Optical Endless Polarization Stabilization at 9 krad/s With FPGA-Based Controller

We demonstrate endless polarization stabilization with a control speed of up to 9 krad/s, over random Poincare sphere trajectories. These are in total >35 Mrad long, are composed in particular of difficult-to-track circles with all radii and orientations, and thereby include all possible worst cases. The maximum polarization mismatch and relative intensity errors are 0.13 rad and 0.43%, respectively. The controller runs on a field-programmable gate array and uses a commercial multistage LiNbO₃ polarization transformer as the control device.     

Mechanical State Estimation for Overhead Transmission Lines With Level Spans

Electric power transmission lines face increased threats from malicious attacks and natural disasters. This underscores the need to develop new techniques to ensure safe and reliable transmission of electric power. This paper deals with the development of an online monitoring technique based on mechanical state estimation to determine the sag levels of overhead transmission lines in real time and hence determine if these lines are in normal physical condition or have been damaged or downed. A computational algorithm based on least squares state estimation is applied to the physical transmission line equations to determine the conductor sag levels from measurements of tension, temperature, and other transmission line conductor parameters. The estimated conductor sag levels are used to generate warning signals of vertical clearance violations in the energy management system. These warning signals are displayed to the operator to make appropriate decisions to maintain the line within the prescribed clearance limits and prevent potential cascading failures.      

The Problem of Estimation of Importance Factors as a Symmetric-Lexicographic Problem of Optimization

It is shown that the problem of calculating the importance factors of objects on the basis of their interval paired comparisons, which is set up as a multicriteria problem of the minimization of equally important criteria that manifest themselves as multiplicative residuals of the system of inequalities for the required factors, comes to the sequence of a few problems of linear programming.     

A Radiation Imaging Detector Made by Postprocessing a Standard CMOS Chip

An unpackaged microchip is used as the sensing element in a miniaturized gaseous proportional chamber. This letter reports on the fabrication and performance of a complete radiation imaging detector based on this principle. Our fabrication schemes are based on wafer-scale and chip-scale postprocessing. Compared to hybrid-assembled gaseous detectors, our microsystem shows superior alignment precision and energy resolution, and offers the capability to unambiguously reconstruct 3D radiation tracks on the spot.     

Interpretation of scatterometer ocean surface wind vector EOFs over the Northwestern Pacific

Satellite scatterometer winds over the northwestern Pacific were analyzed with the vector empirical orthogonal function (VEOF) method. The Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT), a newly developed non-linear and non-stationary time series data processing method, was also employed in the analysis. A combination of European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS) −1/2 scatterometer, NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) and NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) winds covering the period from January 1992 to April 2000 and the area of 0-50°N, 100-148°E constitutes the baseline for this study. The results indicate that annual cycles dominate the two leading VEOF modes. The first VEOF shows the East Asian monsoon features and the second represents a spring-autumn oscillation. We removed the annual signal from the data set and calculated the interannual VEOFs. The first interannual VEOF represents the interannual variability existing in the spring-autumn oscillation. The temporal mode is correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), but has a half-year lag with respect to the SOI. The spatial mode of the first interannual VEOF reflects the response of the tropical and extratropical winds to ENSO events. The second interannual VEOF is another ENSO related mode, and the temporal VEOF mode is correlated with the SOI with a correlation coefficient of 0.78, revealing the wind variability over mid-latitudes, which is associated with ENSO events. Further analysis indicated that the wind variability over the coast of East Asia represents anomalies of a Hadley cell. The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) was found in the temporal mode, indicating and verifying that the QBO in the wind fields is related to ENSO events. The third VEOF shows the interannaul variability in the winter-summer mode and displays the interannual variability of the East Asian monsoon. The three leading interannual VEOFs are statistically meaningful as confirmed by a significance test.     

A controllable chaotic system based on inductively coupled bistable oscillators

A mathematical model of a new controllable autooscilatory chaotic system based on inductively coupled Chua’s oscillators is described. Numerical simulations show that, using a chaotizing feedback algorithm, chaotic oscillations in this system can be excited in regimes where only regular oscillations are generated otherwise.     

Change in the basic thermodynamic characteristics of polymeric sorbents in interaction with inert gases in a wide range of pressures and temperatures

A model for calculating of the change in the basic thermodynamic characteristics of a sorbent (internal energy and entropy) with the phenomenological-thermodynamics method has been developed. Calculations for the systems polycarbonate-carbon dioxide and polymethylmethacrylate-carbon dioxide have been carried out. __________ Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 80, No. 3, pp. 198–200, May–June, 2007.     

Hydrocarbon impurities in SiF<Subscript>4</Subscript> and SiH<Subscript>4</Subscript> prepared from it

Using gas chromatography and high-resolution Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy, we have determined the concentrations of C₁–C₄ hydrocarbon impurities in isotopically unmodified silicon tetrafluoride before and after fine purification and in ²⁸Si-enriched SiF₄. The concentrations of C₁–C₄ hydrocarbon impurities in silicon tetrafluoride for SiH₄ synthesis have been shown to correlate with those in the synthesized silane.     

Methane conversion in a plasma created by a periodic-pulsed electron beam and non-self-sustained discharge

The process of methane conversion in a mixture modeling the natural gas under the action of a periodic nanosecond pulsed electron beam and an electron-beam-induced non-self-sustained discharge has been numerically simulated and studied in experiment. The possibility of methane conversion under the action of electric pulses without significant heating of the processed gas mixture is demonstrated for the first time. The main conversion products in experiment were hydrogen, ethylene, and acetylene.     

Perturbation technique for the finite element modelling of differential probes in non-destructive eddy-current testing

The paper deals with a new finite element scheme for non-destructive eddy-current testing (ECT) problems involving multiply connected test pieces and differential probes. It concerns a perturbation technique applied to the magnetodynamic h-phi formulation. The unperturbed field (in the absence of the flaw) is conventionally computed in the complete domain. The source of the perturbation problem is then determined by the projection of the unperturbed field in a relatively small region around the defect, the optimum size of which depends on the working frequency. The discretisation of this reduced domain is well adapted to the size of the defect and chosen independently of the dimensions of the excitation probe and the specimen under study. At a discrete level, the voltage change is efficiently computed by integration only over the defect and a layer of elements in the reduced domain that touches the defect's boundary. The accuracy of the proposed perturbation model is illustrated by comparison of the results obtained for different dimensions of the reduced domain with those achieved in the conventional way. The considered test case involves a differential probe scanning the outer surface of a metal tube for the detection of through-wall cracks