Comments on “A new method of switching surface design formultivariable variable structure system”

This note points out some errors in the above paper (Lee and Zu, ibid., vol. 39, no. 2, p. 414-19, 1994). It is argued that the proof in the main theorem is not mathematically rigorous. The control scheme requires the derivative of the sliding variable to be available, which is equivalent to saying that the uncertainties of the system are measurable. This is highly impractical if not impossible to implement. The theorem also says that the proposed new switching surface and control scheme can guarantee robustness of the system from initial time to final time. This is also incorrect because the theorem only shows that the sliding variable tends to zero approximately, i.e., the sliding motion only occurs approximately at t=∞. The paper also contains several misprints     

Ion-cleaning damage in (100) GaAs,and its effect on schottky diodes

This study investigates the effect of ion cleaning damage of (100) GaAs in the 100–1000 eV range, and also its recovery with thermal annealing to 400°C. It is shown that GaAs could be annealed to a considerable extent if the ion-damage was ? 100 eV. However, full recovery was not achieved. On the other hand, samples damaged at ? 400 eV became progressively worse with annealing. Measurements indicate that these samples are dominated by the effect of arsenic variances within the bulk. These remain in the bulk, but are distributed spatially upon annealing. They behave as deep donors, so that the net electron concentration in the bulk is enhanced. Aluminum-n GaAs Schottky diodes were used as a vehicle for this study.     

Thin layer chromatographic determination of sterigmatocystin in cereal grains and soybeans

A method has been developed for determining sterigmatocystin in yellow and white corn, barley, oats, rye, sorghum, brown and wild rice, and soybeans. A partition column packed with activated magnesium silicate was used for cleanup. Averaged recoveries are 104% in white corn, 114% in rye, 100% in oats, 134% in brown rice, 96% in barley, 105% in sorghum and wild rice, and 92% in soybeans. The limit of sensitivity is 50 mug/kg for any of these commodities.     

Advances in Digital Radio Systems

This paper examines the analog methods presently used in carrying digital signal via the terrestrial microwave radio relay systems. It then summarized the state of the art of two proposed digital radio systems, operating above and below 10 GHz. It also highlights some of the problem areas yet to be solved, with particular emphasis on these design problems associated with the high-capacity system. An extensive bibliography is given for easy reference.     

Nano-Wear Mechanism for Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) Sliding Against a Model Hard Asperity

This paper investigates the mechanism of wear-particle generation when a single asperity is passed over the surface of UHMWPE. A single asperity is modelled using a conical diamond-tip indenter attached to a nano-scratch tester. Scratches are produced by passing the indenter over the surface of the polymer in a single pass and multiple passes on a single track or on orthogonally intersecting tracks. The debris-generation process, as observed in the nano-scratch test, is complex and depends upon the direction of scratches. It is found that the rate of wear-debris generation is much higher when two consecutive scratches orthogonally intersect each other compared to when the scratches are made on the same track. Wall formation was observed between orthogonally intersecting scratches, and it is believed that this is central to the low-cycle wear mechanism in these systems.     

High-transfer-rate high-capacity holographic disk data-storage system

We describe the design and implementation of a high-data-rate high-capacity digital holographic storage disk system. Various system design trade-offs that affect density and data-rate performance are described and analyzed. In the demonstration system that we describe, high-density holographic recording is achieved by use of high-resolution short-focal-length optics and correlation shift multiplexing in photopolymer disk media. Holographic channel decoding at a 1-Gbit/s data rate is performed by custom-built electronic hardware. A benchmark sustained optical data-transfer rate of 10 Gbits/s has been successfully demonstrated.     

Computerized ultimate strength analysis of reinforced concrete sections subjected to axial compression and biaxial bending

This article presents a method of evaluating the ultimate strength capacities of reinforced concrete sections of arbitrary shapes and with or without voids subjected to axial compression and biaxial bending. The concept of load fraction is introduced so as to provide a quantitative measure of structural adequacy. An iterative procedure to determine the load fractions is proposed. Necessary integration over arbitrary domains is dealt with by boundary integration method. This procedure can be computerized readily to high automation. A wide range of reinforced concrete sections are analysed, as examples, using a desk-top computer.     

A study on the student pilot's mental workload due to personality types of both instructor and student

The main purpose of this paper is to provide the ideal flight crew combination for instructor and student pilots in order to enhance the flight training effects based on Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) theory. In addition to personality, various levels of flight difficulty are considered in order to investigate their potential interaction effect in terms of student pilots' mental workload measured in heart rate, altitude deviation, NASA-TLX (Task Load Index) and subjective degree of personality harmony. Based on an experiment performed in a real flight situation, we found significant effects of personality combinations in terms of all four outcome measures. Both group C types of instructors and students who are concrete, realistic and have mechanical skills turn out to be the ideal flight crew combination. A structural equation model, fitted to analyse causality among the four response variables, implied that as the heart rate increased, the altitude deviation increased. In addition, as the altitude deviation and personality harmony increased, NASA-TLX increased. The results of this study are expected to provide a theoretical basis for manning the flight crew combinations and thereby enhancing the efficiency of flight training.     

Interleaved Traffic Splitting: A promising technique to solve False Timeout

In this paper, we analyze the False Timeout (FTO) problem that TCP flows suffered in OBS networks and propose Interleaved Traffic Splitting (ITS) to solve the problem. We show that the collision loss of ACK bursts may also cause FTO, which has been neglected by previous researchers. As TCP Sack is designed to recover from multiple packet losses, we find that a Sack flow can recover its data transmission without triggering retransmission timeout if packet loss is not too severe. This suggests limiting the number of packets carried by a single burst. In ITS, this is achieved by carrying out a parallel, interleaved burst assembly process at each ingress OBS edge router. We show that ITS tackles the FTO problem caused by the loss of both data and ACK bursts. Unlike other existing approaches, the ITS scheme requires only modification to the assembly/de-assembly mechanisms implemented at the edge routers. It does not add complexities to the network management or the router design. In this paper, both analytical and simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance improvement of ITS. Our analysis further shows that the use of two parallel bursts is optimum for ITS.