Reliability performance of safety instrumented systems: A common approach for both low- and high-demand mode of operation

Safety instrumented systems (SISs) are usually divided into two modes of operation, low-demand and high-demand. Unfortunately, this classification is not easy to justify and the available formulas that are used to quantify the reliability performance in these two modes of operation are unable to capture combined effects of functional testing, spurious activations, and successful responses to demands. This article discusses some important modeling issues for SIS reliability performance quantification, and demonstrates their implementation in a Markov model. The accuracy of the Markov model for a simple case study of a pressure transmitter is verified through comparison with a scenario-based formula, and it is shown that the Markov approach gives a sufficiently accurate result for all demand rates, covering both low- and high-demand modes of operation.     

采用单独碳化室压力调节系统减少焦炉排放

PROven(R)系统的开发为了减少焦炉的排放,过去已进行了多种技术的开发.但是从焦炉炉门、装料孔边缘等处逸散物的减少,已受到工艺技术的制约.一个基本的制约因素是,在集气总管内的压力和联接到总管的所有碳化室内的压力之间有着密不可分的关系.     

Effective electrode configuration for selective stimulation with inner eye prostheses

The quality of visual perception with retinal prostheses strongly depends on the local selectivity. Electrode arrays at the surface of the retina should excite exclusively cells within a local area but they are expected to co-stimulate bypassing axons originating from ganglion cells of the outer regions. Long electrodes parallel to these axons are shown to be good candidates for avoiding the co-stimulation phenomenon. Efficiency of focal excitation depends on the length and resistance of the electrodes.     

斜坡电流测试应用与比较方法研究

讨论了斜坡电流测试的相关参数如电流斜坡速率、步长及电流倍增速率对测试结果击穿电荷具有的严重影响。指出斜坡电流测试中各个参数的设定、影响及其相关性,使斜坡电流测试的结果具有可比较性。同时,讨论了由于斜坡电流测试本身的特性,击穿电荷具有非连续性,针对击穿电荷的非连续性,提供了一种统计上的数据处理方法,并且根据工程上不同的定性比较结果提供了不同的统计比较方法,可以对非连续的斜坡电流测试结果进行定量的统计比较。在产品验证或生产线出现异常时,能够进行统计上的比较,给出定量的结果。据此能对生产线的稳定性或异常事件对产品的影响给出明确的结论,为受影响的产品的处置提供定量的数据支持。这是首次对斜坡电流测试数据的统计定量分析。     

低成本手机市场将取得爆炸式增长

目前,低成本手机数量不断增多,市场份额越来越大,比高端手机更受欢迎。研究表明,未来三年,低成本手机市场还将持续增长,这将是无线产业最主要的发展趋势之一,已经并将继续为无线手机制造商、服务供应商及芯片设计商带来金融、市场、战略和技术领域的重大变革与挑战。     

Phase Equilibria of BaO-R2O3-CuO z Systems (R = Y and Lanthanides) under CO2-free Conditions

For applications ranging from phase equilibria to the processing of second-generation high T _c superconductor-coated-conductors, phase diagrams constructed under carbonate-free conditions are needed. Subsolidus phase equilibria of BaO-R₂O₃-CuO _z (R = Ho) have been investigated at (810°C), 21 kPa (875°C) and 0.1 MPa (850 and 930°C) by applying controlled atmosphere methods to minimize the presence of carbonate and CO₂ and H₂O contamination. Under carbonate-free conditions, most of these phase diagrams are different from those reported in the literature. In this paper, we also review and compare the phase diagrams of ten BaO-R₂O₃-CuO _z systems (R = Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Y, Ho, Er, Tm and Yb) that were previously determined in this laboratory under Among these diagrams, a distinct trend of phase formation and tie-line relationships is observed.     

Failure criteria of flip chip joints during accelerated testing

The criteria used to determine electrical failure was explored during accelerated testing of underfilled flip chip joints as a function of both different thermal cycling conditions and different sampling methods. The criteria was based on resistance measurements of daisy-chained solder joints monitored in situ and by endpointing. The sensitivity of the resistance criteria was found to depend strongly on test conditions and often could not be categorized into simple pass/fail groupings. Also, extremely small resistance changes were measured for joints with through-cracks generated by fatigue. Experimental error associated with fixing the cycles to failure was minimized by monitoring the absolute changes in resistance as a function of cycling time while simultaneously measuring the temperature dependence of resistance as the joints degrade. Failure times derived from interval part monitoring closely approximated in situ monitoring, but the resistance measurements for mild cycling conditions required a high degree of accuracy. Finally, a tunneling model is proposed to explain the resistance behavior of cracked joints.     

Range extension cooperative MAC to attack energy hole in duty-cycled multi-hop WSNs

Effective techniques for extending lifetime in multi-hop wireless sensor networks include duty cycling and, more recently introduced, cooperative transmission (CT) range extension. However, a scalable MAC protocol has not been presented that combines both. An On-demand Scheduling Cooperative MAC protocol (OSC-MAC) is proposed to address the energy hole problem in multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs). By combining an on-demand strategy and sensor cooperation intended to extend range, OSC-MAC tackles the spatio-temporal challenges for performing CT in multi-hop WSNs: cooperating nodes are neither on the same duty cycle nor are they necessarily in the same collision domain. We use orthogonal and pipelined duty-cycle scheduling, in part to reduce traffic contention, and devise a reservation-based wake-up scheme to bring cooperating nodes into temporary synchrony to support CT range extension. The efficacy of OSC-MAC is demonstrated using extensive NS-2 simulations for different network scenarios without and with mobility. Compared with existing MAC protocols, simulation results show that while we explicitly account for the overhead of CT and practical failures of control packets in dense traffic, OSC-MAC still gives 80–200 % lifetime improvement.     

Quantitative analysis of the fine vascular anatomy of articularligaments

An image analysis technique has been developed to quantitatively describe the fine vascular patterns observed in ligament tissue. The longitudinal orientational distribution and total vessel volume of India-ink-perfused blood vessel segments in normal and healing ligaments were determined. The methods involved special vascular preparation of adult rabbit knee medial collateral ligaments (MCL) by India-ink perfusion. Black and white microscope images of ink-perfused tissue sections were subjected to a thresholding procedure to binarize digitized ligament images, which were then skeletonized and analyzed for directional distribution based on the least-squares technique. Analysis of medial collateral ligaments in New Zealand White rabbits using this method has shown that scarred tissue is more vascular and has a more chaotic angular distribution of blood-vessel segments than normal ligament tissue.