Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-121).

In recent years, studying soft errors has become an issue of greater importance. There have been many methods developed that estimate the Soft Error Rate. Those methods are either deterministic or statistical. The proposed deterministic model aims to improve Soft Error Rate estimation by accurately approximating the generated pulse and all subsequent pulses. The generated pulse is approximated by a piecewise function consisting of two Weibull cumulative distribution functions. This method is an improvement over existing methods as it offers high accuracy while requiring less pre-characterization. The proposed algorithm reduces pre-characterization by allowing the beta Weibull parameter to be calculated during runtime using gate parameters such as the gate delay.

Low dropout regulators (LDOs) are important components for power management in modern integrated circuits. With the continued scaling down of power supply voltage, digital LDOs have become a more attractive design choice since they avoid the difficulty of designing high-gain amplifiers with low voltage. This thesis investigates techniques for both modeling and enhancement of digital LDO transient response. It discusses the importance of the resistance in the output stage of an LDO, and proposes a simulation model for examining LDO transient response. In addition, the thesis studies circuit techniques to improve LDO transient response. Different LDO circuits are implemented and compared in this study.

L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en français / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en anglais

This thesis is based on an ethnographic study of the inhabitants of Whiddy Island, and focuses on the change from one form of societal organisation to another on this island. The thesis is not an ethnography proper, but an attempt to link the local perceptions of change and the changes in the islanders' daily lives, to the wider political economy. Throughout the course of the study my original intention of exploring the tension between technology and community was replaced with the wider hypothesis that there is tension between modernity and community. Technology was revealed as both a product and producer of modernity, and modern state capitalist societies as the antonym not the synonym of community. The 40 remaining islanders represent the last of the transient phase in which community disappears and is replaced by society. The changes in the daily lives of the islanders were not total nor revolutionary. Rather the products of modernity - both policies and artefacts, were absorbed into the islanders' daily lives, and once absorbed the products of modernity promoted modernity in the daily lives of those using them. Modernity is thus a circular process, yet it settled on the island in layers. Each layer produced a new set of paradoxes and reformed the old practices and the old ideology to fit the new setting. The settlement of modernity culminated in the replacement of community members with state citizens. By focusing on the interrelationship and dialogue between modernity, the state and the citizen the processes by which modernity settled on this small island are revealed. It settled both as a result of the direct intervention of state policies on education, emigration and employment, and as a result of local decisions to embrace mechanised transport, domestic technologies and the mass media. By accepting the policies and the artefacts of modernity, the islanders were prohibited from resisting their transformation from community members to state citizens. The island citizen, like all citizens to-day, has a direct dialogue with, and relationship to modernity, and an indirect one mediated by the state.

The effect of surface roughness on jet impingement heat transfer was investigated in this research. A numerical analysis was conducted for free surface slot jet impinging normally onto a heated plate. Six different geometries and three different plate materials were investigated. The cooling fluid used for the analysis was water, and the flow was laminar with a range of Reynolds number (Re) from 500 to 1000. Temperature distribution, local and average heat transfer coefficient, and local and average Nusselt number were presented for each case. The steady state heat transfer results show that the increase in Reynolds number (Re) increases the local heat transfer coefficient and the local Nusselt number. Impinging the jet nozzle directly onto a step has a better heat transfer enhancement than impinging the jet nozzle in between steps. Materials with low thermal conductivity exhibit large variation in temperature along the solid-fluid interface. The variations of the interface temperature become smaller between all cases when applying the isothermal boundary condition. The transient heat transfer results show that the temperature of the interface increases with time until steady state condition is met. Materials with high thermal diffusivity reach the steady state condition with less time. The increase in surface roughness increases the time required to reach the steady state condition. The highest rates of heat transfer were found at locations where no fluid recirculation occurs. It takes less time to reach steady state condition when applying the isothermal boundary condition at the bottom surface of the plate.

No description available.

Simulation tools capable of analyzing electromagnetic (EM) field/wave interactions on complex penetrable scatterers have applications in various areas of engineering ranging from the design of integrated antennas to the subsurface imaging. EM simulation tools operating in the time domain can be formulated to directly solve the Maxwell equations or the integral equations obtained by enforcing fundamental field relations or boundary conditions. Time domain integral equation (TDIE) solvers offer several benefits over differential equation solvers: They require smaller number discretization elements/sampling points (both in space and time). Despite the advantages, TDIE solvers suffer from increased computational cost, stability issues of the time-marching algorithms, and limited applicability to complex scatterers. This thesis is focused on addressing the last two issues associated with time domain volume integral equation (TD-VIE) solvers, as the issue of increased computational cost has been addressed by recently developed acceleration methods. More specifically, four new closely-related, but different marching on-in-time (MOT) algorithms are formulated and implemented to solve the time domain electric and magnetic field volume integral equations (TD-EFVIE and TD-MFVIE). The first algorithm solves the TD-EFVIE to analyze EM wave interactions on high-contrast dielectric scatterers. The stability of this MOT scheme is ensured by using two-sided approximate prolate spherical wave (APSW) functions to discretize the time dependence of the unknown current density as well as an extrapolation scheme to restore the causality of matrix system resulting from this discretization. The second MOT scheme solves the TDMFVIE to analyze EM wave interactions on dielectric scatterers. The TD-MFVIE is cast in the form of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) and the unknown magnetic field is expanded using spatial basis functions. The time-dependent coefficients of this expansion are found by integrating the resulting ODE system using a linear multistep method. The third method is formulated and implemented to analyze EM wave interactions on scatterers with Kerr nonlinearity. The former scheme integrates in time a coupled of system of the TD-EFVIE and the nonlinear constitutive relation, which is cast in the form of an ODE system, for the expansion coefficients of the electric field and flux using a linear multistep method. The last method described in this thesis is developed to analyze EM wave interactions on ferrite scatterers.

In November 2000, the 4th Workshop on Measurement Techniques for Stationary and Transient Multiphase Flows took place in Rossendorf. Three previous workshops of this series were national meetings; this time participants from different countries took part. The programme comprised 14 oral presentations, 9 of which are included in these proceedings in full length. A special highlight of the meeting was the main lecture "Ultrasonic doppler method for bubbly flow measurement" of Professor Masanori Aritomi, Dr. Hiroshige Kikura and Dr. Yumiko Suzuki, which was read by Dr. Hiroshige Kikura. The workshop again dealt with high-resolution phase distribution and phase velocity measurement techniques based on electrical conductivity, ultrasound, laser light and high-speed cinematography. A number of presentations were dedicated to the application of wire-mesh sensors developed by FZR for different applications used by the Technical Universities of Delft and Munich and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The presentations were in particular: M. Aritomi, H. Kikura, Y. Suzuki (Tokyo Institute of Technology): Ultrasonic doppler method for bubbly flow measurement V. V. Kontelev, V. I. Melnikov (TU Nishny Novgorod): An ultrasonic mesh sensor for two-phase flow visualisation A. V. Duncev (TU Nishny Novgorod): Waveguide ultrasonic liquid level transducers for power generating equipment H.-M. Prasser, E. Krepper, D. Lucas, J. Zschau (FZR), D. Peters, G. Pietzsch, W. Taubert, M. Trepte (Teletronic Ingenieurbüro GmbH), Fast wire-mesh sensors for gas-liquid flows and decomposition of gas fraction profiles according to bubble size classes D. Scholz, C. Zippe (FZR): Validation of bubble size measurements with wire-mesh sensors by high-speed video observation A. Manera, H. Hartmann, W.J.M. de Kruijf, T.H.J.J. van der Hagen, R.F. Mudde, (TU Delft, IRI): Low-pressure dynamics of a natural-circulation two-phase flow loop H. Schmidt, O. Herbst, W. Kastner, W. Köhler (Siemens AG KWU): Measuring methods for the investigation of the flow phenomena during external pressure vessel cooling of the boiling water reactor SWR1000 A. Traichel, W. Kästner, S. Schefter, V. Schneider, S. Fleischer, T. Gocht, R. Hampel (HTWS Zittau/Görlitz - IPM): Verification of simulation results of mixture level transients and evaporation processes in level measurement systems using needle-shaped probes S. Richter, M. Aritomi (Tokyo Institute of Technology): Methods for studies on bubbly flow characteristics applying a new electrode-mesh tomograph