Synergistic effect of La and Co co-doping on room-temperature ferromagnetism enhancement of TiO2 nanoparticles

The synergistic influence of lanthanum and cobalt co-doping on room temperature ferromagnetism (RTFM) of TiO₂ system is investigated. A series of Ti_0.97?xCo_0.03La_xO₂ nanoparticles were prepared and their structures and properties were systematically studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, UV–vis spectrophotometer, Raman spectra and magnetic measurement techniques, respectively. Detailed experimental characterizations indicate that the as-prepared La and Co co-doped samples exhibit single anatase phase, and all the samples exhibit strong visible photoluminescence associated with oxygen vacancies and a clear ferromagnetic hysteresis loop, both of which were dramatically enhanced with La and Co co-doping, and the maximum saturation magnetization (M_s) reaches 1.38 emu/g at the La content of 6 mol%. It is speculated that oxygen vacancies modulated by ionic La play an important role in the enhanced RTFM, which can be attributed to the bound magnetic polarons (BMPs) formed via ferromagnetic coupling between two neighboring Co²⁺ ions mediated by oxygen vacancy (F⁺ center). Our results present an alternative method to obtain high performance RTFM.     

Curative potential of combined modality therapy for advanced Hodgkin's disease

During the period from 1969 through 1977, 124 patients with advanced Hodgkin's disease underwent treatment with combination chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Sixty-three cases were previously untreated, and 61 were relapses following radical radiotherapy for localized Hodgkin's disease. No patient in this series had received prior chemotherapy. Of 102 patients (84%) who have entered complete remission, 92 remain in complete remission with a median follow up time of five years, 10 patients having relapsed, and acute leukemia having developed in 2. The cumulative survival rate for all 124 patients is 80% at five years; the relapse-free survival rate is 74%. In many, if not most cases, the Hodgkin's disease appears to be cured. We have also identified two subgroups of patients for whom the prognosis is worse than for patients with advanced-stage disease as a whole. Patients over the age of 40 years have a five-year survival rate of only 45%, compared with 89% for all other patients. Those Stage IV patients with multiple extranodal sites of involvement have a five-year survival rate of 48%, compared with 81% for other Stage IV patients with only a single extranodal site involved.     

Effect of composition and composition inhomogeneity on the strain sensitivity of plated wire memory elements

An analysis was made of the relation between the strain sensitivity of plated wire memory elements and the chemical composition in the film. According to this analysis, torsion sensitivity, which measures the easy-axis skew when the wire is twisted, depends on theaverage permalloy composition in the film. On the other hand, tension sensitivity, which measures the change in anisotropy field,H _k, when the wire is stretched, should depend on both the average composition and the degree of variation, or composition inhomogeneity. In general, the inhomogeneity contribution is negative. Experimental results supporting this analysis showed that 1) films with nearly zero torsion strain sensitivity invariably exhibit negative tension strain sensitivity and 2) the measured tension strain sensitivity is in approximate agreement with that predicted from electron microprobe measurements of composition inhomogeneity. The strain sensitivity analysis provides a means of estimating the discrepancy between torsion and tension zeromagnetostrictive compositions.

     

The fractional frequency stability of a 34-m-diameterbeam-waveguide antenna

Advances in fiber-optic technology have made it possible to develop a new technique to isolate and measure the frequency stability of a large beam-waveguide (BWG) antenna. Through the use of the technique described in the paper, at both 46.5° and 37° elevation angles, under good weather conditions, the degradation of the the fractional frequency stability of signals passing through the antenna path was measured to be between 1.3 and 2.2×10^-15 for sampling intervals of 1024 s. These stability values apply to the portion of the antenna that includes the main reflector, subreflector, tripod legs, and six BWG mirrors. These test results are believed to be the first successful fractional frequency stability measurements made on the microwave optics portion of a large antenna to a level of 1 or 2 parts in 10¹⁵     

Potential for Structural Failure in the Seismic Near Field

This study analyzes the possibility that large distortions and distortion rates due to wave-propagation phenomena within structures were responsible for unexpected cracking at connections of steel-frame buildings in the seismic near-field region during the Northridge (1994) and Kobe (1995) earthquakes. Since such internal wave propagation is characteristic of a structure with a continuous distribution of mass, the problem is studied by numerically simulating the structural response for both discrete and continuous models of a 20-story building, using ground motion time histories from the Northridge earthquake. The time histories are chosen from the far-field and near-field regions of the earthquake to determine if wave-propagation effects within the structure are especially significant in the near field. A truncated modal analysis is also performed using only the first vibrational mode to see if significantly lower response levels result. It is found that the continuous model gives higher response levels—indicating that wave propagation may have been a factor—but the discrepancy is not limited to the near field. Strain rates are higher from the continuous model than from the discrete model and much higher than from the truncated modal analysis, but the magnitudes are too low to be a significant factor in the observed damage. The explanation for the connection cracking may simply be high-intensity ground motion in the near field.     

Software development for mobile computers

The author describes a course that he developed and teaches on software development for mobile computing. The course provides the theory and hands-on experience that students need to develop applications for new mobile computing environments.     

Efficiency and accuracy in simulation of random fields

A direct method for the conditional simulation of a stationary, Gaussian scalar random field is compared with an alternative formulation which uses frequency domain probability density functions. In both cases the random field is described by given correlation or spectral density functions, and no restrictions are placed on these functions, except that they must be positive definite. Efficient implementation techniques are investigated for both general methods. The major computational effort in the most efficient implementations of both procedures is in the solution of linear algebraic equations in which the coefficients are spectral densities. The direct method is shown to be significantly more efficient than existing methods for applying the probability density function technique. However, a new implementation method for the latter technique is also presented, and it equals the efficiency of the direct method. Problems of numerical accuracy due to ill-conditioned matrices are shown not to be severe except when using an inherently problematic form for the spectral density. Numerical examples demonstrate that either method can simulate highly coherent time histories.     

Joint distribution of peaks and valleys in a stochastic process

General expressions and numerical results are presented pertaining to the occurrence of two local extrema of a stochastic process at prescribed time values. The extrema may be either peaks or valleys and the process may be either stationary or nonstationary. General formulas are presented for the rates of occurrence, the joint and conditional probability distributions, and the moments of the extreme values. These formulas are relatively simple multiple-integral expressions, but the integrands involve the joint probability density function for six random variables. The procedures are then applied for the special case of a stationary mean-zero Gaussian process for which the calculations are greatly simplified. Numerical results for three different spectral density functions demonstrate that conditioning on either only the existence or both the existence and the value of one peak can have a very significant effect on both the rate of occurrence and the probability distribution of a second peak.     

Extreme Value of Response to Nonstationary Excitation

An efficient method is presented for approximate computation of extreme value characteristics of the response of a linear structure subjected to nonstationary Gaussian excitation. The characteristics considered are the mean and standard deviation of the extreme value and fractile levels having specific probabilities of not being exceeded by the random process within a specified time interval. The approximate procedure can significantly facilitate the utilization of nonstationary models in engineering practice, since it avoids computational difficulties associated with direct application of extreme value theory. The method is based on the approximation of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the extreme value of a nonstationary process by the CDF of a corresponding “equivalent” stationary process. Approximate procedures are developed for both the Poisson and Vanmarcke approaches to the extreme value problem, and numerical results are obtained for an example problem. These results demonstrate that the simple approximate method agrees quite well with the direct application of extreme value theory, while avoiding the difficulties associated with solution of nonlinear equations containing complicated time integrals.