Chelated alkoxyalumoxanes and a silica-free binder based on them

Chelated alkoxyalumoxane oligomers have been synthesized through consecutive hydrolysis and alcoholysis of organoaluminum compounds stabilized by compounds capable of keto-enol tautomerism. The chelated alkoxyalumoxanes were used to prepare a silica-free binder for the fabrication of heat-resistant (up to 2050°C), chemically inert corundum ceramic composites. The likely structures of the synthesized preceramic alumoxane oligomers were inferred from physicochemical characterization results (¹H, ¹³C, and ²⁷Al NMR, IR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, gel-permeation chromatography, thermal analysis, and elemental analysis).     

Electrophysical Characteristics of a Posistor Block

The influence of the parameters of posistor elements and the conditions of their heat exchange on the electrical and dynamic characteristics of a posistor block have been investigated. Good agreement between calculation results and experimental data has been established.     

Surgical complications of open spinal dysraphism

The embryogenesis, closure technique, and preoperative preparation of open myelomeningocele are described in this article. Both early and late complications of myelomeningocele closure are discussed with respect to predisposing factors, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. These complications include worsened neurological level, wound dehiscence, wound infection, cerebrospinal fluid leak, postoperative ileus, symptomatic Chiari malformation, shunt infection, necrotizing enterocolitis, and problems related to kyphectomy.     

Conducting polymers at low temperatures and high magnetic fields

Advances in the synthesis of organic conducting polymer systems has increased the electrical conductivity of these systems by several orders of magnitude in the last decade. Several practical applications are envisioned for such systems, but a thorough understanding of the conduction mechanisms and identification of the charge carriers is lacking, making design and implementation for bulk synthesis difficult. In order to clarify our understanding of the electrical properties of these systems, the resistivity and magnetoresistivity of various polymers doped near the metal - insulator transition, such as polyaniline protonated by camphor sulfonic acid (PANi-CSA) and polypyrrole doped with PF₆ (PPy-PF₆), have been studied down to 25 mK in magnetic fields up to 16 T.     

Quantitative Analysis of Structural Changes in Steel Caused by High-Temperature Holding in Hydrogen

We give a quantitative estimate of changes in the structure of 15Kh2MFA steel after its long-term exposure to the combined action of high temperature, tensile stresses, and hydrogen as the factors of degradation of this steel under conditions of oil hydrocracking. Under laboratory conditions, we study the effect of high-temperature hydrogen degradation of 15Kh2MFA heat-resistant steel on changes in the quantitative characteristics of its structural elements, in particular, in the dimension and average distance between carbides as well as in their orientation from one grain to another. Algorithms for the solution of the formulated problems are described, and the possibilities of proposed approaches for the quantitative automatic processing of metallographic images are shown.     

Signal processing using cellular neural networks

The cellular neural network (CNN) architecture combines the best features from traditional fully-connected analog neural networks and digital cellular automata. The network can rapidly process continuous-valued (gray-scale) input signals (such as images) and perform many computation functions which traditionally were implemented in digital form. Here, we briefly introduce the the theory of CNN circuits, provide some examples of CNN applications to image processing, and discuss work toward a CNN implementation in custom CMOS VLSI. The role of analog computer-aided design (CAD) will be briefly presented as it relates to analog neural network implementation.This work is supported in part by the Office of Naval Research under Contract N00014-89-J1402, and the National Science Foundation under grant MIP-8912639.