A novel power plane with super-wideband elimination of ground bounce noise on high speed circuits

A novel L-bridged electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) power/ground planes is proposed with super-wideband suppression of the ground bounce noise (GBN) from 600Mz to 4.6GHz. The L-shaped bridge design on the EBG power plane not only broadens the stopband bandwidth, but also can increase the mutual coupling between the adjacent EBG cells by significantly decreasing the gap between the cells. It is found the small gap design can prevent from the severe degradation of the signal quality for the high-speed signal referring to the perforated EBG power plane. The excellent GBN suppression performance with keeping reasonably good signal integrity for the proposed structure is validated both experimentally and numerically. Good agreement is seen.     

Enzymatic synthesis of conductive polyaniline using linear BSA as the template in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate

Enzymes as biocatalysts with powerful catalytic activities and extreme specificities have been applied in various polymer syntheses, which are considered to be environmentally acceptable processes. In this study, we explored the possibility of using bovine serum albumin (BSA), an innate protein, as the template for the synthesis of conductive polyaniline (PANI) by horseradish peroxidase (HRP), and we found that the denatured BSA effectively promoted the synthesis of conductive PANI in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) based on UV–vis spectrophotometer analysis. Meanwhile, parameters influencing the activity of enzyme and polymerization were investigated, and PANI was characterized by FTIR, TGA, and cyclic voltammetry. Our results demonstrated that the enzymatic synthesized PANI by using uncoiled BSA:SDS as the template presented excellent electrochemical properties through dedoping/doping procedure.     

Prevention Efficiencies of Woven Straw to Reduce PM10 Emissions from Exposed Area

Woven straw has been demonstrated to be a cheap and effective method to prevent fugitive particular matter (PM), which is a typical air pollution source emitted from the exposed area, like farmland or a construction site. From the engineering application point of view, an approach using dimensionless analysis with a multivariable regression method based on experimental data would be worth exploring to predict the prevention efficiencies of woven straw to reduce the fugitive PM10 (PM sized less than 10?μm). A series of field-analogous experiments were carried out to continuously measure PM10 using β-attenuation particle monitors in an artificial wind tunnel system. It was found that the prevention efficiencies of woven straw to reduce PM10 is significantly dependent on the coverage ratio of woven straw, and the maximum prevention efficiency of PM10 is about 42%. It is emphasized that the prevention efficiency approaches zero as the coverage ratio is less than about 40%. This implies that PM10 reduction was inefficient if the exposed area was not covered enough with woven straw. Another point of interest is that total elimination of PM10 emission is not possible using full coverage woven straw. The effects of wind velocity, silt content, and moisture on prevention efficiency are also discussed in this paper. Correlated with major parameters, a useful equation is proposed to estimate the prevention efficiencies that would be valid under the appropriate conditions suggested by this work.     

A 6-F/sup 2/ bit cell design based on one transistor and two uneven magnetic tunnel junctions structure and low power design for MRAM

Novel cell structures based on one transistor and two uneven magnetic tunnel junction cell and pillar write word line architecture are proposed to shrink the bit size with a potential down to 6 F/sup 2/ by a so-called extended via process, and to reduce the writing current by a factor of 2, combined with the nature of nonvolatility and high speed, making the magnetoresistive random access memory suitable for universal memory applications.     

Network management research in ATDNet

The Advanced Technology Demonstration Network (ATDNet) is a major testbed facility established by DARPA and other U.S. government agencies to conduct network and applications research on the next generation of high speed ATM/SONET networks. This article presents the approaches and results of our work in network management on ATDNet. The research addresses different aspects of next-generation systems design, including integrated network management of different technology layers, multitier and multiprotocol architectures, robust distributed computing platforms, and object-oriented technologies. To address these challenges in a practical manner, the authors describe their implementation of a prototype software system developed on a distributed computing platform, discuss how this research addresses the current and evolving needs of ATDNet, and present possible future research directions     

Fiber Bragg grating-based large nonblocking multiwavelengthcross-connects

Multiwavelength cross-connects (WXCs) will play a key role to provide mare reconfiguration flexibility and network survivability in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transport networks. In this paper, we utilize three different fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based P-type, S-type, and N-type building blocks with optical circulators and related control devices for constructing large rearrangeably nonblocking N×N WXCs. The P-type building block is composed of certain “parallel” FBG-element chains plated between the control devices of two large mechanical optical switches (OSWs). The S-type building block consists of a “series” of FBG elements and the control device of 2×2 OSWs. The nonswitched N-type building block includes a “series” of FBG elements with appropriate stepping motor or PZT control devices. All FBG elements, each with central wavelength corresponding to equally or unequally spared WDM channel wavelengths, with high-reflectivity are required. Large N×N WXC structures, with minimum number of required constitutive elements, based on a three-stage Clos network are then constructed. We investigate their relevant characteristics, compare the required constitutive elements, and estimate the dimension limits for these WXC architectures. Other related issues such as capacity expansion, wavelength channel spacing, and multiwavelength amplification are also addressed     

The performance of an adaptive array combining reference signal and steering vector

Using the knowledge of signal arrival direction and the stochastic characteristics of the steering vector and reference signal, the performance of an adaptive array combining reference signal and steering vector algorithms is presented. Expressions for output signal power, interference power, and noise power are obtained to show that the array sensitivity to the random steering vector error is reduced. Computational results of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) as a function of random steering vector error are presented, showing that the sensitivity is reduced.     

Circular Stable Matching and 3-way Kidney Transplant

We consider the following version of the stable matching problem. Suppose that men have preferences for women, women have preferences for dogs, and dogs have preferences for men. The goal is to organize them into family units so that no three of them have incentive to desert their assigned family members to join in a new family. This problem is called circular stable matching, allegedly originated by Knuth. We also investigate a generalized version of this problem, in which every participant has preference among all others. The goal is similarly to partition them into oriented triples so that no three persons have incentive to deviate from the assignment. This problem is motivated by recent innovations in kidney exchange, and we call it the 3-way kidney transplant problem. We report complexity, structural and counting results on these two problems.     

Inter-joint sharing of total support moments in the lower extremities during gait in narrow-heeled shoes of different heights

The study aimed to investigate the influence of the base and height of shoe heels on the total support moment (Ms) and individual joint contributions during gait. Fifteen healthy females walked barefoot and with narrow-heeled shoes (heel heights: 3.9, 6.3 and 7.3 cm) while kinematic and kinetic data were measured. Compared with the barefoot condition, the subjects maintained unaltered Ms in the sagittal plane in shod conditions. This was achieved by increasing the knee extensor moment to compensate for the diminished ankle plantarflexor moments in medium and high heel conditions. In the frontal plane, subjects in shod conditions had to sustain an increased Ms for balance control during late single-leg stance with increased knee abductor and ankle pronator moments as a result of the reduced base of the heels. The results will be helpful for future shoe designs to reduce fall risks and prevent relevant musculoskeletal problems     

Balanced detector interferometric ellipsometer

A novel balanced detector interferometric ellipsometer (BDIE), composed of a polarized common-path optical heterodyne interferometer incorporating a novel balanced detector, provides an amplitude-sensitive method for measurement of the elliptical parameters of a thin film. The requirement for equal amplitude of the polarized heterodyne signals for balanced detection results in the simultaneous measurement of the elliptical parameters in terms of the azimuth angle of a half-wave plate and the output intensity from the differential amplifier, respectively. The common-path feature of BDIE shows a common phase noise rejection mode and this enhances the sensitivity of the phase measurement. At the same time, the balanced detector configuration of BDIE reduces excess noise of laser intensity fluctuation to give better sensitivity during measurement. The error of measurement of BDIE is derived and analyzed. Finally, the elliptical polarization effect of the laser beam is found to be independent of the measurement of the elliptical parameters.