Kinematic and dynamic synthesis of a parallel kinematic high speed drilling machine

Typically, the term “high speed drilling” is related to spindle capability of high cutting speeds. The suggested high speed drilling machine (HSDM) extends this term to include very fast and accurate point-to-point motions. The new HSDM is composed of a planar parallel mechanism with two linear motors as the inputs. The paper is focused on the kinematic and dynamic synthesis of this parallel kinematic machine (PKM). The kinematic synthesis introduces a new methodology of input motion planning for ideal drilling operation and accurate point-to-point positioning. The dynamic synthesis aims at reducing the input power of the PKM using a spring element.     

Phosphonate-anchored thin films on titanium and niobium oxide surfaces: Fabrication and characterization

Phosphonate-anchored thin films form on various metal oxide substrates. This paper compares structural details of these covalently anchored films on the oxidized surfaces of titanium, niobium and a Ti45Nb alloy. This is made possible by a sample configuration wherein the alkylphosphonates are coated onto a thin film of metal which is sputtered onto a double-side-polished silicon wafer and then oxidized. Samples are flat and reflective and are suitable for ellipsometry, wetting measurements, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, and Fourier Transform Infrared-Attenuated Total Reflectance Spectroscopy. Deposition from heated tetrahydrofuran produces ordered films with measurable differences among deposition protocols and among metal oxide substrates. These substrates enable identification of the mildest deposition procedures that still provide uniform, robust surface coatings.     

Directivity enhanced Raman spectroscopy using nanoantennas

Directing the emission from optical emitters is highly desired for efficient detection and, by reciprocity, efficient excitation as well. As a scattering process, Raman benefits from directivity enhancements in both excitation and emission. Here we demonstrate directivity enhanced Raman scattering (DERS) using a nanoantenna fabricated by focused ion beam milling. The nanoantenna uses a resonant ring-reflector to shape the emitted beam and achieve DERS-this configuration is most similar to a waveguide antenna. The ring reflector boosts the measured Raman signal by a factor of 5.5 (as compared to the ground plane alone), and these findings are in quantitative agreement with comprehensive numerical simulations. The present design is nearly optimal in the sense that almost all the beam power is coupled into the numerical aperture of the microscope. Furthermore, the emission is directed out of the plane, so that this design can be used to achieve DERS using conventional Raman microscopes, which has yet to be achieved with Yagi-Uda and traveling wave antenna designs.     

On-chip surface-based detection with nanohole arrays

A microfluidic device with integrated surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chemical and biological sensors based on arrays of nanoholes in gold films is demonstrated. Widespread use of SPR for surface analysis in laboratories has not translated to microfluidic analytical chip platforms, in part due to challenges associated with scaling down the optics and the surface area required for common reflection mode operation. The resonant enhancement of light transmission through subwavelength apertures in a metallic film suggests the use of nanohole arrays as miniaturized SPR-based sensing elements. The device presented here takes advantage of the unique properties of nanohole arrays: surface-based sensitivity; transmission mode operation; a relatively small footprint; and repeatability. Proof-of-concept measurements performed on-chip indicated a response to small changes in refractive index at the array surfaces. A sensitivity of 333 nm per refractive index unit was demonstrated with the integrated device. The device was also applied to detect spatial microfluidic concentration gradients and to monitor a biochemical affinity process involving the biotin-streptavidin system. Results indicate the efficacy of nanohole arrays as surface plasmon-based sensing elements in a microfluidic platform, adding unique surface-sensitive diagnostic capabilities to the existing suite of microfluidic-based analytical tools.     

Composition and electrical characteristics of Al2O3-HfO2-HfTiO nanolaminates on Si

A dielectric constant of 27 was demonstrated in the as deposited state of a 5 nm thick, seven layer nanolaminate stack comprising Al₂O₃, HfO₂ and HfTiO. It reduces to an effective dielectric constant (k_eff) of ∼14 due to a ∼0.8 nm interfacial layer. This results in a quantum mechanical effective oxide thickness (EOT) of ∼1.15 nm. After annealing at 950 °C in an oxygen atmosphere k_eff reduces to ∼10 and EOT increases to 1.91 nm. A small leakage current density of about 8 × 10⁻⁷ and 1 × 10⁻⁴ A/cm², respectively at electric field 2 and 5 MV/cm and a breakdown electric field of about 11.5 MV/cm was achieved after annealing at 950 °C.     

Entropy/length profiles, bounds on the minimal covering ofbipartite graphs, and trellis complexity of nonlinear codes

The trellis representation of nonlinear codes is studied from a new perspective. We introduce the new concept of entropy/length profile (ELP). This profile can be considered as an extension of the dimension/length profile (DLP) to nonlinear codes. This elaboration of the DLP, the entropy/length profiles, appears to be suitable to the analysis of nonlinear codes. Additionally and independently, we use well-known information-theoretic measures to derive novel bounds on the minimal covering of a bipartite graph by complete subgraphs. We use these bounds in conjunction with the ELP notion to derive both lower and upper bounds on the state complexity and branch complexity profiles of (nonlinear) block codes represented by any trellis diagram. We lay down no restrictions on the trellis structure, and we do not confine the scope of our results to proper or one-to-one trellises only. The basic lower bound on the state complexity profile implies that the state complexity at any given level cannot be smaller than the mutual information between the past and the future portions of the code at this level under a uniform distribution of the codewords. We also devise a different probabilistic model to prove that the minimum achievable state complexity over all possible trellises is not larger than the maximum value of the above mutual information over all possible probability distributions of the codewords. This approach is pursued further to derive similar bounds on the branch complexity profile. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed upper bounds are the only upper bounds that address nonlinear codes. The novel lower bounds are tighter than the existing bounds. The new quantities and bounds reduce to well-known results when applied to linear codes     

Handover in a micro-cell packet switched mobile network

This paper proposes a distributed handover protocol for a micro-cell packet switched mobile network. In such a network, users move from one cell to another very often, and each change of location may result in misrouted and lost packets. The purpose of the new protocol is to minimize these consequences of location changes: as long as a mobile moves from one cell to another but stays in the same region, the protocol avoids loss of packets and preserves order of transmission. Thus it increases the performance of the transport layer protocol by minimizing the need to retransmit packets.Previous version of the paper appreared in Infocom '95, April 1995, Boston, MA.     

A unified scheme for generalizing cardinality estimators to sum aggregation

Cardinality estimation algorithms receive a stream of elements that may appear in arbitrary order, with possible repetitions, and return the number of distinct elements. Such algorithms usually seek to minimize the required storage at the price of inaccuracy in their output. This paper shows how to generalize every cardinality estimation algorithm that relies on extreme order statistics (min/max sketches) to a weighted version, where each item is associated with a weight and the goal is to estimate the total sum of weights. The proposed unified scheme uses the unweighted estimator as a black-box, and manipulates the input using properties of the beta distribution.     

Joint Monitoring and Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Robust Identifying Codes

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide an important means of monitoring the physical world, but their limitations present challenges to fundamental network services such as routing. In this work we utilize an abstraction of WSNs based on the theory of identifying codes. This abstraction has been useful in recent literature for a number of important monitoring problems, such as localization and contamination detection. In our case, we use it to provide a joint infrastructure for efficient and robust monitoring and routing in WSNs. Specifically, we make use of efficient and distributed algorithm for generating robust identifying codes, an NP-hard problem, with a logarithmic performance guarantee based on a reduction to the set k-multicover problem. We also show how this same identifying-code infrastructure provides a natural labeling that can be used for near-optimal routing with very small routing tables. We provide experimental results for various topologies that illustrate the superior performance of our approximation algorithms over previous identifying code heuristics.     

Direct position determination of cyclostationary signals

Direct position determination (DPD) was recently proposed as a new method for passive localization of narrowband radio transmitters. Its superior performance, especially in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, is ascribed to both the joint optimization it performs over all base stations that participate in the estimation process and the direct determination of the emitter position as opposed to conventional methods which typically process the information from the individual base stations separately and determine the location using two estimation steps.In this paper, we introduce the cyclic direct position determination (CDPD) algorithm, a novel method which is the cyclostationary counterpart of the DPD. Despite its name, the CDPD is not a simple extension of the DPD but a unique algorithm which deviates substantially from its ancestor. Yet, the CDPD enjoys both the benefits of the DPD algorithm and the great performance robustness in the presence of narrowband interferences thanks to its cyclostationarity exploitation.