Real Interconnection Research Articles

Nautical Metaphors and Late-Victorian Literary Culture

Abstract This article reveals how nautical conceits were frequently used to articulate stylistic concerns and respond to publishing trends emerging in late-Victorian culture. Reviewers, authors, and press commentators described writing as akin to ship building or seafaring and employed marine metaphors to categorize and critique narratives as ‘vessels’ for certain characters or plots. For example, leisurely multi-volume ‘three-deckers’ were manned by a recognizable ‘crew’ of characters while modern literary ‘steamers’ were more sparsely populated and took shorter and more direct narrative routes. Many accounts discussed also show an acute awareness of commercial pressures of the book-trade and parallel developments in author-publisher relations. Rudyard Kipling, amongst others, envisioned the publishing world as a ‘seascape’ upon which works needed to be carefully launched—especially if the voyage was trans-Atlantic. His unusually inventive and intricate nautical metaphors anchor much of the article’s analysis, while close literary-critical readings of contemporary periodicals shed light on broader patterns of contact between literary and maritime cultures. The linguistic creativity with which the Victorian nautical imagination was expressed demonstrates the depth of maritime influence upon literary discourses of the period while also reflecting very real interconnections developing between nautical and literary industries.

Towards Efficient Data Collection in Space-Based Internet of Things.

Due to the strong anti-destructive ability, global coverage, and independent infrastructure of the space-based Internet of Things (S-IoT), it is one of the most important ways to achieve a real interconnection of all things. In S-IoT, a single satellite can often achieve thousands of kilometers of coverage and needs to provide data transmission services for massive ground nodes. However, satellite bandwidth is usually low and the uplink and downlink bandwidth is extremely asymmetric. Therefore, exact data collection is not affordable for S-IoT. In this paper, an approximate data collection algorithm is proposed for S-IoT; that is, the sampling-reconstruction (SR) algorithm. Since the uplink bandwidth is very limited, the SR algorithm samples only the sensory data of some nodes and then reconstructs the unacquired data based on the spatiotemporal correlation between the sensory data. In order to obtain higher data collection precision under a certain data collection ratio, the SR algorithm optimizes the sampling node selection by leveraging the curvature characteristics of the sensory data in time and space dimensions. Moreover, the SR algorithm innovatively applies spatiotemporal compressive sensing (ST-CS) technology to accurately reconstruct unacquired sensory data by making full use of the spatiotemporal correlation between the sensory data. We used a real-weather data set to evaluate the performance of the SR algorithm and compared it with two existing representative approximate data collection algorithms. The experimental results show that the SR algorithm is well-suited for S-IoT and can achieve efficient data collection under the condition that the uplink bandwidth is extremely limited.

FEATURES OF THE FORMATION OF FINANCIAL AND CREDIT SYSTEMS IN A MULTI-FACETED ECONOMY

It is determined that the formation of the financial system of Ukraine took place simultaneously with the development of its statehood. The components of the financial and credit system, which in total are two subsystems: financial and credit, are analyzed. Each of these subsystems is divided into spheres, and those in turn — on the links, subdivisions, etc. Although each element of the financial and credit system has its own organization, mechanism and functioning, they are all closely interconnected and have a great influence on the development of the national economy. It is noted that the banking system in Ukraine is under construction. It is built on the western type. Today in most countries of the world there is a two-tier banking system. In such a system, relations between banks are formed in two planes: vertically and horizontally.As the analysis shows, the market mechanism is not omnipotent. According to the goals of a democratic society, the market can not provide a noble redistribution of profits. In a crisis situation, the market has little effect on the stabilization of the economy and the effective functioning of the credit and financial system. Certain investment funds, insurance companies and credit and financial institutions are engaged in activities that are unusual for them, harming the public: attracting contributions from the population that perform the functions of savings and commercial banks on the principle of a pyramid, thus causing a wave of bankruptcies. It is substantiated that the public purpose of the financial and credit system characterizes the functions and gives a clear idea of its role, that is, the "work" that this system performs in society. The functions of the financial and credit system are an objective and dynamic phenomenon. Each of them is formed and developed with the development of financial and credit relations and the economic environment in which this system operates. It was concluded that financial and credit relations are one of the most important categories of a market economy, which reflects the real relations and interconnections of economic entities in the economic life of society. The financial and credit interaction of banks and enterprises has always been and remains an important lever for stimulating the development of production and reflects the economic relationship with the reverse movement of borrowed value.

The Effects of Component Tolerances on the Thermo-Mechanical Reliability of SOFC Stacks

The reliability of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems is nowadays close to meet the requirements for market implementation. However, mechanical failures remain salient issues, which often limit the practical lifetime of SOFC stacks and directly impact the costs. To our knowledge, the capability for in-operando monitoring of the risks of their occurrence has not yet been demonstrated. Mechanical issues are typically identified indirectly once a critical failure already occurred, e.g. from cell open-voltage measurements. Therefore, numerical thermo-mechanical investigations are of high interest to understand and predict potential failure modes in SOFC stacks. Finite-element (FE) stack models commonly consider idealized components, i.e. computational domains imported from computer-aided design. In reality, the dimensions and geometry of the produced stack components have statistical variations, because of the imperfections of manufacturing processes and of the costs associated with component quality. In this study, production data shows that the interconnect is a component that is subject to such manufacturing tolerances. The resulting variability in shape, e.g. flatness and/or thickness, is expected to have an impact on the distribution of the contact pressure over the active area. Therefore, a dedicated measurement and simulation workflow has been developed to simulate the effects of component initial deformation. One repeating unit of an SOFC stack is meshed and implemented in the thermo-mechanical model here presented, to maintain the computational time at a few days on a workstation. Modified periodic boundary conditions are imposed on the upper and lower parts of the meshed domain to model the conditions at the middle of a large stack. The mechanical interaction between the components is modelled by softened contact or constrained node displacement, depending upon the interface. Further adjustments of the interface properties are performed during the analysis to account in a simplified manner for the stack conditioning steps, such as sintering of the contact pastes and crystallisation of the glass sealant. The material constitutive laws implemented in the model include (i) rate-independent elasto-plasticity and (ii) combined primary-secondary creep for the interconnect alloy and the anode cermet. Only secondary creep is considered for the materials of the other SRU parts. The elastic properties of the gas-diffusion layer (GDL) materials are estimated by computational homogenization. This allows the modelling of the GDLs as simplified continuum geometries to reduce the stack simulation runtime. The workflow for thermo-mechanical analysis developed in this study starts with the measurement of the deformation profile of several real interconnects, followed by implementation in the stack model, before the simulation of the stack assembly. Then, the stack conditioning procedure is simulated to account for the effects of the stack manufacturing on the stress-state just before operation. After this initialization step, the simulation of stack operation consists in importing temperature profiles from thermo-electrochemical simulations into the FE thermo-mechanical model. The simulated scenarios are either thermal cycling without operation or long-term operation in co-flow configuration at nominal conditions (0.4 A cm-2), interrupted by thermal cycles. For the considered design and for a given amplitude of initial interconnect deformations, the simulation results show that the distribution of the contact pressure over the active area can be already altered at the end of the stack qualification. In such cases, the GDLs cannot fully accommodate for the interconnect initial deformation, resulting in zones subjected to either higher or lower contact pressure, compared to the case of idealized initial components. This may lead to hot spots and locally pronounced irreversible deformations of the GDLs, among others, with potentially severe loss of contact pressure upon thermal-cycling or long-term operation. The stress in the sealant after thermal cycling increases after prolonged operation. In this situation, the regions of the sealants exposed to higher temperatures during long-term operation are subjected to larger stress at room temperature.

Chromium vaporization from mechanically deformed pre-coated interconnects in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Cathode poisoning, associated with Cr evaporation from interconnect material, is one of the most important degradation mechanisms in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells when Cr2O3-forming steels are used as the interconnect material. Coating these steels with a thin Co layer has proven to decrease Cr vaporization. To reduce production costs, it is suggested that thin metallic PVD coatings be applied to each steel strip before pressing the material into interconnect shape. This process would enable high volume production without the need for an extra post-coating step. However, when the pre-coated material is mechanically deformed, cracks may form and lower the quality of the coating. In the present study, Chromium volatilization is measured in an air-3% H2O environment at 850 °C for 336 h. Three materials coated with 600 nm Co are investigated and compared to an uncoated material. The effect of deformation is investigated on real interconnects. Microscopy observations reveal the presence of cracks in the order of several μm on the deformed pre-coated steel. However, upon exposure, the cracks can heal and form a continuous surface oxide rich in Co and Mn. As an effect of the rapid healing, no increase in Cr vaporization is measured for the pre-coated material.

Topological Considerations of Memory Structure

The human memory system is an integration of three distributed memory systems associated with respective autonomous organic systems; the perceptual system that takes care of sensory input from the environment, the conscious system that performs deliberate decision making, and the unconscious system that carries out action selections in the environment. The memory system works as a memory component in the comprehensive brain model, MHP/RT [3], which is capable of simulating human daily behavior considering the real time constraints that should define strong mutual dependencies among the three systems. This paper reconsiders MHP/RT's memory system by mapping it on the real interconnections between the cranial nerves and the spinal nerves to obtain a topological representation of the distributed memory system.

Analogies and links between cultural and biological diversity

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the current state of knowledge about the links – metaphorical and real – between cultural and biological diversity.Design/methodology/approachBy way of approach, the paper focuses on language and music cultures, two areas of intangible cultural heritage whose diversity has come under threat in recent decades.FindingsThe paper suggests some ways in which recent advances in the fields of ecolinguistics, biolinguistic diversity, and music sustainability continue to further knowledge of the links between cultural diversity and biodiversity.Practical implicationsMetaphorical parallels between biodiversity and cultural diversity (such as the interconnectedness of the various forms of intangible cultural heritage, as in a biological ecosystem) may, to some extent, be able to inform the development of models for supporting intangible cultural heritage, such as language and music. Moreover, the very real interconnections between these two kinds of “diversities” holds implications for cultural heritage management, since efforts to safeguard cultural diversity will be impacted by the successes and failures of efforts to protect biodiversity, and vice versa.Originality/valueFor this reason, the issues explored in this review hold implications for policy‐makers, governments, non‐governmental organisations, culture‐bearers themselves, and other stakeholders in the viability and diversity of cultural heritage.

Current account imbalances and systemic risk within a monetary union

The aim of this paper is to cast light on possible influences of current account imbalances on the escalation of systemic risk which hit the Eurozone. The hypothesis, which was set up by examining empirical evidence, points to heterogeneity across the macroeconomic conditions prevailing in different clusters of EMU countries. Given the strengthened financial and real interconnections across the EMU countries, the capital flows triggered by widening distances between surplus and deficit trade balances, and also between sound and deteriorating public budgets, represent an important factor magnifying systemic risk and contagion. The econometric estimates we conducted concern two sub-periods, the two decades from the launch of the EMS in 1979 to 1999, and the first twelve years (1999–2010) of the monetary union. The findings sound as a confirmation that the strengthened financial and real interconnections across the EMU countries, instead of facilitating convergence among the Core and the Peripheral economies, have magnified and mutually reinforced imbalances. The divide between surplus and deficit countries – the backward EMU countries running larger current account deficits, and the more advanced countries accumulating larger current account surpluses – have brought about increasing capital outflows from the Periphery to pay for excess imports from the Core. Conversely, increasing capital flows were invested by the banks of the Core countries in the Periphery's public bonds.

An unified external network equivalent in steady-state security assessment

The basic objective of this paper is to present the relevant methodological and practical aspects of forming the unified external network equivalent. This equivalent consistently respects the effects of primary voltage and frequency control of external power system, including the real possibilities and limitations, as well as the effects of possible action of under frequency load shedding or under frequency protection of generator. The first practical experience in the application of the equivalent has been gained on an example of the synchronous parallel operation of the 2nd UCTE Synchronous Zone. The results obtained show a very good accuracy of unified external network equivalent formed and also show the very high speed of steady-state security assessment in context of real interconnection.

Class-based multicast routing in interdomain scenarios

DiffServ-like domains bring new challenges to quality of service (QoS) multicast routing simply by shifting the focus from individual flows into classes of flows. Packets are marked at edge routers and receive differentiated treatment according to the class and not the flow that they belong to. DiffServ therefore became adverse to multicast, as packet replication inside the domain may require classification and remarking functions not present in core nodes. At the interdomain level, no doubt multicast QoS complexity is increased by the interleaving of DiffServ and non-Diffserv domains, making it more difficult to address QoS multicast in an end-to-end perspective. In today’s real interconnection world, classes of service have no meaning in certain links of a full interdomain path. While the problem is not new, as already pointed out, there are no real efforts to bring multicast back to a class-of-service domain without compromising its model of operation. In this article, we present an innovative multicast QoS routing strategy, clearly designed for the new class-of-service paradigm. The solution is based upon the construction of multiple trees, one per class of service available, while still allowing receivers to shift for source-specific trees in its own class of service. The strategy is presented in a full end-to-end perspective. Intradomain trees use differentiated routing paths thus helping traffic differentiation. Intradomain receivers are allowed to shift from shared trees into an adequate class-of-service source tree. At interdomain level, each class-of-service interdomain tree branch is accomplished by means of an improved path probing strategy enabling for QoS path establishment. This paper presents this new strategy, and associated protocols, for constructing several multicast and directed distribution trees, one per class of service, within each multicast group. This new strategy and associated protocols are then simulated using NS-2 platform. Simulation results are analyzed and compared with other multicast routing solutions, both at intra- and interdomain levels.

TermMerg: An Efficient Terminal-Reduction Method for Interconnect Circuits

In this paper, a novel method to efficiently reduce the terminal number of general linear-interconnect circuits with a large number of input or output terminals considering delay uncertainty is proposed. Our new algorithm is motivated by the fact that terminal reduction can lead to a more compact order-reduced model and the observation that very large-scale integration interconnect circuits have many similar terminals in terms of their timing and delay metrics due to their closeness in structure or due to the mathematical discretization using meshing in finite-difference or finite-element scheme during the extraction process. The new method, called TermMerg ( Proc. ICCAD, p. 821, 2005), is based on the moments of the circuits as the metrics for the timing or delay. It then employs a singular-value-decomposition (SVD) method to determine the best number of clusters based on the low-rank approximation. After this, the -means clustering algorithm is used to cluster the moments of the terminals into the different clusters. The proposed method can work with any passive-model order reduction and ensure the passive models. In contrast, we show that singular value decomposition model order reduction (SVDMOR) does not generate passive models in general. Passivity enforcement in SVDMOR will significantly hamper the terminal-reduction effectiveness. Experimental results on a number of real industry interconnect circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and show also that the proposed method is more accurate than SVDMOR when the used moment matrix does not give good terminal correlations.

An advanced method for active power flow control in electric power interconnections

This paper presents an advanced method for active power flow control by use of static phase shifting transformer. It is based on non-standard load-flow model, which enables more accurate evaluation of the relevant technical effects of phase shifting transformer installation. For solution of the power flow control problem defined, the special fast decoupled procedure is developed. The high numerical efficiency and simplicity of this procedure has been established on the example of real interconnection formed by the Electric Power System of Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Albania (ex Second UCTE synchronous zone).

Fractality and the small-world effect in Sierpinski graphs

Although some real networks exhibit self-similarity, there is no standard definition of fractality in graphs. On the other hand, the small-world phenomenon is one of the most important common properties of real interconnection networks. In this paper we relate these two properties. In order to do so, we focus on the family of Sierpinski networks. For the Sierpinski gasket, the Sierpinski carpet and the Sierpinski tetra, we give the basic properties and we calculate the box-counting dimension as a measure of their fractality. We also define a deterministic family of graphs, which we call small-world Sierpinski graphs. We show that our construction preserves the structure of Sierpinski graphs, including its box-counting dimension, while the small-world phenomenon arises. Thus, in this family of graphs, fractality and small-world effect are simultaneously present.

An efficient decoupled power flow control method by use of phase shifting transformers

This paper presents an efficient fast decoupled power flow control method e.g. method for automatic adjustment of a phase shifting transformers (PST) for specific line flows. The effects of a PST are represented by injection model and the corresponding extension of conventional load flow equations is made. Furthermore, the load flow control by means of PST is modeled by additional equations. For solution of the power flow control problem defined the special fast decoupled procedure is developed. The high numerical efficiency and simplicity of this procedure has been established on the example of real interconnection formed by the power system of Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Albania (Second UCTE synchronous zone).

The effects of microstructural transitions at width transitions on interconnect reliability

Interconnect reliability is usually assessed through lifetime tests on straight stud-to-stud lines with fixed widths. However, real interconnects often have junctions with narrow-to-wide transitions. We have carried out experimental and modeling-based studies of interconnects with narrow-to-wide transitions to test the Korhonen model for electromigration-induced failure and determine parameters for failure. Two-level Al-0.5% Cu via-to-via electromigration test structures with narrow-to-wide width transitions have been studied as a function of the ratio of linewidths and as a function of the ratio of lengths of the wide and narrow line segments. The narrow-to-wide transition was found to be a site of atomic flux divergence due to the discontinuity in diffusivities between the narrow and wide segments, which have bamboo and polygranular microstructures, respectively. Consequently, it was found that the electromigration failure rate increases as the position of width transition is decreased below a critical distance from the electron–source via. This occurs due to an interaction between evolution of the stress field at the electron–source via and the evolution of the stress field at the width transition. Narrow-to-wide transitions with positions greater than a critical distance from the electron–source via have much higher lifetimes which are not a function of the transition location, due to a lack of interaction between the electron–source via and the width transition. Because the mode of failure was identical for all structures (i.e., failure by voiding at the electron–source via), use of experimental results with simulations allows determination that the critical stress range for void-nucleation failure in these structures is 600 MPa±108. It was experimentally found that changing linewidth ratios did not affect interconnect reliability when the transition was 150 μm away from the electron–source via. However, simulations indicate that if the width transition is close to the electron–source via, the lifetime should decrease with the width of the polygranular region. Additional electromigration studies have been conducted on constant-width interconnects in which microstructural transitions were created using a scanned laser annealing. Analyses of the experiments are consistent with those on microstructural transitions caused by width transitions.

Boundary of sets in pansystems information systems

Develops in a concrete way the thought of pansystems philosophy about the so‐called five‐mutual ideas of pansystems (5‐DSPP), and investigates certain real interconnections of the borderline of information systems and related topological boundary.

On the blocking capability of a planar p-n junction under the influence of a high-voltage interconnection - a 3-D simulation

The routing of interconnections along the surface of a high-voltage IC presents one of the major issues for the IC designer. A special problem appears, if the interconnection can stay under a high-voltage signal and has to cross the boundaries of p-n junctions. In this paper, the influence of a high-voltage interconnection (HVI) on the blocking capability of a planar p-n junction including a JTE-design is investigated numerically by solving Poisson's equation under the depletion approximation. Recent 2-D simulations have shown, that a HVI crossing the space charge region within a distance smaller than 5 /spl mu/m reduces the breakdown voltage drastically. However, these calculations ignored the limited lateral extension of real interconnection stripes and tend to overestimate its influence. As exhibited by the 3-D simulations in this paper, the influence of the stripe width can be ignored only for such structures, where the width of the stripe is in the same order of magnitude as the depletion layer width. For smaller stripe widths the influence of the HVI is lower. The dependence of the breakdown voltage on the stripe width is investigated for different distances between the HVI and the semiconductor surface.

A fast wafer-level screening test for VLSI metallization

A method for screening out poor-quality metallizations from VLSI fabrication lines by wafer-level probing is proposed. Theoretical analysis suggests a linear dependence of the metal line conductance on the square of the current density, at thermal equilibrium. The limit to this linearity for ideally perfect metallizations occurs at the metal melting point, at which there is a sudden decrease in the conductance value to zero. In real interconnects, nonidealities such as localized defects or nonuniform surrounding dielectric at isolated points could lead to a deviation of the conductance from ideal expectations. Using this as a diagnostic, a universal methodology for assessing metal quality, independently of the physical parameters of the metal line, is described. Qualitative correlation with electromigration lifetime results is used to validate the method. >

Microstructure of Al-Cu thin-film interconnect

The precipitate structure of bulk aluminum alloys was heavily studied with x-ray diffraction commencing in the 1930s and via direct observation with the development of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques in the 1950s. In 1970, recognition of the electromigration performance benefits of Cu additions to Al interconnect in integrated circuit devices precipitated studies on Al-Cu thin films. However, the microstructure of these films remains only partially known, in part due to the many process and interconnect geometry variables. In particular, there has been minimal attempt to study films which mimic as closely as possible the environment and thermal history of real interconnect (prior studies typically have examined unpatterned or unpassivated films.) In the present work, Al-Cu films in standard life test devices have been studied. This work is directed at understanding the evolution of microstructure during device processing and life testing and application of this knowledge to a better understanding of the role of microstructure in electromigration in Al-Cu interconnect. The present contribution describes initial microstructural observations on a variety of annealed samples.