Law and Policy for the Quantum Age

Law and Policy for the Quantum Age is for readers interested in the political and business strategies underlying quantum sensing, computing, and communication. This work explains how these quantum technologies work, future national defense and legal landscapes for nations interested in strategic advantage, and paths to profit for companies

Colloquium on Solid State Devices

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Analog Front-End Circuits for Massive Parallel 3-D Neural Microsystems.

Understanding dynamics of the brain has tremendously improved due to the progress in neural recording techniques over the past five decades. The number of simultaneously recorded channels has actually doubled every 7 years, which implies that a recording system with a few thousand channels should be available in the next two decades. Nonetheless, a leap in the number of simultaneous channels has remained an unmet need due to many limitations, especially in the front-end recording integrated circuits (IC). This research has focused on increasing the number of simultaneously recorded channels and providing modular design approaches to improve the integration and expansion of 3-D recording microsystems. Three analog front-ends (AFE) have been developed using extremely low-power and small-area circuit techniques on both the circuit and system levels. The three prototypes have investigated some critical circuit challenges in power, area, interface, and modularity. The first AFE (16-channels) has optimized energy efficiency using techniques such as moderate inversion, minimized asynchronous interface for data acquisition, power-scalable sampling operation, and a wide configuration range of gain and bandwidth. Circuits in this part were designed in a 0.25μm CMOS process using a 0.9-V single supply and feature a power consumption of 4μW/channel and an energy-area efficiency of 7.51x10^15 in units of J^-1Vrms^-1mm^-2. The second AFE (128-channels) provides the next level of scaling using dc-coupled analog compression techniques to reject the electrode offset and reduce the implementation area further. Signal processing techniques were also explored to transfer some computational power outside the brain. Circuits in this part were designed in a 180nm CMOS process using a 0.5-V single supply and feature a power consumption of 2.5μW/channel, and energy-area efficiency of 30.2x10^15 J^-1Vrms^-1mm^-2. The last AFE (128-channels) shows another leap in neural recording using monolithic integration of recording circuits on the shanks of neural probes. Monolithic integration may be the most effective approach to allow simultaneous recording of more than 1,024 channels. The probe and circuits in this part were designed in a 150 nm SOI CMOS process using a 0.5-V single supply and feature a power consumption of only 1.4μW/channel and energy-area efficiency of 36.4x10^15 J^-1Vrms^-1mm^-2.PHDElectrical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98070/1/ashmouny_1.pd

Short Distance Telemetry for Piston Monitoring. Design and Development of Short Distance Telemetry for Engine Condition Monitoring.

Piston telemetry research involves monitoring the temperatures at specific internal location points within a combustion engine piston. The temperatures are detected with type K thermocouples as voltages and processed to convert them into temperatures using cold junction compensation methods. The present system uses a specific sensor designed to operate in the high temperature environment within the piston, reading multiple thermocouples. Because of the reciprocating motion of the piston, power generation is intermittent and available only when the piston reaches near bottom dead centre, using inductive coupling to power the sensors and transmit data to an evaluation unit for data processing. The planned system involves designing and building a prototype telemetry unit using ¿off the shelf¿ components that integrate the reading of thermocouple outputs, signal processing and cold junction compensation. Wireless telemetry is adopted for data transmission with an integrated Bluetooth and microcontroller module. The data acquisition module can be adapted for other sensors by adapting the firmware uploaded to the microcontroller. The hardware electronics are envisaged to be encased in thermal insulation to enable operation in high temperature environments. The considered system requires a power supply for the integrated components in the form of a power generator and that it should meet two criteria: to be located within confined spaces and to be permanently available, without having to dismantle systems to change batteries. The selected method is an induction generator constructed from a coil stator connected to the piston connection rod big end and a permanent magnet rotor connected to the crankshaft. The suggested mechatronic system is validated against the present system by comparing both systems to determine whether wireless telemetry can perform within acceptable tolerances and limits for the specified task. Then, for acceptable performances, reduce costs and include flexibility to operate in multiple environments. Bench testing shows that the power generator is capable of driving the sensors and the Bluetooth integrated DAQ system.EPSRC and University of Bradfor

Heritage in the Clouds: Englishness in the Dolomites

Guided by the romantic compass of Byron, Ruskin and Turner, Victorian travellers to the Dolomites sketched through their wanderings in the mountainous backdrop of Venice a cultural ‘Petit Tour’ of global significance. As they zigzagged across a debatable land consumed by competing frontiers, Victorians discovered a unique geography characterized by untrodden peaks and unfrequented valleys. This landscape blended aesthetic, scientific and cultural values utterly different from those engendered by the bombastic conquests of the Western Alps achieved during the ‘Golden Age of Mountaineering’. Filtered through the cultivated lens of the Venetian Grand Tour, their encounter with the Dolomites is marked by a series of distinct cultural practices that paradigmatically define what I call the ‘Silver Age of Mountaineering’. These cultural practices, magnetized by symbols of Englishness, reveal a range of geographic concerns that are more ethnographic than imperialistic, more feminine than masculine, more artistic than sportive – rather than racing to summits, the Silver Age is about rambling, rather than conquering peaks, it is about sketching them in fully articulated interaction with the Dolomite landscape. Through these practices, the Dolomite Mountains came to be known in England as ‘Titian Country’, spurring among Victorian travellers the sentimental drive to ramble in the backgrounds of Titian’s paintings. Freed from their historical conditions and rehashed in different discursive patterns, these symbols of Englishness re-emerge through a history collapsed through geography: a heritage that is subtly, if controversially, exploited today in the wake of the recent inscription of the Dolomites onto the UNESCO World Heritage List

The conceptual design of 3D miniaturised / integrated products as examined through the development of a novel red blood cell / plasma separation device

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThe aim of this research is to examine the conceptual design issues concerned with integrating product capabilities that can only be generated at the micro- scale (through feature sizes generally of the order of 100nm to 100μm) directly into 3-dimensional products at the macro-scale. Such macro-scale products could accordingly contain internal devices that are too small to be seen or touched by unaided human designers, which begs the question as to how to enable designers to work with objects which are beyond direct human experience, and how can the necessary collective discussion take place within teams of designers, and between these teams and those responsible for product manufacture? This thesis examines and tests a concept that theoretical 2-dimensional diagrams of function may be transformed into 3-dimensional working structures using procedures allied to those used by graphic designers to create solid objects from 2-dimensional prototype geometries through, for example, extrusion or rotation. Applying such procedures to theoretical diagrams in order to transform them into scalable 3-dimensional devices is not yet in general use at the macro-scale, but with increasing recognition of the unique capabilities of the micro- scale the idea may grow in appeal to alleviate the difficulties of conceiving of functional structures that, when built, will be too small to experience directly. Furthermore this design method, through its basis upon a common currency of functional diagrams, may overcome many of the problems of describing and discussing the design and manufacture of normally intangible objects in 3 dimensions. Finally, it is shown through the example of a novel Red Blood Cell / Plasma Separation Device that the geometric transformation process can lead to the design of functional structures which would not readily be arrived at intuitively, and that may be effectively and efficiently integrated into host products