Investigation of the thermal, mechanical, and fracture properties of alumina-epoxy composites

A combination of dynamic shear rheology, thermomechanical analysis (TMA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Near-Edge X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (NEXAFS), and fracture toughness testing was utilized to characterize the thermal, mechanical, chemical, and fracture properties of alumina (α-Al₂O₃)-filled epoxy resins as a function of average filler size, size distribution, particle shape, loading, and epoxy crosslink density. In general the cured properties of the filled composites were robust. Small changes in particle size, shape, and size distribution had little impact on the final properties. Resin crosslink density and filler loading were the most critical variables, causing changes in all properties. However, most applications could likely tolerate small changes in these variables also. SEM and NEXAFS characterization of the fracture surfaces revealed that the fracture occurs at the filler interface and the interfacial epoxy composition is similar to the bulk resin, indicating a weak epoxy-alumina interaction. These results are critical for implementation of particulate-filled polymer composites in practical applications because relaxed material specifications and handling procedures can be incorporated in production environments to improve efficiency.     

ON SCIENCE, ECONOMICS AND EDUCATION

In their public statements, politicians and leaders of mostdeveloped countries espouse the doctrine that the growth oftheir respective economies is highly dependent on innovationsresulting from scientific research and development. Many countriessupport science directly or indirectly using a variety of subsidies,grants, contracts, or other financial mechanisms. But, the lion'sshare of support for research and development is usually providedby industry. The statistic often quoted is the percentage ofgross domestic product     

Microarchitectures for Managing Chip Revenues under Process Variations

As transistor feature sizes continue to shrink intothe sub-90nm range and beyond, the effects of process variationson critical path delay and chip yields have amplified. A commonconcept to remedy the effects of variation is speed-binning, bywhich chips from a single batch are rated by a discrete range offrequencies and sold at different prices. In this paper, we discussstrategies to modify the number of chips in different bins andhence enhance the profits obtained from them. Particularly, wepropose a scheme that introduces a small Substitute Cacheassociated with each cache way to replicate the data elementsthat will be stored in the high latency lines. Assuming a fixedpricing model, this method increases the revenue by as much as13.8% without any impact on the performance of the chips.     

Comparative study of self-assembling of multilayers using reactive sputter deposition and mass selective ion beam deposition

While experimenting with the growth of metal-containing amorphous carbon (a-c:Me) thin films using two different growth processes, self-assembled multilayered structures were observed. One of the processes is a reactive magnetron sputter deposition process. The other process is a mass selective ion beam deposition process. Despite of the differences in the growth method and the growth condition, self-assembled multilayered thin films, consisting of alternating dark layer and bright layer, were obtained in both processes. Based on the consideration of energy for atomic diffusion in the thin films, the growth mechanism is discussed.     

Male honor and female fidelity: Implicit cultural scripts that perpetuate domestic violence.

Two studies explored how domestic violence may be implicitly or explicitly sanctioned and reinforced in cultures where honor is a salient organizing theme. Three general predictions were supported: (a) female infidelity damages a man's reputation, particularly in honor cultures; (b) this reputation can be partially restored through the use of violence; and (c) women in honor cultures are expected to remain loyal in the face of jealousy-related violence. Study 1 involved participants from Brazil (an honor culture) and the United States responding to written vignettes involving infidelity and violence in response to infidelity. Study 2 involved southern Anglo, Latino, and northern Anglo participants witnessing a "live" incident of aggression against a woman (actually a confederate) and subsequently interacting with her. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prediction of the effects on dynamic response due to distributed structural modification with additional degrees of freedom

The aim of this study is to investigate means of efficiently assessing the effects of distributed structural modification on the dynamic properties of a complex structure. The dynamic properties of the modified structure can be determined by experimental testing or numerical simulation, both of which are complex, expensive and time-consuming. Assuming that the original dynamic characteristics are already established and that the modification is a relatively simple attachment, the modified dynamic properties may be determined numerically without solving the equations of motion of the full-modified structure. The frequency response functions (FRFs) of the modified structure can be computed by coupling the original FRFs and a delta dynamic stiffness matrix for the modification introduced. The validity of this approach is investigated by applying it to a cantilever beam to which a smaller beam is attached as modification. The original FRFs were obtained experimentally as well as numerically. The delta dynamic stiffness matrix was determined numerically by modeling the attachment and part of the original structure including the attachment points. The FRFs of the modified beam were then computed. Good agreement is obtained by comparing the results to the FRFs of the modified beam determined experimentally as well as by numerical modeling of the complete modified structure.     

Neutron Reflectometry Characterization of Interface Width between Sol-Gel Titanium Dioxide and Silicon Dioxide Thin Films

Neutron reflectometry (NR) was used to directly measure the interface width between a titanium dioxide and a silicon dioxide film deposited by sol-gel processing. In a bilayer heated to 450°C, NR measurements showed that the interface width is 0.8 nm. This width is the same as the roughness of a sol-gel silicon dioxide surface after the same heat treatment, suggesting no interdiffusion or mixing at the bilayer interface.     

Disappearing left atrial vegetation in an intravenous drug abuser

Isolated left atrial mural endocarditis is rare. We report a case where the diagnosis was made clinically and supported by blood cultures and transoesophageal echocardiography. Appropriate intravenous antibiotics were administered and serial transoesophageal echocardiograms helped in monitoring the decrease in size and final disappearance of the vegetation, thus avoiding the need for surgical intervention.     

Adding Support for Persistence to CLOS via Its Metaobject Protocol

Language-level support for object persistence frees programmers from having to confront a broad class of database issues from within their applications. By virtue of its metaobject protocol, CLOS is a language whose semantics can be tailored by individual programmers. We used the metaobject protocol to extend CLOS with support for object persistence. Our goal was to obtain a version of CLOS with persistence to which we could easily port a commercial geometric CAD modeling system. We describe the design and implementation of our persistence extension and highlight the strengths and weaknesses exhibited by the CLOS metaobject protocol during our experiment. For many aspects of the implementation we found that the metaobject protocol was ideal. In other cases we had to choose among paying a large performance penalty, extending the protocol, and bypassing the protocol by modifying the language implementation directly.     

A Practical Cross-Layer Mechanism For Fairness in 802.11 Networks

Many companies, organizations and communities are providing wireless hotspots that provide networking access using 802.11b wireless networks. Since wireless networks are more sensitive to variations in bandwidth and environmental interference than wired networks, most networks support a number of transmission rates that have different error and bandwidth properties. Access points can communicate with multiple clients running at different rates, but this leads to unfair bandwidth allocation. If an access point communicates with a mix of clients using both 1 Mb/s and 11 Mb/s transmission rates, the faster clients are effectively throttled to 1 Mb/s as well. This happens because the 802.11 MAC protocol approximate “station fairness”, with each station given an equal chance to access the media. We provide a solution to provide “rate proportional fairness”, where the 11 Mb/s stations receive more bandwidth than the 1 Mb/s stations. Unlike previous solutions to this problem, our mechanism is easy to implement, works with common operating systems and requires no change to the MAC protocol or the stations. Joseph Dunn received an M.S. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2003, and B. S. in coputer science and mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2001. His research interests are in the general area of computer systems, primarily focusing on security and scalability in distributed systems. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Michael Neufeld received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in December of 2004, having previously received an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2000 and an A.B. in Computer Science from Princeton University in 1993. His research interests are in the general area of computer system, specifically concentrating on wireless networking, software defind/cognitive radio, and streerable antennas. He is currently a postdoc in the Computer Science department at the University of Calorado at Boulder pursuing research related to software defined radio and new MAC protocols for steerable phase array antennas. Anmol Sheth is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Pune, India in 2001. He has been co-leading the development of the MANTIS operating system. He has co-authored three papers include MAC layer protocol design, energy-efficient wireless communication, and adapting communications to mobility. Dirk Grunwald received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1989 and joined the University of Colorado the same year. His work addresses research and teaching in the broad area of “computer systems”, which includes computer architecture, operating systems, networks, and storage systems. His interests also include issues in pervasive computing, novel computing models, and enjoying the mountains. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and in Electrical and Computer Engineering and is also the Director of the Colorado Center for Information Storage. John Bennett is a Professor of Computer Science with a joint appointment in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He also serves as Associate Dean for Education in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. He joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 2000, after serving on the faculty of Rice University for 11 years. While at Rice, Bennett pioneered a course in engineering design for both engineering and non-engineering students that has been emulated at several universities and high schools. In addition to other teaching awards, Bennett received the Keck Foundation National Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence for his work on this course. Bennett received his Ph.D. in 1988 from the University of Washington. Prior to completing his doctoral studies, he was a U.S. Naval Officer for several years and founded and served as President of Pacific Mountain Research, Inc., where he supervised the design and development of a number of commercial computing systems. Bennett's primary research interests are broadly focused in the area of distributed systems, and more narrowly in distributed information management and distributed robotic macrosensors.