The effect of reactor irradiation on the dielectric loss peaks of Nylon and Mylar

The effect of irradiation on the dielectric properties of nylon 66.6 and Mylar was studied. In the case of nylon the dielectric loss peak at 350 K measured with an annular frequency of 10⁴ l/s disappeared due to irradiation and the peak at higher temperaturcs shifted to still higher temperatures. In Mylar the α-peak grew in magnitude, indicating an increase in amorphousness, while the β-peak decreased. A rough estimate for the decrease in the magnitude of the effective number of dipoles is presented. The irradiation was carried out up to fast neutron fluence of 3 × 10¹⁷ nvt and gamma dose of 1 × 10⁹ rad.     

Self-Adaptive Genetic Algorithm for Clustering

Clustering is a hard combinatorial problem which has many applications in science and practice. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have turned out to be very effective in solving the clustering problem. However, GAs have many parameters, the optimal selection of which depends on the problem instance. We introduce a new self-adaptive GA that finds the parameter setup on-line during the execution of the algorithm. In this way, the algorithm is able to find the most suitable combination of the available components. The method is robust and achieves results comparable to or better than a carefully fine-tuned non-adaptive GA.     

Vague objects and phenomenal wholes

We consider the so-called problem of the many, formulated by Peter Unger. It arises because ordinary material things do not have precise boundaries: it is always possible to find borderline parts of which it is not true to say either that they are parts or that they are not. Unger’s conclusion is that there are no ordinary things at all. We describe the solutions of Peter van Inwagen and David Lewis, and make some critical comments upon them. After that we present our own suggestion which is based on ideas developed by Leibniz in connection with problems of unity and plurality. We suggest that what the problem of the many teaches us is that in order to understand what ordinary things are, we have to take seriously the Leibnizian-Kantian distinction between phenomena and things-in-themselves.     

Pentacarbonylmetallderivatevon phosphinidenen und diphosphenen

Reaction of Na₂[M₂CO₁₀] (M = Cr, Mo, W) with RPCl₂ (R = mesityl, CH(SiMe₃)₂) yields, depending on the reaction conditions as well as on the steric demand of R, phosphinidene compounds [(CO)₅M]₂PR and diphosphene species [(CO)₅M]_nRPPR (n = 1, 2). With especially bulky substituents mono-nuclear diphosphene derivatives are the preferred reaction products. For dinuclear diphosphene compounds the Z-configuration is induced when R = mesityl while in other cases the E-configuration is the more stable form.The structures of the new compounds are documented by X-ray analyses of three examples. The accumulated material allows for a comparative discussion of the ³¹P NMR spectra, which often show unconventional low-field shifts (up to 1216 ppm), as well as of the characteristic UV/VIS spectra. For all compounds IR, ¹H NMR and mass spectra as well as correct analyses are presented.     

Homeomorphisms of the Heisenberg group preserving BMO

We provide a new geometric proof of Reimann’s theorem characterizing quasiconformal mappings as the ones preserving functions of bounded mean oscillation. While our proof is new already in the Euclidean spaces, it is applicable in Heisenberg groups as well as in more general stratified nilpotent Carnot groups.     

Capacity and Potential Estimates for Quasiminimizers

We obtain estimates for quasiminimizing potentials and their level sets. A new method, based on one dimensional quasiminimizers, is used. The connection of these estimates and the maximum principle is studied.     

Using a TSP heuristic for routing order pickers in warehouses

In this paper, we deal with the sequencing and routing problem of order pickers in conventional multi-parallel-aisle warehouse systems. For this NP-hard Steiner travelling salesman problem (TSP), exact algorithms only exist for warehouses with at most three cross aisles, while for other warehouse types literature provides a selection of dedicated construction heuristics. We evaluate to what extent reformulating and solving the problem as a classical TSP leads to performance improvements compared to existing dedicated heuristics. We report average savings in route distance of up to 47% when using the LKH (Lin–Kernighan–Helsgaun) TSP heuristic. Additionally, we examine if combining problem-specific solution concepts from dedicated heuristics with high-quality local search features could be useful. Lastly, we verify whether the sophistication of ‘state-of-the-art’ local search heuristics is necessary for routing order pickers in warehouses, or whether a subset of features suffices to generate high-quality solutions.     

Blow up of balls and coverings in metric spaces

We obtain some refinements and extensions of the Basic Covering Theorem in a metric space (X, ρ). The properties of the metric ρ are used to define an inclusion coefficient k in this theorem, and this is related to the supremum of numbers t such that ρ ^t is a metric in X. The inclusion coefficient k characterizes ultrametric spaces.