A dispatching method for automated lifting vehicles in automated port container terminals

In automated container terminals, containers are transported from the marshalling yard to a ship and vice versa by automated vehicles. The automated vehicle type studied in this paper is an automated lifting vehicle (ALV) that is capable of lifting a container from the ground by itself. This study discusses how to dispatch ALVs by utilizing information about pickup and delivery locations and time in future delivery tasks. A mixed-integer programming model is provided for assigning optimal delivery tasks to ALVs. A procedure for converting buffer constraints into time window constraints and a heuristic algorithm for overcoming the excessive computational time required for solving the mathematical model are suggested. Numerical experiments are reported to compare the objective values and computational times by a heuristic algorithm with those by an optimizing method and to analyze the effects of dual cycle operation, number of ALVs, and buffer capacity on the performance of ALVs.     

Collimating diode laser beams from a large-area VCSEL-array usingmicrolens array

In this letter, we demonstrate the fabrication and bonding of a 1 cm×1 cm monolithic two dimensional (2D) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array. We coupled the array to a matched microlens array to individually collimate light from each laser. We found the beam divergence of the collimated array to be 1.6° (1/e2) for the entire array. Using a 1-cm diameter F2 lens, we were able to focus the collimated beams to a spot of 400 μm in diameter and to couple more than 75% of the array power into a 1-mm core fiber. Our results show that it is possible to uniformly bond large area VCSEL arrays to heat sinks, and to collimate light from each element into parallel beams using a single 2-D microlens array. Our results also show that the brightness of the focused beam can be further increased with a lens to near 10⁵-W/cm² Steradian, a level that is useful for many high-power applications     

Comportement électrocatalytique vis à vis de la réduction d'oxygène des oxydes mixtes AxByMn3−(x+y)O4

Résumé Les résultats expérimentaux présentés dans cette étude et ceux publiés précédemment montrent que l'électroréduction de l'oxygène se fait dans les sites actifs formés par des ions Mn⁴⁺, et que ceux de Mn³⁺ assurent le transport des électrons au sein du solide.

---

From the results obtained in this study and those presented in previous publications, it can be deduced that the electroreduction of oxygen occurs via electron transfers at active sites created by Mn⁴⁺ ions and that Mn³⁺ ions contribute to the transport of the electrons through the bulk of the electrocatalysts.

---

---

Certains de ces résultats ont fait l'object d'une communication enPoster à la réunion I.S.E. à Varna, Septembre 1977.

---

A=Zn, Cr, Al;B = Ni, Cu; et 0 x,y 1.     

Parameters extraction of hafnium based gate oxide capacitors

From quantum simulations of both capacitance and current measurements, the main physical parameters (dielectric thickness and permittivity, doping levels) of hafnium based (HfSiO_x and HfO₂) gate oxide capacitors have been extracted. Three kinds of gates (n⁺-polysilicon, totally silicided (TOSI) NiSi and metal TiN gates) have been studied. In the case of thick (EOT between 11.1 and 12.3 nm) HfSiO_x gate oxides or thin (EOT inferior to 2 nm) HfO₂ stacks with n⁺-polysilicon or TiN gates, a good agreement between simulations and experimental data is obtained. Electron tunneling currents are prevalent in these stacks except for the specific case of TiN/HfO₂ stacks in p-substrate accumulation mode. In this case, electron and hole tunneling transparencies become of the same order of magnitude. Hole transport contribution can no more be neglected and should be taken into account in simulations.     

Exploiting Temporal Relations in Mining Hepatitis Data

Various data mining methods have been developed last few years for hepatitis study using a large temporal and relational database given to the research community. In this work we introduce a novel temporal abstraction method to this study by detecting and exploiting temporal patterns and relations between events in viral hepatitis such as “event A slightly happened before event B and B simultaneously ended with event C”. We developed algorithms to first detect significant temporal patterns in temporal sequences and then to identify temporal relations between these temporal patterns. Many findings by data mining methods applied to transactions/graphs of temporal relations shown to be significant by physician evaluation and matching with published in Medline.     

Evolvable hardware techniques for on-chip automated reconfiguration of programmable devices

While complete automated design is a harder problem than computer-assisted design, automated hardware reconfiguration is an even more challenging problem, because it needs to adjust to limited resources and various factors, such as noise and parasitic capacitance, a resistance and inductance. This paper presents some experimental results of on-chip automated design and reconfiguration using evolvable hardware techniques. It describes a stand-alone board level evolvable system, and its use to demonstrate on-chip synthesis of new circuits in only a few seconds. The experiments presented here indicate a recovery capability in the case of extreme environmental conditions, such as extreme temperatures, that adversely affect electronics. Some of the difficulties of dealing with the real hardware are exposed, as well as challenges more generally related to automated evolution of complex electronic systems.The work described in this paper was performed at the Center for Integrated Space Microsystems, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.     

Performance evaluation of priority CSMA-CA mechanism on ISA100.11a wireless network

The International Society of Automation recently released ISA100.11a as an open standard for reliable wireless networks for industrial automation. ISA100.11a uses the TDMA scheme in the medium access layer to provide deterministic services. However, ISA100.11a adopts the CSMA-CA mechanism with priorities for retransmission from failure on dedicated links, sporadic data, and network configuration.This paper evaluates ISA100.11a CSMA-CA by simulation, considering the effects of backoff procedures and priority settings to probability of collision and successful use of slots. It's demonstrated that a high number of priority classes enable better network utilization resulting in less number of packets exceeding their lifetime.     

Survival in neonatal biventricular repair of left-sided cardiac obstructive lesions associated with hypoplastic left ventricle

Patients with left ventricular hypoplasia and left-sided heart obstructive lesions other than critical aortic stenosis may be inappropriately subjected to single ventricular repair because their assessment is based on faulty qualitative evaluations or on quantitative methods developed for critical aortic stenosis. Patients with left ventricular hypoplasia and left-sided heart obstructions other than critical aortic stenosis successfully underwent biventricular repair despite "failing" to pass established criteria for critical aortic stenosis.     

Algorithm for the extraction of page-formatted binary digital data

We present an algorithm for fast and reliable extraction of page-formatted binary digital data. The advantages of the algorithm include a low raw bit-error rate, fast extraction speed, the use of a simple and density-efficient coding scheme, and large tolerance to a change of the signal-to-noise ratio. We used this algorithm to analyze shot-noise-limited binary data that had large interpage and intrapage intensity variations and obtained an improvement in the bit-error rate of 3-4 orders of magnitude compared with that in a single-threshold-detection scheme. Implications of our results for the development of high-speed, high-density holographic memories are discussed.