Chemomechanical Polishing of Silicon Nitride with Chromium Oxide Abrasive

Advan.ced ceramics, such as aluminum oxide, silicon nitride, silicon carbide, and zirconia are difficult to shape and finish, in general, owing to their high hardness and brittleness. With conventional grinding and polishing techniques surface damage is inherently present on the workpiece in the form of pits, and scratches, and subsurface damage in the form of lateral and median cracks. These defects affect the performance and reliability of the products in service. Diamond abrasive is invariably used for grinding as well as for polishing. Consequently, the cost of finishing is high and the time taken for finishing is also significantly long, sometimes taking several weeks. Conventional material removal using abrasives harder than the work material involves abrasion leaving scratches, pitting, and fine cracks on the surface. In contrast, chemo-mechanical polishing (also called mechano-chemical polishing) depends on the chemical interaction between the abrasive, the workmaterial, and the environment. Oftentimes, the abrasives used are about the same hardness or softer than the workmaterial. Consequently, no groove formation is expected with these abrasives leading to a smooth surface. Hence, for finishing advanced ceramics cherno-mechanical action is rather an attractive proposition especially during the final stages of polishing. The chemo-mechanical process initiates a chemical reaction between an abrasive and the work material which have high chemical affinity for each other. The process generally produces a weaker reaction product compared to either the abrasive or the workmaterial the environment used can facilitate this chemical action. The reaction product thus formed is brittle and subsequently removed by the abrasive action. This results in producing a smooth surface. However, the presence of defects such as pits, grooves from an earlier semifinishing operation can still exist in the final operation unless all the defects are removed by this operation. The present investigation focuses on the chemo-mechanical polishing of hot isostatically pressed Si3N4 balls and rollers. Magnetic float polishing technique with a water based magnetic fluid was used for finishing balls and magnetic abrasive finishing technique using magnetic abrasive conglomerate was used for finishing rollers. B4C, SiC, and Cr2O:3 were used as abrasives, with the former two being harder than the silicon nitride workmaterial and the later being about the same or slightly softer than the workmaterial. As will be shown, the material removal mechanism in the latter case is by cherno-mechanical polishing. Si3N4 oxidizes rapidly in air above 1000 ?c. The presence of water enhances oxidation of Si3N4� The surface silica layer formed on Si3N4 during oxidation further reacts with water to form Si(OH)4' This reaction also produces NH3 gas as a byproduct. Thermodynamic analysis confirmed the action of water in enhancing oxidation of Si3N4. Gibb's free energy analysis showed that the reaction proceeds more readily in water up to 500 ?c. Flash temperatures developed at the real areas of contact during polishing were determined using a moving disc heat source model and were found to be in the range of 1200-2000C

Dynamics of An Underdamped Josephson Junction Ladder

We show analytically that the dynamical equations for an underdamped ladder of coupled small Josephson junctions can be approximately reduced to the discrete sine-Gordon equation. As numerical confirmation, we solve the coupled Josephson equations for such a ladder in a magnetic field. We obtain discrete-sine-Gordon-like IV characteristics, including a flux flow and a ``whirling'' regime at low and high currents, and voltage steps which represent a lock-in between the vortex motion and linear ``phasons'', and which are quantitatively predicted by a simple formula. At sufficiently high anisotropy, the fluxons on the steps propagate ballistically.Comment: 11pages, latex, no figure

Non-equilibrium interface equations: An application to thermo-capillary motion in binary systems

Interface equations are derived for both binary diffusive and binary fluid systems subjected to non-equilibrium conditions, starting from the coarse-grained (mesoscopic) models. The equations are used to describe thermo-capillary motion of a droplet in both purely diffusive and fluid cases, and the results are compared with numerical simulations. A mesoscopic chemical potential shift, owing to the temperature gradient, and associated mesoscopic corrections involved in droplet motion are elucidated.Comment: 12 pages; Latex, revtex, ap

Non-Gaussian Distributions in Extended Dynamical Systems

We propose a novel mechanism for the origin of non-Gaussian tails in the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of local variables in nonlinear, diffusive, dynamical systems including passive scalars advected by chaotic velocity fields. Intermittent fluctuations on appropriate time scales in the amplitude of the (chaotic) noise can lead to exponential tails. We provide numerical evidence for such behavior in deterministic, discrete-time passive scalar models. Different possibilities for PDFs are also outlined.Comment: 12 pages and 6 figs obtainable from the authors, LaTex file, OSU-preprint-

Row-switched states in two-dimensional underdamped Josephson junction arrays

When magnetic flux moves across layered or granular superconductor structures, the passage of vortices can take place along channels which develop finite voltage, while the rest of the material remains in the zero-voltage state. We present analytical studies of an example of such mixed dynamics: the row-switched (RS) states in underdamped two-dimensional Josephson arrays, driven by a uniform DC current under external magnetic field but neglecting self-fields. The governing equations are cast into a compact differential-algebraic system which describes the dynamics of an assembly of Josephson oscillators coupled through the mesh current. We carry out a formal perturbation expansion, and obtain the DC and AC spatial distributions of the junction phases and induced circulating currents. We also estimate the interval of the driving current in which a given RS state is stable. All these analytical predictions compare well with our numerics. We then combine these results to deduce the parameter region (in the damping coefficient versus magnetic field plane) where RS states can exist.Comment: latex, 48 pages, 15 figs using psfi

Asbestos Burden Predicts Survival in Pleural Mesothelioma

Background: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rapidly fatal asbestos-associated malignancy with a median survival time of &lt; 1 year following diagnosis. Treatment strategy is determined in part using known prognostic factors. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between asbestos exposure and survival outcome in MPM in an effort to advance the understanding of the contribution of asbestos exposure to MPM prognosis. Methods: We studied incident cases of MPM patients enrolled through the International Mesothelioma Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, using survival follow-up, self-reported asbestos exposure (n = 128), and a subset of cases (n = 80) with quantitative asbestos fiber burden measures. Results: Consistent with the established literature, we found independent, significant associations between male sex and reduced survival (p 1,099), suggested a survival duration association among these groups (p = 0.06). After adjusting for covariates in a Cox model, we found that patients with a low asbestos burden had a 3-fold elevated risk of death compared to patients with a moderate fiber burden [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.95–9.5; p = 0.06], and patients with a high asbestos burden had a 4.8-fold elevated risk of death (95% CI, 1.5–15.0; p < 0.01) versus those with moderate exposure. Conclusion: Our data suggest that patient survival is associated with asbestos fiber burden in MPM and is perhaps modified by susceptibility

PHENIX upgrade: Novel stripixel detector for heavy quark detection and proton spin structure measurements at RHIC energies

New design of silicon stripixel sensor has been developed at BNL for PHENIX upgrade. The sensor is a single-sided, DC-coupled, two-dimensional position sensitive device with good position resolution. This design is simpler for sensor fabrication and signal processing than the conventional double-sided strip sensor. HPK has produced pre-production stripixel sensors with thickness of 625 μm. The quality assurance tests show that the very low leakage current 0.12 nA per strip allows the use of the SVX4 chip. A long term stability test shows that the leakage current is stable over a long period of time. The study of the effects of irradiation on the performance of the stripixel sensor has been made using p+p collisions at 200 GeV at PHENIX, 14 MeV neutron and 20 MeV proton beams

Lack of MEF2A Δ7aa mutation in Irish families with early onset ischaemic heart disease, a family based study

BACKGROUND: Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) is a complex disease due to the combination of environmental and genetic factors. Mutations in the MEF2A gene have recently been reported in patients with IHD. In particular, a 21 base pair deletion (Δ7aa) in the MEF2A gene was identified in a family with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance of IHD. We investigated this region of the MEF2A gene using an Irish family-based study, where affected individuals had early-onset IHD. METHODS: A total of 1494 individuals from 580 families were included (800 discordant sib-pairs and 64 parent-child trios). The Δ7aa region of the MEF2A gene was investigated based on amplicon size. RESULTS: The Δ7aa mutation was not detected in any individual. Variation in the number of CAG (glutamate) and CCG (proline) residues was detected in a nearby region. However, this was not found to be associated with IHD. CONCLUSION: The Δ7aa mutation was not detected in any individual within the study population and is unlikely to play a significant role in the development of IHD in Ireland. Using family-based tests of association the number of tri-nucleotide repeats in a nearby region of the MEF2A gene was not associated with IHD in our study group

Tab2Know: Building a Knowledge Base from Tables in Scientific Papers

Tables in scientific papers contain a wealth of valuable knowledge for the scientific enterprise. To help the many of us who frequently consult this type of knowledge, we present Tab2Know, a new end-to-end system to build a Knowledge Base (KB) from tables in scientific papers. Tab2Know addresses the challenge of automatically interpreting the tables in papers and of disambiguating the entities that they contain. To solve these problems, we propose a pipeline that employs both statistical-based classifiers and logic-based reasoning. First, our pipeline applies weakly supervised classifiers to recognize the type of tables and columns, with the help of a data labeling system and an ontology specifically designed for our purpose. Then, logic-based reasoning is used to link equivalent entities (via sameAs links) in different tables. An empirical evaluation of our approach using a corpus of papers in the Computer Science domain has returned satisfactory performance. This suggests that ours is a promising step to create a large-scale KB of scientific knowledge

Mid-Rapidity Direct-Photon Production in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV

A measurement of direct photons in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV is presented. A photon excess above background from pi^0 --> gamma+gamma, eta --> gamma+gamma, and other decays is observed in the transverse momentum range 5.5 < p_T < 7 GeV/c. The result is compared to a next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculation. Within errors, good agreement is found between the QCD calculation and the measured result.Comment: 330 authors, 7 pages text, RevTeX, 2 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Physical Review D. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm