Defect Structure of Cobalt Monoxide: III, The Cluster Model

The 4:1 cluster model has been considered and its application to the available experimental data for the deviation from stoichiometry, electrical conductivity, and the Seebeck coefticient has been analyzed. It has been shown that the degree of ionization of the cluster is −5. The equilibrium constant of formation is K ₅= [( V _Co)Co _i ]⁵⁻[h^˙]⁵ p _O2^3/2= 4.6 exp[−167.5 (kJ)/ RT ]. It has been shown that the applicability of this model in describing CoO properties is limited to higher values of the deviation from the stoichiometric composition (y). At low y , defects in CoO can be considered as isolated. Then doubly ionized cobalt vacancies are assumed to be the predominant lattice defects. Their equilibrium constant of formation, determined from experimental data in the vicinity of the Co/CoO phase boundary by using an ideal approximation, is K _V = [ V ⁿ _Co][h^˙]² p _o2^−1/2= 3.2 × 10⁻⁴ exp[−121.1 (kJ)/ RT ]. Excellent agreement between the equilibrium constant K _V determined for low p _{O 2} and that resulting from the Debye Hückel model within the entire range of y has been found.     

Doubly functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes with enhanced solubility

Doubly functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been produced by oxidation in concentrated nitric acid and subsequent treatment with lauoroyl peroxide. MWCNTs containing both carboxyl and alkyl functional groups show enhanced solubility in a wide range of polar and nonpolar solvents and epoxy resin.     

Fast and accurate thermal modeling and simulation of manycore processors and workloads

Today's microprocessors require careful analysis of their thermal behavior both at design time as well as at runtime. However, accurate prediction of thermal behavior is possible only through simulations due to the complexity and the high dynamicity of their operation. Unfortunately, accurate simulations of such complex systems are computationally intensive, therefore time consuming, while on the other hand, simplified models often cause mispredictions leading to overdesign and lowered performance. In our work, we propose a new discrete-time method of assessment of the run-time temperature of a processor based on an approximation of its instructions-per-cycle (IPC) by a finite Fourier series expansion. Our method is AC-based, and shows significant increase of accuracy in comparison to well-known DC (average)-based models. Furthermore, we provide a new Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) model based on our estimations.     

Videopsy: dissecting visual data in space-time

Network camera, made possible by recent advances in the integration of sensing, compression, and communication hardware, is a new video source that can be easily deployed and remotely managed. Unobtrusively located along highways, at airports, or in office buildings, such cameras can form a visual sensor network, or camera web, an extremely rich source of visual information. In its infancy today, camera web deployment will likely accelerate in the future and one can expect visual sensing devices to eventually become as ubiquitous as electric bulbs. While the capturing hardware has evolved tremendously, hardware and algorithms necessary for effective analysis and efficient communication of multi-camera data clearly lag. In this article, I overview one particular aspect of visual data analysis, namely, space-time video segmentation that is often a pre-requisite for motion estimation, video compression, event detection, scene understanding, etc. I introduce the concept of object tunnel, a 3-D surface in space-time through which a video object travels, and the associated concept of occlusion volume. I present examples of object tunnels and occlusion volumes on surveillance data that, upon further processing, may lead to automatic event detection or scene understanding. Finally, I describe challenges in extending video analysis algorithms to visual sensor networks, and I outline some possible approaches     

Use of nano-scale double-gate MOSFETs in low-power tunable current mode analog circuits

Use of independently-driven nano-scale double gate (DG) MOSFETs for low-power analog circuits is emphasized and illustrated. In independent drive configuration, the top gate response of DG-MOSFETs can be altered by application of a control voltage on the bottom gate. We show that this could be a powerful method to conveniently tune the response of conventional CMOS analog circuits especially for current-mode design. Several examples of such circuits, including current mirrors, a differential current amplifier and differential integrators are illustrated and their performance gauged using TCAD simulations. The topologies and biasing schemes explored here show how the nano-scale DG-MOSFETs may pave way for efficient, mismatch-tolerant and smaller circuits with tunable characteristics.     

Analysis of the Transient State in a Series Circuit of the Class $$RL_{\beta }C_{\alpha }$$

Results of analysis of transient states in a series circuit of the class \({RL}_{\beta }{C}_{\alpha }\), supplied by an ideal voltage source, have been described in the paper. This circuit consists of a coil \({L}_{\beta }\) and a supercapacitor \({C}_{\alpha }\) described by fractional-order differential equations. A method for determining the current and voltage waveforms in the analyzed circuit, based on the decomposition of rational functions into partial fractions, has been described. This method allows to determine transient waveform shapes in the system for any kind of voltage excitation. Two cases of the problem solutions have been considered. The first case concerns a situation where poles of rational functions are real, and the second where rational functions have complex poles. Effective relations enabling the determination of transient waveforms in a closed form have been given. Analytical formulae describing transient state waveforms in the system for different types of voltage excitations: constant, monoharmonic, periodic and arbitrary being an element of a Hilbert space, have been determined, too. The obtained results have been illustrated by an example.     

Intelligent Mobile System for Improving Spatial Design Support and Security Inside Buildings

This paper concerns the an intelligent mobile application for spatial design support and security domain. Mobility has two aspects in our research: The first one is the usage of mobile robots for 3D mapping of urban areas and for performing some specific tasks. The second mobility aspect is related with a novel Software as a Service system that allows access to robotic functionalities and data over the Ethernet, thus we demonstrate the use of the novel NVIDIA GRID technology allowing to virtualize the graphic processing unit. We introduce Complex Shape Histogram, a core component of our artificial intelligence engine, used for classifying 3D point clouds with a Support Vector Machine. We use Complex Shape Histograms also for loop closing detection in the simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm. Our intelligent mobile system is built on top of the Qualitative Spatio-Temporal Representation and Reasoning framework. This framework defines an ontology and a semantic model, which are used for building the intelligent mobile user interfaces. We show experiments demonstrating advantages of our approach. In addition, we test our prototypes in the field after the end-user case studies demonstrating a relevant contribution for future intelligent mobile systems that merge mobile robots with novel data centers.     

Estimation and compensation of accelerated motion for temporal sequence interpolation

This paper makes two contributions to the area of motion-compensated processing of image sequences. First contribution is the development of a framework for the modeling and estimation of dense 2-D motion trajectories with acceleration. Therefore, Gibbs-Markov models are proposed and linked together by the maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) criterion, and the resulting objective function is minimized using multiresolution deterministic relaxation. Accuracy of the method is demonstrated by measuring the mean-squared error of estimated motion parameters for images with synthetic motion. Second contribution is the demonstration of a significant gain resulting from the use of trajectories with acceleration in motion-compensated temporal interpolation of videoconferencing/videophone images. An even higher gain is demonstrated when the accelerated motion trajectory model is augmented with occlusion and motion discontinuity models. The very good performance of the method suggests a potential application of the proposed framework in the next generation of video coding algorithms.     

A unified algorithm of reliability estimation of k-out-of-n systems implied by the structure function

A new algebraic form of the structure function of a system will be proposed and its significant properties will be proved. The usefulness of these results in construction of algorithms of reliability estimation will be presented.The general approach to the desig of the algorithms of reliability estimation for both k-out-of-n and consecutive k-out-of-n systems will be presented. The method of the estimation of the lower and/or upper bound of system failure rate will be also discussed.The appropriate program in PASCAL will be given.