On Series of Ordinals and Combinatorics

This paper deals mainly with generalizations of results in finitary combinatorics to infinite ordinals. It is well-known that for finite ordinals ∑_bT<αβ is the number of 2-element subsets of an α-element set. It is shown here that for any well-ordered set of arbitrary infinite order type α, ∑_bT<αβ is the ordinal of the set M of 2-element subsets, where M is ordered in some natural way. The result is then extended to evaluating the ordinal of the set of all n-element subsets for each natural number n ≥ 2. Moreover, series ∑_β<αf(β) are investigated and evaluated, where α is a limit ordinal and the function f belongs to a certain class of functions containing polynomials with natural number coefficients. The tools developed for this result can be extended to cover all infinite α, but the case of finite α appears to be quite problematic.     

C-t analysis of MOS capacitors under constant current stress

The effect of high oxide field stress is studied using capacitance-time (C-t) measurements of MOS capacitors. The stress results in parallel shifts of the C-t curve along the time axis. The flatband voltage shift ΔV_FB obtained from the initial deep depletion capacitance C(t=0⁺) follows the same trend as that from the high-frequency C-V characteristics. However, the discrepancy between the two flatband voltages becomes larger as the stress increases due to the effect of interface charges on C-t characteristics. The flatband voltage difference is converted to interface trap density, showing a steady increase of interface trap density with stress, similar to that from low-frequency C-V measurements     

Influence of the sulfonate countercation on the thermal stability of nafion perfluorosulfonate membranes

We report a strong dependence of the thermal stability of Nafion® perfluorosulfonate ionomer on the nature of the counterion associated with the fixed sulfonate site. These results were obtained using thermal gravimetric analysis on a series of alkali metal and alkyl ammonium cation-exchanged Nafion films. We have found that the temperature of decomposition of Nafion is inversely dependent on the size of the exchanged cation; i.e., Nafion films show improved thermal stability as the size of the counter cation decreases. We attribute this inverse relationship of thermal stability with counterion size to an initial decomposition reaction which is strongly influenced by the strength of the sulfonate-coun-terion interaction. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Afterburner [network-independent card for protocols]

Many current implementations of protocols such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are inefficient because data are often accessed more frequently than necessary. Three techniques that reduce the need for memory bandwidth are proposed. The techniques are copy-on-write, page remapping, and single-copy. Afterburner, a network-independent card that provides the services that are necessary for a single-copy protocol stack, is described. The card has 1 MByte of local buffers and provides a simple interface to a variety of network link adapters, including HIPPI and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). Afterburner can support transfers to and from the link adapter card at rates up to 1 Gbit/s. An implementation of TCP/IP that uses the features provided by Afterburner to reduce the movement of data to a single copy is discussed. Measurements of the end-to-end performance of Afterburner and the single-copy implementation of TCP/IP are presented     

Fractal error for detecting man-made features in aerial images

A technique is proposed for aiding photointerpreters in detecting man-made features in aerial reconnaissance images. The technique, which uses a metric called fractal error, is based on the observed propensity of natural image features to fit a fractional Brownian motion model. Man-made features usually do not fit this model well, and consequently the fractal error metric may be used as a discriminant function for detecting man-made scene features     

A multi-agent decision support system for stock trading

A distributed problem solving system can be characterized as a group of individual cooperating agents running to solve common problems. As dynamic application domains continue to grow in scale and complexity, it becomes more difficult to control the purposeful behavior of agents, especially when unexpected events may occur. This article presents an information and knowledge exchange framework to support distributed problem solving. From the application viewpoint the article concentrates on the stock trading domain; however, many presented solutions can be extended to other dynamic domains. It addresses two important issues: how individual agents should be interconnected so that their resources are efficiently used and their goals accomplished effectively; and how information and knowledge transfer should take place among the agents to allow them to respond successfully to user requests and unexpected external situations. The article introduces an architecture, the MASST system architecture, which supports dynamic information and knowledge exchange among the cooperating agents. The architecture uses a dynamic blackboard as an interagent communication paradigm to facilitate factual data, business rule, and command exchange between cooperating MASST agents. The critical components of the MASST architecture have been implemented and tested in the stock trading domain, and have proven to be a viable solution for distributed problem solving based on cooperating agents     

Existence and Stability for Spherical Crystals Growing in a Supersaturated Solution

We consider the growth of a spherical crystal in a supersaturatedsolution. In the first part, existence and uniqueness resultsfor radially symmetric growth are obtained, provided that thesupersaturation is not too large; conversely, when the far-fieldsupersaturation exceeds a critical value, it is shown that theradially symmetric solution ceases to exist in finite time.In the second part, we examine the linear stability of a radiallysymmetric similarity solution (in which the radius grows ast?) to shape perturbations. The results are compared with previousquasi-static analyses, and, in particular, the critical radiusat which the crystal becomes unstable is found to be largerfor small supersaturations, but smaller for large supersaturations,than those predicted by the quasi-static analysis     

Performance engineering and topological design of metro WDM opticalnetworks using computer simulation

This paper demonstrates the use of computer simulation for topological design and performance engineering of transparent wavelength-division multiplexing metropolitan-area networks. Engineering of these networks involves the study of various transport-layer impairments such as amplifier noise, component ripple, chirp/dispersion, optical crosstalk, waveform distortion due to filter concatenation, fiber nonlinearities, and polarization effects. A computer simulation methodology composed of three main simulation steps is derived and implemented. This methodology obtains performance estimations by applying efficient wavelength-domain simulations on the entire network topology, followed by time-/frequency-domain simulations on selected paths of the network and finally Q-budgeting on an identified worst case path. The above technique provides an efficient tool for topological design and network performance engineering. Accurate simulation models are presented for each of the performance impairments, and the computer simulation methodology is used for the design and engineering of a number of actual metro network architectures     

Systematic characterization of Cl2 reactive ion etchingfor improved ohmics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

Pre-metal-deposition reactive ion etching (RIE) was performed on an Al_0.3Ga_0.7N/AlN/GaN heterostructure in order to improve the metal-to-semiconductor contact resistance. An optimum AlGaN thickness for minimizing contact resistance was determined. An initial decrease in contact resistance with etching time was explained in terms of removal of an oxide surface layer and/or by an increase in tunnelling current with the decrease of the AlGaN thickness. The presence of a dissimilar surface layer was confirmed by an initial nonuniform etch depth rate. An increase in contact resistance for deeper etches was experienced. The increase was related to depletion of the two-dimensional (2-D) electron gas (2-DEG) under the ohmics. Etch depths were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The contact resistance decreased from about 0.45 Ωmm for unetched ohmics to a minimum of 0.27 Ωmm for 70 Å etched ohmics. The initial thickness of the AlGaN layer was 250 Å. The decrease in contact resistance, without excessive complications on device processing, supports RIE etching as a viable solution to improve ohmic contact resistance in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs