Resistive switching polymer materials based on poly(aryl ether)s containing triphenylamine and 1,2,4‐triazole moieties

A series of poly(aryl ether)s were successfully prepared via aromatic nucleophilic substitution reaction from various bisphenols and a novel bipolar aryl difluoride monomer containing electron‐donor triphenylamine and electron‐acceptor 1,2,4‐triazole moieties. The poly(aryl ether)s exhibited excellent solubility in organic solvents such as dimethylformamide, chloroform, and tetrahydrofuran at room temperature. The poly(aryl ether)s showed high thermal stability with T_d10 higher than 500 °C and glass transition temperatures (T_g) higher than 187 °C. The thin films of the poly(aryl ether)s indicated bistable resistive switching behavior with ON/OFF current ratios as high as 10³. The switching on and switching off bias voltages of the poly(aryl ether)s were affected by the bisphenol moiety. The good resistive switching behavior of the poly(aryl ether)s made them promising candidates for future nonvolatile memory applications. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 6861–6871, 2008     

Comparison of atomic fluorescence power efficiencies for the helium-oxygen-acetylene and air-acetylene flames

Power efficiencies for five elements have been measured for the helium-oxygen-acetylene and air-acetylene flames. The increased power efficiencies found in this study for the helium-diluted flame, coupled with its enhanced atom-formation capabilities, suggest that lower atomic fluorescence detection limits should exist. However, in a comparison study with an air-acetylene flame using identical experimental conditions, a decreased atomic fluorescence signal-to-noise ratio was found for most elements in the helium-diluted flame. This decrease is ascribed to greater background emission noise in the hotter helium-diluted flame and decreased nebulization efficiency caused by the low density of the helium-containing nebulizer gas. A comparison of flame emission detection limits for the two flames confirms the increased sensitivity of the hotter helium-oxygen-acetylene flame, despite its lower nebulization efficiency.     

Intensities of rotational lines in first overtone bands for axially symmetric molecules of the group C3v

The interaction of vibration and rotation is considered in the computation of the intensities of rotational lines in the first overtone bands of axially symmetric molecules of the group C_3v. The calculation utilizes the contact transformation method through first order of approximation as outlines by Hanson and Nielsen. General formulas for the intensities of the lines in the first overtone bands 2ν_n and 2ν_m are obtained, where n and m denote normal modes of species A₁ and E, respectively. It is found that to this order of approximation the usual selection rules ΔJ = 0, ±1 and ΔK = 0 are observed for the parallel overtone band 2ν_n. For the overtone band 2ν_m, the selection rules are more complicated, being ΔJ = 0, ±1; Δl_m = 0 and ΔK = 0, Δl_m = ±2 and $\text{Δ}\text{K = ?1}$, or Δl_m = ±2 and ΔK = ±2.     

A New Model for Nonlinear Wind Waves. Part 2. Theoretical Model

A first-order theory for the development of a wind-driven wave field is proposed. This takes advantage of the physical interpretation presented by Lake and Yuen (1978) that a nonlinear wind-wave system can be completely characterized, to first approximation, by a single nonlinear wave train with carrier frequency coinciding with the local dominant frequency. The result is the nonlinear Schrodinger equation for the wave envelope, supplemented by an equation describing the change of dominant-wave frequency (or wavenumber) with fetch (or duration). The latter equation is a consequence of a form-drag model proposed by Deardorff (1967) for the input of wind energy into the dominant wave. The extension of the model to a random wave field is briefly discussed.     

Ensemble of linear models for predicting drug properties

We propose a new classification method for the prediction of drug properties, called random feature subset boosting for linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The main novelty of this method is the ability to overcome the problems with constructing ensembles of linear discriminant models based on generalized eigenvectors of covariance matrices. Such linear models are popular in building classification-based structure-activity relationships. The introduction of ensembles of LDA models allows for an analysis of more complex problems than by using single LDA, for example, those involving multiple mechanisms of action. Using four data sets, we show experimentally that the method is competitive with other recently studied chemoinformatic methods, including support vector machines and models based on decision trees. We present an easy scheme for interpreting the model despite its apparent sophistication. We also outline theoretical evidence as to why, contrary to the conventional AdaBoost ensemble algorithm, this method is able to increase the accuracy of LDA models.     

Optimization of extinction efficiency of gold‐coated polystyrene bead substrates improves surface‐enhanced Raman scattering effects by post‐growth microwave heating treatment

We report a novel post‐growth microwave treatment approach to selectively modify the surface morphologies of gold (Au) films coated on the polystyrene (PS) bead substrates for effectively improving the surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect on the analytes. The discrete dipole approximation (DDA) model was introduced to evaluate the enhancement effects by calculating the localized electromagnetic field distribution and extinction efficiency based on the sizes of the trenches and voids, and the surface roughness of the modified Au–PS bead substrates. The SERS performance of microwave‐modified Au–PS substrates on rhodamine 6G (Rh 6G) and saliva yields at least 10‐fold improvements in SERS intensities compared to the as‐grown substrates, which is also in agreement with theoretical predictions by DDA modeling. This work demonstrates both experimentally and theoretically the efficacy of the microwave heating treatment on modifying the Au–PS bead substrates for the realization of high SERS performance in biomedical applications. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some Methods of Computing First Extensions Between Modules of Graded Hecke Algebras

In this paper, we establish connections between the first extensions of simple modules and certain filtrations of of standard modules in the setting of graded Hecke algebras. The filtrations involved are radical filtrations and Jantzen filtrations. Our approach involves the use of information from the Langlands classification as well as some deeper understanding on some structure of some modules. Such module arises from the image of a Knapp-Stein type intertwining operator and is a quotient of a generalized standard module. As an application, we compute the Ext-groups for irreducible modules in a block for the graded Hecke algebra of type C ₃, assuming the truth of a version of Jantzen conjecture.     

Improving artificial bee colony with one-position inheritance mechanism

Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm simulates the foraging behavior of honey bees. It shows good performance in many application problems and large scale optimization problems. However, variation of a solution in the ABC algorithm is only employed on one dimension of the solution. This would sometimes hamper the convergence speed of the ABC algorithm, especially for large scale optimization. This paper proposes a one-position inheritance (OPI) mechanism to overcome this drawback. The OPI mechanism aims to promote information exchange amongst employed bees of the ABC algorithm. For separable function, OPIABC has a higher probability resulting in function value improvement of the worst positions than ABC. Through one-position information exchange, the OPI mechanism can assist the ABC algorithm to find promising solutions. This mechanism has been tested on a set of 25 test functions with $D= 30$ and on CEC 2008 test suite with $D= 100$ and 1,000. Experimental results show that the OPI mechanism can speed up the convergence of the ABC algorithm. After the use of OPI, the performance of the ABC algorithm is significantly improved for both rotated problems and large scale problems. OPIABC is also competitive on both test suites comparing with other recently proposed swarm intelligence metaheuristics (e.g. SaDE and PSO2011). Furthermore, the OPI mechanism can greatly enhance the performance of other improved ABC algorithms.     

A Multivariate Regime-Switching Mean Reverting Process and Its Application to the Valuation of Credit Risk

In this article, we study the counterparty risk on a credit default swap (CDS) and the valuation of a first-to-default basket swap on three underlyings under a common shock model with regime-switching intensities. We assume that the defaults of all the names are driven by some shock events, whose arrivals are governed by a multivariate regime-switching shot noise process. Based on some expressions for the joint Laplace transform of the regime-switching shot noise processes, we give explicit formulas for the spread of the CDS contract with and without counterparty risk and the spread of the first-to-default basket swap on the three underlyings.