Titanium Nitride Coating as a Multipactor Suppressor on RF Coupler Ceramic Windows

International audienceLAL-Orsay is developing an important effort on R&D studies on RF power couplers. One of the most critical components of those devices is the ceramic RF window that allows the power flux to be injected in the coaxial line. The presence of a dielectric window on a high power RF line has a strong influence on the multipactor phenomena. To reduce this effect, the decrease the secondary emission yield (SEY)of the ceramic window is needed. Due to its low SEY coefficient, TiN coating is used for this goal. In this framework, a TiN sputtering bench has been developed in LAL. The reactive sputtering of TiN needs the optimisation of gas flow parameters and electrical one, to obtain stoechiometric deposit. XRD analysis was performed to control the film composition and stoechiometry. Measurements point out how the Nitrogen vacancy on the film can be controlled acting on the N2 flow. In addition, the coating thickness must be optimized so that the TiN coating effectively reduces the SEY coefficient but does not cause excessive heating, due to ohmic loss. For this purposes, multipactor level breakdown and resistance measurements were done for different deposit thickness

Titanium Nitride Coating of RF Ceramic Windows by Reactive DC Magnetron Sputtering

International audienceLAL-Orsay is developing an important effort on R&D and technology studies on RF power couplers for superconductive cavities. These are complex and high technology devices due to their basic functions: vacuum and temperature separation form the environment to the cavity. One of the most critical components of high power couplers is the ceramic RF window that allows the power flux to be injected in the coaxial line. The presence of a dielectric window on a high power RF line has in fact a strong influence on the multipactor phenomena, a resonant electron discharge that is strongly limiting for the RF components performances. The most important method to reduce the multipactor is to decrease the secondary emission yield of the ceramic window. Due to its low secondary electron emission coefficient, TiN thin film is used as a multipactor suppressor coating on RF ceramic coupler windows. In the framework of the EU program FP6 the LAL-Orsay and the LNL-Legnaro establish a collaboration to develop a coating bench that takes into account the different strong constraints on stoechiometry and film coating thickness given by coupler operating conditions. Reactive magnetron sputtering technology was chosen to obtain such deposit. A full description of a sputtering bench recently installed in LAL, and its main characteristics are given. Stoechiometric TiN films are obtained by optimization of reactive gas flow (N2), for a given bias and a given ionisation gas flow (Ar). XRD analysis was performed to control film composition. From the data obtained, lattice parameter is calculated for each deposit and film stoechiometry is determined. XPS analysis of stoechiometric film had shown the existence of oxygen and carbon mainly in the surface. However, it shows also that the ratio Ti/N in atomic percentage is equal to 1

Possibilistic classifiers for numerical data

International audienceNaive Bayesian Classifiers, which rely on independence hypotheses, together with a normality assumption to estimate densities for numerical data, are known for their simplicity and their effectiveness. However, estimating densities, even under the normality assumption, may be problematic in case of poor data. In such a situation, possibility distributions may provide a more faithful representation of these data. Naive Possibilistic Classifiers (NPC), based on possibility theory, have been recently proposed as a counterpart of Bayesian classifiers to deal with classification tasks. There are only few works that treat possibilistic classification and most of existing NPC deal only with categorical attributes. This work focuses on the estimation of possibility distributions for continuous data. In this paper we investigate two kinds of possibilistic classifiers. The first one is derived from classical or flexible Bayesian classifiers by applying a probability–possibility transformation to Gaussian distributions, which introduces some further tolerance in the description of classes. The second one is based on a direct interpretation of data in possibilistic formats that exploit an idea of proximity between data values in different ways, which provides a less constrained representation of them. We show that possibilistic classifiers have a better capability to detect new instances for which the classification is ambiguous than Bayesian classifiers, where probabilities may be poorly estimated and illusorily precise. Moreover, we propose, in this case, an hybrid possibilistic classification approach based on a nearest-neighbour heuristics to improve the accuracy of the proposed possibilistic classifiers when the available information is insufficient to choose between classes. Possibilistic classifiers are compared with classical or flexible Bayesian classifiers on a collection of benchmarks databases. The experiments reported show the interest of possibilistic classifiers. In particular, flexible possibilistic classifiers perform well for data agreeing with the normality assumption, while proximity-based possibilistic classifiers outperform others in the other cases. The hybrid possibilistic classification exhibits a good ability for improving accuracy

The impact of diabetes on the pathogenesis of sepsis

Diabetes is associated with an increased susceptibility to infection and sepsis. Conflicting data exist on whether the mortality of patients with sepsis is influenced by the presence of diabetes, fuelling the ongoing debate on the benefit of tight glucose regulation in patients with sepsis. The main reason for which diabetes predisposes to infection appears to be abnormalities of the host response, particularly in neutrophil chemotaxis, adhesion and intracellular killing, defects that have been attributed to the effect of hyperglycaemia. There is also evidence for defects in humoral immunity, and this may play a larger role than previously recognised. We review the literature on the immune response in diabetes and its potential contribution to the pathogenesis of sepsis. In addition, the effect of diabetes treatment on the immune response is discussed, with specific reference to insulin, metformin, sulphonylureas and thiazolidinediones

Titanium Nitride Coating as a Multipactor Suppressor on RF Coupler Ceramic Windows

International audienceLAL-Orsay is developing an important effort on R&D studies on RF power couplers. One of the most critical components of those devices is the ceramic RF window that allows the power flux to be injected in the coaxial line. The presence of a dielectric window on a high power RF line has a strong influence on the multipactor phenomena. To reduce this effect, the decrease the secondary emission yield (SEY)of the ceramic window is needed. Due to its low SEY coefficient, TiN coating is used for this goal. In this framework, a TiN sputtering bench has been developed in LAL. The reactive sputtering of TiN needs the optimisation of gas flow parameters and electrical one, to obtain stoechiometric deposit. XRD analysis was performed to control the film composition and stoechiometry. Measurements point out how the Nitrogen vacancy on the film can be controlled acting on the N2 flow. In addition, the coating thickness must be optimized so that the TiN coating effectively reduces the SEY coefficient but does not cause excessive heating, due to ohmic loss. For this purposes, multipactor level breakdown and resistance measurements were done for different deposit thickness

Using hierarchical statistical analysis and deep neural networks to detect covert timing channels

Covert timing channels provide a mechanism to leak data across different entities. Manipulating the timing between packet arrivals is a well-known example of such approach. The time based property makes the detection of the hidden messages impossible by traditional security protecting mechanisms such as proxies and firewalls. This paper introduces a new generic hierarchical-based model to detect covert timing channels. The detection process consists of the analysis of a set of statistical metrics at consecutive hierarchical levels of the inter-arrival times flows. The statistical metrics considered are: mean, median, standard deviation, entropy, Root of Average Mean Error (RAME). A real statistical metrics timing channel dataset of covert and overt channel instances is created. The generated dataset is set to be either flat where the statistical metrics are calculated on all flows of data or hierarchal (5 levels of hierarchy were considered) where the statistical metrics are computed on sub parts of the flow as well. Following this method, 5 different datasets were generated, and used to train/test a deep neural network based model. Performance results about accuracy and model training time showed that the hierarchical approach outperforms the flat one by 4 to 10 percent (in terms of accuracy) and was able to achieve short model training time (in terms of seconds). When compared to the Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier, the deep neural network achieved a better accuracy level (about 2.3% to 12% depends on the used kernel) and significantly shorter model training time (few seconds versus few 100’s of seconds). This paper also explores the importance of the used metrics in each level of the detection process

First Observation of Microcystins in Tunisian inland waters: a threat to river mouths and lagoon ecosystems

1 - Microcystin pollution is known to affect different types of inland water bodies: river mouths and coastal lagoons may be affected by local production as well as by transportation through the freshwater network. Physicochemical and biological water quality, including the total microcystin concentration, was investigated from July to December 2003 in the reservoir Hjar, Tunisia. 2 - Microcystin levels and characterization of the different microcystin variants present were measured by protein phosphatase inhibition assays (PP2A) and by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detector and tandem mass spectrometry, respectively. The microscopic examination of the phytoplankton samples showed the dominance of the Oscillatoria and Pseudoanabaena genera. The total (particulate and dissolved) microcystin concentrations in the reservoir water varied between 23.4 and 7455.2 ng/l microcystin-LR equivalent per liter. 3 - The highest MCYST concentration was observed in November 2003. The analysis of the field bloom extract from this month by HPLC coupled to photodiode-array detector revealed the presence of five peaks having characteristic spectra of microcystins with a maximum of absorbance at 238 nm. HPLC/MS/MS analysis of this sample demonstrated the presence of three variants of microcystins: microcystin-LR (MCYST-LR), microcystin- (MCYST-RR), microcystin- (MCYST-YR). Therefore, estuaries of rivers contaminated by cyanobacteria toxins may play an important role on the transfer of these cyanotoxins through food chains