An arithmetical hierarchy in propositional dynamic logic

We prove that any alternation of modalities in PDL adds to its expressive power. The proof uses Turing machine models where PDL formulas define the arithmetical hierarchy of sets. As a by-product, we obtain a theorem of Berman and Paterson.     

Addressing the Risk of Surface Water Intrusion in Old Romanian Salt Mines

In Romania, surface waters near underground salt mines represent a significant risk to the stability of the mine workings. Such problems occur in many salt exploiting facilities, i.e. Slanic Prahova, Targu Ocna, Praid. In this paper, the authors present a method of dealing with this issue at the Praid salt mine with research targeted at avoiding the hazard presented by intrusion of surface waters into old mine workings. Monitoring activities are proposed to prevent damage due to the seepage of Corund Creek water into the subsurface salt body, which could compromise and even produce collapses in the salt mine sanatorium and old and new mines.     

Deactivation of Streptococcus mutans Biofilms on a Tooth Surface Using He Dielectric Barrier Discharge at Atmospheric Pressure

This paper presents a study of the effect of the low temperature atmospheric helium dielectric barrier discharge(DBD) on the Streptococcus mutans biofilms formed on tooth surface. Pig jaws were also treated by plasma to detect if there is any harmful effect on the gingiva.The plasma was characterized by using optical emission spectroscopy.Experimental data indicated that the discharge is very effective in deactivating Streptococcus mutans biofilms.It can destroy them with an average decimal reduction time(D-time) of 19 s and about 98%of thein were killed after a treatment time of 30 s.According to the survival curve kinetic an overall 32 s treatment time would be necessary to perform a complete sterilization.The experimental results presented in this study indicated that the helium dielectric barrier discharge,in plan-parallel electrode configuration,could be a very effective tool for deactivation of oral bacteria and might be a promising technique in various dental clinical applications.     

Argus: Low-Cost, Comprehensive Error Detection in Simple Cores

Argus, a novel approach for detecting errors in simple processor cores, dynamically verifies the correctness of the four tasks performed by a von Neumann core: control flow, data flow, computation, and memory access. Argus detects transient and permanent errors, with far lower impact on performance and chip area than previous techniques.     

Integration of diamond in fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator technology as buried insulator: A theoretical analysis

We examine here by electro-thermal simulation tools (SILVACO's Atlas) a configuration of Silicon-On-Insulator substrate for Fully-Depleted MOSFET architectures, incorporating diamond as buried insulator, and compare it with traditional silicon dioxide BOX for the future technological nodes of the ITRS (90 nm and below). Our aim is to give major trends to be followed in order to optimize diamond integration from electrical and thermal points of view, constraints that must be kept in mind in parallel with the technological work on thin diamond films. In this theoretical study, we perform a benchmarking between SiO₂ and diamond BOX. We first point out that the BOX thickness should not be more than few hundred nanometers to maintain electrical performances. From thermal point of view, we demonstrate that the replacement of 100 nm thick buried oxide by a 100 nm thick diamond layer can lead to about 50% reduction of the temperature when only 33% decrease can be obtained with Ultra Thin SiO₂ BOX (20 nm). Furthermore, thick diamond BOX avoids the parasitic capacitances issue that reduces Ultra Thin BOX devices working frequency.     

Slip in Vibrating Wire Experiments on 3He-4He Mixtures

No Heading We present vibrating wire viscometer experiments in concentrated and dilute ³He-⁴He mixtures showing that the slip length may become orders of magnitude larger than the mean free path due to increased specular scattering of the ³He quasiparticles with the superfluid ⁴He film on the wire. The experimental results are in good agreement with a recent theory for slip which accounts for the cylindrical geometry of the wire and for velocity slip in directions normal as well as tangential to the surface of the wire.PACS numbers: 67.60.Fp, 51.20.+d     

High-throughput fabrication of organic nanowire devices with preferential internal alignment and improved performance

We demonstrate that arrays of nanowires of conjugated polymers can be easily produced by a simple embossing protocol, compatible with very large scale integration technology. The embossing process is shown to have the supplementary virtue to increase the internal degree of order of the nanowires, significantly enhancing their performance. This is applied to the fabrication of nanowire-based devices consisting of a liquid crystalline light-emitting polymer, of a liquid crystalline semiconducting polymer, and of an amorphous conducting polymer, illustrating the versatility and wide applicability of the method.     

Generic fitted shapes (GFS): Volumetric object segmentation in service robotics

In this paper, a simultaneous 3D volumetric segmentation and reconstruction method, based on the so-called Generic Fitted Shapes (GFS) is proposed. The aim of this work is to cope with the lack of volumetric information encountered in visually controlled mobile manipulation systems equipped with stereo or RGB-D cameras. Instead of using primitive volumes, such as cuboids or cylinders, for approximating objects in point clouds, their volumetric structure has been estimated based on fitted generic shapes. The proposed GFSs can capture the shapes of a broad range of object classes without the need of large a-priori shape databases. The fitting algorithm, which aims at determining the particular geometry of each object of interest, is based on a modified version of the active contours approach extended to the 3D Cartesian space. The proposed volumetric segmentation system produces comprehensive closed object surfaces which can be further used in mobile manipulation scenarios. Within the experimental setup, the proposed technique has been evaluated against two state-of-the-art methods, namely superquadrics and 3D Object Retrieval (3DOR) engines.     

Cyclic invariance for discrete time-delay systems

This technical communique introduces a new concept of set invariance with respect to linear discrete time dynamics affected by delay. We are interested in the definition and characterization of sequences of cyclically invariant subsets in the state space. The algebraic conditions established in the late ’80s for linear dynamics are generalized to invariance analysis in the presence of delays for given sequences of polyhedral sets.     

Asymptotic Properties of Monotonic Nonexpansive Mappings

Let T be a nonexpansive monotonic mapping from C to itself where C is a closed subset of a space of bounded real functions, with the supremum norm. We study asymptotic properties of several average iterates of T, related to the cycle time.