Intentional thermal donor activation in magnetic Czochralski silicon

We have made a quantitative study about the thermal activation of thermal donors in high resistivity magnetic Czochralski silicon. The thermal donor activation has been performed through a thermal treatment at 430 °C up to a total time of 80 min. The space charge density after each annealing step has been extracted from capacitance–voltage measurements. If the starting material is boron-doped p-type high-resistivity Czochralski silicon, the thermal donor generation process can be utilized in order to produce p⁺/n⁻/n⁺ detectors. The last thermal process step, i.e. the sintering of aluminum, is intentionally carried out at the temperature where thermal donors are created. According to our results, we have improved the previously reported model of the thermal donor generation.     

Vibration cavitation behaviour of selected Ni-Mn-Ga alloys

Vibration cavitation erosion tests were carried out on Ni-Mn-Ga alloys of three different crystal structures: (1) the cubic austenite, (2) the non-modulated tetragonal martensite (T) and (3) the five-layered martensite (5M). All Ni-Mn-Ga alloys exhibited cavitation behaviour characterized by a step-wise curve of mass loss versus test time. This behaviour is correlated to the microstructural nature of the alloys as well as the surface conditions of the pre-test samples. The type and concentration of the defects at the surfaces were critical to the cavitation resistance of the alloys. The best cavitation resistant alloy was of a cubic austenitic structure, followed with the alloy of a tetragonal T-martensite. The largest material loss was found in the alloy with a 5M martensite. All the studied Ni-Mn-Ga alloys had an excellent cavitation resistance compared to that of the reference stainless steel, and they even excelled some NiTi alloys found in literature. This may be due to the superelasticity of the cubic austenite and the twinning of the martensitic phases.     

Characteristics of origin-destination pair traffic in Funet

In this paper we analyze measurements gathered from a 2.5~Gbps link in the Finnish university network (Funet) in 2004. The traffic is broken down into origin-destination (OD) pair components based on source and destination IP address. We study the traffic characteristics of these components, and identify four typical representative OD pairs. For these pairs we investigate the validity of a moving IID Gaussian model. We find that the statistical properties of these OD pairs differ significantly from each other, with only some of them close to Gaussian. The OD pairs are also found to have some cross-correlation between each other, contradicting an often made assumption about OD pair independence. Furthermore, the existence of a mean-variance relation between the OD pairs is studied. We find that there is a relation between mean and variance, but for some periods of time it is rather weak.     

Minimal forbidden subwords

Motivated by a study of similar problems stated for factors of words, we study forbidden subwords of a language or a word. A procedure for obtaining the set of all words avoiding a given set of subwords is presented. On the other hand, an algorithm for computing the set of minimal forbidden subwords for a word is given. The case of a two-letter alphabet appears to be particularly interesting and it is considered separately.     

Design space exploration of reliable networked embedded systems

In this paper, a new methodology is presented for topology optimization of networked embedded systems as they occur in automotive and avionic systems as well as wireless sensor networks. By introducing a model which is (1) suitable for heterogeneous networks with different communication bandwidths, (2) modeling of routing restrictions, and (3) flexible binding of tasks onto processors, current design issues of networked embedded systems can be investigated. On the basis of this model, the presented methodology firstly allocates the required resources which can be communication links as well as computational nodes and secondly binds the functionality onto the nodes and the data dependencies onto the links such that no routing restrictions will be violated or capacities on communication links will be exceeded. Due to the often error-prone communication in networks, we allow for routing each data dependency over multiple routes in the networks. With this strategy, our methodology is able to increase the reliability of the entire system. This reliability analysis is based on Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) and is integrated in our multi-objective design space exploration. By applying Evolutionary Algorithms, we are able to consider multiple objectives simultaneously during the optimization process and allow for a subsequent unbiased decision making. An experimental evaluation as well as a demonstration of a case study from the field of automotive electronics will show the applicability of the presented approach.     

Shift-or string matching with super-alphabets

Given a text T[1…n] and a pattern P[1…m] over some alphabet Σ of size σ, we want to find all the (exact) occurrences of P in T. The well-known shift-or algorithm solves this problem in time O(n⌈m/w⌉), where w is the number of bits in machine word, using bit-parallelism. We show how to extend the bit-parallelism in another direction, using super-alphabets. This gives a speed-up by a factor s, where s is the number of characters processed simultaneously. The algorithm is implemented, and we show that it works well in practice too. The result is the fastest known algorithm for exact string matching for short patterns and small alphabets.     

Multivariate Analysis of Finnish Dialect Data An Overview of Lexical Variation

During the process of writing a comprehensive dictionary ofFinnish dialects, a large set of maps describing the regionaldistribution of the dialect words have been compiled in electronicform. In this article, we set out to analyse this corpus ofdata in order to gain new insight on the variation of Finnishdialects. We use a wide range of multivariate data analysismethods, including principal components analysis, independentcomponents analysis, clustering, and multidimensional scaling.We explain how to preprocess the data to overcome the problemof uneven sampling caused by the way the data has been collected.We discuss the results obtained by these methods and comparethem to the traditional view of Finnish dialect groups.     

Finnish general contracting in the USSR

When dealing with a Soviet client, tendering, scheduling, consideration of available resources, management responsibilities, start-up and hand-over must be approached from a slightly different angle than when dealing with Western clients. Aspects of project management from feasibility analysis to hand-over are described, based on the experience of a Finnish general contractor, Finn Stroi.     

Insertion/deletion polymorphism in the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene associated with macroangiopathy and blood pressure in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

In the search for new risk factors for diabetic macroangiopathy the insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene was studied in 237 consecutive patients (125 men and 112 women) with non-insulin-dependent diabetes. The female population showed an excess of ischemic electrocardiographic changes or definite myocardial infarctions in the patients homozygous for the deletion [D/D; odds ratio (OR) 2.8; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.4-5.3] and in the insertion/deletion heterozygotes (I/D; OR 1.8; CI 1.1-3.1) compared with the patients homozygous for the insertion (I/I). In the total series coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and claudication were more often observed in the patients with I/D (OR 1.5; CI 1.0-2.2) or the D/D genotype patients (OR 1.7; CI 1.1-2.6) than in those with the genotype I/I. The systolic blood pressure was lower in patients with genotype I/I (138 +/- 19 mmHg) than in those with the genotype I/D (149 +/- 22 mmHg) or D/D (150 +/- 21 mmHg; P < 0.02). The prevalence of hypertension and the median urinary albumin excretion rate also tended to be lowest in the I/I genotype patients. Multiple logistic analysis revealed that in women the angiotensin-converting enzyme D/D genotype is independently associated with coronary heart disease. Our findings suggest that variation at the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene locus is one of the factors involved in the predisposition of diabetic patients to the development of arterial disease and hypertension.