Facilitating communications

How often have you felt that the person you were talking to was speaking another language? How often have others seemed bewildered when you described something? We may attribute this to technical jargon or new terminology, but the problem more likely stems from basic communication failure. Since effective communication is essential to a project's success, learning to communicate successfully should be a top priority for anyone in a technical field. The author discusses the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator (MBTI) which can help us understand how natural preferences for gathering information and making decisions shape communication styles. All personalities have value in every organization. Building and maintaining information systems requires many distinct and specialized skills and roles, and each tends to attract a certain personality. To create a comfortable setting for all personality types, you must foster good communication among them     

A Current-Mode, Dual Slope, Integrated Capacitance-to-Pulse Duration Converter

A capacitance-to-pulse duration converter, specifically designed for interfacing capacitive sensors, is presented. The operating principle is a double slope approach implemented using transconductor-based Miller integrators. The main strengths of the proposed circuit are: 1) intrinsically small sensitivity to temperature; 2) simplicity of trimming offset and gain to correct the sensor parameter spread; and 3) fast wake-up time. The circuit nonidealities are analyzed in order to identify the elements responsible for the residual temperature sensitivity and jitter on the pulse duration. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by measurements performed on a prototype, designed and fabricated using the 0.35 mum, 3.3 V Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS process BCD6 of STMicroelectronics.     

Intelligent scheduling processes and controlling workload in computing systems

Methods and algorithms of adaptive scheduling processes and workload control in computing systems are considered.     

On the Evolutionary Optimization of Many Conflicting Objectives

This study explores the utility of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (using standard Pareto ranking and diversity-promoting selection mechanisms) for solving optimization tasks with many conflicting objectives. Optimizer behavior is assessed for a grid of mutation and recombination operator configurations. Performance maps are obtained for the dual aims of proximity to, and distribution across, the optimal tradeoff surface. Performance sweet-spots for both variation operators are observed to contract as the number of objectives is increased. Classical settings for recombination are shown to be suitable for small numbers of objectives but correspond to very poor performance for higher numbers of objectives, even when large population sizes are used. Explanations for this behavior are offered via the concepts of dominance resistance and active diversity promotion.     

Effect of chromium and binder on diamond-matrix contact strength

The vacuum production of diamond drill bits is considered. The effect from the concentration of an adhesive-active element (chromium) on the diamond-tool contact strength is analyzed. It is examined how the binder affects the dependence of diamond-retaining force on the chromium content.