The effect of dentin primer on the tensile bond strength to human enamel

Four third-generation dentin bonding products (Scotchbond Multi-Purpose, Optibond, All-Bond 2, and Prisma Universal Bond 3) were tested to evaluate their tensile bond strength to enamel. Test enamel specimens were etched, primed, and polymerized according to each manufacturer's directions. Control specimens were treated identically except the primer application was eliminated. The results demonstrated that the dentin primer significantly increased the tensile bond strength of All-Bond 2, significantly decreased the tensile bond strength of Scotchbond Multi-Purpose and Optibond, and had no significant effect for Prisma Universal Bond 3. A one-way analysis of variance was run between the eight groups tested, and three significant subsets were found (P < .05). The subset with the highest mean tensile bond strengths consisted of Prisma Universal Bond 3 primed and nonprimed, All-Bond 2 primed, and Optibond nonprimed.     

Investigation of the coating thickness of plasma-transferred arc deposition welded and cross wedge rolled hybrid parts

Most of today’s technical parts and components are made of monolithic materials. These mono-material components produced in established production processes reach their limits due to their respective material characteristics. Thus, a significant increase in production quality and efficiency can only be achieved by combining different materials in one part. Bulk forming of previously joined semi-finished products to net shape hybrid components that consist of two different materials is a promising method to produce parts with locally optimized characteristics. This new production process chain offers a number of advantages compared to conventional manufacturing technologies. Examples are the production of specific load-adapted forged parts with a high level of material utilization, an improvement of the joining zone caused by the following forming process and an easy to implement joining process due to the simple geometries of the semi-finished products. This paper describes the production process of hybrid steel parts, produced by combining a plasma-transferred arc deposition welding process with a subsequent cross wedge rolling process. This innovative process chain enables the production of hybrid parts. To evaluate the developed process chain, coating thickness of the billet is analysed before and after cross wedge rolling. It could be shown, that the forming process leads to an improvement of the coating, meaning a more homogeneous distribution along the main axis.     

Transporting real-time video over the Internet: challenges andapproaches

Delivering real-time video over the Internet is an important component of many Internet multimedia applications. Transmission of real-time video has bandwidth, delay, and loss requirements. However the current Internet does not offer any quality of service (QoS) guarantees to video transmission over the Internet. In addition, the heterogeneity of the networks and end systems makes it difficult to multicast Internet video in an efficient and flexible way. Thus, designing protocols and mechanisms for Internet video transmission poses many challenges. In this paper, we take a holistic approach to these challenges and present solutions from both transport and compression perspectives. With the holistic approach, we design a framework for transporting real-time Internet video, which includes two components, namely, congestion control and error control. Specifically congestion control consists of rate control, rate-adaptive encoding, and rate shaping; error control consists of forward error correction (FEC), retransmission error resilience, and error concealment. For the design of each component in the framework, we classify approaches and summarize representative research work. We point out there exists a design space which can be explored by video application designers and suggest that the synergy of both transport and compression could provide good solutions     

50 nm metamorphic GaAs and InP HEMTs

This paper reviews some of the recent work at the Nanoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Glasgow on the optimisation of 50 nm metamorphic GaAs and InP HEMTs. Typical DC and RF figures of merit obtained from 50 nm metamorphic GaAs HEMTs include I_dss of 800 mA/mm, g_m of 1100 mS/mm, threshold voltage standard deviation of 5 mV across a 25 mm × 25 mm area, f_T of 440 GHz and f_max of 400 GHz, all at a drain bias of 1.0 V. To our knowledge, these are the highest operating frequency GaAs-based transistors to date. At V_d = 0.8 V and V_g = − 0.6 V, a NF_min and G_ass of 0.7 dB and 13 dB respectively at 26 GHz have been demonstrated.For similar geometry InP HEMTs, DC and RF figures of merit are the following: I_dss of 900 mA/mm, g_m of 1600 mS/mm, f_T of 550 GHz, f_max of 440 GHz, and NF_min and G_ass of 0.9 dB and 14 dB respectively at 26 GHz. The highest performance 50 nm HEMTs reported to date. Using these technologies, single stage MMMICs with gain of at least 7 dB and a return loss of better than − 5 dB across a 24 GHz bandwidth from 71 GHz to 95 GHz have been realised. Noise figure of 2.5 dB and associated gain of 7.3 dB at 90 GHz have been achieved with a DC power consumption of 20 mW.     

Investigation of the joining zone of laser welded and cross wedge rolled hybrid parts

Most of today’s technical parts and components are made of monolithic materials. These mono-material components produced in established production processes reach their limits due to their respective material characteristics. Thus, a significant increase in production quality and efficiency can only be achieved by combining different materials in one part. Bulk forming of previously joined semi-finished products to net shape hybrid components that consist of two different materials is a promising method to produce parts with locally optimized characteristics. This new production process chain offers a number of advantages compared to conventional manufacturing technologies. Examples are the production of specific load-adapted forged parts with a high level of material utilization and an impact on the joining zone caused by the following forming process. This paper describes the production process of serially arranged hybrid steel parts, produced by combining a laser welding process with a subsequent cross wedge rolling process. The presented results are only a first approach in order to get first insights in the forming behaviour of laser welded and cross wedge rolled parts. The investigated material combination is C22 (1.0402) and 20MnCr5 (1.7147). This innovative process chain enables the production of hybrid parts. To evaluate the developed process chain, the weld and the joining zone is analysed before and after cross wedge rolling. Main results are that the joining process using laser welding enables a strong bonding between the two materials with a higher hardness in the joining zone than for the individual materials. After the forming process, the bonding of the joining zone is still present, while the hardness decreased but remains higher than of the materials themselves.     

Low-loss propagation in photonic crystal waveguides

The fabrication and characterisation of high-quality silicon membrane photonic crystals are reported. The etching process was carefully optimised to give holes with very smooth and vertical sidewalls, resulting in propagation, with a minimum loss of 4.1plusmn0.9 dB/cm in a single line defect (W1) waveguide     

Practical support for evaluating efficiency factors of a space heating system in cold climates

Plenty of technical norms, included in the EPBD umbrella, assesses the performance of buildings or its sub-systems in terms of efficiency. In particular, EN 15316 and its sub-sections determine the efficiency factors of a space heating system. This paper focuses on the estimation of efficiency factors for hydronic panel radiators. The assessment of efficiency factors occurs by evaluating the amount of heat emitted from the heat emitter and the thermal losses towards building envelope. A factor that influences the heat emitted is the location of radiator connection pipes. Connection pipes can be located on opposite side or at the same side of the radiator. To better estimate the heat emitted from the radiator with different location of connection pipes, a transient model with multiple storage elements is implemented in a commercial building simulation software and validated versus available experimental measurements. Sensitivity analysis encompasses the variations of heat losses due to the building location in different climates, the changing of the active thermal mass and the type of radiator local control. The final outcome of this paper is a practical support where designers and researchers can easily assess the efficiency factors for space heating system equipped with hydronic panel radiators of buildings located in Sweden. As main results, (i) the efficiency factor for control is higher in Northern climates (Luleå) than in Southern climates (Gothenburg), (ii) heavy-weight active thermal masses allow higher efficiency factors than light active thermal masses, and (iii) connection pipes located on the same side of the hydronic panel radiator enable higher efficiency factors than pipes located on opposite side.     

Scattering behavior of a finite wire array for different incidentangles

The scattering behavior of a finite two-dimensional structure of thin wires excited by an incident plane electromagnetic wave is discussed. Utilizing the radiation patterns of such an array for different frequencies and different angles of incidence, it is possible to assess incident and receiving angles for improved frequency-selective behavior. This is illustrated for an array consisting of 4×4 thin wires