Controlling for stimulus dominance in dichotic listening tests: A modification of !l.

Dichotic listening procedures have been used to assess cerebral lateralization in normal Ss. One particularly useful technique is the use of stimuli that fuse into a single percept. Although this procedure has many advantages over other dichotic listening methods, it is particularly susceptible to stimulus dominance, which acts as noise in a S's response data, thus reducing the power of any statistical test of the ear advantage. It is proposed that the solution to this problem is a log-linear analysis of the response data to yield a λ-type index (λ*) that is a measure of ear dominance independent of stimulus dominance. Details of the analysis are provided, as well as a sample analysis of data collected from 104 right-handed and 30 left-handed Ss. Comparisons are drawn between the log-linear analysis and other methods that have been proposed to control for stimulus dominance in this single-response dichotic fusion procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A neural network control system with parallel adaptive enhancementsapplicable to nonlinear servomechanisms

In this paper, we present a technique for using an additional parallel neural network to provide adaptive enhancements to a basic fixed neural network-based nonlinear control system. This proposed parallel adaptive neural network control system is applicable to nonlinear dynamical systems of the type commonly encountered in many practical position control servomechanisms. Properties of the controller are discussed, and it is shown that if Gaussian radial basis function networks are used for the additional parallel neural network, uniformly stable adaptation is assured and the approximation error converges to zero asymptotically. In the paper, the effectiveness of the proposed parallel adaptive neural network control system is demonstrated in real-time implementation experiments for position control in a servomechanism with asymmetrical loading and changes in the load     

A novel scheme for protection of power semiconductor devicesagainst short circuit faults

Power semiconductor devices find wide application in modern power electronic converters. Protection of these devices against overload/short circuit conditions is of paramount importance. Present day protection topologies employing different circuits have invariably one main drawback in that the fault current reaches the set value before action is initiated to trip the system. This poses a severe stress on the device. Hence an adequate safety margin has to be necessarily provided to prevent excessive device stresses and care has to be taken to see that the device is operated well within its safe operating areas. The present paper proposes a method wherein the slope or rate of rise of the fault current is detected and once the slope exceeds the set reference, action is initiated to trip the system much before the fault current reaches dangerous levels. The method provides a fast means of detection of overload and short circuit currents and can be conveniently adopted for the protection of devices in power transistor/IGBT based inverters against short circuited load conditions or shoot through faults. The possible reduction of stresses in the power devices are also highlighted     

A simple method for extracting average doping concentration in thepolysilicon and silicon surface layer near the oxide in polysilicon-gateMOS structures

The author demonstrates a simple technique that extracts average doping concentration in the polysilicon and silicon near the oxide in a metal/polysilicon/oxide/silicon system. The technique is based on the maximum-minimum capacitance method on two large area structures-one MOSFET and one MOSC (MOS capacitor). The technique is simple and reliable since only three data points in the C-V data are required-two points in MOSC C-V and one point in MOSFET C-V. The technique avoids inaccuracy caused by interface traps at the polysilicon/oxide and the oxide/silicon interface. The technique can be implemented into fab routine electric-test procedures for simultaneously monitoring change of doping concentration in polysilicon and silicon during process development     

Suppression of boron penetration in p+ polysilicon gateP-MOSFETs using low-temperature gate-oxide N2O anneal

It has been reported that high-temperature (~1100°C) N₂ O-annealed oxide can block boron penetration from poly-Si gates to the silicon substrate. However, this high-temperature step may be inappropriate for the low thermal budgets required of deep-submicron ULSI MOSFETs. Low-temperature (900~950°C) N₂O-annealed gate oxide is also a good barrier to boron penetration. For the first time, the change in channel doping profile due to compensation of arsenic and boron ionized impurities was resolved using MOS C-V measurement techniques. It was found that the higher the nitrogen concentration incorporated at Si/SiO₂ interface, the more effective is the suppression of boron penetration. The experimental results also suggest that, for 60~110 Å gate oxides, a certain amount of nitrogen (~2.2%) incorporated near the Si/SiO₂ interface is essential to effectively prevent boron diffusing into the underlying silicon substrate     

Enhancing the brightness of thin-film electroluminescent displaysby improving the emission process

AC thin film electroluminescent (ACTFEL) devices emit light laterally in addition to conventional surface emission. Because of the waveguiding in ACTFEL devices, lateral emission is stronger than surface emission. However, the former is ignored for displays. This note demonstrates that mirrors can be fabricated into substrates to reflect upward the lateral emission, which can then be summed with surface emission for displays. Use of standard silicon and thin film technology has demonstrated that the reflected lateral emission is a factor of three brighter than conventional surface emission. hence the effective efficiency of out-coupling the light has been improved for an ACTFEL device     

E-BAMA vs. RAMA [multiple access protocols]

The article presents a performance comparison of two random access protocols for wireless mobile signaling in which a single channel is dedicated to the signaling function, enhanced beacon assisted multiple access (E-BAMA) and resource auction multiple access (RAMA). Data traffic is transported separately on a set of orthogonal channels. The beacon assisted multiple access (BAMA) protocol was first presented as a method of providing mobility management functions, e.g., handover, while minimizing the processing burden placed on the mobile. In BAMA, throughout the duration of its call, an active user repeatedly and quasi-periodically broadcasts a beacon containing its ID using the Aloha protocol. Quasi-periodicity prevents a pair of users from repeatedly colliding with each other. When a base successfully receives the beacon and assigns a channel, it uses a separate downstream channel to send to the mobile an acknowledgement that contains the number of the assigned channel. The BAMA protocol includes a scheme to maintain lists of active mobiles in nearby cells and to exchange periodically these lists among the base-stations. The authors evaluate the capacity and delay performance of E-BAMA and RAMA. Then, they present a numerical comparison of the parameters. Finally, the results are summarized qualitatively. Some additional derivation is included in the appendix     

The NC-REN meets the North Carolina Information Highway

The North Carolina Research and Education Network (NC-REN), formerly known as CONCERT, is an existing video and data network, owned and operated by MCNC. NC-REN's purpose has been to provide network-based support for collaboration in the research community within the state since 1985. The first major application planned for the North Carolina Information Highway (NCIH) is an interactive video distance learning system. A secondary application proposed is the use of Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS) as a means of providing data communications services over NCIH. The user community currently supported by NC-REN has come to expect high levels of service, reliability, interoperability and performance for data and video communications. MCNC is committed to see that NC-REN users receive service that is equal to or better than what is currently provided by the existing network. The prospect of migrating NC-REN-provided services to NCIH-provided transport has raised challenging technical and unique service issues