Synthetic, spectroscopic and structural studies of two novel phosphanyl(organyl)borane compounds

The titanium (II) complex, Cp₂Ti(HBcat)₂, catalyzes the hydroboration of diphenylvinylphosphine by catecholborane and pinacolborane to afford exclusive anti-Markovnikov phosphanyl(organyl)boranes cleanly, rapidly and in good yields. Spectroscopic and X-ray studies of the phosphanyl(organyl)borane products show no evidence of boron-phosphorus interaction, indicating that the compounds preclude formation of Lewis pairs.     

Two level hierarchical time minimizing transportation problem

A two level hierarchical balanced time minimizing transportation problem is considered in this paper. The whole set of source-destination links consists of two disjoint partitions namely Level-I links and Level-II links. Some quantity of a homogeneous product is first shipped from sources to destinations by Level-I decision maker using only Level-I links, and on its completion the Level-II decision maker transports the remaining quantity of the product in an optimal fashion using only Level-II links. Transportation is assumed to be done in parallel in both the levels. The aim is to find that feasible solution for Level-I decision maker corresponding to which the optimal feasible solution for Level-II decision maker is such that the sum of shipment times in Level-I and Level-II is the least. To obtain the global optimal feasible solution of this non-convex optimization problem, related balanced time minimizing transportation problems are defined. Based upon the optimal feasible solutions of these related problems, standard cost minimizing transportation problems are constructed whose optimal feasible solutions provide various pairs for shipment times for Level-I and Level-II decision makers. The best out of these pairs is finally selected. Being dependent upon solutions of a finite number of balanced time minimizing and cost minimizing transportation problems, the proposed algorithm is a polynomial bound algorithm. The developed algorithm has been implemented and tested on a variety of test problems and performance is found to be quite encouraging.     

Gender, technology and attitude towards mathematics: a comparative longitudinal study with Mexican students

In this paper the results of a comparative longitudinal study investigating changes in girls’ and boys’ attitudes towards mathematics, and self-confidence in mathematics are presented. A 5-point Likert scale, AMMEC, was used to measure attitudes towards mathematics (AM), computer-based mathematics (AMC), and self-confidence in mathematics (CM). A total of 430 students using technology for mathematics and 109 students not using it were monitored for 3 years. At the beginning of the study, the participants were aged about 13 years. The statistical analyses of the data showed few gender differences in the way students’ attitudes and self-confidence changed over the 3 years. Significant gender differences favouring boys were found in attitudes towards mathematics in grades 8 and 9 for the group using technology. For the group using technology, significantly more boys than girls got high scores in attitudes towards computer-based mathematics in grade 7. Significantly, more girls using technology than girls not using it got high scores in grade 8. The use of technology did not have a positive impact on students’ self-confidence. Regardless of whether they used computers or not, from grades 7 to 9, there was a decrease in the self-confidence in mathematics of both boys and girls. To enrich these results and detect possible gender differences in the way attitudes were constructed, 12 girls and 13 boys were interviewed at the end of the study. The analysis of the arguments they presented to explain and justify their attitudes towards mathematics, computer-based mathematics, and their self-confidence in working in mathematics provided evidence of important gender differences in the ways in which boys and girls construct their attitude, indicating how their constructions reflect the gender stereotypes within Mexican society.     

Asymptotic Behavior of Positive Solutions of a Nonlinear Combined p-Laplacian Equation

For p > 1, we establish existence and asymptotic behavior of a positive continuous solution to the following boundary value problem $$\left\{\begin{array}{ll}\frac{1}{A} \left( A\Phi _{p}(u^{\prime})\right) ^{\prime}+a_{1}(r)u^{\alpha _{1}}+a_{2}(r)u^{\alpha _{2}}=0, \, {\rm in}\, (0,\infty ),\\ {\rm lim}_{r\rightarrow 0} A\Phi _{p}(u^{\prime})(r)=0, {\rm lim}_{r\rightarrow \infty } u(r)=0,\end{array}\right.$$ where \({\alpha _{1}, \alpha _{2} < p -1, \Phi _{p}(t) = t|t| ^{p-2},A}\) is a positive differentiable function and a ₁, a ₂ are two positive functions in \({C_{\rm loc}^{\gamma}((0, \infty )), 0 < \gamma < 1,}\) satisfying some appropriate assumptions related to Karamata regular variation theory. Also, we obtain an uniqueness result when \({\alpha _{1}, \alpha _{2} \in (1-p,p-1)}\) . Our arguments combine a method of sub and supersolutions with Karamata regular variation theory.     

Plancherel identity for semisimple hopf algebras

In this paper we discuss the structure of some product G =AB of nilpotent subgroups A and B. In particular we prove that if G is a minimax soluble group or a finitely generated linear group and if it does not have non-trivial periodic normal subgroups, then G is metanilpotent.     

Unsupervised classification of children’s bodies using currents

Object classification according to their shape and size is of key importance in many scientific fields. This work focuses on the case where the size and shape of an object is characterized by a current. A current is a mathematical object which has been proved relevant to the modeling of geometrical data, like submanifolds, through integration of vector fields along them. As a consequence of the choice of a vector-valued reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) as a test space for integrating manifolds, it is possible to consider that shapes are embedded in this Hilbert Space. A vector-valued RKHS is a Hilbert space of vector fields; therefore, it is possible to compute a mean of shapes, or to calculate a distance between two manifolds. This embedding enables us to consider size-and-shape clustering algorithms. These algorithms are applied to a 3D database obtained from an anthropometric survey of the Spanish child population with a potential application to online sales of children’s wear.     

Two-stage network DEA: when intermediate measures can be treated as outputs from the second stage

This paper investigates efficiency measurement in a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) setting. Since 1978, DEA literature has witnessed the expansion of the original concept to encompass a wide range of theoretical and applied research areas. One such area is network DEA, and in particular two-stage DEA. In the conventional closed serial system, the only role played by the outputs from Stage 1 is to behave as inputs to Stage 2. The current paper examines a variation of that system. In particular, we consider settings where the set of final outputs comprises not only those that result from Stage 2, but can include, in addition, certain outputs from the previous (first) stage. The difficulty that this situation creates is that such outputs are attempting to play both an input and output role in the same stage. We develop a DEA-based methodology that is designed to handle what we term ‘time-staged outputs’. We then examine an application of this concept where the DMUs are schools of business.     

Modeling and Smoothing Unequally Spaced Sequence Data

The application of the continuous state space model to unequally spaced sequence data is discussed and illustrated. The continuous model implies a discrete model for the observed data. Practical expressions for relevant discrete model quantities are given. These quantities are required for the digital processing of the data and in particular for the application of the Kalman and smoothing filter and related calculations. Applications illustrate the procedures.