On Excess-time Correlated Cumulative Processes

In this paper a class of correlated cumulative processes, B _s (t) = ∑^N(t)_i=1 H _s (X _i )X _i , is studied with excess level increments X _i ?s, where {N(t), t ?0} is the counting process generated by the renewal sequence T _n , T _n and X _n are correlated for given n, H _s (t) is the Heaviside function and s?0 is a given constant. Several useful results, for the distributions of B _s (t), and that of the number of excess (non-excess) increments on (0, t) and the corresponding means, are derived. First passage time problems are also discussed and various asymptotic properties of the processes are obtained. Transform results, by applying a flexible form for the joint distribution of correlated pairs (T _n , X _n ) are derived and inverted. The case of non-excess level increments, X _i < s, is also considered. Finally, applications to known stochastic shock and pro-rata warranty models are given.     

Proton radiation tolerance of nanocrystal memories

We report on proton radiation tolerance of Si-nanocrystal (Si-NCs) MOS structures aiming at non-volatile memory applications. Si-NCs were formed by low-energy (1 keV) ion-beam-synthesis within a 9 nm thick SiO₂ layer. A 2-D layer of Si-NCs with 3 nm mean diameter and 10¹² cm⁻² surface density was successfully achieved. After fabrication of Al capacitors, samples with and without Si-NCs were 1.5 and 6.5 MeV proton were irradiated at doses ranging from 1 Mrad (SiO₂) to 120 Mrad (SiO₂). Significant irradiation-dose-dependent shifts are detected in the C–V curves of the NC-MOS cells and programmed cells are found to undergo bit flip. Despite the above, the attainable memory windows after write/erase operations remain unchanged. Retention time characteristics at room temperature for the write and erase states of irradiated and non-irradiated samples reveal that even after an irradiation dose as high as 120 Mrad (SiO₂) the devices still exhibit long time charge storage behavior. We observe that the erase state flat-band voltage decay rate does not depend on the irradiation-dose while the opposite happens for the write state flat-band voltage decay rate which is found to be directly dependent on D_it values giving insight to the physics of the discharging mechanisms.     

Boosting the feasibility pump

The feasibility pump (FP) has proved to be an effective method for finding feasible solutions to mixed integer programming problems. FP iterates between a rounding procedure and a projection procedure, which together provide a sequence of points alternating between LP feasible but fractional solutions, and integer but LP infeasible solutions. The process attempts to minimize the distance between consecutive iterates, producing an integer feasible solution when closing the distance between them. We investigate the benefits of enhancing the rounding procedure with a clever integer line search that efficiently explores a large set of integer points. An extensive computational study on benchmark instances demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed approach.     

Excess-time Renewal Theory with Applications

In this paper, the renewal theory is investigated from the point of view of the excess-time (non-excess-time) renewal intervals. Useful results are derived, and applications to several renewal models are given.     

The influence of Cu and Nb on the crystallization products of annealed FeCuNbSiB

Depending on different Nb and Cu concentration, we studied the formation of nano- and microcrystalline phases in differently annealed samples of FeCuNbSiB. First, the kinetics of crystallization was explored by measuring the temperature-dependent electrical resistivity and magnetization. After this, we collected Mössbauer spectra and did an X-ray diffraction analysis of annealed samples at chosen temperatures to discover the different crystalline phases. It was found how the onset of crystallization had been shifted towards other temperatures. The analysis of Mössbauer spectra shows that building up the well-known DO₃ structure of Fe₃Si is disturbed in the alloy without Cu. At higher Nb content, we resolve two different crystallization steps in the formation of Fe₃Si and a new crystalline phase, probably being a structure like Fe₂₃B₆.     

Synthesis and characterization of novel "3 + 2" oxorhenium complexes, ReO[SNO][NN

The present paper deals with the synthesis and structural characterization of novel neutral oxorhenium(V) complexes of the general formula ReO[SNO][NN]. The simultaneous action of the tridentate SNO ligand, N-(2-mercaptoacetyl)glycine (1), and the bidentate NN ligand, N-phenylpyridine-2-aldimine (2), on ReOCl3(PPh3)2 leads to the formation of two isomers 4a and 4b of the general formula ReO[SNO][NN], as a result of the different orientations of the NN ligand. In both cases, the SNO donor atoms of the tridentate ligand occupy the three positions in the equatorial plane of the distorted octahedron, whereas the oxo group is always directed toward one of the apical positions. In the first isomer, 4a, the imino nitrogen of the NN ligand occupies the fourth equatorial position and the pyridine type nitrogen is directed trans to the oxo group, while in the second isomer, 4b, the imino nitrogen of the NN ligand occupies the apical position trans to the oxo group and the pyridine type nitrogen completes the equatorial plane of the distorted octahedron. The [SNO][NN] mixed-ligand system was applied in the synthesis of the oxorhenium complex 5 in which the 1-(2-methoxyphenyl)piperazine moiety, a fragment of the true 5-HT1A antagonist WAY 100635, has been incorporated in the NN bidentate ligand (NN is N-{3-[4-(2-methoxyphenyl)piperazin-1-yl]propyl}pyridine-2-aldimine). In this case, high-performance liquid chromatography and NMR showed the existence of one isomer, 5, in which the pyridine nitrogen is trans to the oxo core, as demonstrated by crystal structure analysis.     

Size and aerial density distributions of Ge nanocrystals in a SiO2 layer produced by molecular beam epitaxy and rapid thermal processing

We discuss the distribution of size and aerial density of Ge nanocrystals in a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) memory structure fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy combined with rapid thermal processing; the size and aerial density of Ge nanocrystals are controlled by varying the thickness of the deposited Ge layer and the processing time. Variation of tunnel oxide thickness is demonstrated with the extension of the processing time. The effect of processing time and tunnel oxide thickness on the electrical properties of the MOS structures is investigated by high frequency capacitance–voltage measurements. PACS  61.46.+w; 81.07.-b; 81.07.Bc; 81.07.Ta     

A global optimization algorithm for generalized semi-infinite,continuous minimax with coupled constraints and bi-level problems

We propose an algorithm for the global optimization of three problem classes: generalized semi-infinite, continuous coupled minimax and bi-level problems. We make no convexity assumptions. For each problem class, we construct an oracle that decides whether a given objective value is achievable or not. If a given value is achievable, the oracle returns a point with a value better than or equal to the target. A binary search is then performed until the global optimum is obtained with the desired accuracy. This is achieved by solving a series of appropriate finite minimax and min-max-min problems to global optimality. We use Laplace’s smoothing technique and a simulated annealing approach for the solution of these problems. We present computational examples for all three problem classes.