[texhax] vertical setting of binary symbols

[Zbigniew Nitecki]

I am having trouble creating a good version of the composition symbol  
(if one exists, I'd like to know).

I find \circ alone a bit too big, so am using \mathsmaller{\circ}.  In  
response to an earlier posting, I
expanded this to \mathbin{\mathsmaller{\circ}}, which gives a  
reasonable horizontal spacing.  But I am observing a
different problem:  the code
***********
\newcommand{\compose}{\mathbin{\mathsmaller\circ}}
**********
results in a vertical spacing which is constant, but doesn't look that  
way:  when the
surrounding functions are lower case, it looks fine, but with upper- 
case function names
there is the illusion that the circle is nearly at floor level:   
apparently it is centered (vertically)
on the height of a lower-case letter, and so does not appear centered  
when the surrounding
letters are upper-case.  (see attached output below)

In response to my earlier posting about this problem, it was suggested  
I use \vcenter,
but the code
************
\newcommand{\compose}{\mathbin{\vcenter{$\mathsmaller\circ}$}}
************
leads to crazy behavior:  in some instances, the function following  
the \compose symbol is either
tabbed very far to the right, or even appears on a new line.

Is there a way to control this so that with upper-case function names  
the composition symbol
appears higher?

Zbigniew Nitecki
Department of Mathematics
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155

telephones:
Office    (617)627-3843
Dept.    (617)627-3234
Dept. fax    (617)627-3966
http://www.tufts.edu/~znitecki/

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