Hierarchically Ordered Polymer Films by Templated Organization of Aqueous Droplets

Hierarchically ordered structures facilitate the incorporation of diverse functions simultaneously. The present report introduces a simple and novel strategy for producing hierarchically ordered polymeric films. Hierarchical ordering of aqueous droplets on a polymer solution is realized by the imposition of physical confinement via various shaped gratings. After drying of the solution, well‐ordered hierarchical structures were fabricated in the remaining polymer film. The size of the grating structure and the lattice size of spontaneous hexagonally packed aqueous pores comprise two different length scales, thereby offering multiscale ordering. Interfacial wetting of the polymer solution to the grating surface was crucial in terms of obtaining a highly ordered structure that can be tuned by dissolving a small amount of surfactant in the polymer solution. The present novel approach provides a new opportunity for lithography‐free fabrication of complex hierarchical structures.     

A new VOF‐based numerical scheme for the simulation of fluid flow with free surface. Part II: application to the cavity filling and sloshing problems

Finite element analysis of fluid flow with moving free surface has been performed in 2‐D and 3‐D. The new VOF‐based numerical algorithm that has been proposed by the present authors (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids, submitted) was applied to several 2‐D and 3‐D free surface flow problems. The proposed free surface tracking scheme is based on two numerical tools; the orientation vector to represent the free surface orientation in each cell and the baby‐cell to determine the fluid volume flux at each cell boundary. The proposed numerical algorithm has been applied to 2‐D and 3‐D cavity filling and sloshing problems in order to demonstrate the versatility and effectiveness of the scheme. The proposed numerical algorithm resolved successfully the free surfaces interacting with each other. The simulated results demonstrated applicability of the proposed numerical algorithm to the practical problems of large free surface motion. It has been also demonstrated that the proposed free surface tracking scheme can be easily implemented in any irregular non‐uniform grid systems and can be extended to 3‐D free surface flow problems without additional efforts. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Construction of efficient error-limiting variable length codes

A novel method for generating an optimal binary prefix condition code is described. The proposed code generation method generates optimal variable length codes that have short average error spans compared to the existing self-synchronising codes. A technique for calculating the expected error spans of variable length codes are also presented     

Performance of GaAs-AlGaAs V-grooved inner stripe quantum-well wirelasers with different current blocking configurations

GaAs-AlGaAs V-grooved inner stripe (VIS) quantum-well wire (QWW) lasers grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition with different current blocking configurations, n-blocking on p-substrate (VIPS), p-n-p-n blocking on n-substrate (VI(PN)_nS) and p-blocking on n-substrate (VINS) have been fabricated and characterized. The VIPS QWW lasers show the most stable characteristics with effective current confinement: one of the lasers shows fundamental transverse mode, lasing up to 5 mW/facet, typical threshold current of 39.9 mA at 818.5 mm, an external differential quantum efficiency of 24%/facet, and characteristic temperature of 92 K. The current tuning rate was almost linear at 0.031 mm/mA, and the temperature tuning rate was measured to be 0.14 nm/°C. Comparison of the light output versus current characteristics of the lasers with different current blocking configurations is presented here     

Motion based object tracking with mobile camera

An efficient algorithm which detects and tracks a moving object is proposed. The global motion energy caused by camera movement is eliminated by finding the maximal matching position with the cross-correlation value between two consecutive frames using the spiral scanning technique. The region of a moving object is segmented exactly by combining the results of the temporal derivatives and edge map from one image, and the actual centroid of the moving object is determined as the mid-point of the cumulative distribution of the projection profile of the region     

Generalized Equilibrium Problems and Generalized Complementarity Problems

From a general minimax inequality or an abstract lopsided saddle-point theorem, we deduce general Karamardian-type equilibrium theorems and generalized complementarity theorems. Our new results extend a number of well-known earlier works of many authors.     

Parasitic Bipolar Junction Transistors in a Floating-Gate MOSFET for Fluorescence Detection

In this letter, we examined whether the parasitic bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) in the MOSFET fabricated by the standard CMOS process can play a role as a fluorescence detector. To suppress the action of two vertical parasitic BJTs, the gate and n-well were tied in the parasitic BJTs, and the body node was connected to the drain. The proposed device was compared with the inherent and the parasitic diodes in the MOSFET. It had 100 times higher photocurrents than the diodes in the MOSFET. In addition, it was applied for the detection of the fluorescent signal, and could detect near 10 nM of Alexa 546. Therefore, CMOS-process-compatible parasitic BJTs can be used as a photodetector in an integrated fluorescence detector.     

A novel bidirectional CMOS transceiver for chip-to-chip optical interconnects

A novel bidirectional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transceiver for chip-to-chip optical interconnects operating at 2.5 Gb/s is proposed, which shares the common block of a receiver and a transmitter on a single chip. The share of the common block of two circuits makes it possible to save 55% or 20% of power dissipation, depending on the operating mode. The chip in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology occupies an area of 0.82/spl times/0.82 mm/sup 2/, 70% of the total area of a typical unshared transceiver chip. The transmitting and receiving modes of operation show -3-dB bandwidths of 2.2 and 2.4 GHz and electrical isolations of -28 and -40 dB, respectively.     

Experimental verification of drop/impact simulation for a cellular phone

Conducting drop tests to investigate impact behavior and identify failure mechanisms of small-size electronic products is generally expensive and time-consuming. Nevertheless, strict drop/impact performance criteria for hand-held electronic products such as cellular phones play a decisive role in the design because they must withstand unexpected shocks. The design of product durability on impact has heavily relied on the designer's intuition and experience. In this study, a reliable drop/impact simulation for a cellular phone is carried out using the explicit code LS-DYNA. Subsequently globallocal experimental verification is accomplished by means of high-speed photography and impact response measurement. Using this methodology, we predict potential damage locations in a cellular phone and compare them with real statistical data. It is envisaged that development of a reliable methodology of drop/impact simulation will provide us with a powerful and efficient vehicle for improvement of the design quality and reduction of the product development cycle.