Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) characterization of lanthanum lutetium oxide high-k dielectric thin films

Lanthanum lutetium oxide (LaLuO3) thin films were investigated considering their perspective application for industrial microelectronics. Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) techniques permitted to visualize the surface topography and study the electric properties. This work compared both the material properties (charge behavior for samples of 6 nm and 25 nm width) and the applied SPM modes. Particularly, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) was applied to characterize local potential difference with high lateral resolution. Measurements showed the difference in morphology, chargeability and charge dissipation time for both samples. The polarity effect was detected for this material for the first time. Lateral spreading of the charged spots indicate the diffusive mechanism to be predominant in charge dissipation. This allowed to estimate the diffusion coefficient and mobility. Using simple electrostatic model it was found that charge is partly leaking into the interface oxide layer.

Relationship of breast fillet deboning time to shear force, pH, cooking loss and color in broilers stunned by high electrical current

Selostus: Korkealla virranvoimakkuudella tainnutettujen broilereiden rintafileen irroitushetken vaikutus lihaksen leikkausvoiman vastukseen, pH:hon, keittohävikkiin ja väriin

The Dynamics of Force Fluctuations in Shear Granular Flows

Tämän työn tavoitteena oli tutkia rakeisen materiaalin kinematiikkaa ja rakentaa koelaitteisto rakeisen materiaalin leikkausjännitysvirtauksien tutkimiseen. Kokeellisessa osassa on keskitytty sisäisiin voimaheilahteluihin ja niiden ymmärtämiseen. Teoriaosassa on käyty läpi rakeisen materiaalin yleisiä ominaisuuksia ja lisäksi on esitetty kaksi eri tapaa mallintaa fysikaalisien ominaisuuksien heilahteluja rakeisessa materiaalissa. Nämä kaksi esitettyä mallinnusmenetelmää ovat skalaarinen q-malli ja simulointi. Skalaarinen q-malli määrittelee jokaiseen yksittäiseen rakeeseen kohdistuvan jännityksen, rakeen ollessa osa 2- tai 3-dimensionaalista asetelmaa. Tämän mallin perusidea on kuvata jännityksien epähomogeenisuutta, joka johtuu rakeiden satunnaisasettelusta. Simulointimallinnus perustuu event-driven algoritmiin, missä systeemin dynamiikkaa kuvataan yksittäisillä partikkelien törmäyksillä. Törmäyksien vaiheet ratkaistiin käyttämällä liikemääräyhtälöitä ja restituution määritelmää. Teoriaosuudessa käytiin vielä pieniltä osin läpi syitä jännitysheilahteluihin ja rakeisen materiaalin lukkiintumiseen. Tutkimuslaitteistolla tutkittiin rakeisen materiaalin käyttäytymistä rengasmaisessa leikkausjännitysvirtauksessa. Tutkimusosuuden päätavoitteena oli mitata partikkelien kosketuksista ja törmäyksistä johtuvia hetkellisiä voimaheilahteluja rengastilavuuden pohjalta. Rakeisena materiaalina tutkimuksessa käytettiin teräskuulia. Jännityssignaali ajan funktiona osoittaa suurta heilahtelua, joka voi olla jopa kertalukua keskiarvosta suurempaa. Tällainen suuren amplitudin omaava heilahtelu on merkittävä haittapuoli yleisesti rakeisissa materiaaleissa käytettyjen jatkuvuusmallien kanssa. Tällainen heilahtelu tekee käytetyt jatkuvuusmallit epäpäteviksi. Yleisellä tasolla jännityksien todennäköisyysjakauma on yhtäpitävä skalaarisen q-mallin tuloksien kanssa. Molemmissa tapauksissa todennäköisyysjakaumalla on eksponentiaalinen muoto.

Drag force and frictional resistances in vertically vibrated dense granular media

The objective of this thesis is to shed light on the vertical vibration of granular materials for potential interest in the power generation industry. The main focus is investigating the drag force and frictional resistance that influence the movement of a granular material (in the form of glass beads) contained in a vessel, which is subjected to sinusoidal oscillation. The thesis is divided into three parts: theoretical analysis, experiments and computer simulations. The theoretical part of this study presents the underlying physical phenomena of the vibration of granular materials. Experiments are designed to determine fundamental parameters that contribute to the behavior of vibrating granular media. Numerical simulations include the use of three different software applications: FLUENT, LS-DYNA and ANSYS Workbench. The goal of these simulations is to test theoretical and semiempirical models for granular materials in order to validate their compatibility with the experimental findings, to assist in predicting their behavior, and to estimate quantities that are hard to measure in laboratory.

Sensor Fusion of Proprioception, Force and Vision in Estimation and Robot

Sensor-based robot control allows manipulation in dynamic environments with uncertainties. Vision is a versatile low-cost sensory modality, but low sample rate, high sensor delay and uncertain measurements limit its usability, especially in strongly dynamic environments. Force is a complementary sensory modality allowing accurate measurements of local object shape when a tooltip is in contact with the object. In multimodal sensor fusion, several sensors measuring different modalities are combined to give a more accurate estimate of the environment. As force and vision are fundamentally different sensory modalities not sharing a common representation, combining the information from these sensors is not straightforward. In this thesis, methods for fusing proprioception, force and vision together are proposed. Making assumptions of object shape and modeling the uncertainties of the sensors, the measurements can be fused together in an extended Kalman filter. The fusion of force and visual measurements makes it possible to estimate the pose of a moving target with an end-effector mounted moving camera at high rate and accuracy. The proposed approach takes the latency of the vision system into account explicitly, to provide high sample rate estimates. The estimates also allow a smooth transition from vision-based motion control to force control. The velocity of the end-effector can be controlled by estimating the distance to the target by vision and determining the velocity profile giving rapid approach and minimal force overshoot. Experiments with a 5-degree-of-freedom parallel hydraulic manipulator and a 6-degree-of-freedom serial manipulator show that integration of several sensor modalities can increase the accuracy of the measurements significantly.

National Library and Library Network in Finland - Cooperation Being the Driving Force of Success

Kristiina Hormia-Poutasen esitys Danish Research Association -tapahtumassa Tanskassa 15.9.2011

Novel force control methods in a teleoperation system of a hydraulic slider

The objective of the this research project is to develop a novel force control scheme for the teleoperation of a hydraulically driven manipulator, and to implement an ideal transparent mapping between human and machine interaction, and machine and task environment interaction. This master‘s thesis provides a preparatory study for the present research project. The research is limited into a single degree of freedom hydraulic slider with 6-DOF Phantom haptic device. The key contribution of the thesis is to set up the experimental rig including electromechanical haptic device, hydraulic servo and 6-DOF force sensor. The slider is firstly tested as a position servo by using previously developed intelligent switching control algorithm. Subsequently the teleoperated system is set up and the preliminary experiments are carried out. In addition to development of the single DOF experimental set up, methods such as passivity control in teleoperation are reviewed. The thesis also contains review of modeling of the servo slider in particular reference to the servo valve. Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is utilized in developing the robustness of the model in presence of noise.

Improving the performance of a dismounted Future Force Warrior by means of C4I2SR

This thesis comprises seven peer-reviewed articles and examines systems and applications suitable for increasing Future Force Warrior performance, minimizing collateral damage, improving situational awareness and Common Operational Picture. Based on a literature study, missing functionalities of Future Force Warrior were identified and new ideas, concepts and solutions were created as part of early stages of Systems of Systems creation. These introduced ideas have not yet been implemented or tested in combat and for this reason benefit analyses are excluded. The main results of this thesis include the following: A new networking concept, Wireless Polling Sensor Network, which is a swarm of a few Unmanned Aerial Vehicles forming an ad-hoc network and polling a large number of fixed sensor nodes. The system is more robust in a military environment than traditional Wireless Sensor Networks. A Business Process approach to Service Oriented Architecture in a tactical setting is a concept for scheduling and sharing limited resources. New components to military Service Oriented Architecture have been introduced in the thesis. Other results of the thesis include an investigation of the use of Free Space Optics in tactical communications, a proposal for tracking neutral forces, a system for upgrading simple collaboration tools for command, control and collaboration purposes, a three-level hierarchy of Future Force Warrior, and methods for reducing incidents of fratricide.

Membrane properties of structurally modified ceramides : effects on lipid lateral distribution and sphingomyelin-interactions in artificial bilayer membranes

Ceramides comprise a class of sphingolipids that exist only in small amounts in cellular membranes, but which have been associated with important roles in cellular signaling processes. The influences that ceramides have on the physical properties of bilayer membranes reach from altered thermodynamical behavior to significant impacts on the molecular order and lateral distribution of membrane lipids. Along with the idea that the membrane physical state could influence the physiological state of a cell, the membrane properties of ceramides have gained increasing interest. Therefore, membrane phenomena related to ceramides have become a subject of intense study both in cellular as well as in artificial membranes. Artificial bilayers, the so called model membranes, are substantially simpler in terms of contents and spatio-temporal variation than actual cellular membranes, and can be used to give detailed information about the properties of individual lipid species in different environments. This thesis focuses on investigating how the different parts of the ceramide molecule, i.e., the N-linked acyl chain, the long-chain sphingoid base and the membrane-water interface region, govern the interactions and lateral distribution of these lipids in bilayer membranes. With the emphasis on ceramide/sphingomyelin(SM)-interactions, the relevance of the size of the SMhead group for the interaction was also studied. Ceramides with methylbranched N-linked acyl chains, varying length sphingoid bases, or methylated 2N (amide-nitrogen) and 3O (C3-hydroxyl) at the interface region, as well as SMs with decreased head group size, were synthesized and their bilayer properties studied by calorimetric and fluorescence spectroscopic techniques. In brief, the results showed that the packing of the ceramide acyl chains was more sensitive to methyl-branching in the mid part than in the distal end of the N-linked chain, and that disrupting the interfacial structure at the amide-nitrogen, as opposed to the C3-hydroxyl, had greater effect on the interlipid interactions of ceramides. Interestingly, it appeared that the bilayer properties of ceramides could be more sensitive to small alterations in the length of the long-chain base than what was previously reported for the N-linked acyl chain. Furthermore, the data indicated that the SM-head group does not strongly influence the interactions between SMs and ceramides. The results in this thesis illustrate the pivotal role of some essential parts of the ceramide molecules in determining their bilayer properties. The thesis provides increased understanding of the molecular aspects of ceramides that possibly affect their functions in biological membranes, and could relate to distinct effects on cell physiology.

Before internationalisation : reflections of lateral rigidity on managerial decision making

The purpose of the study is to analyse lateral rigidity in the framework of pre-internationalisation to find out its reflections on managerial decision making. The interest of the study lies in the intersection of the meaningful but relatively stagnant concept of lateral rigidity, and the pre-internationalisation phase of companies that has received only a limited amount of research attention. The theoretical basis for the study is drawn from managerial decision making and internationalisation literatures. Firstly, the study aims to define the concept of lateral rigidity in order to secondly find out how it influences managers’ pre-internationalisation decision making. The study is theoretical in nature, and is based solely on literature examination. Concept analysis method is used to determine the attributes of lateral rigidity for the purpose of recognising the concept in the pre-internationalisation framework. The attributes that are found to comprise lateral rigidity are culture, know-how, uncertainty and attitude. Furthermore, these attributes are more specifically found to consist of environmental, personal and operational matters. Through the analysis of the pre-internationalisation literature it is discovered that all the attributes appear there, and present a variety of influences on pre-internationalisation decision making that can be characterised as being negative. The study finds that culture influences managers’ decision making via subjective reasoning and behaviour that stem from a domestic inclination, and via unfamiliarity with foreign markets. Against assumption, home cultural factors, e.g. values and customs, do not appear to have an influence. Know-how is found to influence decision making via managers’ previous experiences, subjective abiding perceptions, and the usage of previous operation patterns. Uncertainty, then again, influences managers’ risk perception, unfamiliarity avoidance, and the scope of potential international operations. Attitude is found to have a robust influence on managerial decision making via the usage of familiar processes and decision regimes, subjective preference of convention, and plausible results of operations. Ergo, the effects of lateral rigidity on managers show to represent an encumbrance in the pre-internationalisation phase; even though internationalisation would take place, the related decisions and actions are highly constrained. Especially the subjectivity of managers is seen to have a meaningful role in the decision making process.

Task Force on Librarians’ Competencies in Support of E-Research and Scholarly Communication

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Benefits of sales force automation to salespeople and to their customers in business-to-business markets

This study applied qualitative case study method for solving what kind of benefits salespeople and their customers perceived to gain when sales reps used a specific sales force automation tool, that defined the values and identified segment that best fit to each customer. The data consisting of four interviews was collected using semi-structured individual method and analyzed with thematic analysis technique. The analysis revealed five salespeople perceived benefits and four customer perceived benefits. Salespeople perceived benefits were improvements in customer knowledge, guidance of sales operations, salesperson-customer relationship building, time management and growing performance. Customer perceived benefits were information transmission, improved customer service, customer-salesperson relationship building and development of operations, which of the last was found as a new previously unrecognized customer benefit.

A chart of the southern part of South America : with the track of the centurion from the island of St. Catherines to the island of Juan Fernandes in which is inserted the variation and soundings observ'd on board her, together with her deviation from her estimated course in passing round Cap Horn, occasiond by the force of the currents / R. W. Seale sculp

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