The effects of nonlocal impact ionization on the speed of avalanche photodiodes

The nonlocal enhancement in the velocities of charge carriers to ionization is shown to outweigh the opposing effects of dead space, increasing the avalanche speed of short avalanche photodiodes (APDs) over the predictions of a conventional local model which ignores both of these effects. The trends in the measured gain-bandwidth product of two short InAlAs APDs reported in the literature support this result. Relatively large speed benefits are predicted to result from further small reductions in the lengths of short multiplication regions.     

Mobile Device Security Using Transient Authentication

Mobile devices are vulnerable to theft and loss due to their small size and the characteristics of their common usage environment. Since they allow users to work while away from their desk, they are most useful in public locations and while traveling. Unfortunately, this is also where they are most at risk. Existing schemes for securing data either do not protect the device after it is stolen or require bothersome reauthentication. Transient Authentication lifts the burden of authentication from the user by use of a wearable token that constantly attests to the user's presence. When the user departs, the token and device lose contact and the device secures itself. We show how to leverage this authentication framework to secure all the memory and storage locations on a device into which secrets may creep. Our evaluation shows this is done without inconveniencing the user, while imposing a minimal performance overhead     

Optimised anaerobic treatment of house-sorted biodegradable waste and slaughterhouse waste in a high loaded half technical scale digester.

Anaerobic co-digestion of organic wastes from households, slaughterhouses and meat processing industries was optimised in a half technical scale plant. The plant was operated for 130 days using two different substrates under organic loading rates of 10 and 12 kgCOD.m(-3).d(-1). Since the substrates were rich in fat and protein components (TKN: 12 g.kg(-1) the treatment was challenging. The process was monitored on-line and in the laboratory. It was demonstrated that an intensive and stable co-digestion of partly hydrolysed organic waste and protein rich slaughterhouse waste can be achieved in the balance of inconsistent pH and buffering NH4-N. In the first experimental period the reduction of the substrate COD was almost complete in an overall stable process (COD reduction >82%). In the second period methane productivity increased, but certain intermediate products accumulated constantly. Process design options for a second digestion phase for advanced degradation were investigated. Potential causes for slow and reduced propionic and valeric acid degradation were assessed. Recommendations for full-scale process implementation can be made from the experimental results reported. The highly loaded and stable codigestion of these substrates may be a good technical and economic treatment alternative.     

Analysis of feedback for higher order polarization-mode dispersion mitigation of NRZ 40-Gb/s optical transmission

First-order polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) compensation by means of a polarization controller and a differential delay line is not sufficient to guarantee error-free transmission for 40-Gb/s channels when higher order effects severely increase signal distortion. Higher order mitigation is possible by cascading more than one first-order block. However, only two-stage or three-stage devices remain simple enough to be actually controlled. The performance of such higher order PMD compensators is evaluated by means of numerical simulations. Two different feedback signals have been used, demonstrating that first-order and higher order PMD distortion of nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) pulses at 40 Gb/s can be strongly mitigated for instantaneous values of the differential group delay (DGD) up to the bit slot, when the compensator is properly controlled.     

Search for high-performance probe-fed stacked patches using optimization

High-performance circular probe-fed stacked patch antenna designs are explored through the use of numerical optimization. New trends are sought to aid understanding and to suggest novel solutions. We describe the optimization technique, present a new design trend relating efficiency and bandwidth to the choice of substrate dielectric, and propose and demonstrate a novel, optimized antenna achieving 33% bandwidth whilst maintaining greater than 80% surface wave efficiency.     

End-to-end congestion control schemes: utility functions, random losses and ECN marks

We present a framework for designing end-to-end congestion control schemes in a network where each user may have a different utility function and may experience noncongestion-related losses. We first show that there exists an additive-increase-multiplicative-decrease scheme using only end-to-end measurable losses such that a socially optimal solution can be reached. We incorporate round-trip delay in this model, and show that one can generalize observations regarding TCP-type congestion avoidance to more general window flow control schemes. We then consider explicit congestion notification (ECN) as an alternate mechanism (instead of losses) for signaling congestion and show that ECN marking levels can be designed to nearly eliminate losses in the network by choosing the marking level independently for each node in the network. While the ECN marking level at each node may depend on the number of flows through the node, the appropriate marking level can be estimated using only aggregate flow measurements, i.e., per-flow measurements are not required.     

Miniaturized coplanar waveguide stop band filters based on multiple tuned split ring resonators

A novel compact stop band filter consisting of a 50 /spl Omega/ coplanar waveguide (CPW) with split ring resonators (SRRs) etched in the back side of the substrate is presented. By aligning SRRs with the slots, a high inductive coupling between line and rings is achieved, with the result of a sharp and narrow rejection band in the vicinity of the resonant frequency of the rings. In order to widen the stop band of the filter, several ring pairs tuned at equally spaced frequencies within the desired gap are cascaded. The frequency response measured in the fabricated prototype device exhibits pronounced slopes at either side of the stop band and near 0 dBs insertion loss outside that band. Since SRR dimensions are much smaller than signal wavelength, the proposed filters are extremely compact and can be used to reject frequency parasitics in CPW structures by simply patterning properly tuned SRRs in the back side metal. Additional advantages are easy fabrication and compatibility with MMIC or PCB technology.     

On the capacities of bipartite Hamiltonians and unitary gates

We consider interactions as bidirectional channels. We investigate the capacities for interaction Hamiltonians and nonlocal unitary gates to generate entanglement and transmit classical information. We give analytic expressions for the entanglement generating capacity and entanglement-assisted one-way classical communication capacity of interactions, and show that these quantities are additive, so that the asymptotic capacities equal the corresponding 1-shot capacities. We give general bounds on other capacities, discuss some examples, and conclude with some open questions.     

Bio-layer management in anaerobic membrane bioreactors for wastewater treatment.

Membrane separation technology represents an alternative way to achieve biomass retention in anaerobic bioreactors for wastewater treatment. Due to high biomass concentrations of anaerobic reactors, cake formation is likely to represent a major cause of flux decline. In the presented research, experiments are performed on the effect of biomass concentration and level of gas sparging on the hydraulic capacity of a submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactor. Both parameters significantly affected the hydraulic capacity, with biomass exerting the most pronounced effect. After 50 days of continuous operation the critical flux remained virtually unchanged, despite an increase in membrane resistance, suggesting that biomass characteristics and hydraulic conditions determine the bio-layer formation rather than the membrane's fouling level. The concept of bio-layer management is introduced to describe the programmed combination of actions performed in order to control the formation of biomass layer over membranes.