High-temperature oxidation of a rapidly solidified amorphous Ta-Ir alloy

The oxidation products formed at 500 and 700°C on an amorphous Ta-44.5 at% Ir alloy in an Ar-0.1% O₂ gas mixture were characterized using SEM, XRD, EPMA, TEM, STEM, AES, and XPS. Initially, a thin (3–4 nm) layer of Ta₂O₅ formed at the surface of the alloy. Continued growth of the Ta₂O₅, which occurred very rapidly, involved diffusion of oxygen anions from the Ta₂O₅/gas interface to the alloy/Ta₂O₅ interface, where tantalum was selectively oxidized. Because the oxide grew more quickly than iridium could diffuse back into the alloy, the iridium coalesced into platelets of crystalline iridium-rich alloy that were oriented approximately parallel to the oxide/alloy interface, and which became embedded in a matrix of Ta₂O₅. The unoxidized core remained in the glassy state. The oxidation process and/or the dissolution of oxygen into the unoxidized alloy caused the alloy to become embrittled.     

Invariant representation of facial expressions for blended expression recognition on unknown subjects

Facial expressions analysis plays an important part in emotion detection. However, having an automatic and non-intrusive system to detect blended facial expression is still a challenging problem, especially when the subject is unknown to the system. Here, we propose a method that adapts to the morphology of the subject and that is based on a new invariant representation of facial expressions. In our system, one expression is defined by its relative position to 8 other expressions. As the mode of representation is relative, we show that the resulting expression space is person-independent. The 8 expressions are synthesized for each unknown subject from plausible distortions. Recognition tasks are performed in this space with a basic algorithm. The experiments have been performed on 22 different blended expressions and on either known or unknown subjects. The recognition results on known subjects demonstrate that the representation is robust to the type of data (shape and/or texture information) and to the dimensionality of the expression space. The recognition results on 22 expressions of unknown subjects show that a dimensionality of the expression space of 4 is enough to outperform traditional methods based on active appearance models and accurately describe an expression.     

An examination of the Internet’s development as a disabling environment in the context of the social model of disability and anti-discrimination legislation in the UK and USA

Research indicates that inaccessible website design persists despite the existence of anti-discrimination legislation and the influence of the social model of disability on policy development. In this paper, the concept of universal access is examined in the light of the social model of disability in relation to both the physical and virtual environments. The manner in which disability is often deemed a design afterthought is highlighted. The need for universal access is then placed alongside a discussion of access to the Internet in relation to an ageing population and people with cognitive difficulties. Subsequently, anti-discrimination provisions are analysed in relation to how they support designers’ focus on an accepted normality to which reasonable adjustments need to be made, rather than the acquisition of full universal access.     

Leadership and justice: Increasing non participating users’ assessment of an IT through passive participation

Allowing users to actively participate in the development and implementation of a new IS is supposed to increase their satisfaction with it. This type of participation, representing aspects relating to distributive and procedural justice, is increasingly impractical in current organizational settings, because many IS are used by thousands of employees and having them involved is impossible. Nonetheless, there are still benefits to be gained in other ways. Extrapolating from interactional justice, we proposed a passive participation method of engaging users. Its effect was tested in a large company in the USA and proved effective. Interactional justice, the perception of fairness in the way that people were treated at an interpersonal level, was found to increase user assessment of the value of their IS. Implications and expansions to interactional justice theory and how this antecedent affects IS implementation are discussed.     

Digital Intuition: Applying Common Sense Using Dimensionality Reduction

Understanding the world we live in requires access to a large amount of background knowledge: the commonsense knowledge that most people have and most computer systems don't. Many of the limitations of artificial intelligence today relate to the problem of acquiring and understanding common sense. The Open Mind Common Sense project began to collect common sense from volunteers on the Internet starting in 2000. The collected information is converted to a semantic network called ConceptNet. Reducing the dimensionality of ConceptNet's graph structure gives a matrix representation called AnalogySpace, which reveals large-scale patterns in the data, smoothes over noise, and predicts new knowledge. Extending this work, we have created a method that uses singular value decomposition to aid in the integration of systems or representations. This technique, called blending, can be harnessed to find and exploit correlations between different resources, enabling commonsense reasoning over a broader domain.     

Conception of a CATV-based MAN

The objective of this paper is to propose an architecture for aCAble TeleVision (CATV) network, capable of supporting two-way transmission. This evolution is necessary for the survival of the CATV industry in an era of deregulation and of the development of the B-ISDN by the telecommunications companies. A communication transactional service is then considered and performance analysis is done under realistic assumptions.     

Anticipating Cutoff Diameters in Deterministic Lateral Displacement (DLD) Microfluidic Devices for an Optimized Particle Separation

Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) devices enable to separate nanometer to micrometer‐sized particles around a cutoff diameter, during their transport through a microfluidic channel with slanted rows of pillars. In order to design appropriate DLD geometries for specific separation sizes, robust models are required to anticipate the value of the cutoff diameter. So far, the proposed models result in a single cutoff diameter for a given DLD geometry. This paper shows that the cutoff diameter actually varies along the DLD channel, especially in narrow pillar arrays. Experimental and numerical results reveal that the variation of the cutoff diameter is induced by boundary effects at the channel side walls, called the wall effect. The wall effect generates unexpected particle trajectories that may compromise the separation efficiency. In order to anticipate the wall effect when designing DLD devices, a predictive model is proposed in this work and has been validated experimentally. In addition to the usual geometrical parameters, a new parameter, the number of pillars in the channel cross dimension, is considered in this model to investigate its influence on the particle trajectories.     

Thin and thick YBCO films grown by MOCVD processes. Study of the angular magnetic field dependence of current transport properties

Thin and thick YBCO Films have been grown by Aerosol Assisted as well as by thermal MOCVD. The Aerosol Assisted MOCVD technique allows the growth of YBCO films from a single liquid source at deposition rates of up to 10m/h.Transport measurements (I-V) on etched microbridges using a single pulse technique have been performed. The angular magnetic field dependence J_c() of the critical current density from T_c down to 50 K has been measured. Transport properties are reported and discussed with respect to the microstructural features as determined by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy.     

Maskless writing of microfluidics: Rapid prototyping of 3D microfluidics using scratch on a polymer substrate

We present a new rapid prototyping method designed for simple fabrication of 3D microfluidics using a maskless direct writing technique on polymer substrates. The entire process is enabled by a commercial cutter plotter with 10 μm resolution precision and high speed. A CAD design of top and bottom microstructures is directly written on a polymer substrate using a cutter plotter after setting up the suitable force. The smallest channel width of 20 μm was obtained with the minimum force and 100 μm from the maximum. Also the written depth increased linearly with force from 30 to 130 μm. Several 3D microfluidic devices are demonstrated using a maskless writing technique. The entire fabrication process from CAD layout to a final 3D device can be completed in 30 min outside the clean room facilities.