Configuration Dependence Research Articles

A system level product configurator for engineer-to-order supply chains

Supply chains in construction, infrastructure building, ship building, factory design and conveyor systems are operating in an engineer-to-order type of environment. Companies in these project-based businesses have special requirements for product configuration. Products have configuration dependencies with each other and there are system level configuration dependencies between several products. Incomplete product configuration items that are subject to change or require engineering work prior to production can occur. This paper introduces the requirements for system level configuration and proposes a prototype solution for ship projects and engine-room related supply chains.

Study of the a-Si:H/c-Si Heterointerface by Ex-Situ Spectroscopic Ellipsometry, Infrared Spectroscopy, and Solar Cell Modeling

The interface formation between plasma-enhanced chemical vapor-deposited (PECVD) silicon thin films and H-terminated, p-type c-Si was investigated. The formation of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H), epitaxial Si, and mixed phase Si was detected through spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and high-resolution transmission electron mi- croscopy (HRTEM). The evolution of the hydrogen content and hydrogen bonding configurations in the films were monitored by attenuated total reection infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR). The dependence of the hydrogen binding configuration on the film morphology was observed. Even with an observed epitaxial layer in the structure of the intrinsic a-Si:H, a silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cell with 9.2% efficiency was obtained, which is the largest-active-area (72 cm^2) SHJ cell on p-type c-Si. The numerical simulation tool AFORS-HET was used to model the layers and interface properties of the cell. The simulation results were consistent with the experimental results, demonstrating the importance of interface defect passivation in SHJ solar cells.

Electronegativity, Hardness and Atomic number: Mutual relationships explored via novel isoelectronic series methodology

The novel isoelectronic methodology proposed recently, reveals electronic configuration dependent relationship between the hardness and atomic number, and electronegativity and hardness. In eight out of the first ten isoelectronic series, the hardness measure (I-A)/2 is an excellent linear function of atomic number (Z), and the electronegativity measure, (I+A)/2 is a quadratic function of the hardness measure; Hence, it is inferred that hardness (η) is proportional to atomic number (η α Z) and electronegativity (χ) is proportional to square of hardness (χ α η2). In both the cases, the two inert gas series species are the exceptions where η α Z2 and χ α η, respectively. These relationships are slightly in discord with the previously reported mutual connections. Previous reports do not indicate electronic configuration dependency as well. The linear (I-A)/2 versus Z plots arises as a result of cancellation of Z2 terms, and the slopes of these plots are sensitive indicator of the electron spin pairing and orbital change. A potential use of (I-A)/2 versus Z, and (I+A)/2 versus (I-A)/2 plots in pointing the incorrect ionization potentials and their evaluation has been elaborated by the striking example of the sixth ionization potential of phosphorous. The (I-A)/2 versus Z relations also provides us a new way to obtain hardness values of cationic and anionic atomic species.

Structures and Electronic Properties of a Si<sub>55</sub> Cluster on DFTB Calculations

The lowest-energy geometrical structures of a cluster containing 55 atoms were searched by using the Density Functional Tight Binding (DFTB) combined with unbiased global optimization genetic algorithms (GAs) method. Two lowest-energy structures were obtained for the Si55 cluster with the appearance of “Y shape” and “like-spherical shape” configurations. The configuration dependence average energy, highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular (HOMO-LUMO) gap, electron transfer and molecular dipole moment were also discussed in details for this cluster.

First-principles-based kinetic Monte Carlo studies of diffusion of hydrogen in Ni–Al and Ni–Fe binary alloys

The diffusion of dilute hydrogen in fcc Ni–Al and Ni–Fe binary alloys was examined using kinetic Monte Carlo method with input kinetic parameters obtained from first-principles density functional theory. The simulation involves the implementation of computationally efficient energy barrier model that describes the configuration dependence of the hydrogen hopping. The predicted hydrogen diffusion coefficients in Ni and Ni89.4Fe10.6 are compared well with the available experimental data. In Ni–Al, the model predicts lower hydrogen diffusivity compared to that in Ni. Overall, diffusion prefactors and the effective activation energies of H in Ni–Fe and Ni–Al are concentration dependent of the alloying element. The changes in their values are the results of the short-range order (nearest-neighbor) effect on the interstitial diffusion of hydrogen in fcc Ni-based alloys.

An expeditious route to both enantiomers of all carbon quaternary stereocenters at C-3 carbon of lactams via [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement: total synthesis of (-)-physostigmine.

A diastereoselective route to all carbon quaternary stereocenters at the C-3 position of cyclic lactams has been developed via Johnson-Claisen rearrangement of γ-hydroxy-α, β-unsaturated lactams. It has been observed that olefin geometry plays an important role in the development of the absolute stereochemistry of the product. The dependence of the product configuration on the olefin geometry is explained by postulating probable transition states. The success of this method has been shown for the multigram scale synthesis of these substituted lactams from commercially available cheap starting materials. The synthetic usefulness of this method is also demonstrated by carrying out the total synthesis of (-)-physostigmine.

Microstructure and magnetostrictive behavior of Fe-15 at% Ga alloy with different cooling rates

The main attention of this paper was devoted to the study of the effect of different cooling rates on the magnetic domain configuration and magnetostrictive behavior of heat-treated Fe-15 at% Ga alloy. After annealing at 1,000 °C for 3 h, the samples were subjected to water quenching, air cooling, and furnace cooling treatments. Phase constitution and magnetic domain structures of the samples were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and magnetic force microscopy (MFM). XRD results indicate a single phase of α-Fe with disordered bcc (A2) structure for all samples. MFM results show that both water-quenched (WQ) and air-cooled (AC) samples are mainly made from ordered stripe domain structures, whereas a mixture of irregular stripe, zigzag, and plate domain patterns are observed in furnace-cooled (FC) sample. Magnetostrictive strain was measured in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. It is found that WQ sample has the highest magnetostriction, while AC and FC samples exhibit moderate and the lowest magnetostriction, respectively, against the applied field. The dependence of initial domain configurations on thermal history is found to be conducive to the change in saturation magnetostrictions of the samples.

Fracture mechanics of shape memory alloys: review and perspectives

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are intermetallic alloys displaying recoverable strains that can be an order of magnitude greater than in traditional alloys due to their capacity to undergo a thermal and/or stress-induced martensitic phase transformation. Since their discovery, the SMA industry has been dominated by products for biomedical applications with geometrically small feature sizes, especially endovascular stents. For such products the technological importance of fracture mechanics is limited, with the emphasis being placed on preventing crack nucleation rather than controlling crack growth. However, the successful integration of SMAs into commercial actuation, energy absorption, and vibration damping applications requires understanding and practice of fracture mechanics concepts in SMAs. The fracture response of SMAs is rather complex owing to the reversibility of phase transformation, detwinning and reorientation of martensitic variants, the possibility of dislocation and transformation-induced plasticity, and the strong thermomechanical coupling. Large-scale phase transformation under actuation loading paths, i.e., combined thermo-mechanical loading, and the associated configuration dependence complicate the phenomenon even further and question the applicability of single parameter fracture mechanics theories. Here, the existing knowledge base on the fracture mechanics of SMAs under mechanical loading is reviewed and recent developments in actuation-induced SMA fracture are presented, in terms of the micro-mechanisms of fracture, near-tip fracture environments, fracture criteria, and fracture toughness properties.

The logical-semantic content of subject: A configurational view from syntax and LF

AbstractThe paper raises the topic of what the functional and logical notion of subject is. It examines the syntax-semantic nature of Icelandic and Polish quirky subject constructions (subjectless clauses in which the initial DP bears oblique Case) with psych-verbs. Of main interest is the full vs. default agreement on V which nominative DPs and quirky subjects always trigger, respectively. We attempt to define the primitive notion of subject from two standpoints – its LF representation and how it is mirrored syntactically by the predication relation of the subject with respect to vP/VP and the proposition of the sentence in TP between the subject and T′. We discuss the semantic and configurational dependencies between quirky subjects and nominative DPs and vP and TP/CP. The paper investigates also the landing site for non-nominative initial DPs and argues for the Topic Phrase in the Left Periphery (Rizzi 1997) as a most natural candidate to host quirky subjects. Hopefully, the conclusions reached here may offer some way of bringing the notion of subject towards its more satisfactory understanding and description within the generative approach.

Microscopic first-principles model of strain-induced interaction in concentrated size-mismatched alloys

The harmonic Kanzaki-Krivoglaz-Khachaturyan model of strain-induced interaction is generalized to concentrated size-mismatched alloys and adapted to first-principles calculations. The configuration dependence of both Kanzaki forces and force constants is represented by real-space cluster expansions that can be constructed based on the calculated forces. The model is implemented for the fcc lattice and applied to Cu$_{1-x}$Au$_x$ and Fe$_{1-x}$Pt$_x$ alloys for concentrations $x=0.25$, 0.5, and 0.75. The asymmetry between the $3d$ and $5d$ elements leads to large quadratic terms in the occupation-number expansion of the Kanzaki forces and thereby to strongly non-pairwise long-range interaction. The main advantage of the full configuration-dependent lattice deformation model is its ability to capture this singular many-body interaction. The roles of ordering striction and anharmonicity in Cu-Au and Fe-Pt alloys are assessed. Although the harmonic force constants defined with respect to the unrelaxed lattice are unsuitable for the calculation of the vibrational entropies, the phonon spectra for ordered and disordered alloys are found to be in good agreement with experimental data. The model is further adapted to concentration wave analysis and Monte Carlo simulations by means of an auxiliary multi-parametric real-space cluster expansion, which is used to find the ordering temperatures. Good agreement with experiment is found for all systems except CuAu$_3$ (due to the known failure of the generalized gradient approximation) and FePt$_3$, where the discrepancy is likely due to the neglect of magnetic disorder.

Investigations on the edge kinetic data in regimes with type-I and mitigated ELMs at ASDEX Upgrade

The behaviour of profiles and gradients of electron density, temperature and pressure at the edge of ASDEX Upgrade was studied in regimes with type-I and small edge localized modes (ELMs) of discharges with and without applied magnetic perturbations (MPs). Estimation of the edge kinetic parameters was performed by means of integrated data analysis for joint reconstruction of electron density and temperature profiles via combination of data from different diagnostics. The MP fields for ELM mitigation were produced by 16 in-vessel coils allowing to execute this survey with large variations in poloidal spectrum and resonant component of the error field. With several dedicated discharges the effect of MPs on the edge kinetic data and ELMs was determined in dependence of heating power, gas puff and MP-coil configuration. Small ELMs are dominant—with and without MPs—in regimes with reduced pedestal top electron temperatures and flattened edge electron pressure gradients compared to type-I ELM phases. Furthermore, application of MPs opens an additional small ELM regime in the high temperature range at reduced electron pressure gradient.

Energy spectra of three electrons in SiGe/Si/SiGe laterally coupled triple quantum dots

We investigate the energy spectra of three electrons in SiGe/Si/SiGe equilateral triangular and symmetric linear triple quantum dots in the presence of magnetic (in either Faraday or Voigt configuration) and electric fields with only the lowest valley eigenstate being relevant by using the real-space configuration interaction method. The strong electron–electron Coulomb interaction, which is crucial to the energy spectra, is explicitly calculated whereas the weak spin–orbit coupling is treated perturbatively. In both equilateral triangular and symmetric linear triple quantum dots, we find doublet–quartet transition of ground-state spin configuration by varying dot size or interdot distance in the absence of external fields. This transition has not been reported in the literature on triple quantum dots. In the magnetic-field (Faraday configuration) dependence of energy spectra, we find anticrossings with large energy splittings between the energy levels with the same spin state in the absence of the spin–orbit coupling. This anticrossing behavior originates from the triple quantum dot confinement potential. In addition, with the inclusion of the spin–orbit coupling, we find that all the intersections shown in the equilateral triangular case become anticrossing whereas only part of the intersections in symmetric linear case show anticrossing behavior in the presence of magnetic field in either the Faraday or Voigt configuration. All the anticrossing behaviors are analyzed based on symmetry consideration. Moreover, we show that the electric field can effectively influence the energy levels and the charge configurations.

Atomistic modeling of thermodynamic properties of Pu-Ga alloys based on the Invar mechanism

We present an atomistic model that accounts for a range of anomalous thermodynamic properties of the fcc $\ensuremath{\delta}$ phase of Pu-Ga alloys in terms of the Invar mechanism. Two modified embedded atom method potentials are employed to represent competing electronic states in $\ensuremath{\delta}$-Pu, each of which has an individual configuration dependence as well as distinct interactions with gallium. Using classical Monte Carlo simulations, we compute the temperature dependence of various thermodynamic properties for different dilute gallium concentrations. The model reproduces the observed effects of excessive volume reduction along with a rapid shift in thermal expansion from negative to positive values with increasing gallium concentration. It also predicts progressive stiffening upon dilute-gallium alloying, while the calculated thermal softening is nearly independent of the gallium concentration in agreement with resonant ultrasound spectroscopy measurements in the literature. Analysis of the local structure predicted by the model indicates that the distribution of the gallium atoms is not completely random in the $\ensuremath{\delta}$ phase due to the presence of short-range order associated with the Invar mechanism. This effect is consistent with the nanoscale heterogeneity in local gallium concentration which is observed in recent extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy experiments. Implications of the Invar effect for phase stability and physical interpretations of the two states are also discussed.

Non-Gaussianity from extragalactic point sources

We have described briefly the population of compact sources appearing at CMB frequencies, and studied their non-Gaussianity using publicly available full-sky simulations. Introducing a parametrization permitting to visualise efficiently the bispectrum, we have described the configuration and scale dependence of the bispectrum of radio and IR point sources, as well as its frequency dependence, and shown that it is well fitted by an analytical prescription. We have shown further that the clustering of IR sources increases their non-Gaussianity by several orders of magnitude, and that their bispectrum peaks in the squeezed triangles. Examining the impact of these sources on primordial non-Gaussianity estimation, we have found that the radio sources yield an important positive bias to local fNL estimation at low frequencies, but this bias is efficiently reduced by masking detectable sources. On the other hand, IR sources produce a negative bias at high frequencies, which is not dimmed by the masking, as their clustering is dominated by faint sources.

Non-Gaussianity of the cosmic infrared background anisotropies – I. Diagrammatic formalism and application to the angular bispectrum

We present the first halo model based description of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) non-Gaussianity (NG) that is fully parametric. To this end, we introduce, for the first time, a diagrammatic method to compute high order polyspectra of the 3D galaxy density field. It allows an easy derivation and visualisation of the different terms of the polyspectrum. We apply this framework to the power spectrum and bispectrum, and we show how to project them on the celestial sphere in the purpose of the application to the CIB angular anisotropies. Furthermore, we show how to take into account the particular case of the shot noise terms in that framework. Eventually, we compute the CIB angular bispectrum at 857 GHz and study its scale and configuration dependencies, as well as its variations with the halo occupation distribution parameters. Compared to a previously proposed empirical prescription, such physically motivated model is required to describe fully the CIB anisotropies bispectrum. Finally, we compare the CIB bispectrum with the bispectra of other signals potentially present at microwave frequencies, which hints that detection of CIB NG should be possible above 220 GHz.

光電子制御プラズマCVDによる多層グラフェンの結晶性と電気特性： H2とArキャリアガスの比較

Networked nanographite (NNG) was grown by using photoemission-assisted plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on SiO2 (90 nm) /Si substrates and the career gas dependence of electric resistivity, chemical configuration, and grain size was investigated from Raman spectroscopy, SIMS, and four probes method. In this study, CH4/Ar and CH4/H2 gases were used. NNG with the thickness from 2∼60 nm was grown by changing the growth period. Resistivity of thin films showed clearly decreases in CH4/H2 in an order of magnitude nevertheless their grain sizes were almost same at the length of 9 nm. From SIMS measurement, hydrogen concentration of the sample grown by CH4/H2 was 3 times less than that of by CH4/Ar. From these results, it is found that hydrogen termination at grain boundary is the cause of low electric conductivity, and H radicals in CH4/H2 plasma may remove the terminated hydrogen by H abstraction reaction in CVD process.

Temperature Dependence of Polypropylene Configurations

The temperature dependence of the chain configurations of amorphous polypropylenes is investigated by means of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The temperature gradient of the specific volume can be used to estimate the glass temperature of the amorphous polypropylene chain system. The dihedral distribution of the overall bonds of the amorphous polypropylene chain system at the various temperatures maintains the rotational isomeric state (RIS) scheme. The occurrence frequency of the isomeric state also can be used to locate the glass temperature. The average occurrence frequency of the trans or gauche states is almost unchanged below the glass temperature and the trans fraction decreases with increasing temperature above the glass temperature. The RIS calculations developed for an isolated chain conflicts with configurational parameters in amorphous bulk or melt state, although it is successful to explain the observation for the dilute and θ‐solution. The average molecular dimension of polypropylenes obtained by MD simulation is almost independence of temperature in amorphous bulk and melt, which is in agreement with the experimental observation.

Configuration dependence of the properties of Cd1–xZnxS solid solutions by first‐principles calculations

Cd1−xZnxS solid solutions have drawn much attention for the extensive potential applications. In this paper, we systematically computed the lattice constant, mixing enthalpy and bandgap for each configuration of zinc‐blende (ZB) and wurtzite (WZ) type Cd1−xZnxS (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) solid solutions using the first‐principles method, and quantitatively revealed that the Zn–S bond was the most critical factor in determining the relative stability among different configurations with the same composition, as well as the order of the bandgap. Using the configuration‐averaged method, the average values of these properties, as well as the optical bowing coefficient, were obtained. We estimated the influence of the configuration average on these quantities, indicating that the configuration average significantly affected the mixing enthalpy, which explicitly determined the phase stability of the solid solutions.

Mastoid and vertex low-frequency vibration-induced oVEMP in relation to medially directed acceleration of the labyrinth

ObjectiveTo explore the stimulus site and stimulus configuration dependency for bone-conducted low-frequency vibration-induced ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs). MethodsoVEMPs were tested in response to 125Hz single cycle bone-conducted vibration in healthy subjects (n=12) and in patients with severe unilateral vestibular lesions (n=10). The stimulus sites were the mastoids and vertex. Both directions of initial stimulus motion were used. ResultsAt mastoid stimulation, the oVEMP to initial laterally directed acceleration of the labyrinth was delayed approximately the length of time of a stimulus half-cycle, as compared with the response to initial medially directed acceleration. At vertex stimulation, the oVEMP to positive initial acceleration was similar to the oVEMP to mastoid stimulation causing lateral initial acceleration. Likewise, the oVEMP to vertex negative initial acceleration was similar to mastoid stimulation causing initial medial acceleration. Further, patients with unilateral vestibular loss had, compared to healthy subjects, similar oVEMP from the healthy labyrinth. ConclusionsA fundamental dependency on medially directed accelerations of the labyrinth, based on the latency differences revealed, may theoretically account for oVEMP in response to low-frequency stimulation. SignificanceLow-frequency bone vibration stimulation at vertex might serve for simultaneous oVEMP testing of both ears.

REEF

In this demo proposal, we describe REEF, a framework that makes it easy to implement scalable, fault-tolerant runtime environments for a range of computational models. We will demonstrate diverse workloads, including extract-transform-load MapReduce jobs, iterative machine learning algorithms, and ad-hoc declarative query processing. At its core, REEF builds atop YARN (Apache Hadoop 2's resource manager) to provide retainable hardware resources with lifetimes that are decoupled from those of computational tasks. This allows us to build persistent (cross-job) caches and cluster-wide services, but, more importantly, supports high-performance iterative graph processing and machine learning algorithms. Unlike existing systems, REEF aims for composability of jobs across computational models, providing significant performance and usability gains, even with legacy code. REEF includes a library of interoperable data management primitives optimized for communication and data movement (which are distinct from storage locality). The library also allows REEF applications to access external services, such as user-facing relational databases. We were careful to decouple lower levels of REEF from the data models and semantics of systems built atop it. The result was two new standalone systems: Tang, a configuration manager and dependency injector, and Wake, a state-of-the-art event-driven programming and data movement framework. Both are language independent, allowing REEF to bridge the JVM and .NET.