Effective magnetic properties of a composite material with circular conductive elements

Effective magnetic properties of a composite meta-material consisting of periodically arranged circular conductive elements are studied theoretically. A general expression for the effective bulk permeability is obtained with mutual effects and lattice ordering being taken into account. The resonance frequency of the permeability is found to be strongly dependent on the size and shape of the unit cell. Frequency dispersion of the permeability is studied with special attention paid to the frequency range, where negative values of the permeability are possible. Corresponding recommendations for optimisation of the meta-materials with negative permeability are made. The results are confirmed by numerical simulations of the finite structure behaviour in an external magnetic field. Received 19 April 2002 Published online 31 July 2002     

A greedy algorithm for multicut and integral multiflow in rooted trees

We present an O(min(Kn,n²)) algorithm to solve the maximum integral multiflow and minimum multicut problems in rooted trees, where K is the number of commodities and n is the number of vertices. These problems are NP-hard in undirected trees but polynomial in directed trees. In the algorithm we propose, we first use a greedy procedure to build the multiflow then we use duality properties to obtain the multicut and prove the optimality.     

Noise-assisted mound coarsening in epitaxial growth

Two types of mechanisms are proposed for mound coarsening during unstable epitaxial growth: stochastic, due to deposition noise, and deterministic, due to mass currents driven by surface energy differences. Both yield the relation H=(RWL)² between the typical mound height W, mound size L, and the film thickness H. An analysis of simulations and experimental data shows that the parameter R saturates to a value which discriminates sharply between stochastic () and deterministic () coarsening. We derive a scaling relation between the coarsening exponent 1/z and the mound-height exponent which, for a saturated mound slope, yields . Received: 11 November 1997 / Revised in final form: 28 November 1997 / Accepted: 28 November 1997     

Barrier-free intermolecular proton transfer in the uracil-glycine complex induced by excess electron attachment

The photoelectron spectra (PES) of anions of uracil-glycine and uracil-phenylalanine complexes reveal broad features with maxima at 1.8 and 2.0 eV. The results of ab initio density functional B3LYP and second order M?ller-Plesset theory calculations indicate that the excess electron occupies a π^* orbital localized on uracil. The excess electron attachment to the complex can induce a barrier-free proton transfer (BFPT) from the carboxylic group of glycine to the O8 atom of uracil. As a result, the four most stable structures of the anion of uracil-glycine complex can be characterized as the neutral radical of hydrogenated uracil solvated by the anion of deprotonated glycine. The similarity between the PES spectra for the uracil complexes with glycine and phenylalanine suggests that the BFPT is also operative in the case of the latter anionic species. The BFPT to the O8 atom of uracil may be related to the damage of nucleic acid bases by low energy electrons because the O8 atom is involved in a hydrogen bond with adenine in the standard Watson-Crick pairing scheme. Received 6 April 2002 Published online 13 September 2002     

Vibrational EELS and DFT study of propionic acid and pyruvic acid on Ni(1 0 0): Effects of keto group substitution on room-temperature adsorption and thermal chemistry

The room-temperature adsorption and thermally induced processes of propionic acid and pyruvic acid on Ni(1 0 0) have been investigated by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). Computational vibrational analysis of the optimized bidentate structures for acid-Ni model complexes (involving the organic acid and a Ni atom) has been performed by using the two-layer ONIOM method with the Density Functional Theory and used to interpret the vibrational EELS data. Dehydrogenation of the hydroxyl group is found to result in bonding of the carboxylate group in the propionate and pyruvate adspecies to either a single Ni surface atom in a bidentate configuration or two neighbouring Ni atoms in a bridge configuration. Given the similarities in the total energies and related vibrational frequencies obtained by the calculations in the case of pyruvate adspecies, it is difficult to differentiate the alternate adsorption structure, in which the keto O and hydroxyl O atoms are bonded to a Ni atom in a five-member chelate ring configuration. Furthermore, temperature-dependent EELS studies show that both the propionate and pyruvate adspecies could decompose upon annealing to above 400 K and further dissociate to CO adspecies above 550 K and to C and/or O above 600 K.     

Conic Formulation for l p -Norm Optimization

In this paper, we formulate the l _p -norm optimization problem as a conic optimization problem, derive its duality properties (weak duality, zero duality gap, and primal attainment) using standard conic duality and show how it can be solved in polynomial time applying the framework of interior-point algorithms based on self-concordant barriers.     

Speed of adaptation in structured populations

Adaptation of populations takes place with the occurrence and subsequent fixation of mutations that confer some selective advantage to the individuals which acquire it. For this reason, the study of the process of fixation of advantageous mutations has a long history in the population genetics literature. Particularly, the previous investigations aimed to find out the main evolutionary forces affecting the strength of natural selection in the populations. In the current work, we investigate the dynamics of fixation of beneficial mutations in a subdivided population. The subpopulations (demes) can exchange migrants among their neighbors, in a migration network which is assumed to have either a random graph or a scale-free topology. We have observed that the migration rate drastically affects the dynamics of mutation fixation, despite of the fact that the probability of fixation is invariant on the migration rate, accordingly to Maruyama's conjecture. In addition, we have noticed a topological dependence of the adaptive evolution of the population when clonal interference becomes effective.     

Dual Problems and Separation of Sets: Lagrange and Fenchel Duality

An extremum problem is embedded in a parametric scheme which contains, as a particular case, the classic perturbation function. The introduction of the image of the embedded problem allows one to derive a generalized duality and, in particular, Lagrangian and Fenchel duality.     

Optimality and duality in multiobjective fractional programming involving ρ-semilocally type I-preinvex and related functions

Optimality conditions are obtained for a nonlinear fractional multiobjective programming problem involving η-semidifferentiable functions. Also, a general dual is formulated and a duality result is proved using concepts of generalized ρ-semilocally type I-preinvex functions.     

Periodic solutions for p-Laplacian neutral functional differential equation with multiple deviating arguments

By using the theory of coincidence degree, we study a kind of periodic solutions to p-Laplacian neutral functional differential equation with multiple deviating arguments, a new result on the existence of periodic solutions is obtained.