A few misprints occurred in the paper, due to technical typesetting problems. The editorial staff of Acta Mathematica apologizes for the mistake. The online version has been corrected. Corrections to the printed version are provided here.

We propose a new nonmonotone filter method to promote global and fast local convergence for sequential quadratic programming algorithms. Our method uses two filters: a standard, global g-filter for global convergence, and a local nonmonotone l-filter that allows us to establish fast local convergence. We show how to switch between the two filters efficiently, and we prove global and superlinear local convergence. A special feature of the proposed method is that it does not require second-order correction steps. We present preliminary numerical results comparing our implementation with a classical filter SQP method.

Motivated by the study of collapsing Calabi–Yau 3-folds with a Lefschetz K3 fibration, we construct a complete Calabi–Yau metric on C3 with maximal volume growth, which in the appropriate scale is expected to model the collapsing metric near the nodal point. This new Calabi–Yau metric has singular tangent cone at infinity C2/Z2×C, and its Riemannian geometry has certain non-standard features near the singularity of the tangent cone, which are more typical of adiabatic limit problems. The proof uses an existence result in H-J. Hein’s Ph.D. thesis to perturb an asymptotic approximate solution into an actual solution, and the main difficulty lies in correcting the slowly decaying error terms.

This work proposes a novel metric based algorithm for quadrilateral mesh generating. Each quad-mesh induces a Riemannian metric satisfying special conditions: the metric is a flat metric with cone singularities conformal to the original metric, the total curvature satisfies the Gauss–Bonnet condition, the holonomy group is a subgroup of the rotation group $\{e^{ik\pi/2}\}$, there is cross field obtained by parallel translation which is aligned with the boundaries, and its streamlines are finite geodesics. Inversely, such kind of metric induces a quad-mesh. Based on discrete Ricci flow and conformal structure deformation, one can obtain a metric satisfying all the conditions and obtain the desired quad-mesh. This method is rigorous, simple and automatic. Our experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of the algorithm.

In this paper, gold ball wire bonding at low temperature using a high frequency transducer was evaluated. The substrates used were FR-4 laminates with two different gold-plated surface finishes: electrolytic and immersion gold-plated. Bonding temperatures of 120/spl deg/C, 80/spl deg/C and 40/spl deg/C were investigated with 1 mil fine pitch gold wire. Prior to wire bonding, the laminates and dice were plasma treated. The surfaces were analyzed prior to and after plasma treatment before wire bonding using XPS and AFM. Bonded areas were also analyzed using SEM. Design of experiment (DOE) techniques have been employed to optimize the bonding parameters at each temperature. The response of the DOE was evaluated by using bond shear and bond pull. The results show that bonding at low temperature is viable with the use of a high frequency transducer wire bonder.