Doping Effects on Thermoelectric Properties in the Mg2Sn System

A weak point of Mg₂X thermoelectrics is the absence of a p-type composition, which motivates research into the Mg₂Sn system. Mg₂Sn thermoelectrics were fabricated by a vacuum melting method and a spark plasma sintering process. As a result, Mg₂Sn single phases were acquired in a wide range of Mg-to-Sn atomic ratios (67:33 to 71:29), showing slightly different thermoelectric characteristics. However, the thermoelectric properties of the undoped system were not sufficient for application in commercial production. To maximize the p-type characteristics, many atoms [Ni (VIIIA), Cu (IB), Ag (IB), Zn (IIB), and In (IIIB)] were doped into the Mg₂Sn phase. Among them, the power factor values increased only in the Ag-doped case. Ag-doping resulted in a power factor that was more than 10 times larger than the value in the undoped case. This result could be important for developing p-type polycrystalline thermoelectrics in the Mg₂X (X?=?Si, Sn) system. However, other atoms [Ni (VIIIA), Cu (IB), Zn (IIB), and In (IIIB)] were not determined to act as acceptor atoms. The maximum ZT value for the Ag-doped Mg₂Sn thermoelectric was more than 0.18, which is comparable to the value for the n-type Mg₂Si system.     

An Efficient Evolution Method From TDM-PON to Next-Generation PON

An efficient evolution method from a time-division-multiplexing passive optical network (TDM-PON) is proposed and demonstrated for a next-generation PON. A single-type three-port wavelength band combiner/splitter enables a simple and efficient evolution of TDM-PON maintaining the current PON infrastructure and wavelength plan. The crosstalk between the TDM-PON and next-generation PON is negligibly small     

Impact of node distance on selfish replica allocation in a mobile ad-hoc network

Many data replication techniques have been proposed to minimize performance degradation caused by network partitioning in a mobile ad-hoc network. Most of them assume that all mobile nodes collaborate fully in terms of sharing their memory space. However, in reality, some nodes may selfishly decide to only cooperate partially, or not at all, with other nodes. Recently, a new approach to selfish replica allocation has been proposed to handle node selfishness. However, there is still much room for improvement. We empirically observe that the previous selfish replica allocation strategy suffers from long query delay and poor data accessibility, because it utilizes only non-selfish nodes that may be faraway nodes. In this paper, we propose a novel replica allocation strategy in the presence of selfish nodes, that takes into account both selfish behavior and node distance. Moreover, through a novel node leveling technique, we utilize the memory space of all connected nodes, including selfish nodes. The conducted simulations demonstrate that the proposed strategy outperforms existing replica allocation techniques in terms of data accessibility, query delay, and communication cost.     

Fabrication of micro heaters on polycrystalline 3C-SiC suspended membranes for gas sensors and their characteristics

This paper describes the design, fabrication, and characteristics of micro heaters mad on AlN (0.1 μm)/3C-SiC (1 μm) suspended membranes using surface micromachining technology. 3C-SiC and AlN thin films, which have a large energy band gap and very low lattice mismatch, were used for high-temperature environments. A Pt thin film was used as micro heaters and temperature sensor materials. The resistance of the temperature detector (RTD) and the power consumption of the micro heater were measured and calculated. The heater is designed for an operating temperature up to about 800 °C and can be operated at about 500 °C with a power of 312 mW. The thermal coefficient of the resistance (TCR) of fabricated Pt RTD’s is 3174.64 ppm/°C. The thermal distribution measured by IR thermovision is uniform across the membrane surface.     

Near-Field and Far-Field Analyses of Alternating Impedance Electromagnetic Bandgap (AI-EBG) Structure for Mixed-Signal Applications

This paper presents near-field (NF) and far-field (FF) analysis of alternating impedance electromagnetic bandgap (AI-EBG) structure in packages and boards. Three test vehicles have been designed and fabricated for NF and FF measurements. Simulation results using a full-wave solver (SONNET) have been compared with measurement results. This paper investigates the radiation due to return current on different reference planes. The analysis results from simulations and measurements provide important guidelines for design of the AI-EBG structure based power distribution network for noise isolation and suppression in mixed-signal systems     

A Multi‐Strategic Concept‐Spotting Approach for Robust Understanding of Spoken Korean

We propose a multi‐strategic concept‐spotting approach for robust spoken language understanding of conversational Korean in a hostile recognition environment such as in‐car navigation and telebanking services. Our concept‐spotting method adopts a partial semantic understanding strategy within a given specific domain since the method tries to directly extract pre‐defined meaning representation slot values from spoken language inputs. In spite of partial understanding, we can efficiently acquire the necessary information to compose interesting applications because the meaning representation slots are properly designed for specific domain‐oriented understanding tasks. We also propose a multi‐strategic method based on this concept‐spotting approach such as a voting method. We present experiments conducted to verify the feasibility of these methods using a variety of spoken Korean data.     

柔性有源OLED显示器制造几点技术方面的考虑

AMOLED在柔性显示领域前途似锦。LG显示展示了一款全彩4in柔性AMOLED样机,衬底为80μm厚的不锈钢薄片,曲率达到5cm弯曲半径。本文就此项柔性显示技术所面临的挑战进行了探讨．包括柔性衬底衬底的传送、如何获得特性稳定可靠的TFT以使OLED的亮度和一致性适用于此项技术的商业化推广。     

Signaling and Control Procedures Using Generalized MPLS Protocol for IP over an Optical Network

This paper reviews the existing research activities on signaling and control procedures for IP over optical networks. We focus on the IP‐centric signaling and control architecture based on the generalized multi‐protocol label switching (GMPLS) protocol and analyze various scenarios and technical issues for deploying the IP over an optical network. We analyze the signaling and operations and administration and maintenance requirements for integrating an IP network and an optical network in order to cope with the high bandwidth and poor resource granularity of the optical network, including the optical cross‐connect system. On the basis of network architecture and a reference configuration model, we investigate the GMPLS‐based control architecture and interconnection model appropriate for controlling IP bandwidth and optical lambda resources. The signaling and control procedure based on GMPLS on optical user‐network interface and network‐network interface are comparatively investigated to provide the optical lightpath. We also study protection and restoration procedures to protect link failure when it applies to GMPLS signaling.     

Profit Aware Circuit Design Under Process Variations Considering Speed Binning

In this paper, a profit-aware design metric is proposed to consider the overall merit of a design in terms of power and performance. A statistical design methodology is then developed to improve the economic merit of a design considering frequency binning and product price profile. A low-complexity sensitivity-based gate sizing algorithm is developed to improve economic gain of a design over its initial yield-optimized design. Finally, we present an integrated design methodology for simultaneous sizing and bin boundary determination to enhance profit under an area constraint. Experiments on a set of ISCAS'85 benchmarks show in average 19% improvement in profit for simultaneous sizing and bin boundary determination, considering both leakage power dissipation and delay bounds compared to a design initially optimized for 90% yield at iso-area in 70-nm bulk CMOS technology.     

A Liquid Metal Based Multimodal Sensor and Haptic Feedback Device for Thermal and Tactile Sensation Generation in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) has been widely used for training, gaming, and entertainment, and the value of VR is continually increasing as a contact-free technology. For an immersive VR experience, measuring finger movements and providing appropriate feedback to the hand are as important as visual information, given the necessity of the hands for activities in daily life. Thus, a hand-worn VR device with motion sensors and haptic feedback is desirable. In this paper, a multimodal sensing and feedback glove is developed with soft, stretchable, lightweight, and compact sensor and heater sheets manufactured by direct ink writing (DIW) of liquid metal, eutectic gallium-indium (eGaIn). In the sensor sheet, ten sensors and three vibrators are embedded to measure finger movements and provide vibro-haptic feedback. The other heater sheet provides thermo-haptic sensation in accurate and rapid manner via model-based feedback control even under stretched conditions. The multimodal sensing and feedback glove allows users to feel the contact status and discriminate materials with different temperature. Performance of the proposed multimodal glove is verified under VR environments including touching and pushing two blocks of different materials and grabbing a heated metal ball submerged in hot water.