Development of integrated ΔE-E silicon detector telescope using silicon planar technology

An integrated ΔE-E silicon detector telescope using silicon planar technology has been developed. The technology developed is based on standard integrated circuit technology and involves double sided wafer processing. The ΔE and E detectors have been realized in a PIN configuration with a common buried N⁺ layer. Detectors with ΔE thicknesses of 10, 15 and 25 μm, and E detector with thickness of 300 μm have been fabricated and tested with alpha particles using ²³⁸Pu-²³⁹Pu dual alpha source. The performance of the detector with ΔE detector of thickness 10 μm and E detector of thickness 300 μm has been studied for identification of charged particles using 12 MeV ⁷Li⁺ ion beam on carbon target. The results of these tests demonstrate that the integrated detector telescope clearly separates the charged particles, such as alpha particles, protons and ⁷Li. Due to good energy resolution of the E detector, discrete alpha groups corresponding to well known states of ¹⁵N populated during the reaction could be clearly identified.     

Image-based quality monitoring system of limestone ore grades

In this study, an image analysis-based ore quality monitoring system was developed. The study was conducted at a limestone mine located in India. The samples were collected based on a stratified random sampling method, and images of these samples were taken in a simulated environment in a laboratory. The image preprocessing and segmentation were performed using different segmentation methods to extract morphological, colour and textural features. A total of 189 features was extracted during this study. Principal components analysis was conducted to reduce the feature vector for modeling purposes. Five principal components, which were extracted from the feature vectors, captured 95% of the total feature variance. A neural network model was used as a mapping function for ore grade prediction. The five principal components were used as input, and four grade attributes of limestone (CaO, Al₂O₃, Fe₂O₃ and SiO₂) were used as output. The developed model was then used for day to day quality monitoring at 3 different face locations of the mine. Results revealed that this technique can be successfully used for ore grade monitoring at the mine level in a controlled environment.     

Metal-semiconductor nanojunctions and their rectification characteristics

Junctions of silver-copper oxide and silver-zinc oxide, respectively were prepared within the pores of diameters, 20 nm, in anodic aluminium oxide membranes. Voltage-current characteristics were measured over the temperature range 373–573 K which showed rectification behaviour. Using the standard equation the difference between the work functions of the metal and the semiconductor was calculated. This showed a variation with the temperature of measurement. This is explained as arising due to the effect of pressure generated as a result of thermal expansion of the metallic phases concerned between the electrodes. This is consistent with the theoretical prediction of Fermi level shifting of the semiconductor within the bandgap as a function of pressure. Dedicated to Prof. C N R Rao     

Toward the development of a conventional time series based web error forecasting framework

Web reliability is gaining importance with time due to the exponential increase in the popularity of different social community networks, mailing systems and other online applications. Hence, to enhance the reliability of any existing web system, the web administrators must have the knowledge of various web errors present in the system, influences of various workload characteristics on the manifestation of several web errors and the relations among different workload characteristics. But in reality, often it may not be possible to institute a generalized correspondence among several workload characteristics. Moreover, the issues like the prediction and estimation of the cumulative occurrences of the source content failures and the corresponding time between failures of a web system become less highlighted by the reliability research community. Hence, in this work, the authors have presented a well-defined procedure (a forecasting framework) for the web admins to analyze and enhance the reliability of the web sites under their supervision. Initially, it takes the HTTP access and the error logs to extract all the necessary information related to the workloads, web errors and corresponding time between failures. Next, we have performed the principal component analysis, correlation analysis and the change point analysis to select the number of independent variables. Next, we have developed various time series based forecasting models for foretelling the cumulative occurrences of the source content failures and the corresponding time between failures. In the current work, the multivariate models also include various uncorrelated workloads, the exogeneous and the endogenous noises for forecasting the web errors and the corresponding time between failures. The proposed methodology has been validated with usage statistics collected from the web sites belong of two highly renowned Indian academic institutions.     

Re-examining the prospects of aluminous cements based on alkali-earth and rare-earth oxides

In the family of aluminous cements the potential of strontium aluminate, the strontium–barium aluminate and the barium aluminate cements have been sporadically and incoherently studied over several decades in various parts of the world and more particularly in the East European countries without much wide-spread commercial success. Attempts had also been made to extend the exploratory studies to the (Ca, Sr, Ba)O–Al₂O₃–ZrO₂–HfO₂ system to synthesize super-refractory binders.In fact, the above compositions, prima facie, seem to have the potential of arriving at cementitious formulations that, apart from being super-refractory, may as well be highly resistant to seawater, X-rays and gamma radiation.Looking at these potentials, quite a few experimental studies have been carried out under the guidance and supervision of the present author. The present paper is an endeavour to collate the data on some of these systems both from the published literature as well as from the author's findings. The prime motive has been to review and re-assess the prospects of manufacturing a range of new aluminous binders with superior properties.     

A novel high-power low-distortion synchronous link converter-basedload compensator without the requirement of VAr calculator

A high-power low-distortion static VAr compensator based on a synchronous link converter has been proposed, where the harmonics are eliminated by incorporating a low-power insulated-gate-bipolar-transistor-based controlled current auxiliary converter in conjunction with a high-power gate-turn-off-thyristor-based converter. In this paper, a new load compensator based on this topology is proposed which does not require the information of the voltampere required by the load. As the requirement of the reactive voltampere calculator is eliminated, the scheme becomes insensitive to system frequency variations, temperature, and component aging. The control scheme required for the compensator is developed. The operation of the scheme is validated through extensive simulation studies. Experimental results obtained from a laboratory prototype are provided to demonstrate the viability of the scheme     

Efficiency, speed, and scaling of two-dimensional passive-dynamic walking

We address performance limits and dynamic behaviours of the two dimensional passive-dynamic bipedal walking mechanisms of Tad McGeer. The results highlight the role of heelstrike in determining the mechanical efficiency of gait, and point to ways of improving efficiency. We analyse several kneed and straight-legged walker designs, with round feet and and point-feet. We present some necessary conditions on the walker mass distribution to achieve perfectly efficient (zero-slope-capable) walking for both kneed and straight-legged models. Our numerical investigations indicate, consistent with a previous study of a simpler model, that such walkers have two distinct gaits at arbitrarily small ground-slopes, of which the longer-step gait is stable at small slopes. Energy dissipation can be dominated by a term proportional to (speed) 2 from tangential foot velocity at heelstrike and from kneestrike, or a term proportional to (speed) 4 from normal foot collisions at heelstrike, depending on the gait, ground-slope, and walker design. For all zeroslope capable straight-legged walkers, the long-step gaits have negligible tangential foot velocity at heelstrike and are hence especially fast at low power. Some apparently chaotic walking motions are numerically demonstrated for a kneed walker.     

Effect of reaction products on mechanical properties of diffusion bonded of titanium to 304 stainless steel with Cu interlayer joints

In present study, pure copper was used as an interlayer of the diffusion bonded joints between commercially pure titanium and 304 stainless steel. The process was carried out at 900°C for 30–150 minutes in steps of 30 minutes under 3MPa uniaxial load in vacuum. Microstructures of the bonded assemblies were observed in optical and scanning electron microscopes. The study exhibits the presence of different reaction layers in the diffusion zone and their chemical compositions were determined by energy dispersive spectroscopy. Formation of reaction products in diffusion interfaces were confirmed by xray diffraction technique. The maximum tensile strength of ∼322MPa (∼101% of Ti) and shear strength of ∼254MPa (∼86% of Ti) along with 8.4 % ductility were obtained for the couple bonded for 60 minutes and due to the rise in bonding time up to 90 minutes, bond strength drops marginally. With a further increase in joining time, the bond strength drops gradually due to the increase in the width of Fe-Ti base reaction products. Observation of fracture surfaces in SEM using EDS indicated that fracture takes place through the SS-Cu interface for all bonded samples.     

Metallo-organic compound-based plasma enhanced CVD of ZrO2 films for microelectronic applications

ZrO ₂ films on silicon wafer were deposited by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique using zirconium tetratert butoxide (ZTB). The structure and composition of the deposited layers were studied by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The deposition rates were also studied. MOS capacitors fabricated using deposited oxides were used to characterize the electrical properties of ZrO ₂ films. The films showed their suitability for microelectronic applications.