Studies on elemental tellurium under high pressure

A non-linear behaviour in the resistance of tellurium as a function of pressure has been observed. At each pressure the resistance shows a time variation. At lower pressures, the normalized resistance increases with time, and at higher pressures, the normalized resistance decreases exponentially as a function of time. This change in behaviour with respect to time occurs in the region of the steepest descent in the resistance versus pressure plot. However, the magnitude of the change in the resistance with time is small compared to a change in the resistance with pressure. The origin of this behaviour is suggested to be linked with the generation and annealing of localized charged defects. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Multistage amplifier topologies with nested Gm-Ccompensation

This paper presents a multistage amplifier for low-voltage applications (<2 V). The amplifier consists of simple (noncascode) low gain stages and is stabilized using a nested transconductance-capacitance compensation (NGCC) scheme. The resulting topology is similar to the well known nested Miller compensation (NMC) multistage amplifier, except that the proposed topology contains extra G _m feedforward stages which are used to enhance the amplifier performance. The NGCC simplifies the transfer function of the proposed multistage amplifier which, in turn, simplifies its stability conditions. A comparison between the NGCC and NMC shows that the NGCC has wider bandwidth and is easier to stabilize. A four-stage NGCC amplifier has been fabricated using a 2-μm CMOS process and is tested using a ±1.0 V power supply. A dc gain of 100 dB has been measured. A gain bandwidth product of 1 MHz with 58° of phase margin and power of 1.4 mW can be achieved. The op amp occupies an active area of 0.22 mm². Step response shows that the op amp is stable     

Improved fully-balanced current-mode integrator

A high CMRR fully-balanced current-mode integrator structure is presented. The proposed structure improves the CMRR at low frequencies by a factor of g_m/g_o. Moreover, the structure provides more flexibility to guarantee stability and is significantly less sensitive to process mismatches. The differential and common-mode gains and CMRR at low and high frequencies are analysed as well as verified in simulation     

Upgrade of Systems Controlling Pneumatic Transport of Glass Batch Materials

An upgraded system for controlling pneumatic transportation of glass batch materials produced by the Stromizmeritel' JSC is considered. Comparative analysis of various schemes of control over the process of filling the pneumatic-cell pump with material is provided.     

Investigation and simulation of foam aluminum obtained from secondary aluminum raw materials by mechanical doping

The structure and phase composition of the samples of foam aluminum based on the AMg6 alloy (Al-6%Mg-0.7%Mn) obtained in a high-energy planetary mill are investigated. Mechanical doping provides high dispersity and homogeneity of all structural components including particles of the foam agent TiH₂, which allows one to obtain foam aluminum with a pore size of 1–5 mm at a density of 1.20–0.80 g/cm³. Mechanical properties of foam aluminum were estimated based on the results of compression tests. Based on preliminary investigations, an imitation model of foam formation is suggested that well describes the process of foam formation.     

Substrate uptake by Gordonia amarae in activated sludge foams by FISH-MAR.

Gordonia amarae is a right-angled branching filament belonging to the mycolic acid-containing Actinobacteria which is commonly found in many foaming activated sludge wastewater treatment plants. Although studies on different substrates as sole carbon sources by pure cultures of G. amarae have been carried out, none have examined substrate uptake by this organism in situ. Uptake of several hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates by G. amarae was evaluated in situ using a combination of fluorescence in situ hybridization and microautoradiography. G. amarae could assimilate a range of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates. From the data, G. amarae appears to be physiologically active under aerobic, anaerobic and anoxic condition (NO2 and NO3) for some substrates. This might explain why attempts to control foaming caused by G. amarae using anoxic and anaerobic selectors have been unsuccessful. This study emphasizes that bacteria can behave differently in situ to pure cultures and that it is important to evaluate the in situ physiology of these bacteria if we are to better understand their role in the wastewater treatment process.     

Effect of the particle size ratio on the conductivity of conductor-insulator powder composites: Numerical simulation

A theoretical method for determining the percolation limit and effective conductivity of composites based on polydisperse mixtures of insulator and conductor powders is proposed. The effect of the particle size ratio between the insulator and conductor on the percolation limit and effective conductivity is studied. Numerical simulation of the microstructure, effective properties, and percolation limit in composites is discussed. __________ Translated from Poroshkovaya Metallurgiya, Vol. 46, No. 1–2(453), pp. 31–40, 2007.     

Sequences of optimal identifying codes

Locating faulty processors in a multiprocessor system gives the motivation for identifying codes. Denote by l the maximum number of simultaneously malfunctioning processors. We show that if l⩾3, then the problem of finding the smallest cardinality of a (1, ⩽l)-identifying code in a binary hypercube is equivalent to the problem of finding the smallest size of a (2l-1)-fold 1-covering. This observation yields infinite sequences of optimal identifying codes for every l (l⩾3)     

Ultrathin oxide-nitride dielectrics for rugged stacked DRAMcapacitors

Ultrathin dielectric materials that provide high capacitance values are needed for 64- and 256-Mb stacked DRAMs. It is shown that capacitance values as high as 12.3 fF/μm² can be obtained with ultrathin nitride-based layers deposited on rugged polysilicon storage electrodes. These films present the reliability and low leakage current levels required for 3.3-V applications. The nitride thickness, however, cannot be scaled much below 6 nm to avoid the oxidation-punchthrough mechanisms that appear when too-thin films are unable to withstand the reoxidation step