A Unified Model for Gate Capacitance–Voltage Characteristics and Extraction of Parameters of Si/SiGe Heterostructure pMOSFETs

A unified model for gate capacitance-voltage characteristics of Si/SiGe heterostructure pMOSFETs is presented. This model is applicable to buried-channel, surface-channel, and dual-channel Si/SiGe heterostructure pMOSFETs. The results from the model are compared with the experimental results and are found to be in excellent agreement. A simple and accurate method for the extraction of parameters such as the valence band offset, Si cap layer thickness, threshold voltages, and substrate doping is also presented in this paper.     

Stochastic Budget Optimization in Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is a sophisticated game in which the many advertisers “play” to optimize their return on investment. There are many “targets” for the advertisements, and each “target” has a collection of games with a potentially different set of players involved. In this paper, we study the problem of how advertisers allocate their budget across these “targets”. In particular, we focus on formulating their best response strategy as an optimization problem. Advertisers have a set of keywords (“targets”) and some stochastic information about the future, namely a probability distribution over scenarios of cost vs click combinations. This summarizes the potential states of the world assuming that the strategies of other players are fixed. Then, the best response can be abstracted as stochastic budget optimization problems to figure out how to spread a given budget across these keywords to maximize the expected number of clicks. We present the first known non-trivial poly-logarithmic approximation for these problems as well as the first known hardness results of getting better than logarithmic approximation ratios in the various parameters involved. We also identify several special cases of these problems of practical interest, such as with fixed number of scenarios or with polynomial-sized parameters related to cost, which are solvable either in polynomial time or with improved approximation ratios. Stochastic budget optimization with scenarios has sophisticated technical structure. Our approximation and hardness results come from relating these problems to a special type of (0/1, bipartite) quadratic programs inherent in them. Our research answers some open problems raised by the authors (in Algorithmica, 58(4):1022–1044, 2010).     

Three-dimensional finite element program for magnetic field problems

A finite element program has been developed to solve magnetic field problems in three dimensions. The program is based on the extended Ritz method which employs discrete values of the magnetic vector potential as the unknown parameters. A simple example problem illustrates the use of this program. One of the distributions obtained compares favorably with that calculated from a two-dimensional approximation. In that case, the two-dimensional calculation provides a realistic approximation.     

A quasi-3D analytical threshold voltage model of small geometry MOSFETs

Numerical 2D and 3D models of MOSFETs, which have been developed so far, are accurate but take enormous computer time and memory for their implementation. It restricts their use only to the design and development of submicron devices. A computationally faster, analytical quasi-3D model for the threshold voltage of small geometry MOSFETs, which should be useful for VLSI circuit simulation, has been presented in this paper. The model is based on a rigorous 2D analytical model. An equivalence between the analytical 2D model and the Yau's charge sharing model has been established, and the same has been utilized to incorporate the narrow width effect. The important features of the present work are: (1) realistic channel implantation profiles for nMOSFETs have been used in developing the 2D model; (ii) the effect of birds' beaks on the lateral confinement of charges in the channels of oxide isolated MOSFETs has been considered in a simple manner; and (iii) the fringing of electric field near the edges of channels (widths) has also been considered empirically. The simulated values of the threshold voltages exhibiting 2D and 3D effects compare well with those obtained using a numerical 3D simulator (MICROMOS) and with available experimental data. The model is also capable of predicting the inverse narrow width effect observed in MOSFETs with fully recessed field oxide.     

Axially constrained beams on elastic foundation

The problem of bending in axially constrained beams on a Winkler-type elastic foundation is considered. This nonlinear problem is approached by a differential equation method as well as a finite element method. Numerical results are presented which show that for a low modulus of the foundation the linear solution for deflection (which neglects axial constraint effect) yields deflection values which may be several times higher than the exact solution. The two methods are shown to be in good agreement.     

On constructing an optimal consensus clustering from multiple clusterings

Computing a suitable measure of consensus among several clusterings on the same data is an important problem that arises in several areas such as computational biology and data mining. In this paper, we formalize a set-theoretic model for computing such a similarity measure. Roughly speaking, in this model we have k>1 partitions (clusters) of the same data set each containing the same number of sets and the goal is to align the sets in each partition to minimize a similarity measure. For k=2, a polynomial-time solution was proposed by Gusfield (Information Processing Letters 82 (2002) 159-164). In this paper, we show that the problem is MAX-SNP-hard for k=3 even if each partition in each cluster contains no more than 2 elements and provide a -approximation algorithm for the problem for any k.     

Structure and photoconductive properties of dip-deposited SnS and SnS2 thin films and their conversion to tin dioxide by annealing in air

SnS and SnS₂ thin films have been prepared by the dip technique. In this technique, a substrate was dipped into an alcoholic solution of the corresponding chloride and thiourea and then withdrawn vertically at a controlled speed, and finally baked in a high temperature furnace at atmospheric condition. XRD and SEM data suggest that good quality SnS and SnS₂ films are obtained at a baking temperature of 300 and 360°C, respectively. Values of band gap for SnS and SnS₂ obtained from spectral response of photoconductivity are 1.4 and 2.4 eV, respectively. The indirect allowed band gap values for SnS₂ film obtained from optical absorption measurements are 1.95 and 2.05 eV. Open-air annealing of both SnS and SnS₂ films at 400°C converts them to transparent conducting SnO₂.     

Modification of polyvinyl butyral rheological properties via blending with ionomeric polyvinyl butyral

Summary Polyvinyl butyral containing ionomer groups (IPVB) can be blended with conventional polyvinyl butyral (PVB) in order to modify rheological properties of the latter including ambient temperature stiffness and flow at processing temperatures. Thus by blending IPVB with PVB at levels up to 50 percent by weight, increases in the ambient temperature stiffness as measured by the storage modulus of the polymer blends (G) are achieved while maintaining or improving flow characteristics at processing temperatures.     

Progressive spatial restriction of Sek-1 and Krox-20 gene expression during hindbrain segmentation

After segmentation of the vertebrate hindbrain, expression of the zinc-finger gene Krox-20 and the receptor tyrosine kinase gene Sek-1 is precisely restricted to rhombomeres (r) 3 and 5. This precise segmental expression is likely to reflect a critical requirement for these rhombomeres to acquire a distinct and homogeneous identity and raises the question as to how this relates to the intermingling and restriction of cell movement during segmentation. We have analysed Krox-20 and Sek-1 expression in the mouse and chick hindbrain at single-cell resolution using whole-mount in situ hybridisation and immunocytochemistry. We find that, in the mouse, the presumptive r3 and r5 expression domains each arise as narrow stripes that then broaden, suggestive of a recruitment of cells to an r3/r5 identity and/or a segmental regulation of cell proliferation. In addition, we find that expression of these genes initially occurs in fuzzy domains, and that these are progressively restricted to segmental domains, although occasional "violating" cells are observed even after segmentation. We propose that the establishment and maintenance of these segmental domains may involve both a dynamic regulation of r3/r5 identity and the restriction of cell movement across rhombomere boundaries.     

Inferring (Biological) Signal Transduction Networks via Transitive Reductions of Directed Graphs

In this paper we consider the p-ary transitive reduction (TR _p ) problem where p>0 is an integer; for p=2 this problem arises in inferring a sparsest possible (biological) signal transduction network consistent with a set of experimental observations with a goal to minimize false positive inferences even if risking false negatives. Special cases of TR _p have been investigated before in different contexts; the best previous results are as follows: