Monolithic System Research Articles

Metalinguistic relativity: Does one's ontology determine one's view on linguistic relativity?

Linguistic relativity is a notion that has been met with both praise and scorn. We argue that there is correlation between theorists’ general conceptions of the nature of language, and their stance toward linguistic relativity. Starting with the proponents of the thesis, we distinguish between the relativists of the early days (Boas, Whorf) and modern neo-Whofians (Levinson, Slobin), showing that the first but not the latter are committed to a view of language as a monolithic semiotic system contrasting “arbitrarily” with other such systems. Critics of the thesis also come from two diametrically opposed views of language. While universalists see the most significant part of language as pan-human cognitive structure (insulated from thought in general), socio-cultural theorists emphasize the nature of language as contextually situated activity. In both cases the potential for locally sedimented linguistic structures to influence thought is excluded or at best marginalized.In response, we propose that a synthetic ontology of language as an experientially grounded semiotic system for meaning making in actual social contexts allows for the possibility for language to influence thought, though in different ways. These depend on whether we consider language as situated use, as sedimented conventions or as ultimately prelinguistic motivations for “universal” properties like predication. We argue that all three of these perspectives need to be considered. With the help of the Motivation & Sedimentation Model, which is based on such a linguistic ontology, and inspired by the integral linguistics and phenomenology, we show how the deadlock in the debate over linguistic relativity can be resolved, and the possibility for discussion to proceed in less antagonistic manner.

A monolithic projection framework for constrained FSI problems with the immersed boundary method

A monolithic projection framework for constrained fluid–structure interaction (CFSI) problems is proposed to solve multi-structure and multi-constraint problems. Immersed boundary method (IBM) in the continuous forcing form is used to evaluate the constraint force on the fluid–structure interface due to the no-slip boundary condition. Besides, constraints from material properties and inter-structure dynamics are uniformly considered. All subsystems are assembled into a monolithic system and solved efficiently with approximate LU decomposition. Simulations of the flapping filament, flapping flag, windsock waggling and parachute deploying cases are conducted to examine the accuracy, efficiency and capability for bilateral and unilateral constraints of the FSI systems, respectively. The results show nearly second-order accuracy temporally, along with significant efficiency improvement.

Accurate 3D Lighthouse Localization of a Low-Power Crystal-Free Single-Chip Mote

We present a system for centimeter-precision 3 dimensional localization of a $2\times 3\times 0.3$ mm3, 5 mg, wireless system-on-chip by utilizing a temporally-structured infrared illumination scheme generated by a set of base stations. This 3D localization system builds on previous work by adding a second lighthouse station to enable 3D localization and using the integrated wireless radio, making the localization system fully wireless. We demonstrate 3D tracking with mean absolute errors of 1.54 cm, 1.50 cm, and 5.1 cm for the X, Y, and Z dimensions. This is the first time such a lighthouse localization system has been able to localize a monolithic single-chip wireless system. [2020-0102]

Ultraviolet optoelectronic devices based on AlGaN-SiC platform: Towards monolithic photonics integration system

Rapid advancement of wide-bandgap AlGaN semiconductor materials offers tremendous opportunities in the field of ultraviolet (UV) optoelectronics for a wide range of advanced applications. Additionally, SiC has large bandgap and excellent material properties, also making itself a suitable material for UV photodetection. More importantly, high-quality AlGaN alloys can be epitaxially grown on SiC substrates because of the very small lattice mismatch between them (less than 1%), which enables a possible monolithic integration of those two materials and allows us to take advantage of their material and physical properties to realize high-performance UV optoelectronics and eventually the integrated UV photonics systems. Herein, we review the recent progress in the development of UV optoelectronics based on AlGaN-SiC platform, mainly focusing on: (1) the growth strategies and material characterizations of AlGaN epilayers on SiC; (2) the fabrication and performance evaluation of UV optoelectronic devices built on the platform, including UV LEDs/lasers and UV photodetectors. Thereafter, we briefly discuss the initial efforts in the pursuit of monolithic integration of those UV optoelectronic devices. Finally, the challenges and potential advances associated with individual UV optoelectronic components as well as UV integrated photonics system on the prosperous AlGaN-SiC platform are outlined, providing insights and perspectives for possible device- and system-level innovation in future. The recent advances in the development of ultraviolet light emitters (LED, lasers) and photodetectors on the AlGaN-SiC platform are reviewed. By taking advantage of the extreme small lattice mismatch between the two wide bandgap semiconductors - AlGaN and SiC, together with their compatible physical and material properties, a monolithic ultraviolet photonics integration system can be built on the AlGaN-SiC platform. • AlGaN and SiC are recognized as two most promising wide bandgap semiconductors for UV optoelectronics applications. • AlGaN and SiC can be integrated to form AlGaN-SiC platform for the monolithic UV photonics integration system. • This review provides a comprehensive summary of the recent advancement of UV optoelectronics based on the AlGaN-SiC platform. • The outlooks and challenges in device- and system-level innovation of UV optoelectronics on AlGaN-SiC platform are discussed.

An observation on the uniform preconditioners for the mixed Darcy problem

AbstractWhen solving a multiphysics problem one often decomposes a monolithic system into simpler, frequently single‐physics, subproblems. A comprehensive solution strategy may commonly be attempted, then, by means of combining strategies devised for the constituent subproblems. When decomposing the monolithic problem, however, it may be that requiring a particular scaling for one subproblem enforces an undesired scaling on another. In this manuscript we consider the H(div)‐based mixed formulation of the Darcy problem as a single‐physics subproblem; the hydraulic conductivity, K, is considered intrinsic and not subject to any rescaling. Preconditioners for such porous media flow problems in mixed form are frequently based on H(div) preconditioners rather than the pressure Schur complement. We show that when the hydraulic conductivity, K, is small the pressure Schur complement can also be utilized for H(div)‐based preconditioners. The proposed approach employs an operator preconditioning framework to establish a robust, K‐uniform block preconditioner. The mapping property of the continuous operator is a key component in applying the theoretical framework point of view. As such, a main challenge addressed here is establishing a K‐uniform inf‐sup condition with respect to appropriately weighted Hilbert intersection‐ and sum spaces.

Dual roles of cellulose monolith in the continuous-flow generation and support of gold nanoparticles for green catalyst

Monolithic flow reactors are widely applied in numerous reactions due to its high efficiency and good reusability, but the green and efficient fabrication of monolithic flow catalytic system is still a challenge. Herein, the cellulose monolith prepared using a facile temperature-induced phase separation method was utilized to generate and immobilize the gold nanoparticles by a continuous-flow strategy, in which the cellulose monolith served as both reducing agent and supporting material. This process was conducted at room temperature and avoided the tedious surface modification of cellulose. The obtained cellulose-Au monolith can be directly applied as a green flow reactor in both water and organic solvents, and exhibited superior catalytic efficiency and good stability. This work provides a highly efficient, scalable and sustainable strategy for developing green catalytic system based on environmentally friendly cellulose monolith materials.

Towards an Architecture for the Interoperability of Hospital Information Systems in Burkina Faso.

The successful introduction of ICTs into medical practice is a key factor in improving the performance of any health system for both patients and healthcare professionals. In Burkina Faso, many hospital information systems (HIS) have been developed and are already widely used in large health centers with proven efficiency. To improve the quality of patient care, these hospital information systems should exchange information. Interoperability is one of the privileged ways to improve the integration of different systems because nowadays a HIS is no longer just a single monolithic software system, which is run on a single machine. This paper presents a semantic interoperability architecture, which is based on a mediation approach. The mediator implements local domain ontologies for each HIS, a knowledge base, and a referential ontology which is used as a semantic repository and web services.

Interface Flux Recovery coupling method for the ocean–atmosphere system

Component coupling is a crucial part of climate models, such as DOE’s E3SM (Caldwell et al., 2019). A common coupling strategy in climate models is for their components to exchange flux data from the previous time-step. This approach effectively performs a single step of an iterative solution method for the monolithic coupled system, which may lead to instabilities and loss of accuracy. In this paper we formulate an Interface-Flux-Recovery (IFR) coupling method which improves upon the conventional coupling techniques in climate models. IFR starts from a monolithic formulation of the coupled discrete problem and then uses a Schur complement to obtain an accurate approximation of the flux across the interface between the model components. This decouples the individual components and allows one to solve them independently by using schemes that are optimized for each component. To demonstrate the feasibility of the method, we apply IFR to a simplified ocean–atmosphere model for heat-exchange coupled through the so-called bulk condition, common in ocean–atmosphere systems. We then solve this model on matching and non-matching grids to estimate numerically the convergence rates of the IFR coupling scheme.

A hybrid recommender system for recommending relevant movies using an expert system

Currently, the Internet contains a large amount of information, which must then be filtered to determine suitability for certain users. Recommender systems are a very suitable tool for this purpose. In this paper, we propose a monolithic hybrid recommender system called Predictory, which combines a recommender module composed of a collaborative filtering system (using the SVD algorithm), a content-based system, and a fuzzy expert system. The proposed system serves to recommend suitable movies. The system works with favorite and unpopular genres of the user, while the final list of recommended movies is determined using a fuzzy expert system, which evaluates the importance of the movies. The expert system works with several parameters – average movie rating, number of ratings, and the level of similarity between already rated movies. Therefore, our system achieves better results than traditional approaches, such as collaborative filtering systems, content-based systems, and weighted hybrid systems. The system verification based on standard metrics (precision, recall, F1-measure) achieves results over 80%. The main contribution is the creation of a complex hybrid system in the area of movie recommendation, which has been verified on a group of users using the MovieLens dataset and compared with other traditional recommender systems.

Use of epoxy asphalt as surfacing and tack coat material for roadway pavements

This work presents an experimental program developed to evaluate the effect of epoxy-asphalt binder, used as replacement of bitumen, on the durability and fatigue life of an asphalt concrete mix. The use of epoxy-type binder as tack coat has been explored as well and thus experiments have been conducted to quantify the effect of epoxy tack coat on the interface strength of two-layer asphalt samples. Results indicated that the epoxy asphalt mixes had higher tensile strength than control mixes, and the increase of strength was noticed with increasing proportionally the amount of epoxy in bitumen. Additionally, the four-point bending tests indicate that a high modulus material, as the epoxy modified asphalt, can effectively reduce deflections of specimen beams and improve the fatigue resistance of mixes designed for surfacing roadway applications. On the basis of interlayer tests, the use of epoxy asphalt binder as tack coat improved the bonding strength between the two layers offering monolithic performance characteristics on high modulus roadway pavements. Overall, the current study concludes that a two-layer monolithic pavement system with epoxy asphalt could mitigate bonding defects, such as debonding, slippage and fatigue cracking propagated from bottom to up, of a surfacing (top) pavement layer of enhanced strength, modulus and fatigue resistance.

Seismic Design of Precast Component Beam-Column Joints using Headed Anchors

Precast construction system ensures high degree of quality, safety, and accelerated construction practice in R.C structures. It is well established in non-seismic conditions where gravity loads are predominated. But it is hesitated to implement during seismic conditions by the effect of lateral loads. Most of structural failures in precast framed structures are associated with beam-column joints as the integrated joint system experience high shear, and moments by cyclic action of seismic loads. In this context, researchers found that the joint distortions in precast system is well associated with its location of beam-column sub-assemblage. In beam-column joints the connections are attributed to locate in D-regions (D:Discrete) and B-regions (B:Beam) where the force transfer mechanism follows by strut - tie method (STM) or flexure beam theory(FBT) respectively. This paper analyzed the seismic performance of “Component Based Precast Joints”[CBPJ] located in D& B regions. To meet the convergence requirements, the connection systems are detailed by mechanical couplers and headed anchors. Five numerical models of exterior beam-column joints representing two models (BM1,BM2) of B-region and three models (DM1,DM2,DM3) of D-region are developed and verified their seismic performance with monolithic joint system by non-linear finite element analysis using ABAQUS software .The results indicated that the use of headed anchors in precast joints are effectively contributed to seismic requirements of shear, ductility, stiffness and energy dissipation. Also the precast joints located in D & B regions resembling good performance of joint sustainability during moderate seismic conditions as monolithic system.

39 W narrow spectral linewidth monolithic ytterbium-doped fiber MOPA system operating at 976 nm.

We report on a monolithic narrow spectral linewidth master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) delivering up to 39 W around 976 nm with very high contrast. The amplifier is based on an ytterbium-doped large mode area (LMA) octagonal double clad (DC) active fiber with parameters optimized for long living three-level operation.

Monolithic Adsorbent-Based Rapid-Cycle Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption Process for Carbon Capture from Small-Scale Steam Methane Reforming

Steam methane reforming is the primary route to convert natural gas into hydrogen, both at small and large scales. Most of the effort from the scientific and industrial community has been directed toward CO2 capture from large-scale reforming plants. This Article, therefore, proposes an intensified 8-bed, 14-step vacuum pressure swing adsorption unit to capture CO2 from a high partial pressure stream in a small-scale steam methane-reforming process. The unit employs a monolithic adsorbent, rather than adsorbent pellets or beads; this allows the cycle time to be much shorter than that for pelleted adsorbent systems. The specific energy penalty for carbon capture has been minimized by regulating the blowdown and evacuation pressure, while also meeting the CO2 purity and recovery constraints. The minimum penalty is realized when the CO2 purity and recovery are fixed at the minimum allowable values of 95% and 90%, respectively. The model predicts a specific electrical energy penalty of 9.03 kJ/mol CO2 for a fixed feed processing capacity of 7.10 mol of feed/m3/s. The corresponding productivity of the monolithic VPSA process in terms of its CO2 production capacity was estimated to be 0.951 mol CO2/m3/s. The productivity was found to be almost double than the values reported in the literature for state-of-the-art MDEA-based capture plants for large-scale steam methane-reforming applications. A dry feed gas was initially assumed for modeling; the presence of moisture was found to cause a drop in CO2 recovery by approximately five percentage points. The monolithic adsorbent system has also been compared to an equally sized fixed bed, packed with pelleted adsorbent. The pelleted adsorbent system was found to have a lower working capacity between the same blowdown and evacuation pressure. The working capacity could only be improved with reducing the regeneration (evacuation) pressure, resulting in a higher vacuum pump penalty.

Architecture of a distributed storage that combines file system, memory and computation in a single layer

Storage and memory systems for modern data analytics are heavily layered, managing shared persistent data, cached data, and non-shared execution data in separate systems such as a distributed file system like HDFS, an in-memory file system like Alluxio, and a computation framework like Spark. Such layering introduces significant performance and management costs. In this paper, we propose a single system called Pangea that can manage all data—both intermediate and long-lived data, and their buffer/caching, page replacement, data placement optimization, and failure recovery—all in one monolithic distributed storage system, without any layering. We present a detailed performance evaluation of Pangea and show that its performance compares favorably with several widely used layered systems such as Spark.

Synergistic Tandem Solar Electricity-Water Generators

Summary Energy and clean water are two intertwined fundamental elements for human civilization and sustainable development. Here, we devise a monolithic tandem solar electricity-water generator that synergistically produces electricity and clean water by utilizing the full spectrum of solar irradiance. The tandem generator has two components: a top infrared-transparent photovoltaic device using above-band-gap photons, and a bottom solar water purifier using the below-band-gap photons. More strikingly, a well-designed water-proof thermal interconnecting layer (WTIL) makes these two components work synergistically: the bottom purifier serves as an evaporative cooler of the top solar cell to increase its efficiency, whereas the thermalization energy of the top cell is reutilized by the bottom purifier for producing more clean water. We experimentally demonstrate that a prototype hybrid tandem solar device with WTIL can generate electricity with a power output of 204 W m−2 and purify water at a rate of 0.80 kg m−2 h−1 under 1-sun illumination.

ZrB2 matrix composites with Cr3+/Nd3+ doped Al2O3 luminescent nanoparticles for non-contact temperature sensing

The effect of the addition of Cr3+/Nd3+ doped Al2O3 nanoparticles (Al2O3 co-doped with 1% Cr3+ and 1% Nd3+ ions) on the mechanical and luminescent properties of ZrB2 ceramic composites was investigated. ZrB2 based composites with addition of 8, 16 and 32wt.% of alumina nanoparticles were prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS). Microstructure characteristics were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elastic modulus by ultrasonic wave transition method, hardness and fracture toughness by the Vickers indentation methods. The addition of alumina nanoparticles had positive effect on the mechanical properties of the composites. Thus, the hardness increased from 14.5 to 16.2GPa and the fracture toughness from 3.91 to 5.89MPa•m1/2 in comparison to the values of the monolithic ZrB2 system. The composite with the highest additive content showed evident luminescent character and the increase of the temperature caused a reduction of luminescent intensity. This is the first report which shows luminescent properties of ZrB2 composites. Moreover, for the first time, luminescent properties of Cr3+ ions were used to develop ZrB2 matrix composites with Cr3+/Nd3+ doped Al2O3 particles with the self-temperature readout functionality via luminescent thermometry.

Between Isolation and Reconciliation: The “North Korean Puppet” as a Controversy in South Korean Politics, 1966

The present study examines how the concurrence of multipolarity and North Korean regime consolidation in the mid-1960s pressured South Korean political elites to reconsider the isolation of the “North Korean puppet” (Pukhan koeroe) inherent to unification policy at the time. The Sino-Soviet split, American policy alterations toward China and its impending UN entry in the context of the Vietnam War, and Soviet-American peaceful coexistence ensured the rise of a “Two Korea” view internationally. Meanwhile, North Korea gained the support of nonaligned countries and the Soviet Union, positioned itself to benefit from the boon of China’s rise, and established the monolithic ideological system. These circumstances not only invalidated Seoul’s claim to sole legitimacy (“One Korea”), but fundamentally challenged the inherent premise of isolating the “North Korean puppet” to the point of collapse. In 1966, the pressing need to factor these circumstances into unification policy deliberation produced a head-on partisan collision regarding the feasibility of isolationism, if not the nature of the North Korean communist threat itself. Whereas the ruling Democratic Republication Party’s (DRP) policy of “construction first, unification later” represented a variant of isolationism, the Masses Party’s (MP) criticism of the policy did not clarify the conditions for reconciliation. From the mid-1960s, the notion of North Korea as a passing phenomenon went into irreversible decline, compelling a reformulation of unification policy with respect to anti-communist orthodoxy.

Experimental and Numerical Energy Assessment of a Monolithic Aerogel Glazing Unit for Building Applications

In the last few decades, the attention of researchers has been focused on the characterization of aerogels in order to improve the thermal performance of transparent building envelopes. Granular aerogel is already spread in the market thanks to the easy manufacturing system, whereas the difficulty in producing monoliths without defects, cracks, and inhomogeneity limited the diffusion of monolithic aerogel systems. A new production process for the monolithic panels was developed at Union College (Schenectady, NY, USA); it is a rapid supercritical extraction technique which allows a reduction in production time (only a few hours) and results in less solvent waste. Panes with maximum dimensions of about 100 × 100 mm were fabricated and composed in a unique glazing system, with external dimensions 300 × 300 mm. The thermal characterization of the innovative monolithic aerogel glazing system (simple float glazing 4.7-mm-thick monolithic aerogel pane 15-mm-thick simple float glazing 4.7 mm thick), which was carried out by means of a Small Hot Box apparatus, showed a thermal transmittance value of about 1.1 W/(m2K). Data was used in dynamic simulations of a typical non-residential building. They showed that the new investigated solution allows a valuable reduction with respect to a low-e double glazing system in terms of heating energy demand (about 5–7% for Helsinki, 8–12% for Paris, and 10–15% for Turin), for different window-to-wall ratios.

Study on Carrier Mobility Model for PD-Ge Monolithic Optoelectronic Integration Chips

Based on the difference of thermal expansion coefficient between Si and Ge, low-intensity tensile stress can be introduced into Ge epitaxial layer on Si substrate. S-Ge/Si semiconductor (as known as low tensile strained Ge grown on Si substrate) has a higher carrier mobility when compared with unstrained-Ge or Si material, so that s-Ge/Si is appropriate for the production of high-speed circuit. At the same time, transformation from indirect bandgap semiconductor Ge into Pseudo-Direct bandgap semiconductor (which is also called PD-Ge) will be happen after s-Ge/Si is heavy doped, which makes LED produced of PD-Ge material perform a higher luminous efficiency because the radiative recombining probability of carriers in PD-Ge material is greatly improved compared with unstrained one. Taking the advantages referred of s-Ge/Si into account, s-Ge/Si has the potential to PD-Ge monolithic optoelectronic integration. Carrier mobility of the semiconductor is one of the key physical parameters during the design and simulation of PD-Ge monolithic optoelectronic integrated system. While as far as the authors are aware, carrier mobility model of s-Ge/Si is still rarely reported to date. In view of that all above, based on the E-k relation in both conduction band and valence band of s-Ge/Si material, the analytical models of physical parameters in energy band are established, and the models are verified by experiments. Then the s-Ge/Si carrier models are further established based on our band structure model, and the Monte Carlo method is used to verify our s-Ge/Si carrier mobility model. The quantificational results of our paper will help understand s-Ge/Si material physics and provide an important theoretical basis for the design of PD-Ge monolithic optoelectronic integration.

High temperature ablation behavior of pressureless sintered Ta0.8Hf0.2C-based ultra-high temperature ceramics

Ablation behavior of Ta0.8Hf0.2C and Ta0.8Hf0.2C-10 vol%SiC ceramics was investigated by plasma flame ablation test in air. Linear ablation rate was used for the characterization of ablation resistance and grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) were used for characterization. Ta0.8Hf0.2C-10 vol%SiC exhibited significantly higher ablation resistance, with ablation rate of 0.7 μm/sec in comparison to the monolithic system with 3.5 μm/sec.An unstable single oxide layer of monolithic Ta0.8Hf0.2C with thickness approximately 20 μm was observed after ablation. Oxidation reactions happened individually as TaC and HfC while ‘self-sacrificial’ volatilization was mainly controlled by active oxidation of TaC. Hf6Ta2O17 was generated by the combination of HfO2 and TaO.A more stable double reaction-layer was observed after ablation of Ta0.8Hf0.2C-10 vol%SiC ceramic. Passive oxidation of TaC was dominant. Textured Ta2O5 skeleton, filled with Hf-containing TaO6, stopped consumption of SiC and hampered oxygen further diffusion.