Sensor for Monitoring Nanodevice-Fabrication Plasmas

The term plasma process diagnostics (PPD) refers to a spectroscopic technique and sensing hardware that have been proposed for monitoring plasma processes used to fabricate electronic devices that feature sizes as small as several nanometers. Nanometer dimensions are characteristic of the quantum level of miniaturization, where single impurity atoms or molecules can drastically change the local properties of the nanostructures. Such changes may be purposely used in nanoscale design but may also be extremely damaging or cause improper operation of the fabricated devices. Determination of temperature and densities of reactants near the developing features is important, since the structural synthesis is affected by characteristics of the local microenvironment. Consequently, sensors capable of nonintrusive monitoring with high sensitivity and high resolution are essential for real-time atomistic control of reaction kinetics and minimizing trace contamination in plasma processes used to fabricate electronic nanodevices. Such process-monitoring sensors are required to be compact, multiparametric, and immune to the harsh environments of processing plasmas. PPD is intended to satisfy these requirements. The specific technique used to implement plasma diagnostics with a PPD sensor would be an advanced version of continuous-wave cavity-ringdown spectroscopy (CW-CRDS) capable of profiling spectral line broadenings in order to derive both Doppler and Stark components. CRDS is based on measurements of the rate of absorption of laser light in an optical resonator. The ultimate sensitivity results from a very long absorption path length within the cavity and immunity to variations in incident laser intensity. The proposed version of this technique would involve the use of multiplexing tunable laser diodes and an actively modulated high-reflectivity optical resonator, thus offering a synergistic combination of simplicity, compactness, high sensitivity, and high resolution. The multiplexing capabilities of diode lasers could be utilized to make the PPD sensor a single, simple, compact, and inexpensive tool for the acquisition of multiparametric data. A PPD sensor would be capable of continuous measurement of such physical parameters as gas temperature, gas velocity, electron number density, and absolute densities of reacting chemical species. A laser beam can be easily adjusted to analyze the immediate vicinity of the growing nanostructures (or features etched down) in real time. The absorption enhancement in an optical cavity would afford the sensitivity needed for measurement of the temperature and densities of species at concentrations significantly lower than measurable by other nonintrusive techniques. It is anticipated that fully developed PPD sensors would enable simultaneous measurement of local temperature and determination of plasma species responsible for the synthesis and functionalization of nanodevices. These sensors would also enable tracking the pathways and origins of damaging contaminants, thereby providing feedback for adjustment of processes to optimize them and reduce contamination. The PPD sensors should also be useful for optimization of conventional microelectronics manufacturing plasma processes. Going beyond plasma processes for fabrication of electronic devices, PPD sensors could be used for monitoring of atoms, molecules, ions, radicals, clusters, and particles in a variety of other settings, including outer space. Because of their high sensitivity, such sensors could also prove useful for detecting traces of illegal drugs and explosives

Paronyms for Accelerated Correction of Semantic Errors

* Work done under partial support of Mexican Government (CONACyT, SNI), IPN (CGPI, COFAA) and Korean Government (KIPA Professorship for Visiting Faculty Positions). The second author is currently on Sabbatical leave at Chung-Ang University.The errors usually made by authors during text preparation are classified. The notion of semantic errors is elaborated, and malapropisms are pointed among them as “similar” to the intended word but essentially distorting the meaning of the text. For whatever method of malapropism correction, we propose to beforehand compile dictionaries of paronyms, i.e. of words similar to each other in letters, sounds or morphs. The proposed classification of errors and paronyms is illustrated by English and Russian examples being valid for many languages. Specific dictionaries of literal and morphemic paronyms are compiled for Russian. It is shown that literal paronyms drastically cut down (up to 360 times) the search of correction candidates, while morphemic paronyms permit to correct errors not studied so far and characteristic for foreigners

THE STUDY OF POPULATION SATISFACTION WITH THE STATE OF THE MARKETS OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION, ADDITIONAL EDUCATION OF CHILDREN

The article discusses the problems of implementing state policy in the field of school education and preschool sphere. The article analyzes the results of a sociological study on the example of the educational services market Leningrad region. The results of a sociological study allow us to identify certain shortcomings in the organization of public services at the municipal level of government. The article discusses such aspects of organizing a competitive environment in the field of education as the number of organizations in the market, the representation of organizations in the market, the quality of services, price and the choice of organization. The results of the study allow us to note that more than a third of respondents are satisfied with the quality of services, and the choice of organization, and pricing policy. At the same time, the majority of respondents express certain doubts about these indicators, which is expressed in a small amount of differences between negative and positive values. The results of the study allow us to state the relevance of research on the quality of the organization of the provision of services in the field of preschool education, additional education of children, the market of psychological and pedagogical support services for children with disabilities. Studies show the high importance that households in the Leningrad Region attach to the education sector. This study allows us to identify areas of managerial impact to local authorities regulating these services.Monitoring the state of the market for services in the field of school and preschool education makes it possible to identify problem organizations and directions for solving social and economic problems in the field of educational organization. The education sector for all modern states is an important political component, the accessibility and universality of education is a constitutional indicator of the status - “social”, “rule of law”. 

RESEARCH OF SATISFACTION OF POPULATION WITH THE STATUS OF SERVICES IN THE EDUCATION MARKET

The article discusses the problems of implementing state policy in the field of school education and preschool sphere. The article analyzes the results of a sociological study on the example of the educational services market Leningrad region. The results of a sociological study allow us to identify certain shortcomings in the organization of public services at the municipal level of government. The article discusses such aspects of organizing a competitive environment in the field of education as the number of organizations in the market, the representation of organizations in the market, the quality of services, price and the choice of organization. The results of the study allow us to note that more than a third of respondents are satisfied with the quality of services, and the choice of organization, and pricing policy. At the same time, the majority of respondents express certain doubts about these indicators, which is expressed in a small amount of differences between negative and positive values. The results of the study allow us to state the relevance of research on the quality of the organization of the provision of services in the field of preschool education, additional education of children, the market of psychological and pedagogical support services for children with disabilities. Studies show the high importance that households in the Leningrad Region attach to the education sector. This study allows us to identify areas of managerial impact to local authorities regulating these services. Monitoring the state of the market for services in the field of school and preschool education makes it possible to identify problem organizations and directions for solving social and economic problems in the field of educational organization. The education sector for all modern states is an important political component, the accessibility and universality of education is a constitutional indicator of the status - “social”, “rule of law”.

Emotional enhancement of memory: how norepinephrine enables synaptic plasticity

Changes in synaptic strength are believed to underlie learning and memory. We explore the idea that norepinephrine is an essential modulator of memory through its ability to regulate synaptic mechanisms. Emotional arousal leads to activation of the locus coeruleus with the subsequent release of norepineprine in the brain, resulting in the enhancement of memory. Norepinephrine activates both pre- and post-synaptic adrenergic receptors at central synapses with different functional outcomes, depending on the expression pattern of these receptors in specific neural circuitries underlying distinct behavioral processes. We review the evidence for noradrenergic modulation of synaptic plasticity with consideration of how this may contribute to the mechanisms of learning and memory

Space methods in oceanology

The study of Earth from space with specialized satellites, and from manned orbiting stations, has become important in the space programs. The broad complex of methods used for probing Earth from space are different methods of the study of ocean, dynamics. The different methods of ocean observation are described

Experiments in Detection and Correction of Russian Malapropisms by Means of the WEB

Malapropism is a semantic error that is hardly detectable because it usually retains syntactical links between words in the sentence but replaces one content word by a similar word with quite different meaning. A method of automatic detection of malapropisms is described, based on Web statistics and a specially defined Semantic Compatibility Index (SCI). For correction of the detected errors, special dictionaries and heuristic rules are proposed, which retains only a few highly SCI-ranked correction candidates for the user’s selection. Experiments on Web-assisted detection and correction of Russian malapropisms are reported, demonstrating efficacy of the described method