In this paper, several new MOSFET devices, vertical MOSFET with L-shaped internal block layers (bVMOS), planar MOSFET with self-aligned internal block layers (bMOS), and Silicon-Germanium MOSFET with self-aligned internal block layers (bSGMOS) are presented. We use the sidewall spacer and etch back techniques to form the L-shaped internal block layers of bVMOS. They can suppress the short channel effects, diminish the parasitic capacitance, and reduce the leakage current cause by P-N junction between source/drain and body regions. They also provide a pass way to eliminate carriers and heat which generated by impact ionization resulting in suppression of floating-body effect and self-heating effect. In addition, we use Si3N4 cap layer upon gate as a hard mask, combining self-aligned and sidewall spacer techniques to fabricate the internal block layers under the both sides of channel end to form bMOS. The depleted region between source/drain and body is shielded and so the short channel effects and the controllability of gate to channel are improved. The internal block layers not only maintain the character of internal block layers but also ameliorate the drawback of bVMOS. The ISE TCAD simulation results show the short channel effect is suppressed and the thermal instability is improved by the internal block layers effectively in each device. Furthermore, we employ the epitaxial silicon-germanium thin film process (bSGMOS) to form silicon-germanium thin film at source/drain region to improve the device current drive by the strain thereby enhancing the device performance.

Based on the Lyapunov stability theorem, a design methodology of adaptive block backstepping controller is proposed in this thesis for a class of multi-input systems with mismatched perturbations to solve regulation problems. According to the number of block (m) in the plant to be controlled, m-1 virtual input controllers are designed from the first block to the (m-1)th block. Then the proposed robust controller is designed from the last block. Adaptive mechanisms are employed in each of the virtual input controllers as well as the robust controller, so that the knowledge of the least upper bounds of mismatched perturbations is not required. The resultant control system can achieve asymptotic stability. Finally, a numerical example and a practical example are given for demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed control scheme.

In recent year the research field of the combinatorial testing, which can roughlybe divided into two kinds including pair-wise coverage and multi-wise coverage. a lot of scholar try to use various strategies to generate test data automatically. In order to weight the generated test set, the generated test data must satisfy certain criterion. But these combinatorial strategy neglected the flexibility of using on the practice. Considering software testing from the practice, which often be restricted by the cost. For this reason, how to obtaint the greatest testing benefits under the limited cost must be considered on the parctice. But in the extant combinatorial strategy, there is no flexible use. In other words, we must testing test set totally. Therefore, there is very great restriction to exist on using the test data generated by the extant combinatorial strategy on the practice. So, this paper proposes a flexible combinatorial strategy based on CSP, which allow users to do the most valid testing under the limited cost, which also allow users join the constraints that needs at any time during the testing process, revise the test data that we produced dynamically. The experimental result indicate that our method perform well, it can avoid including the test data whether some users think the interests less or unnecessarier, in order to achive the greatest testing beneifts.Further, we can achive the goal of reducing the quantity of testing data.

Arrhythmias are often caused by aberrant ion channel activity, resulting in remodeling of the cardiac action potential. Two K + currents, IKs and IKr, contribute to phase III repolarization of the human cardiac action potential. Human ether-a-go-go-related gene 1 (hERG1), a voltage-gated potassium channel, underlies IKr. Alterations in the repolarization phase of the action potential, and in particular IKr, can lead to arrhythmias, long or short QT syndrome, heart disease, and sudden cardiac death. HERG1A has two putative N-glycosylation sites located in the S5-S6 linker region, one of which is N-glycosylated. The aim of the first study was to determine whether and how N-linked glycosylation modifies hERG1A channel function. Voltage-dependent gating and kinetics of hERG1A were evaluated under conditions of full glycosylation, no sialylation, in the absence of complex N-glycans, and following the removal of the full N-glycosylation structure. The hERG1A steady state activation relationship was shifted linearly along the voltage axis by a depolarizing ~9 mV under each condition of reduced glycosylation. Steady state channel availability curves were shifted by a much greater depolarizing 20–30 mV under conditions of reduced glycosylation. There was no significant difference in steady state gating parameters among the less glycosylated channels, suggesting that channel sialic acids are responsible for most of the effect of N-glycans on hERG1A gating. A large rightward shift in hERG1A window current for the less glycosylated channels was caused by the observed depolarizing shifts in steady state activation and inactivation. The much larger shift in inactivation compared to activation leads to an increase in hERG1A window current. Together, these data suggest that there is an increase in the persistent hERG current that occurs at more depolarized potentials under conditions of reduced glycosylation. This would lead to increased hERG1A activity during the AP, effectively increasing the rate of repolarization, and reducing AP duration, as observed through in silico modeling of the ventricular AP. The data describe a novel mechanism by which hERG1A activity is modulated by physiological and pathological changes in hERG1A glycosylation, with increased channel sialylation causing a loss of hERG1A activity that would likely cause an extension of the ventricular AP. The second study was to evaluate possible changes in antibiotic drug block as a result of alterations to N-glycosylation. We determined that N-glycans play a protective role on the hERG1A channel. SMX, Erythromycin, and Penicillin G were assessed individually at three concentrations. The data showed increases in antibiotic block with decreases in N-glycans. In addition, alterations in the voltage-dependence of block with changes in N-glycans were observed. SMX block was voltage-independent at each drug concentration under conditions of reduced sialylation only. Overall, these data indicate a functional role for N-glycosylation in the modulation of hERG1A antibiotic block, suggesting that even small changes in channel N-glycosylation modulate hERG1A block, and thereby likely impact the rate of action potential repolarization. The data from these studies enhances our understanding of the role of N-glycosylation on hERG1A function and drug block, and how that role will impact the cardiac action potential and overall cardiac excitability.

Issues around Quality of Service (QoS) and security for Voice over IP (VoIP) have been extensively investigated separately, due to the great attention this technology currently attracts. The specific problem this work addresses centres upon the selection of optimal parameters for QoS and security for VoIP streams integrating both network impairments and user perception metrics into a novel empirically-driven approach. Specifically, the simulation model seeks the optimal parameters in terms of variable VoIP payloads, iterative block ciphers, codecs and authentication mechanisms to be used, so that optimum tradeoff between a set of conflicting factors is achieved. The model employs the widely used Transmission Rating Factor, R, as the methodology to predict and measure the perceived QoS based on current transmission and network impairments. The R factor is then used to map perceived QoS to the corresponding Mean Opinion Score value, which gives the average estimation of perceived voice quality (Quality of Experience). Furthermore, a genetic algorithm (GA) has been developed that uses the output from the simulation model as an input into an offline optimisation routine that simultaneously maximises the VoIP call volumes and the Level of Encryption (LoE) per call basis, without degrading the perceived quality of service under a specific threshold as dictated by the R factor. The solutions reflect the optimum combination of parameters for each codec used and due to the small size of the search space the actual speed of GA has been validated against an exhaustive search algorithm. The results extracted from this study demonstrate that under strict and pre-defined parameters the default payload size supported by the codecs is not the optimal selection in terms of call volume maximisation and perceived QoS when encryption is applied.

In this paper, an idea of using space-time block coding (STBC) in multi-user cooperative diversity has been exploited to improve the performance of the transmission in wireless local area networks. The theoretical and simulation results show that, using STBC approaches can always achieve the better performance than existing techniques without introducing the space-time coding. By analyzing the throughput and frame error ratio (FER) of the two different STBC cooperative schemes, we find the trade-off between throughput and reliability. The location of the relay is crucial to the performance, which supposes a rule for future crosslayer design.

This research focuses on the modeling of surfaces decorated by grafted polymers in order to understand their structure, energetics, and phase behavior. The systems studied include flat and curved surfaces, grafted homopolymers and random copolymers, and in the presence of solvent conditions, homopolymer melt conditions, and diblock copolymer melt conditions. We use self-consistent field theory to study these systems, thereby furthering the development of new tools especially applicable in describing curved particle systems and systems with chemical polydispersity. We study a polymer-grafted spherical particle interacting with a bare particle in a good solvent as a model system for a polymer-grafted drug interacting with a blood protein in vivo. We calculate the energy of interaction between the two particles as a function of grafting density, particle sizes, and particle curvature by solving the self-consistent field equations in bispherical coordinates. Also, we compare our results to those predicted by the Derjaguin approximation. We extend the previous study to describe the case of two grafted particles interacting in a polymer melt composed of chains that are chemically the same as the grafts, especially in the regime where the particle curvature is significant. This is expected to have ramifications for the dispersion of particles in a polymer nanocomposite. We quantify the interfacial width between the grafted and free polymers and explore its correlation to the interactions between the particles, and use simple scaling theories to justify our results. In collaboration with experimentalists, we study the behavior of the glass transition of polystyrene (PS) films on grafted PS substrates. Using the self consistent field theory methods described above as well as a percolation model, we rationalize the behavior of the glass transition as a function of film thickness, chain lengths, and grafting density. Grafting chemically heterogeneous polymers to surfaces in melt and thin film conditions is also relevant for both particle dispersion and semiconductor applications. To study such systems, we model a random copolymer brush in a melt of homopolymer that is chemically identical to one of the blocks. We modify the self-consistent field theory to take into account the chemical polydispersity of random copolymer systems and use it to calculate interfacial widths and energies as well as to make predictions about the window in which perpendicular morphologies of diblock copolymer are likely to form. We also explore the effect of the rearrangement of the chain ends on the surface energy and use this concept to create a simple modified strong stretching theory that qualitatively agrees with our numerical self-consistent field theory results. We explicitly study the system that is most relevant to semiconductor applications - that of a diblock copolymer melt on top of a substrate modified by a random copolymer brush. We explore the morphologies formed as a function of film thickness, grafting density, chain length, and chain blockiness, and make predictions about the effect of these on the neutral window, that is, the range of brush volume fractions over which perpendicular lamellae are expected to occur. / text

The assessment of fragmentation is an important aspect of the design and planning of any excavation. The distribution of fragment sizes in situ helps assess the requirement of explosive energy to excavate the rock material. In addition, the information can also be used to evaluate the ground water flow, leaching characteristics and the requirement of additional rock handling equipment in construction projects. In the block cave mining method, the assessment of in situ and secondary fragmentation is an integral part of the design of the excavations at the extraction level and the selection of material handling systems for transporting the ore to the processing stations. Secondary blasting requirements can also be estimated based on the fragment size distributions developed for the block cave. Methods of estimating fragment size distributions in block cave mines have been based on joint set parameters estimated from structural mapping in available excavations or outcrops. While this is acceptable in the absence of any other means of assessing the fragmentation, the results can often be misleading since the structural mapping is often carried out in limited areas and the results applied uniformly to the entire deposit. This new study proposes to use the core piece lengths information gathered from the boreholes to develop in situ and primary fragmentation estimates for block cave operations. Under this proposed study, drill core piece lengths from an exploration program in Indonesia will be used along with structural mapping data to develop estimates for in situ and primary fragment size distributions. Methods for estimating secondary fragmentation from primary fragmentation will be evaluated and the estimates of secondary fragmentation from the different methods will be compared with the actual fragmentation characteristics observed at the drawpoints. The primary assumption in the development of primary fragment size distributions from drill core data is that each drill hole piece represents one in situ rock block. The relationships between the joint spacings and lengths of the different joint sets, evaluated from the joint set characteristics gathered from available excavations, outcrops or oriented core drilling programs, can be utilized for estimating the shape of the rock blocks.

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No description available.