Comparison of two laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy techniques for total carbon measurement in soils

The potentials of two advanced laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) techniques which are used to determine the total carbon content in soils have been examined. The first one is the combination of a single-pulse laser ablation with spark excitation of plasma plume triggering the gap between electrodes close to the target surface. The second one is a more conventional double-pulse LIBS. In both modes the calibration graphs have a nonlinear trend in the actual range of carbon contents and present a good R² value (0.97). In the combined laser-spark approach, using low-cost and portable laser instrumentation is possible, as well as inducing a micro-damage on the target surface. Certain regularities in the spectral line intensities of soil nutritious elements have been detected and appear to be connected to the total carbon content and to the soil origin.     

Large hyperbolic lattices

For a fundamental group of a compact orientable manifold, a condition is specified that is sufficient to guarantee the presence of a “virtual” epimorphism onto a free non-Abelian group. A consequence is deriving a strong Tits alternative. An arbitrary noncompact finitely generated discrete subgroup in PO(3, 1) either is large or is virtually Abelian. An application is provided to the problem of uniform exponential growth for lattices in a 3-dimensional hyperbolic space and of growth of Betti numbers for lattices in a hyperbolic n-dimensional space, where n is an odd number. Supported by RFBR (project No. 08-01-00067), by DFG grant Gr 627-11, and by Forschergruppe “Spektrale Analysis, asymptotical Verteilungen und stochastische Dynamiken,” Billfold University. (G. A. Noskov) Translated from Algebra i Logika, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 174–189, March–April, 2009.     

Stabilization of elasticity–viscoporosity system by linear boundary feedback

The initial boundary value problem for linear elastodynamic system for viscoporous materials is considered. Exponential decay of solutions via the linear boundary feedback is established. Existence of solutions is obtained through the method of c₀‐semigroups. Exponential stabilization is derived via a proper collection of ideas of observability inequality, energy identity and c₀‐semigroup of contractions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonlinear damped Timoshenko systems with second sound—Global existence and exponential stability

In this paper, we consider nonlinear thermoelastic systems of Timoshenko type in a one‐dimensional bounded domain. The system has two dissipative mechanisms being present in the equation for transverse displacement and rotation angle—a frictional damping and a dissipation through hyperbolic heat conduction modelled by Cattaneo's law, respectively. The global existence of small, smooth solutions and the exponential stability in linear and nonlinear cases are established. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On exponential sums studied by Indlekofer and Kátai

We continue the study of sums of the form

Dynamical behaviors of a class of recurrent neural networks with discontinuous neuron activations

This paper investigates the dynamics of a class of recurrent neural networks where the neural activations are modeled by discontinuous functions. Without presuming the boundedness of activation functions, the sufficient conditions to ensure the existence, uniqueness, global exponential stability and global convergence of state equilibrium point and output equilibrium point are derived, respectively. Furthermore, under certain conditions we prove that the system is convergent globally in finite time. The analysis in the paper is based on the properties of M-matrix, Lyapunov-like approach, and the theories of differential equations with discontinuous right-hand side as introduced by Filippov. The obtained results extend previous works on global stability of recurrent neural networks with not only Lipschitz continuous but also discontinuous neural activation functions.     

An Extension of the Admissibility-Type Conditions for the Exponential Dichotomy of C 0-Semigroups

In the present paper we obtain a sufficient condition for the exponential dichotomy of a strongly continuous, one-parameter semigroup , in terms of the admissibility of the pair . It is already known the equivalence between the -admissibility condition and and the hyperbolicity of a C ₀-semigroup , when we assume a priori that the kernel of the dichotomic projector (denoted here by X ₂) is T(t)-invariant and is an invertible operator. We succeed to prove in this paper that the admissibility of the pair still implies the existence of an exponential dichotomy for a C ₀-semigroup even in the general case where the kernel of the dichotomic projector, X ₂, is not assumed to be T(t)-invariant.      

On the interaction of deep water waves and exponential shear currents

A train of periodic deep-water waves propagating on a steady shear current with a vertical distribution of vorticity is investigated by an analytic method, namely the homotopy analysis method (HAM). The magnitude of the vorticity varies exponentially with the magnitude of the stream function, while remaining constant on a particular streamline. The so-called Dubreil–Jacotin transformation is used to transfer the original exponentially nonlinear boundary-value problem in an unknown domain into an algebraically nonlinear boundary-value problem in a known domain. Convergent series solutions are obtained not only for small amplitude water waves on a weak current but also for large amplitude waves on a strong current. The nonlinear wave-current interaction is studied in detail. It is found that an aiding shear current tends to enlarge the wave phase speed, sharpen the wave crest, but shorten the maximum wave height, while an opposing shear current has the opposite effect. Besides, the amplitude of waves and fluid velocity decay over the depth more quickly on an aiding shear current but more slowly on an opposing shear current than that of waves on still water. Furthermore, it is found that Stokes criteria of wave breaking is still valid for waves on a shear current: a train of propagating waves on a shear current breaks as the fiuid velocity at crest equals the wave phase speed. Especially, it is found that the highest waves on an opposing shear current are even higher and steeper than that of waves on still water. Mathematically, this analytic method is rather general in principle and can be employed to solve many types of nonlinear partial differential equations with variable coefficients in science, finance and engineering.     

Razumikhin-type exponential stability criteria of neutral stochastic functional differential equations

The paper discusses both pth moment and almost sure exponential stability of solutions to neutral stochastic functional differential equations and neutral stochastic differential delay equations, by using the Razumikhin-type technique. The main goal is to find sufficient stability conditions that could be verified more easily then by using the usual method with Lyapunov functionals. The analysis is based on paper [X. Mao, Razumikhin-type theorems on exponential stability of neutral stochastic functional differential equations, SIAM J. Math. Anal. 28 (2) (1997) 389-401], referring to mean square and almost sure exponential stability.