Counting with Fuzzy Sets

The notion of fuzzy set cardinality is examined. Zadeh's suggested measure of fuzzy cardinality, the sigma-count, is adopted and shown to generalize classical counting measure. This allows many combinatorial structures and counting techniques to be fuzzified, and hence used in knowledge representation and pattern recognition models. A fuzzy set review is found in the Appendix.     

Heavy metal recovery by extraction and permeation in incineration preocesses

Incineration processes are critical for the environment. SO₂ and NO_X removal with processes is nowadays commonplace. Up to now, heavy metal were recovered via precipitation. The alternative use of liquid ion exchange techniques offers an easy re-use of the heavy metals, which are obtained as concentrates. A separation process is described, starting from laboratory experiments and ending with pilot plant field tests. A cost comparison for extraction, permeation and precipitation gives the scope of the necessary expenses for such environmentally controlled processes.     

Evaluation of Digitally Encoded Layer‐by‐layer Coated Microparticles as Cell Carriers

To obtain more biologically relevant data there is a growing interest in the use of living cells for assaying the biological activity of unknown chemical compounds. Density ‘multiplex’ cell‐based assays, where different cell types are mixed in one well and simultaneously investigated upon exposure to a certain compound are beginning to emerge. To be able to identify the cells they should be attached to microscopic carriers that are encoded. This paper investigates how digitally encoded microparticles can be loaded with cells while keeping the digital code in the microcarriers readable. It turns out that coating the surface of the encoded microcarriers with polyelectrolytes using the layer‐by‐layer (LbL) approach provides the microcarriers with a ‘highly functional’ surface. The polyelectrolyte layer allows the growth of the cells, allows the orientation of the cell loaded microcarriers in a magnetic field, and does not hamper the reading of the code. It has further been shown that the cells growing on the polyelectrolyte layer can become transduced by adenoviral particles hosted by the polyelectrolyte layer. It is concluded that the digitally encoded microparticles are promising materials for use in biomedical and pharmaceutical in‐vitro research where cells are used as tools.     

设计和仿真无线局域网设备天线

对带有开关电路的2.4 GHz极化分集印刷天线进行电磁场及电磁场与电路协同仿真 通过采用极化分集技术,可以用低成本PCB基片制造具有良好接收机性能的无线局域网设备(WLAN)天线.本文将描述如何使用最新的三维电磁场(EM)仿真工具来设计和仿真一对2.4GHz正交极化的印刷偶极子天线,同时预测表面电流和相关的远场辐射图.     

AC-3-irradiation test of sphere-pac and pellet (U,Pu)C fuel in the US Fast Flux Test Facility

The objective of the AC-3 bundle experiment in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) was to evaluate a fuel fabrication method by ‘direct conversion’ of nitrate solutions into spherical uranium–plutonium carbide particles and to compare the irradiation performance of ‘sphere-pac’ fuel pins prepared at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) with standard pellet fuel pins fabricated at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The irradiation and post test examination results show that mixed carbide pellet fuel produced by powder methods and sphere-pac particle fuel developed by internal gelation techniques are both valuable advanced fuel candidates for liquid metal reactors. The PSI fabrication process with direct conversion of actinide nitrate solutions into various sizes of fuel spheres by internal gelation and direct filling of spheres into cladding tubes is seen as more easily transferable to remote operation, showing a significant reduction of process steps. The process is also adaptable for the fabrication of carbonitrides and nitrides (still based on a uranium matrix), as well as for actinides diluted in a (uranium-free) yttrium stabilized zirconium oxide matrix. The AC-3 fuel bundle was irradiated in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) during the years 1986–1988 for 630 full power days to a peak burn up of 8 at.% fissile material. All of the pins, irradiated at linear powers of up to 84 kW/m, with cladding outer temperatures of 465 °C appeared to be in good condition when removed from the assembly. The rebirth of interest for fast reactor systems motivated the earlier teams to report about the excellent, still perfectly relevant results reached; this paper focusing on the sphere-pac fuel behaviour.     

Adoption and Pricing: The Underestimated Elements of a Realistic IPTV Business Case

The adoption of IPTV increases competition for telecom operators. Especially video on demand and the move to HDTV push the bandwidth requirements to the limits. It is very challenging for an operator to construct a successful and sustainable introduction of IPTV over the existing infrastructure. This article gives an overview of a typical business case followed by a detailed discussion of the adoption and evaluation of the outcome. The results of this article indicate the importance of a correct choice of adoption model and related parameters. It illustrates how different IPTV-specific effects on adoption (i.e., competition and analog switchoff) might have a considerable impact on the outcome. After adoption, the article shows how the outcome of the business case can be used within pricing decisions by setting sustainable and competitive boundaries on the tariff. Finally, as pricing will also have an important impact on adoption (e.g., a price reduction could lead to increased adoption), the possible impact of this feedback loop is indicated. In this sense the approach discussed in the article could easily be extended with a highly detailed cost model of the network architecture and technology, leading to a full business case for IPTV introduction by a telecom operator.     

Quantum ballistic transport in the junctionless nanowire pinch-off field effect transistor

In this work we investigate quantum ballistic transport in ultrasmall junctionless and inversion mode semiconducting nanowire transistors within the framework of the self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson problem. The quantum transmitting boundary method is used to generate open boundary conditions between the active region and the electron reservoirs. We adopt a subband decomposition approach to make the problem numerically tractable and make a comparison of four different numerical approaches to solve the self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson problem. Finally we discuss the IV-characteristics for small (r≤5 nm) GaAs nanowire transistors. The novel junctionless pinch-off FET or junctionless nanowire transistor is extensively compared with the gate-all-around (GAA) nanowire MOSFET.     

Finer fractal geometry for analytic families of conformal dynamical systems

We prove several results establishing real analyticity of Hausdorff dimensions of limit sets of analytic families of conformal graph directed Markov systems. With this tool and with iterated function systems resulting from the existence of nice sets in the sense of Rivera-Letelier, we prove that the canonical Hausdorff measure restricted to the radial Julia set of a tame meromorphic function (can be rational) is σ-finite and that the Hausdorff dimension of the radial Julia sets for fairly general families of meromorphic functions (can be rational) is real analytic.