The Geometry of the Newton Method on Non-Compact Lie Groups

An important class of optimization problems involve minimizing a cost function on a Lie group. In the case where the Lie group is non-compact there is no natural choice of a Riemannian metric and it is not possible to apply recent results on the optimization of functions on Riemannian manifolds. In this paper the invariant structure of a Lie group is exploited to provide a strong interpretation of a Newton iteration on a general Lie group. The paper unifies several previous algorithms proposed in the literature in a single theoretical framework. Local asymptotic quadratic convergence is proved for the algorithms considered.     

High-energy electron pair production on oxygen

Electron-positron pair production cross sections are calculated for 50-MeV electrons incident on an oxygen nucleus. The symmetric coplanar cross sections are emphasized. Neglecting exchange, the spectra of forward-scattered projectile electrons is numerically calculated. In the extreme relativistic and nonrelativistic limits for the produced pair kinetic energies, calculated cross sections are similar to those of Bhabha.     

Fluid and diffusion limits for transient sojourn times of processor sharing queues with time varying rates

We provide an approximate analysis of the transient sojourn time for a processor sharing queue with time varying arrival and service rates, where the load can vary over time, including periods of overload. Using the same asymptotic technique as uniform acceleration as demonstrated in [12] and [13], we obtain fluid and diffusion limits for the sojourn time of the M_t/M_t/1 processor-sharing queue. Our analysis is enabled by the introduction of a “virtual customer” which differs from the notion of a “tagged customer” in that the former has no effect on the processing time of the other customers in the system. Our analysis generalizes to non-exponential service and interarrival times, when the fluid and diffusion limits for the queueing process are known.     

On-line arbitrarily vertex decomposable trees

A tree T is arbitrarily vertex decomposable if for any sequence τ of positive integers adding up to the order of T there is a sequence of vertex-disjoint subtrees of T whose orders are given by τ. An on-line version of the problem of characterizing arbitrarily vertex decomposable trees is completely solved here.     

Large Discrepancy In Homogenous Quasi-Arithmetic Progressions

We prove that the class of homogeneous quasi-arithmetic progressions has unbounded discrepancy. That is, we show that given any 2-coloring of the natural numbers and any positive integer D, one can find a real number α≥1 and a set of natural numbers of the form {0, [α], [2α], [3α], . . . , [kα]} so that one color appears at least D times more than the other color. This was already proved by Beck in 1983, but the proof given here is somewhat simpler and gives a better bound on the discrepancy.     

Formation of functional groups on graphite during oxygen plasma treatment

Improved sample wettability was obtained by oxygen plasma functionalization of pyrolytic graphite. The samples were exposed to highly dissociated oxygen plasma with the density of 1 × 10¹⁶ m⁻³, the electron temperature of about 5.5 eV and the density of neutral oxygen atoms of 8 × 10²¹ m⁻³ for 20 s. The surface wettability was measured by a contact angle of water drop. The contact angle dropped from original 112° down to about 1°. The functional groups were detected by XPS analyses. The survey spectrum showed a substantial increase of oxygen concentration on the surface, while high-resolution analyses showed additional oxygen was bonded onto the graphite surface in the form of C-O polar functional group responsible for the increase of the surface energy.     

Nonaqueous diazotization of 4-amino-3-arylisothiazole-5-carboxylate esters

4-Amino-3-arylisothiazole-5-carboxylate esters are converted to the corresponding desamino, chloro, bromo, and iodo esters by processes involving nonaqueous diazotization. These related procedures open up the possibility for the conversion of readily available heterocyclic ortho-amino esters and nitriles to related heterocyclic derivatives, which are not easily obtained by alternate routes.     

Students’ Reasoning About One-Object Stochastic Phenomena in an ICT-Environment

This paper focuses on the different ways in which students in lower secondary school (14–16 year olds) experience compound random events, presented to them in the form of combined junctions. A carefully designed ICT environment was developed enabling the students to interact with different representations of such structures. Data for the analysis was gathered from two interview sessions. The analysis of the interaction is based on constructivist principles on learning; i.e. we adopted a student-oriented perspective, taking into consideration the different ways students try to make sense of chance encounters. Our results show how some students give priority to geometrical and physical concerns, and we discuss how seeking causal explanations of random phenomena may have encouraged this. With respect to numerically oriented models a division strategy appears to stand out as the preferred one.     

A short and efficient synthesis of grisan

A three-step synthesis of grisan (spiro[benzofuran-2(3H)-1′-cyclohexane]), using methoxymethoxybenzene and 1-chloromethylcyclohexene as starting materials, is described.