High-speed, polyimide-based semi-insulating planar buried heterostructures

We describe planar buried heterostructure lasers which have low capacitance (lpF), large bandwidth (19GHz), high power (>20mW/facet) and high temperature operation (100°C). These lasers are very suitable for long-distance, highspeed digital and analogue signal transmission.     

Radiation Equivalence and Natural Similitude in Handling Radioactive Wastes

The possibility of long-term safe disposal of radioactive wastes based on their radiation and radiation-migration balance with the initial fuel component and taking account of the thermal, radiation, and elastic loads due to waste dispoasl on the natural medium is examined. The specific radiation and radiation-migration equivalence is established on the basis of the radiotoxicity of uranium and the components of the decay of uranium and individual radionuclides as well as the sum of the latter.     

On the effects of very low levels of long chain branching on rheological behavior in polyethylene

A comparison is made of the effects of very low levels of long chain branching (less than 0.1 branch per 1000 CH₂) on the rheological behavior of polyethylene for samples, in which the branching has been introduced by means of peroxide decomposition or thermal-mechanical degradation. Both the activation energy and viscosity at low rates are shown to increase considerably more rapidly with branching level for samples containing branching formed from peroxide decomposition than for samples containing branching formed as a result of thermal or mechanical degradation. A model, which is based on parameters obtained for highly branched low density polyethylene and experimental molecular structure measurements, is shown to adequately account for the flow curves of samples containing branching introduced by thermal or mechanical degradation. Poor agreement of the model with experimental flow curves for peroxide branched samples is obtained, presumably because of the inability of the low density polyethylene parameters to adequately describe the flow properties of these samples, which are thought to contain tetrafunctional branch points. The good agreement between theoretical models, predicting relationships between activation energy and branching level, and experimental data is taken as lending further credence to the idea that the large variations seen in the rheological behavior with branching concentration at low branching levels are due to changes in the relative proportion of discrete branched and linear species with branching level. In accord with experimental results, a maximum in low rate viscosity with branching level is predicted. The maximum is predicted at approximately 0.25 branches/1000 CH₂.     

The design of robots and intelligent manipulators using modern composite materials

The operating speed and endpoint positional accuracy of existing industrial manipulators are limited by the inertial and stiffness characteristics of the articulating members of the robot's mechanical linkage. This limitation may be overcome by developing members having high structural stiffness and strength with low mass, and this has been recognized for some time. These characteristics can be obtained by fabricating the moving members of manipulators in fiber reinforced composite materials. In order to establish a basis for the dynamic analysis of robots fabricated in viscoelastic composites, a variational theorem is developed herein. A preliminary comparative study is then undertaken for manipulators manufactured in a graphite-epoxy composite material and also steel in order to demonstrate some of the advantages to be accrued from this proposed new design philosophy.     

Interband calibration over clouds for POLDER space sensor

The Polarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectance (POLDER) spatial polarimeter was onboard the Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS) satellite that flew from August 1996 to June 30, 1997. POLDER measured both multidirectional reflectance and polarization in visible and near-infrared spectral bands with a very wide field of view. An accurate absolute radiometric calibration is essential for the scientific exploitation of radiance measurements of the Earth. POLDER inflight radiometric calibration has been performed at the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), French National Space Studies Center, from measurements taken only on well-characterized targets. This paper presents the results of the POLDER in-flight radiometric interband calibration over clouds for channels 443 and 490 nm. The method is based on the comparison of measurements to simulations. Selected measurements correspond to observations over oceans for high, thick convective cumulonimbus and for low, thick stratocumulus. Simulations are calculated using the discrete ordinate computing method. An error budget considers the sensitivity of this calibration method to cloud microphysics, to cloud top altitude, and to aerosols and gaseous loading. Calibration results are discussed for different simulated cloud models     

Vinyl acetate monomer—a pilot plant study

The kinetics of the reaction of acetic acid and acetylene over zinc acetate-activated carbon catalyst was investigated over a wide range of process variables in a pilot reactor. Although various catalytic reaction mechanisms were postulated, the rate of reaction was most satisfactorily correlated by a mechanism of surface reaction between charged adsorbed acetic acid and acetylene, which assumes that the rate controlling step was the irreversible charged adsorption of acetylene and acetic acid.     

Synthesis and characterisation of a submicrometre silicon carbide powder

A beta-silicon carbide powder with a surface area of 30m²g^?l and a mean particle size of < 1μm was produced from the thermal conversion of silicon resin in an atmosphere of hydrogen. The amount of product increased with increasing iron content (0–2.1 wt%) and firing temperature (1200–1500°C). Chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction and i.r. absorption spectrometry were used to follow the conversion reaction.     

Modified Hopfield neural networks for retrieving the optimalsolution

Due to the rugged energy function of the original Hopfield networks, the output is usually one local minimum in the energy function. An analysis on the locations of local minima in Hopfield networks is presented, and a modified network architecture to eliminate such local minima is described. In particular, another amplifier is introduced at the processor nodes to give correction terms. This modified Hopfield network has been successfully applied to the construction of analog-to-digital converters with optimal solutions. Experimental results on the voltage transfer characteristics of data converters are presented.