry Thomas on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

The matrix equation AX-YB=C and related problems

The main result of the paper is a theorem, using which a new proof of Roth’s theorem is obtained, a new solvability criterion for the matrix equation AX-YB = C is proved, a formula for a particular solution of the latter is derived, and the least of the orders of square nonsingular matrices containing a given rectangular matrix as a submatrix is determined. Bibliography: 5 titles. __________ Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 323, 2005, pp. 15–23.