The Climate Imperative and Innovative Behavior: Encouraging Greater Advances in the Production of Energy-Efficient Technologies and Services

This white paper examines why a larger array of innovative institutions, behaviors, technologies, and servicesis needed – specifically in the context of what we call “the climate imperative.” We explore possible mechanisms that can encourage the more robust development of innovative programs and policies within the State of California, with special attention to the activities of the California Public Utilities Commission

Interconnectivity via a consolidated type hierarchy and XML

We propose building a software system that passes any message type between legacy Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. The software system presents significant cost savings to the Department of Defense (DoD) because it allows us continued use of already purchased systems without changing the system itself. In the midst of the information age, the DoD cannot get information to the warfighter. We still maintain and use heterogeneous legacy systems, which send limited information via a set of common messages developed for a specific domain or branch of DoD. Our ability to communicate with one message format does not meet our needs today, though these stovepipe C4ISR systems still provide vital information. By combining these systems, we will have a synergistic effect on our information operations because of the shared information. Our translator will resolve data representational differences between the legacy systems using a model entitled the Common Type Hierarchy (CTH) . The CTH stores the relationships between different data representations and captures what is needed to perform translations between the different representations. We will use the platform neutral extensible Mark-up Language (XML) as an enabling technology for the CTH modelhttp://www.archive.org/details/interconnectivit00lyttCaptain, United States ArmyLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Laser structuring of thin layers for flexible electronics by a shock wave-induced delamination process

The defect-free laser-assisted structuring of thin films on flexible substrates is a challenge for laser methods. However, solving this problem exhibits an outstanding potential for a pioneering development of flexible electronics. Thereby, the laser-assisted delamination method has a great application potential. At the delamination process: the localized removal of the layer is induced by a shock wave which is produced by a laser ablation process on the rear side of the substrate. In this study, the thin-film patterning process is investigated for different polymer substrates dependent on the material and laser parameters using a KrF excimer laser. The resultant structures were studied by optical microscopy and white light interferometry (WLI). The delamination process was tested at different samples (indium tin oxide (ITO) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), epoxy-based negative photoresist (SU8) on polyimide (PI) and indium tin oxide/copper indium gallium selenide/molybdenum (ITO/CIGS/Mo) on PI

Laser-Induced front Side Etching: An Easy and Fast Method for Sub-μm Structuring of Dielectrics

Laser-induced front side etching (LIFE) is a method for the nanometer-precision structuring of dielectrics, e.g. fused silica, using thin metallic as well as organic absorber layer attached to the laser-irradiated front side of the sample. As laser source an excimer laser with a wavelength of 248 nm and an pulse duration of 25 ns was used. For sub-μm patterning a phase mask illuminated by the top hat laser beam was projected by a Schwarzschild objective. The LIFE process allows the fabrication of well-defined and smooth surface structures with sub-μm lateral etching regions (Δx < 350 nm) and vertical etching depths from 1 nm to sub-mm

Asymptotics of block Toeplitz determinants and the classical dimer model

We compute the asymptotics of a block Toeplitz determinant which arises in the classical dimer model for the triangular lattice when considering the monomer-monomer correlation function. The model depends on a parameter interpolating between the square lattice ($t=0$) and the triangular lattice ($t=1$), and we obtain the asymptotics for $0<t\le 1$. For $0<t<1$ we apply the Szeg\"o Limit Theorem for block Toeplitz determinants. The main difficulty is to evaluate the constant term in the asymptotics, which is generally given only in a rather abstract form

Faster PET reconstruction with non-smooth priors by randomization and preconditioning

Uncompressed clinical data from modern positron emission tomography (PET) scanners are very large, exceeding 350 million data points (projection bins). The last decades have seen tremendous advancements in mathematical imaging tools many of which lead to non-smooth (i.e. non-differentiable) optimization problems which are much harder to solve than smooth optimization problems. Most of these tools have not been translated to clinical PET data, as the state-of-the-art algorithms for non-smooth problems do not scale well to large data. In this work, inspired by big data machine learning applications, we use advanced randomized optimization algorithms to solve the PET reconstruction problem for a very large class of non-smooth priors which includes for example total variation, total generalized variation, directional total variation and various different physical constraints. The proposed algorithm randomly uses subsets of the data and only updates the variables associated with these. While this idea often leads to divergent algorithms, we show that the proposed algorithm does indeed converge for any proper subset selection. Numerically, we show on real PET data (FDG and florbetapir) from a Siemens Biograph mMR that about ten projections and backprojections are sufficient to solve the MAP optimisation problem related to many popular non-smooth priors; thus showing that the proposed algorithm is fast enough to bring these models into routine clinical practice

Laser Embossing of Micro-and Submicrometer Surface Structures in Copper

Micro- and submicrometer structures have been transferred from nickel foils into solid copper surfaces by laser microembossing. The developed arrangement for laser microembossing allows a large-area replication using multi- pulse laser scanning scheme, guaranties a low contamination of the embossed surface and enables the utilization of thick workpieces. In the micrometer range the replicated patterns feature a high accuracy regarding the shape. A significant difference between the master and the replication pattern could be observed for the laser embossing of submicrometer patterns. In conclusion, the results show that the proposed laser embossing process is a promising method with a number of applications in microengineering