Efficient Computation of Rectilinear Geodesic Voronoi Neighbor in the Presence of Obstacles

In this paper we present an algorithm to compute the rectilinear geodesic voronoi neighbor of an arbitrary query pointqamong a setSofmpoints in the presence of a set ofnvertical line segment obstacles inside a rectangular floor. The distance between a pair of points α and β is the shortest rectilinear distance avoiding the obstacles in and is denoted by δ(α, β). The rectilinear geodesic voronoi neighbor of an arbitrary query pointq,RGVN(q) is the pointp_i ∈ Ssuch that δ(q, p_i) is minimum. The algorithm suggests a preprocessing of the elements of the setsSand inO((m + n)log(m + n)) time such that for an arbitrary query pointq, theRGVNquery can be answered inO(log(m + n)) time. The space required for storing the preprocessed information isO(n + m log m). If the points inSare placed on the boundary of the rectangular floor, a different technique is adopted to decrease the space complexity toO(m + n). This technique works even if the obstacles are rectangles instead of line segments. Finally, the parallelization of the preprocessing steps for the latter algorithm is suggested, which takesO(log³(m + n)) time, usingO((m + n)^1.5/log²(m + n)) processors andO(log(m + n)) query time.     

A Molecular Magnet Confined in the Nanocage of a Globular Protein

The effect of confinement and energy transfer on the dynamics of a molecular magnet, known as a model system to study quantum coherence, is investigated. For this purpose the well‐known polyoxovanadate [V₁₅As₆O₄₂(H₂O)]^6? (V₁₅) is incorporated into a protein (human serum albumin, HSA) cavity. Due to a huge overlap of the optical absorption spectrum of V₁₅ with the emission spectrum of a fluorescence center of HSA (containing a single tryptophan residue), energy transfer is induced and probed by steady‐state and time‐resolved fluorescence. The geometrical coordination and the distance of the confined V₁₅ to the tryptophan moiety of HSA are investigated at various temperatures. This effect is used as a local probe for the thermal denaturation of the protein at elevated temperatures.     

Multiple outlier detection in multivariate data using self-organizing maps title

Summary  The problem of detection of multidimensional outliers is a fundamental and important problem in applied statistics. The unreliability of multivariate outlier detection techniques such as Mahalanobis distance and hat matrix leverage has led to development of techniques which have been known in the statistical community for well over a decade. The literature on this subject is vast and growing. In this paper, we propose to use the artificial intelligence technique ofself-organizing map (SOM) for detecting multiple outliers in multidimensional datasets. SOM, which produces a topology-preserving mapping of the multidimensional data cloud onto lower dimensional visualizable plane, provides an easy way of detection of multidimensional outliers in the data, at respective levels of leverage. The proposed SOM based method for outlier detection not only identifies the multidimensional outliers, it actually provides information about the entire outlier neighbourhood. Being an artificial intelligence technique, SOM based outlier detection technique is non-parametric and can be used to detect outliers from very large multidimensional datasets. The method is applied to detect outliers from varied types of simulated multivariate datasets, a benchmark dataset and also to real life cheque processing dataset. The results show that SOM can effectively be used as a useful technique for multidimensional outlier detection.     

Stability analysis of peer-to-peer networks against churn

Users of the peer-to-peer system join and leave the network randomly, which makes the overlay network dynamic and unstable in nature. In this paper, we propose an analytical framework to assess the robustness of p2p networks in the face of user churn. We model the peer churn through degree-independent as well as degree-dependent node failure. Lately, superpeer networks are becoming the most widely used topology among the p2p networks. Therefore, we perform the stability analysis of superpeer networks as a case study. We validate the analytically derived results with the help of simulation.      

Quantum mechanics for two-timers

Extensions of standard quantum mechanics with joint probability distributions for position coordinates and momenta have been proposed in the literature. Time is assumed to be one-dimensional in these studies. In view of recent interest in two-dimensional time, the construction is extended to this situation and found to satisfy the necessary consistency conditions.     

Diffusion of propylene adsorbed in Na-Y and Na-ZSM5 zeolites: Neutron scattering and FTIR studies

Here we report the quasielastic neutron scattering and FTIR studies on the dynamics of propylene adsorbed in Na-Y and Na-ZSM5 zeolites. QENS data show that although the mechanism of translational motion of propylene is jump diffusion in both the cases of Na-Y and Na-ZSM5 zeolites, the diffusivity is affected by the host size and is hindered in the case of Na-ZSM5. FTIR studies showed that guest-host interaction in Na-ZSM5 is stronger than that in Na-Y zeolite corroborating the QENS results.      

A simple test of exponentiality against NWBUE family of life distributions

In this paper we propose a simple procedure to test the null hypothesis of exponentiality against the alternative that it belongs to the new worse then better than used in expectation (NWBUE) family. The test is shown to be consistent and the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic has been obtained. The performance of the test against various classes of alternatives has been studied by means of simulation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.