Hydrogen evolution across nano-Schottky junctions at carbon supported MoS2 catalysts in biphasic liquid systems

The activities of a series of MoS(2)-based hydrogen evolution catalysts were studied by biphasic reactions monitored by UV/Vis spectroscopy. Carbon supported MoS(2) catalysts performed best due to an abundance of catalytic edge sites and strong electronic coupling of catalyst to support.     

A careful look at the importance of criteria and weights

We investigate the connection between weights, scales, and the importance of criteria, when a linear value function is assumed to be a suitable representation of a decision maker’s preferences. Our considerations are based on a simple two-criteria experiment, where the participants were asked to indicate which of the criteria was more important, and to pairwise compare a number of alternatives. We use the participants’ pairwise choices to estimate the weights for the criteria in such a way that the linear value function explains the choices to the extent possible. More specifically, we study two research questions: (1) is it possible to find a general scaling principle that makes the rank order of the importance of criteria consistent with the rank order of the magnitudes of the weights, and (2) how good is a simple, direct method of asking the decision maker to “provide” weights for the criteria compared to our estimation procedure. Our results imply that there is reason to question two common beliefs, namely that the values of the weights would reflect the importance of criteria, and that people could reliably “provide” such weights without estimation.     

Modeling electricity spot and futures price dependence: A multifrequency approach

Electricity prices are known to exhibit multifractal properties. We accommodate this finding by investigating multifractal models for electricity prices. In this paper we propose a flexible Copula-MSM (Markov Switching Multifractal) approach for modeling spot and weekly futures price dynamics. By using a conditional copula function, the framework allows us to separately model the dependence structure, while enabling use of multifractal stochastic volatility models to characterize fluctuations in marginal returns. An empirical experiment is carried out using data from Nord Pool. A study of volatility forecasting performance for electricity spot prices reveals that multifractal techniques are a competitive alternative to GARCH models. We also demonstrate how the Copula-MSM model can be employed for finding optimal portfolios, which minimizes the Conditional Value-at-Risk.     

Effect of Polystyrene Microsphere Surface to Fluorescence Lifetime Under Two-Photon Excitation

Molecular assays such as immunoassays are often performed using solid carriers and fluorescent labels. In such an assay format a question can be raised on how much the fluorescence of the label is influenced by the bio-affinity binding events and the solid carrier surface. Since changes in fluorescence intensity as labels bind to surfaces are notoriously difficult to quantify other approaches are preferred. A good indicator, independent of the fluorescence intensity of the label, is the fluorescence lifetime of the marker fluorophore. Changes in fluorescence lifetime reliably indicate the presence of dynamic quenching, energy transfer or other de-excitation processes. A microsphere based assay system is studied under two-photon excitation. Changes in fluorescence lifetime are studied as labeled protein conjugates bind on microsphere surfaces – both direct on the surface and with a few nanometer distance from the surface. Fluorescence signal is measured from individual polystyrene microspheres and the fluorescence lifetime histogram is simultaneously recorded. The results indicate that self-quenching and quenching by the polystyrene surface are both present in such a system. However, the effect of the surface can be avoided by increasing the distance between the surface and the label. Typical distances achieved by a standard sandwich type of assay, are already sufficient to overcome the surface induced quenching in fluorescence detection.     

Analysis and optimization against buckling of beams interacting with elastic foundation

We consider an infinite continuous elastic beam that interacts with linearly elastic foundation and is under compression. The problem of the beam buckling is formulated and analyzed. Then the optimization of beam against buckling is investigated. As a design variable (control function) we take the parameters of cross-section distribution of the beam from the set of periodic functions and transform the original problem of optimization of infinite beam to the corresponding problem defined at the finite interval. All investigations are on the whole founded on the analytical variational approaches and the optimal solutions are studied as a function of problems parameters.     

Interactive evolutionary multi-objective optimization for quasi-concave preference functions

We present a new hybrid approach to interactive evolutionary multi-objective optimization that uses a partial preference order to act as the fitness function in a customized genetic algorithm. We periodically send solutions to the decision maker (DM) for her evaluation and use the resulting preference information to form preference cones consisting of inferior solutions. The cones allow us to implicitly rank solutions that the DM has not considered. This technique avoids assuming an exact form for the preference function, but does assume that the preference function is quasi-concave. This paper describes the genetic algorithm and demonstrates its performance on the multi-objective knapsack problem.     

Extensions and traces of functions of bounded variation on metric spaces

In the setting of a metric space equipped with a doubling measure and supporting a Poincaré inequality, and based on results by Björn and Shanmugalingam (2007) [7], we show that functions of bounded variation can be extended from any bounded uniform domain to the whole space. Closely related to extensions is the concept of boundary traces, which have previously been studied by Hakkarainen et al. (2014) [17]. On spaces that satisfy a suitable locality condition for sets of finite perimeter, we establish some basic results for the traces of functions of bounded variation. Our analysis of traces also produces novel pointwise results on the behavior of functions of bounded variation in their jump sets.     

Continuity of solutions to n-harmonic equations

In this paper, we study the nonhomogeneous n-harmonic equation $$-{\rm div}\,(|{\nabla} u|^{n-2}{\nabla} u)=f$$ in domains ${\Omega\subset {\mathbb {R}^n}}$ (n?≥?2), where ${f\in W^{-1,\frac{n}{n-1}}(\Omega)}$ . We derive a sharp condition to guarantee the continuity of solutions u. In particular, we show that when n?≥ 3, the condition that, for some ${\epsilon >0 ,}$ f belongs to $${\mathfrak{L}}({\rm log}\,{\mathfrak{L}})^{n-1}({\rm log}\,{\rm log}\,{\mathfrak{L}})^{n-2}\cdots({\rm log}\cdots{\rm log}\,{\mathfrak{L}})^{n-2}({\rm log}\cdots{\rm log}\,{\mathfrak{L}})^{n-2+\epsilon}(\Omega)$$ is sufficient for continuity of u, but not for ${\epsilon=0}$ .     

Preference programming for robust portfolio modeling and project selection

In decision analysis, difficulties of obtaining complete information about model parameters make it advisable to seek robust solutions that perform reasonably well across the full range of feasible parameter values. In this paper, we develop the Robust Portfolio Modeling (RPM) methodology which extends Preference Programming methods into portfolio problems where a subset of project proposals are funded in view of multiple evaluation criteria. We also develop an algorithm for computing all non-dominated portfolios, subject to incomplete information about criterion weights and project-specific performance levels. Based on these portfolios, we propose a project-level index to convey (i) which projects are robust choices (in the sense that they would be recommended even if further information were to be obtained) and (ii) how continued activities in preference elicitation should be focused. The RPM methodology is illustrated with an application using real data on road pavement projects.     

Traces of weighted function spaces: Dyadic norms and Whitney extensions

The trace spaces of Sobolev spaces and related fractional smoothness spaces have been an active area of research since the work of Nikolskii, Aronszajn, Slobodetskii, Babich and Gagliardo among others in the 1950’s. In this paper, we review the literature concerning such results for a variety of weighted smoothness spaces. For this purpose, we present a characterization of the trace spaces (of fractional order of smoothness), based on integral averages on dyadic cubes, which is well-adapted to extending functions using the Whitney extension operator.