New Methods For Construction Research Articles

Nonorthogonal Optimal Partial Diallel Cross Designs for Consistent Estimation of Heritability

Diallel cross designs in the framework of random effects model are considered for the estimation of ratio of variance components, viz. heritability of crosses of inbred lines. New methods for construction of partial diallel cross (PDC) design sunder unblocked and blocked set up are proposed. The resulting designs of these methods are capable of minimizing variance of the estimator of heritability. Consistency of the estimator is also established. One of the practical advantage of the proposed series of designs is attributed to its ability to reduce number of distinct crosses over those for complete diallel cross (CDC) to an extent of 10 to 20 percent. Another heartening aspect of the proposed methods is that the blocks of these designs are incomplete and have smaller block sizes up to one-third than those of complete block designs. Note that, the variance-minimization criterion for optimality reduces to MS-optimality criterion of PDC designs defined in the context of fixed effects model. Further, the newly constructed designs are proved to be asymptotically universally optimal under fixed effects model. Since construction of these designs under blocked set up is quite involved, therefore a computer program is written in C++ for generating these designs which is provided in the Appendix.

Feature Construction for Dense Inline Data in Semiconductor Manufacturing Processes

Abstract: Management and analytics for inline manufacturing process data has become a critical but increasingly complex task in the semiconductor fabrication industry. The importance of new methods for construction of informative features has been accentuated by advancements in the data collection technology employed in this industry, which has recently increased sampling rates for inline data from values below 1 Hz to frequencies in excess of 10Hz. In this paper, a new feature construction method is proposed that aims to extract as much of the information accessible with these increased sampling rates as possible, while simultaneously minimizing redundancy and user involvement. The proposed method results in a meaningful dynamics inspired feature set, which provides insight into the underlying process and equipment dynamics. The advantages offered by this feature set are established using data collected at several modern 300mm fabs, for chamber and tool matching tasks, as well as wafer defect level prediction.

Domain-swapped cytochrome cb562 dimer and its nanocage encapsulating a Zn-SO4 cluster in the internal cavity.

Protein nanostructures have been gaining in interest, along with developments in new methods for construction of novel nanostructures. We have previously shown that c-type cytochromes and myoglobin form oligomers by domain swapping. Herein, we show that a four-helix bundle protein cyt cb562, with the cyt b562 heme attached to the protein moiety by two Cys residues insertion, forms a domain-swapped dimer. Dimeric cyt cb562 did not dissociate to monomers at 4 °C, whereas dimeric cyt b562 dissociated under the same conditions, showing that heme attachment to the protein moiety stabilizes the domain-swapped structure. According to X-ray crystallographic analysis of dimeric cyt cb562, the two helices in the N-terminal region of one protomer interacted with the other two helices in the C-terminal region of the other protomer, where Lys51-Asp54 served as a hinge loop. The heme coordination structure of the dimer was similar to that of the monomer. In the crystal, three domain-swapped cyt cb562 dimers formed a unique cage structure with a Zn-SO4 cluster inside the cavity. The Zn-SO4 cluster consisted of fifteen Zn2+ and seven SO42- ions, whereas six additional Zn2+ ions were detected inside the cavity. The cage structure was stabilized by coordination of the amino acid side chains of the dimers to the Zn2+ ions and connection of two four-helix bundle units through the conformation-adjustable hinge loop. These results show that domain swapping can be applied in the construction of unique protein nanostructures.

New methods for construction of historical price indices, with an illustration from Norway, 1777–1920*

This paper reviews some methodological and practical problems encountered in the construction of historical price indices. The underlying data sets in such studies are often characterized by heterogenous and incomplete price series. It is shown that by using the repeat sales method for constructing the subindices for individual commodity groups, some of the main problems can be overcome. The procedures are illustrated by material from the construction of monthly price indices for Norway from the year 1777 to 1920. The price indices shed new light on two great wartime inflationary episodes in Norway: 1807–17 and 1913–20. In spite of a 61-fold increase in the price level in the first period and a four-fold increase in the second, it is found that, after inflation had been brought under control, prices reverted to a level consistent with the purchasing power parity principle.

The use of slag stone concrete to improve the thermal performance of light steel buildings

Abstract There are increasing demands for improvements in standards of construction quality, comfort and performance in building internationally. The building industries are looking for new methods for construction. Light steel structures provide alternatives to traditional forms of construction, but any evaluation of a construction method must look at the total performance of the building. Increasingly, energy efficiency issues have become much more important in the assessment of a construction system. In particular, the ability to provide the required thermal performance so that excessive heating or cooling is avoided, and comfort is maintained. Furthermore, concerns over global warming have led to an international commitment to reduce emissions of global warming gases (Gorgolewski, 2000). The objective of this work is to increase the understanding of how light steel structure construction should be designed to ensure that buildings using this technology can achieve excellent comfort conditions and be used in an energy efficient manner, special reference is given to cold formed steel stubs filled with slag stone concrete (SSC). This concept is totally in concordance with the sustainable development as the aim is to design buildings which are comfortable to live in, achieve energy efficiency requirements, and result in low greenhouse gas emissions, in addition the recovery of industrial waste. Thermal properties of SSC samples are measured, and thermal behaviour of the composite elements is estimated using thermal network methods, in order to evaluate the effect of the SSC in the thermal performance of light steel building using the cold formed steel stubs filled with SSC.

Nanoparticle assembly for 1D and 2D ordered structures

The skill to use new synthetic routes to assemble nanoparticles (NPs) into advanced architectures for specific functions is a big challenge for the researchers. Controlled morphologies designed for generating 1-dimensional (1D) and 2-dimensional (2D) structures inspired by nature are one of the hot topics in nanoscience. The unique properties of individual nanocrystals upon assembly also provide the opportunity to modulate or enhance the overall behavior of the nanomaterials. New synthetic approaches will be discussed to explore the ability of the NP (metallic, semiconductor and magnetic) assembly in various highly ordered superstructures. The mechanism of NP assembly (non-covalent or covalent) with itself or by targeting polymers and biomolecules as linkers will also be illustrated. The topics will include new methods for construction of 1D nanowires and 2D nanosheets by spontaneous dipole–dipole interactions, air–water interface assembly and specific interactions using polymer and bio-templates. Use of polymers as templates for generating arrays of NPs or biomolecules (for investigating the intrinsic behavior of DNA or proteins in the assembly) opens the possibility of designing novel devices and hybrid materials. Once the desired superstructures have been fabricated and characterized, the corresponding materials can be further investigated for optical, magnetic, electronic and sensor applications.

Integral and homothetic indecomposability with applications to irreducibility of polynomials

Being motivated by some methods for construction of homothetically indecomposable polytopes, we obtain new methods for construction of families of integrally indecomposable polytopes. As a result, we find new infinite families of absolutely irreducible multivariate polynomials over any field F. Moreover, we provide different proofs of some of the main results of Gao [2].

Two new methods for construction of Birkhoffian representation

Two new methods for the construction of the Birkhoffian representation of first-order systems are presented. The Birkhoffian functions Rμ and B can be computed from the differential equations. An example is given to illustrate the application of the methods.

Construction and Application of Hybrid Wavelet and Other Parametric Orthogonal Transforms

We introduce new methods for construction and implementation of various parametric and hybrid orthogonal transforms, including generalized Haar-like, Daubechies, and Coiflet wavelet transforms. The corresponding fast algorithms of computations are briefly discussed and the variance properties of these transforms in analyzing 1-st order Markov processes are investigated. The designed hybrid transforms can be useful in various specific signal processing applications where combining properties of Hadamard and wavelet transforms may be of particular benefit. We also present some numerical results pertaining to image zonal and threshold coding using these hybrid transforms and compare their efficacy with those of traditional orthogonal transforms.

GROUP APPROACHES TO THE VIBRATION AND STATIC DEFORMATION ANALYSIS FOR BARS AND DISKS

A complex of new methods for construction of analytical solutions to the problems of vibration or static deformation of elastic bodies (bars, disks, plates), which are modeled by differential second-order equations with variable coefficients, is described. The methods are based on group approaches, which make use of differential equation symmetries. Examples of analytical calculations of longitudinal vibrations of bars, torsional vibrations of disks, bending of round plates and axisymmetric tension of disks are given for the cases of variable characteristics where these calculations cannot be made by traditional analytical procedures.

Use of new methods for construction of tightly regulated arabinose and rhamnose promoter fusions in studies of the Escherichia coli phosphate regulon.

Escherichia coli genes regulated by environmental inorganic phosphate (Pi) levels form the phosphate (Pho) regulon. This regulation requires seven proteins, whose synthesis is under autogenous control, including response regulator PhoB, its partner, histidine sensor kinase PhoR, all four components of the Pi-specific transport (Pst) system (PstA, PstB, PstC, and PstS), and a protein of unknown function called PhoU. Here we examined the effects of uncoupling PhoB synthesis and PhoR synthesis from their normal controls by placing each under the tight control of the arabinose-regulated P(araB) promoter or the rhamnose-regulated P(rhaB) promoter. To do this, we made allele replacement plasmids that may be generally useful for construction of P(araB) or P(rhaB) fusions and for recombination of them onto the E. coli chromosome at the araCBAD or rhaRSBAD locus, respectively. Using strains carrying such single-copy fusions, we showed that a P(rhaB) fusion is more tightly regulated than a P(araB) fusion in that a P(rhaB)-phoR+ fusion but not a P(araB)-phoR+ fusion shows a null phenotype in the absence of its specific inducer. Yet in the absence of induction, both P(araB)-phoB+ and P(rhaB)-phoB+ fusions exhibit a null phenotype. These data indicate that less PhoR than PhoB is required for transcriptional activation of the Pho regulon, which is consistent with their respective modes of action. We also used these fusions to study PhoU. Previously, we had constructed strains with precise delta phoU mutations. However, we unexpectedly found that such delta phoU mutants have a severe growth defect (P. M. Steed and B. L. Wanner, J. Bacteriol. 175:6797-6809, 1993). They also readily give rise to compensatory mutants with lesions in phoB, phoR, or a pst gene, making their study particularly difficult. Here we found that, by using P(araB)-phoB+, P(rhaB)-phoB+, or P(rhaB)-phoR+ fusions, we were able to overcome the extremely deleterious growth defect of a Pst+ delta phoU mutant. The growth defect is apparently a consequence of high-level Pst synthesis resulting from autogenous control of PhoB and PhoR synthesis in the absence of PhoU.