The strip-loaded hybrid-mode feed horn

A novel typed of hybrid-mode feed horn is presented. It comprises a hollow conical dielectric waveguide whose outer surface is metallized, and whose inner surface is coated with circumferentially oriented conducting strips. It may be designed to have mimimal cross polarization at two arbitrarily separated frequencies, as for a dual depth corrugated horn. Compared to the corrugated horn, it has the potential of lower weight and lower price. Small horns will have some cross polarization due to undesired radiation from the fields transmitted within the dielectric.     

Interdisciplinary research: roles for self-organization

No generally accepted principles and guidelines currently exist to help engineers design local interaction mechanisms that result in a desired global behavior. However, several communities have developed ways of approaching this problem in the context of niched application areas. Because the ideas underlying these approaches are often obscured or underemphasized in technical papers, the authors review the role of self-organization in their work. They provide a better picture of the status of the emerging field of self-organizing systems or autonomic computing.     

Finite-difference time-domain simulation of scattering from objectsin continuous random media

A three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) scheme is introduced to model the scattering from objects in continuous random media. FDTD techniques have been previously applied to scattering from random rough surfaces and randomly placed objects in a homogeneous background, but little has been done to simulate continuous random media with embedded objects where volumetric scattering effects are important. In this work, Monte Carlo analysis is used in conjunction with FDTD to study the scattering from perfectly electrically conducting (PEC) objects embedded in continuous random media. The random medium models under consideration are chosen to be inhomogeneous soils with a spatially fluctuating random permittivities and prescribed correlation functions. The ability of frequency averaging techniques to discriminate objects in this scenarion is also briefly investigated. The simulation scheme described in this work can be adapted and used to help in interpreting the scattered field data from targets in random environments such as geophysical media, biological media, or atmospheric turbulence     

Advanced Method for Single Crystal Casting of Turbine Blades for Gas Turbine Engines and Plants

A method for fabricating single crystal blades that combines the techniques of seed crystals and selection is suggested. The method realizes the advantages of both techniques, i.e., the high structural perfection and the possibility of fabricating single crystals with specified spatial orientation. Metallographic and x-ray diffraction analyses are used to study the processes of nucleation of the single crystal structure of blade castings fabricated from high-temperature nickel alloys by the method of selection and seed crystals. A commercial process for fabricating cast single crystal turbine blades by the new method is suggested.     

Evolutionary algorithms and de novo peptide design

One of the goals of computational chemistry is the automated de novo design of bioactive molecules. Despite significant progress in computational approaches to ligand design and efficient evaluation of binding energy, novel procedures for ligand design are required. Evolutionary computation provides a new approach to this design issue. This paper presents an automated methodology for computer-aided peptide design based on evolutionary algorithms. It provides an automatic tool for peptide de novo design, based on protein surface patches defined by user. Regarding the restrictive constrains of this problem a special emphasis has been made on the design of the evolutionary algorithms implemented.     

International Working Group on Assurance Cases (for Security)

Critical systems are aptly named - from electric power to water and gas to the telephone system and the Internet, they're all critical to some aspect of our daily lives. We're a networked society and as such, it's important to both know whether critical systems are trustworthy and be able to communicate, review, and debate the level of trust achieved in them. In the safety domain, explicit safety cases are increasingly required by law, regulations, and standards. In this article, we outline what a small, international group of experts, spanning various disciplines in safety, security, reliability, and critical infrastructure, been doing with the International Working Group on Assurance Cases (for Security), what we hope to achieve, and where we go next.     

Systematic characterization of Cl2 reactive ion etchingfor improved ohmics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

Pre-metal-deposition reactive ion etching (RIE) was performed on an Al_0.3Ga_0.7N/AlN/GaN heterostructure in order to improve the metal-to-semiconductor contact resistance. An optimum AlGaN thickness for minimizing contact resistance was determined. An initial decrease in contact resistance with etching time was explained in terms of removal of an oxide surface layer and/or by an increase in tunnelling current with the decrease of the AlGaN thickness. The presence of a dissimilar surface layer was confirmed by an initial nonuniform etch depth rate. An increase in contact resistance for deeper etches was experienced. The increase was related to depletion of the two-dimensional (2-D) electron gas (2-DEG) under the ohmics. Etch depths were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The contact resistance decreased from about 0.45 Ωmm for unetched ohmics to a minimum of 0.27 Ωmm for 70 Å etched ohmics. The initial thickness of the AlGaN layer was 250 Å. The decrease in contact resistance, without excessive complications on device processing, supports RIE etching as a viable solution to improve ohmic contact resistance in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs     

New insights in polarity-dependent oxide breakdown for ultrathin gate oxide

In this work, a quantitative analysis is applied to resolve the newly reported polarity-dependent charge-to-breakdown (Q/sub BD/) data from thick oxides of 6.8 nm down to ultrathin oxides of 1.9 nm. Three independent sets of Q/sub BD/ data, i.e., n/sup +/poly/NFET stressed under inversion and accumulation, and p/sup +/ poly/PFET under accumulation are carefully investigated. The Q/sub BD/ degradation observed for p-type anodes, either poly-Si or Si-substrate, can be nicely understood with the framework of maximum energy released by injected electrons. Thus, this work provides a universal and quantitative account for a variety of experimental observations in the time-to-breakdown (T/sub BD/) and Q/sub BD/ polarity-dependence of oxide breakdown.     

Security issues for downloaded code in mobile phones

'Software defined radio' (SDR) is a technology that will appear in future generations of mobile phones, i.e. following the third-generation mobile phone technology that is currently being defined and developed. Early versions of 'pragmatic' SDR will allow the terminal to be reconfigured at any level of its protocol stack. Ultimately, the 'pure' SDR technology will allow a mobile phone or terminal to have its air interface software configured or reconfigured by other software (or software parameters) that have been downloaded to the terminal, e.g. over the air, or from a remote server via the Internet and one's personal computer (PC). A number of security issues arise with downloaded code that implements the air interface functions, and these may not be obvious simply from looking at the way PC software is updated on-line today. This paper starts with an outline of the code that allows a mobile phone to operate over a particular air interface. This sets the baseline for a discussion of the security issues surrounding the change of this code from one that is fixed and downloaded once only, to code that is reconfigurable during the life of a product.