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This paper reports the microstructure and physical properties of ferroelectric capacitors formed from SrBi2Ta2O9 (SBT) layers on Si with various buffer layers including jet-vapor deposited silicon nitride, zirconium oxide, hafnium oxide and thermally grown silicon oxide. Results from cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (X-TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) data coupled with capacitance-voltage (C-V) and current-voltage (I-V) data indicate that both the microstructure and physical properties of SBT films deposited on silicon are dependent on the buffer layer material employed.

A new branched silicon nanostructure called Silicon Nano-Dendrite (SiND) was prepared by Laser ablation. During the Laser ablation process, the Argon flow was switched on and off very fast and simultaneously decreasing the flow rate, to create a non-steady-state flow. The resulting structure will open up new avenues in molecular electronics as the FeSi2 nano-particle at the end can be used to grow nanotube-nanowire junctions.

This article discusses the foresight of philosopher/mathematician Norbert Wiener who, in the 1940s, founded Information Ethics as a research discipline. Wiener envisioned the coming of an “automatic age” in which information technology would have profound social and ethical impacts upon the world. He predicted, for example, machines that will learn, reason and play games; “automatic factories” that will replace assembly-line workers and middle managers with computerized devices; workers who will perform their jobs over great distances with the aid of new communication technologies; and people who will gain remarkable powers by adding computerized “prostheses” to their bodies. To analyze the ethical implications of such developments, Wiener presented some principles of justice and employed a powerful practical method of ethical analysis. © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

The cluster of concerns usually identified as matters of privacy can be adequately accounted for by unpacking our natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Privacy as derived from fundamental natural rights to life, liberty, and property encompasses the advantages of the control and restricted access theories without their attendant difficulties., (C)2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers

This article discusses some "historical milestones" in computer ethics, as well as two alternative visions of the future of computer ethics. Topics include the impressive foundation for computer ethics laid down by Norbert Wiener in the 1940s and early 1950s; the pioneering efforts of Donn Parker, Joseph Weizenbaum and Walter Maner in the 1970s; Krystyna Gorniak's hypothesis that computer ethics will evolve into "global ethics"; and Deborah Johnson's speculation that computer ethics may someday "disappear"., (C)2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers

The focus of this article is primarily on the impact that the computer revolution has on college/university libraries, although many of the issues discussed here are relevant to other types of libraries as well. The university library in its present form is a product of the printing press revolution. In all likelihood, the computer revolution will have an even more profound impact on the library than did the printing press revolution.

The number of single-parent families has increased dramatically in the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore the types of family rituals present in single-parent families and their meaning within the family context. Little is known about family rituals in single-parent families, and therefore grounded theory was the qualitative research method used for this study. Unstructured face-to-face interviews were used to obtain data from a theoretical sample of seven single parents. Data analysis appropriate to the grounded theory method was utilized to identify a core variable and an emerging theory. Six types of rituals: connection, spiritual, love, recreation, celebration, and evolving were found to be used by these single-parent families as a way to facilitate family cohesion and instill family values. Applicability of the findings of this study are beneficial for nurses working with clients with diverse, changing, and complex social situations such as the single-parent family. © 2004 Sage Publications.

Dose-response experiments are crucial in biomedical studies. There are usually multiple objectives in such experiments and among the goals is the estimation of several percentiles on the dose-response curve. Here we present the first non-parametric adaptive design approach to estimate several percentiles simultaneously via generalized Pó lya urns. Theoretical properties of these designs are investigated and their performance is gaged by the locally compound optimal designs. As an example, we re-investigated a psychophysical experiment where one of the goals was to estimate the three quartiles. We show that these multiple-objective adaptive designs are more efficient than the original single-objective adaptive design targeting the median only. We also show that urn designs which target the optimal designs are slightly more efficient than those which target the desired percentiles directly. Guidelines are given as to when to use which type of design. Overall we are pleased with the efficiency results and hope compound adaptive designs proposed in this work or their variants may prove to be a viable non-parametric alternative in multiple-objective dose-response studies. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract:- We provide lower and upper bounds for the domination numbers and the connected domination numbers for outerplanar graphs. We also provide a recursive algorithm that finds a connected domination set for an outerplanar graph. Finally, we show that for outerplanar graphs where all bounded faces are 3-cycles, the problem of determining the connected domination number is equivalent to an art gallery problem, which is known to be NP-hard. Key-Words:- dominating sets, star forests, outerplanar graphs, art gallery 1

In this paper we consider a variation of the Art Gallery Problem. A set of points script G sign in a polygon Pn is a connected guard set for Pn provided that is a guard set and the visibility graph of the set of guards script G sign in Pn is connected. We use a coloring argument to prove that the minimum number of connected guards which are necessary to watch any polygon with n sides is ⌊(n - 2)/2⌋. This result was originally established by induction by Hernández-Peńalver [3]. From this result it easily follows that if the art gallery is orthogonal (each interior angle is 90° or 270°), then the minimum number of connected guards is n/2 - 2. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.

In this paper we consider a variation of the Art Gallery Problem for orthogonal polygons. A set of points in a polygon Pn is a connected guard set for Pn provided that is a guard set and the visibility graph of the set of guards in Pn is connected. The polygon P n is orthogonal provided each interior angle is 90° or 270°. First we use a coloring argument to prove that the minimum number of connected guards which are necessary to watch any orthogonal polygon with n sides is n/2-2. This result was originally established by induction by Hernández-Peñalver. Then we prove a new result for art galleries with holes: we show that n/2-h connected guards are always sufficient to watch an orthogonal art gallery with n walls and h holes. This result is sharp when n = 4h + 4. We also construct galleries that require at least n/2-h-1 connected guards, for all n and h. © Springer-Verlag 2003.

A new theoretical Evans function condition is used as the basis of a numerical test of viscous shock wave stability. Accuracy of the method is demonstrated through comparison against exact solutions, a convergence study, and evaluation of approximate error equations. Robustness is demonstrated by applying the method to waves for which no current analytic results apply (highly nonlinear waves from the cubic model and strong shocks from gas dynamics). An interesting aspect of the analysis is the need to incorporate features from the analytic Evans function theory for purposes of numerical stability. For example, we find it necessary, for numerical accuracy, to solve ODEs on the space of wedge products.