Surface electronic states in metal-porous silicon-silicon structures

The character of electronic states in porous silicon (PS)-Si, Pd-PS interfaces, and/or PS bulk at the formation of the metal-PS-silicon heterostructure was studied. The energy parameters were estimated using the deep-level transient spectroscopy and capacitance-voltage characteristics at the accounting of the voltage drop distribution along the structure. The analytical expression for voltage drop distribution along dielectric layer, porous layer and space charge region in silicon was obtained by solving the equation for continuity of the electrostatic induction vector. The electronic states studied were shown to manifest the quasi-continuous sub-band in the energy gap if the porous layer was 30-nm thick. Their density increased, as the energy position was being transformed to a deeper energy level of E_v+0.81 eV at the PS layer growing to 90 nm wide.     

The standard impact factor as an evaluation tool of science fields and scientific journals

The standard impact factor for particular fields of science (Ig) and the relative impact factor K for scientific journals are introduced. The technique of calculation of standard impact factor (Ig) for a field is an inherent part of a method which allows a cross-field evaluation of scientific journals. This method for evaluating scientific journals elaborated in 1988 was aimed at the analysis of Russian journals covered by the SCI database, it was also used for chemical journals (more that 300) and for journals in the Life sciences (more than 1000). The results are discussed.     

Towards a Dual-Tip STM Application in Mesoscopic Electron Transport

A new design for a dual-tip scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is presented. The design is a variation on the mechanically controllable break-junction with two electron beam-induced deposition nano-tips. The new design enables one to scan surfaces simultaneously with two probes having a nano-gap separation. By collecting the lateral current flowing between the tips, the transconductance map can then be compared with the STM images for local characterizations of the electron transport. Since the lateral beam carries the property of the density of states of the surface at momentum space, the dispersion of the electronic structure should give an orientation and position dependence of the local transconductance current. In addition, the reduced terminal separation, on the order of the characteristic mesoscopic length scales, is likely to be sensitive to a variety of typically observed interactions and interference effects.     

Correction to: Non-congruent non-degenerate curves with identical signatures

Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10851-021-01028-0     

Safety-first portfolio selection

A. D. Roy’s safety-first (SF) approach to financial portfolio optimization is improved. Safety first means the minimization of the probability of negative returns. The improvement concerns a better estimation of the negative return probabilities by means of mean excess return risk functions. The search for the optimal SF-portfolio is similar to Roy’s geometric method but the efficient frontier is different. In case of a finite number of scenarios, the SF-portfolio selection problem is reduced to a mixed linear Boolean programming problem.     

Scandinavian Thins on Top of Cake: New and Improved Algorithms for Stacking and Packing

We show how to compute the smallest rectangle that can enclose any polygon, from a given set of polygons, in nearly linear time; we also present a PTAS for the problem, as well as a linear-time algorithm for the case when the polygons are rectangles themselves. We prove that finding a smallest convex polygon that encloses any of the given polygons is NP-hard, and give a PTAS for minimizing the perimeter of the convex enclosure. We also give efficient algorithms to find the smallest rectangle simultaneously enclosing a given pair of convex polygons.     

A High-Precision Time Handling Library

An appropriate assessment of end-to-end network performance presumes highly efficient time tracking and measurement with precise time control of the stopping and resuming of program operation. In this paper, a novel approach to solving the problems of highly efficient and precise time measurements on PC-platforms and on ARM-architectures is proposed. A new unified High Performance Timer and a corresponding software library offer a unified interface to the known time counters and automatically identify the fastest and most reliable time source, available in the user space of a computing system. The research is focused on developing an approach of unified time acquisition from the PC hardware and accordingly substituting the common way of getting the time value through Linux system calls. The presented approach provides a much faster means of obtaining the time values with a nanosecond precision than by using conventional means. Moreover, it is capable of handling the sequential time value, precise sleep functions and process resuming. This ability means the reduction of wasting computer resources during the execution of a sleeping process from 100% （busy-wait） to 1-1.5%, whereas the benefits of very accurate process resuming times on long waits are maintained.     

An approach to the parallel solution of a high-dimensional basic flow problem

The body of mathematics of modified systems of algorithmic algebras (SAA-M) is used to formalize the Edmonds–Karp algorithm of finding the maximum flow in a network. With allowance made for the distributed system features that are usually used for solving complicated problems, optimization criteria are formulated and used to obtain parallel SAA-M-schemes. Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 2, pp. 146–152, March–April 2009.     

Effectiveness of participatory ergonomic interventions on health outcomes: a systematic review

The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of participatory ergonomic (PE) interventions for improving workers' health. The search strategy targeted six electronic databases and identified 442 potential articles. Each article was examined by pairs of reviewers for relevance (assessed a participative ergonomic workplace intervention, with at least one health outcome, published in English in peer reviewed literature). Twenty-three articles met relevance criteria and were then appraised for methodological strength. Using a best evidence synthesis approach, 12 studies that were rated as 'medium' or higher provided partial to moderate evidence that PE interventions have a positive impact on: musculoskeletal symptoms, reducing injuries and workers' compensation claims, and a reduction in lost days from work or sickness absence. However, the magnitude of the effect requires more precise definition.