Award Data

MCNC PROPOSES A FEASIBILITY STUDY AND EVALUATION OF THREE PROMISING APPROACHES TO THE FABRICATION OF SURFACE TEST STRUCTURES ON SILICON. SURFACE FEATURES ON THE FIRST STRUCTURE WILL BE PRODUCED BY CONTROLLABLY ETCHING THERMALLYGROWN OXIDES. FEATURES ON THE SECOND WILL BE MADE BY ETCHING PIEZOELECTRIC THIN FILMS. USING THE PIEZOELECTRIC FILM AS PART OF A CAPACITOR, STEP-HEIGHT CAN BE VARIED AND PRO ...

N/A

MODERN COMPUTATION TECHNIQUES SUCH AS PARALLEL PROCESSING ARE WELL-SUITED FOR THE SOLUTION OF SUCH PROBLEMS AS THE SIMULTANEOUS GLOBAL EXTREMIZATION OF MULTIPLE VARIABLES IN A COMPLEX, NONLINEAR, PROBABILISTIC STATE SPACE. HOWEVER, THE USE OF THESE TECHNIQUES TO SOLVE A GIVEN PROBLEM REQUIRES THAT IT FIRST BE FORMULATED IN THESE TERMS. CURRENTLY, THREAT-AVOIDANCE MISSION PLANNING IS APPROACHED AS ...

AN ATTENTION MECHANISM CAN INFLUENCE SYSTEM BEHAVIOR AND PERFORMANCE ONLY TO THE EXTENT IN WHICH SYSTEM RESOURCES ARE ALLOCATABLE. A KEY VISUAL SYSTEM RESOURCE IS ACUITY, AND YET THIS RESOURCE IS FIXED IN CONVENTIONAL UNIFORM ACUITY MACHINE VISION. FEATURES TO BE RESOLVED BY ACTIVE VISION ARE TYPICALLY LOCALIZED WITHIN THE FOV. UNIFORM SAMPLING WITHIN THE FOV IS THUS INAPPROPRIATE; REGIONS WITH LI ...

A COMMON DILEMMA IN ECOSYSTEM MODELING IS THE COMPLEXITY OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND THE LACK OF SUFFICIENT DATA. TRADITIONAL MODELING APPROACHES REQUIRE QUANTITATIVE DATA AND DETAILED KNOWLEDGE OF THE ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM. ALTHOUGH SUCH DATA MAY BE AVAILABLE FOR SMALL CONTROLLED SYSTEMS SUCHAS THE LABORATORY MICROCOSM, IN MOST CASES SUFFICIENT INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR LARGE NATURAL SYSTEMS. QU ...

X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY WILL BE USED IN THE FUTURE TO MAKE SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES HAVING FEATURE SIZES OF

THE OBJECT OF THIS PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO PRODUCE MORE RELIABLE ESTIMATES OF EXTREME WINDS IN THE UNITED STATES BY SEPARATELY ANALYZING WINDS DUE TO THUNDERSTORMS AND LARGE SCALE EXTRATROPICAL STORMS. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE ART METHODS FOR ESTIMATING DESIGN WIND SPEEDS IN NON-HURRICANE REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES DO NOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WINDS ORIGINATING FROM THE LARGE SCALE EXTRATROPICAL P ...

IN A QUASI-OPTICAL OSCILLATOR ARRAY THE OUTPUT OF A LARGE NUMBER OF OSCILLATORS ARE COMBINED COHERENTLY WITH GOOD EFFICIENCY TO PRODUCE HIGH POWERS AT MILLIMETER-WARE FREQUENCIES. BY PLACING THE ARRAY IN A FABRY-PEROT RESONATOR, HIGH QUALITY FACTORS CAN BE ACHIEVED. TO FURTHER IMPROVE THE STABILITY OF THE OUTPUT SIGNAL, AN EXTERNAL LOCKING SIGNAL CAN BE USED. THE LOCKING SIGNAL PREVENTS THE ARRAY' ...

QUASI-OPTICAL OSCILLATOR ARRAYS PROVIDE A MEANS OF COMBINING THE OUTPUT OF A LARGE NUMBER OF DEVICES TO OVERCOME THE LIMITED POWER HANDLING CAPABILITIES OF INDIVIDUAL MILLIMETER WAVE SOLID-STATE DEVICES. BECAUSE OF THE HIGH-FREQUENCY OF OPERATION AND THE COMPLEXITY OF THE NON-LINEAR INTERACTIONS, THE ACCURATE ANALYSIS OF THESE SYSTEMS PRESENTS MANY CHALLENGES. MODELING REQUIRES ADVANCED ELECTROMAG ...

A TECHNIQUE FOR OBTAINING TRUSTWORTHY COMPILATION BASED ON A COMPILATION CHECKER (SIMILAR TO A PROOF CHECKER) IS PROPOSED. THE TRANSFORMATIONS USED IN A COMPILER WILL BE FORMALLY SPECIFIED AND VERIFIED USING INTERPRETER EQUIVALENCE METHODS. THE COMPILER WILL BE INSTRUMENTED TO PRODUCE A TRACE OF THE TRANSFORMATIONS APPLIED IN THE COMPILATION OF A GIVEN PROGRAM. THE COMPILATION CHECKER WILL VALIDAT ...