The effects of pressure on the isothermal fluid behavior of bituminous coals

An investigation into the effects of pressure (helium gas) on the isothermal fluid behavior includes: (1) the effect of pressure on the rate of melting and coking as evidenced by the rate constants k(melt) and k(coke); (2) the effect of pressure on the energies of activation of melting and coking; (3) the effects of pressure on the characteristic times; (4) the effects of pressure on the maximum isothermal fluidity. Results from the effects of pressure on k(melt) revealed that it was generally the high total sulfur, low nitrogen, low reactives/mineral matter ratio, medium rank coals which show the greatest increase in k(melt), whereas the highest rank coals show the least decrease in k(coke). The energies of activation of melting and coking were not significantly affected by pressure. The investigation also reveals increases or decreases in the respective times of softening, maximum fluidity, resolidification and total time of fluid behavior under isothermal pressurized conditions. There appears the possibility that these shifts may be rank dependent. Additionally, the lower rank coals show the largest relative increase in their fluidities when subjected to pressure. Empirical relationships were derived in order to quantitatively predict the maximum isothermal fluidity for most (fluid) coals at a given pressure.     

Single- and multiobjective evolutionary optimization assisted by Gaussian random field metamodels

This paper presents and analyzes in detail an efficient search method based on evolutionary algorithms (EA) assisted by local Gaussian random field metamodels (GRFM). It is created for the use in optimization problems with one (or many) computationally expensive evaluation function(s). The role of GRFM is to predict objective function values for new candidate solutions by exploiting information recorded during previous evaluations. Moreover, GRFM are able to provide estimates of the confidence of their predictions. Predictions and their confidence intervals predicted by GRFM are used by the metamodel assisted EA. It selects the promising members in each generation and carries out exact, costly evaluations only for them. The extensive use of the uncertainty information of predictions for screening the candidate solutions makes it possible to significantly reduce the computational cost of singleand multiobjective EA. This is adequately demonstrated in this paper by means of mathematical test cases and a multipoint airfoil design in aerodynamics.     

International Working Group on Assurance Cases (for Security)

Critical systems are aptly named - from electric power to water and gas to the telephone system and the Internet, they're all critical to some aspect of our daily lives. We're a networked society and as such, it's important to both know whether critical systems are trustworthy and be able to communicate, review, and debate the level of trust achieved in them. In the safety domain, explicit safety cases are increasingly required by law, regulations, and standards. In this article, we outline what a small, international group of experts, spanning various disciplines in safety, security, reliability, and critical infrastructure, been doing with the International Working Group on Assurance Cases (for Security), what we hope to achieve, and where we go next.     

Systematic characterization of Cl2 reactive ion etchingfor improved ohmics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

Pre-metal-deposition reactive ion etching (RIE) was performed on an Al_0.3Ga_0.7N/AlN/GaN heterostructure in order to improve the metal-to-semiconductor contact resistance. An optimum AlGaN thickness for minimizing contact resistance was determined. An initial decrease in contact resistance with etching time was explained in terms of removal of an oxide surface layer and/or by an increase in tunnelling current with the decrease of the AlGaN thickness. The presence of a dissimilar surface layer was confirmed by an initial nonuniform etch depth rate. An increase in contact resistance for deeper etches was experienced. The increase was related to depletion of the two-dimensional (2-D) electron gas (2-DEG) under the ohmics. Etch depths were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The contact resistance decreased from about 0.45 Ωmm for unetched ohmics to a minimum of 0.27 Ωmm for 70 Å etched ohmics. The initial thickness of the AlGaN layer was 250 Å. The decrease in contact resistance, without excessive complications on device processing, supports RIE etching as a viable solution to improve ohmic contact resistance in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs