Torus destruction in a nonsmooth noninvertible map

We consider here a nonsmooth noninvertible map and report new route to chaos from a resonance loop torus which is not homeomorphic to circle but only endomorphic to it. We have found that cusp torus cannot develop before the onset of chaos, though the loop torus appears. The destruction of the loop torus occurs through homoclinic bifurcation in the presence of an infinite number of nonsmooth loops. We show that owing to the nonsmooth noninvertible nature of the map, the stable sets can bifurcate to form nonsmooth closed loops. However, that cannot be interpreted directly as basin bifurcation.     

Frequency band-wise passive control of linear time invariant structural systems with H∞ optimization

A frequency band specific passive control strategy is presented based on H_∞ optimization for multi-degree of freedom (MDOF) linear time invariant (LTI) structural systems. Effective control can be achieved if passive control devices are designed by considering frequency bands of excitation. Minimization of maximum spectral norm or worst-case gain in the excitation frequency range is taken into account for the design of passive control devices for effective performance. A multi-storey shear planer frame coupled with a tuned mass damper (TMD) system as the passive control device is considered in the numerical simulation for controlling both displacement and acceleration subjected to base excitation. The band-specific H_∞ optimization problem for design of passive control devices has been transformed into GA-friendly form for the TMD system as control devices. Such a design strategy of passive control devices based on minimizing worst-case gain associated to finite frequency band is observed to provide efficient design of a TMD system with better performance than that designed based on conventional H_∞ optimization associated to entire frequency range.     

Optical properties of two liquid crystal compounds: a comparative study

The optical properties of two liquid crystalline mesogens S4 (code name) and S5 (code name) have been studied as a function of temperature. Our interest is to compare the macroscopic properties of these two thermotropic mesogens and to study the effect of replacing the OC₆H₁₃ group in S4 by NCS group to produce S5.With this aim in view the thermal variations of birefringence have been determined for both the compounds. The variations of polarizabilities with temperature have also been evaluated from density variations and birefringence studies and the thermal dependence of the order parameters of the two compounds have thereby been determined and compared. The theoretical values of the order parameters have also been calculated using the McMillan and Maier–Saupe potentials and compared with the obtained experimental values.     

Development of naphthalene and quinoxaline‐based donor–acceptor conjugated copolymers for delivering high open‐circuit voltage in photovoltaic devices

Two new quinoxaline‐based polymers, poly[1,5‐didecyloxynaphthalene‐alt‐5,5′‐(5,8‐dithiophen‐2‐yl)‐2,3‐bis(4‐octyloxyphenyl)quinoxaline (PNQx‐p) and poly[1,5‐didecyloxynaphthalene‐alt‐5,5′‐(5,8‐dithiophen‐2‐yl)‐2,3‐bis(3‐octyloxyphenyl)quinoxaline (PNQx‐m), were synthesized by Suzuki coupling reaction and characterized. Thermogravimetric analysis revealed that these polymers are thermally stable with degradation temperature up to 320 °C. As evident from the electrochemical and optical studies, the copolymers have comparable optical band gap (～2 eV) and nearly similar deep highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy levels of ?5.59 (PNQx‐p) and ?5.61 eV (PNQx‐p). The resulting copolymers possessed relatively low HOMO energy levels promising good air stability and high open circuit voltage (V_oc) for photovoltaic applications. The optimized photovoltaic device with a structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PNQx‐m:PC₇₁BM (1:2, w/w)/LiF/Al shows a power conversion efficiency up to 2.29% with a short circuit current density of 5.61 mA/cm², an V_oc of 0.93 V and a fill factor of 43.73% under an illumination of AM 1.5, 100 mW/cm². The efficiency of the PNQx‐m polymer improved from 2.29 to 2.95% using 1,8‐diiodoocane as an additive (0.25%). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2013     

Coherent control of narrow structures in absorption,transparency and dispersion by interference induced among the Rabi-split resonances

The evolution of nonlinear behaviour of electromagnetically induced absorption and transparency subject to coherent perturbation, is presented in a triply driven five-level atomic system. It has been shown that the coherence effects like absolute line narrowing, single or multiple transparencies, sharply varying dispersion and two opposite types of quantum switching can be efficiently controlled by interference induced among the Rabi-split resonances at various situations. As far as measurement induced subwavelength atom localization is concerned, this model can be very much useful in controlling single peak atom localization in subwavelength and sub-half-wavelength domain by three different ways.     

A fast method for discovering critical edge sequences in e-commerce catalogs

Web sites allow the collection of vast amounts of navigational data – clickstreams of user traversals through the site. These massive data stores offer the tantalizing possibility of uncovering interesting patterns within the dataset. For e-businesses, always looking for an edge in the hyper-competitive online marketplace, the discovery of critical edge sequences (CESs), which denote frequently traversed sequences in the catalog, is of significant interest. CESs can be used to improve site performance and site management, increase the effectiveness of advertising on the site, and gather additional knowledge of customer behavior patterns on the site.