Channel-carrier mobility parameters for 4H SiC MOSFETs

In this paper, mobility parameters for enhancement-mode N-channel 4H SiC MOSFETs are extracted and implemented into 2-D device simulation program and SPICE circuit simulator. The experimental data were obtained from lateral N-channel 4H SiC MOSFETs with nitrided oxide–semiconductor interfaces, exhibiting normal mobility behavior. The presence of increasing interface-trap density (D_it) toward the edge of the conduction band is included during the 2-D device simulation. Using measured distribution of interface-trap density for simulation of the transfer characteristics leads to a good agreement with the experimental transfer characteristic.     

Ulceration in necrobiosis lipoidica--a case report and study

A case of aggressive ulceration of necrobiosis lipoidica was successfully treated with oral prednisolone. A retrospective study of 23 cases of necrobiosis lipoidica revealed a 13% incidence of ulceration. The pathogenesis, clinical features and treatment of ulceration in necrobiosis lipoidica are discussed.     

Effects of nitric oxide annealing of thermally grown silicondioxide characteristics

The effects of nitric oxide (NO) annealing on conventional thermal oxides are reported in this letter. The oxide thickness increase, resulting from NO annealing, is found to be only a few angstroms (<0.5 nm) and independent on the initial oxide thickness. Furthermore, both the electrical and physical characteristics are improved. This technique is expected to achieve sub-5 nm high quality ultrathin dielectric films for the applications in EEPROM's and ULSI     

A faster divide-and-conquer algorithm for constructing delaunay triangulations

An easily implemented modification to the divide-and-conquer algorithm for computing the Delaunay triangulation ofn sites in the plane is presented. The change reduces its (n logn) expected running time toO(n log logn) for a large class of distributions that includes the uniform distribution in the unit square. Experimental evidence presented demonstrates that the modified algorithm performs very well forn2¹⁶, the range of the experiments. It is conjectured that the average number of edges it creates—a good measure of its efficiency—is no more than twice optimal forn less than seven trillion. The improvement is shown to extend to the computation of the Delaunay triangulation in theL _p metric for 1<p.This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants DCR-8352081 and DCR-8416190.     

Effects of enzymes and gamma irradiation on the tensile strength and morphology of poly(p-dioxanone) fibers

The objective of this study was to examine how and to what extent a new degradable polymeric fiber, poly(p-dioxanone), used as a surgical suture material, degrades in the presence of enzymes and after γ-irradiation. The degradation of the fiber was studied mechanically using an Instron and morphologically by SEM. Both esterase and trypsin enzymes and their corresponding buffer controls were used. The fibers were γ-irradiated at the dosages ranging from 0 to 20 Mrad, immersed in the solution for up to 70 days, and then removed for tensile strength and morphological examinations. It was found that γ-irradiation alone lowered the tensile strength of PDS fibers and made them more susceptible to hydrolysis. Esterase and trypsin did not accelerate the hydrolytic degradtion of this fiber to any significant level. Both γ-irradiation and enzymes influenced the gross morphological characteristic of PDS fibers when they were subjected to hydrolysis. The most important morphological observations were the formation of surface cracks and chips on the fibers and the subsequent peeling of the chips. Enzyme-treated PDS fibers exhibited similar morphological findings but the size of the chips was smaller. The morphological observations of PDS fibers were consistent with the tensile strength data.     

Extending the power of datalog recursion

Supporting aggregates in recursive logic rules represents a very important problem for Datalog. To solve this problem, we propose a simple extension, called Datalog $^{FS}\,$ (Datalog extended with frequency support goals), that supports queries and reasoning about the number of distinct variable assignments satisfying given goals, or conjunctions of goals, in rules. This monotonic extension greatly enhances the power of Datalog, while preserving (i) its declarative semantics and  (ii) its amenability to efficient implementation via differential fixpoint and other optimization techniques presented in the paper. Thus, Datalog $^{FS}\,$ enables the efficient formulation of queries that could not be expressed efficiently or could not be expressed at all in Datalog with stratified negation and aggregates. In fact, using a generalized notion of multiplicity called frequency, we show that diffusion models and page rank computations can be easily expressed and efficiently implemented using Datalog $^{FS}\,$ .     

Technology transfer in digital mammography. Report of the Joint National Cancer Institute-National Aeronautics and Space Administration workshop of May 19-20, 1993

Digital mammography is one of the most promising novel technologies for further improvement of early detection of breast cancer, offering important potential advantages: 1) improved image quality; 2) digital image processing for improved lesion contrast; 3) computer-aided diagnosis for enhanced radiologic interpretation; and 4) teleradiology for facilitated radiologic consultation. The Diagnostic Imaging Research Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently funded an international, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Digital Mammography Development Group for collaborations between NCI, the academic community, and industry to facilitate the integrated development and implementation of digital mammographic systems. Currently, however, digital mammography faces a number of fundamental technological roadblocks: 1) cost-effective digital detectors and displays for imaging systems; 2) the need for novel algorithms for image processing and computer-aided diagnosis; and 3) high performance, low cost digital networks to provide an "information superhighway" for teleradiology. To solve some of these technological problems, the Diagnostic Imaging Research Branch of NCI joined efforts with the Technology Transfer Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to pursue a federal technology transfer program in digital mammography. The authors discuss the findings and recommendations of the workshop entitled "Technology Transfer in Digital Mammography," which was organized and held jointly by the NCI and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in May, 1993. Numerous innovative technologies of varying degree of promise for digital mammography were presented at the conference. In this article, specific technologies presented at the workshop by the federal and federally-supported laboratories are described, and critiques of these technologies by the leaders of the medical imaging community are presented.     

Inter-image outliers and their application to image classification

Image variability that is impossible or difficult to restore by intra-image processing, such as the variability caused by occlusions, significantly reduces the performance of image-recognition methods. To address this issue, we propose that the pixels associated with large distances obtained by inter-image pixel-by-pixels comparisons should be considered as inter-image outliers and should be removed from the similarity calculation used for the image classification. When this method is combined with the template-matching method for image recognition, it leads to state-of-the-art recognition performance: 91% with AR database that includes occluded face images, 90% with PUT database that includes pose variations of face images and 100% with EYale B database that includes images with large illumination variation.