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The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has recently operationalized a post-processing suite called ConvParams, which computes a wide array of convective parameters using output from the BoM’s global deterministic and ensemble NWP models. Outputs from the suite include parcel parameters such as CAPE and CIN (computed for a range of different initial parcels), kinematic diagnostics such as bulk wind difference and storm-relative helicity (computed for a range of different atmospheric layers), and composite indices such as the supercell composite parameter and significant tornado parameter. In addition, the suite also identifies important features in the atmospheric profile such as capping inversions and elevated mixed layers. A unique feature of ConvParams, compared to other similar codebases (NSHARP/SHARPpy, MetPy) is its use of high-order polynomials to approximate pseudoadiabatic processes, which permits parcel calculations that are both fast and highly accurate. Significant computational advantages also come from the use of an ahead-of-time compiler (Pythran), which “transpiles” the native Python code into fast C++ code. As well as being used in operations, ConvParams is being run as part of the second-generation BoM Atmospheric Regional Reanalysis for Australia (BARRA2), a regional downscaling of the ERA5 reanalysis, and the BoM Atmospheric Regional Projections for Australia (BARPA), a regional downscaling of CMIP6 climate projections. Once complete, these simulations will provide the most comprehensive picture of historical and future convective environments in Australia to date, supporting major research in this space over the coming years. This presentation will provide an overview of the ConvParams suite and highlight its applications in both operational forecasting and future research endeavours.

Operational guidance for thunderstorms and severe convective hazards at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has undergone a major uplift in recent years, with the introduction of new NWP models, post-processing systems, and convection diagnostics. The latest guidance is based on the third generation of the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS) suite, which includes global and convection-allowing models run in both deterministic and ensemble configurations. In this presentation, we will introduce the ACCESS suite and discuss three sources of convective guidance based on its outputs. The first is the new ConvParams post-processing suite, which ingests model-level data from the ACCESS Global and Global Ensemble models and computes a wide array of convective parameters for use in ingredients-based forecasting of thunderstorms and associated hazards. The second is the Bureau’s lightning prediction system, Calibrated Thunder, which combines ACCESS Global Ensemble forecasts and recent lightning observations to produce calibrated probabilistic forecasts of lightning within a 10-km radius across Australia and surrounding coastal waters. The third comprises storm attributes from the ACCESS City and City Ensemble models, including simulated reflectivities, updraft helicity, and parameterised lightning flash rates. For the ensemble, these diagnostics are post-processed to obtain the ensemble maximum and neighbourhood-maximum ensemble probabilities (NMEPs), and interrogated using a variety of novel visualisation strategies. Our presentation will provide an overview of each of these guidance streams, describe how they are used in operations, and assess their strengths and limitations. We will also highlight promising avenues for future developments.

Proximity soundings have long been used to explore how the vertical structure of temperature, humidity, and winds influence convective storms and their associated hazards. In severe thunderstorm research and forecasting, convective parameters are often used to summarize certain characteristics of the sounding. While extremely useful, these parameters are unable to describe the rich complexity that is readily apparent in hodographs and skew T–logp diagrams. Motivated by a desire to retain more of these details, the present study uses self-organizing maps (SOMs) to group soundings based on their full vertical structure. The analysis makes use of a sample of more than 10 000 model proximity soundings for right-moving supercells associated with tornadoes and significant severe hail and straight-line winds in the contiguous United States (CONUS). Separate SOMs are developed for the wind and thermodynamic profiles, each with 3 × 3 nodes, resulting in a set of nine hodographs and nine skew T–logp diagrams that broadly represent the spectrum of near-storm environments for significant severe right-moving supercells in the CONUS. Both SOMs are shown to provide a good representation of the variability in key convective parameters, although, for the thermodynamic SOM, variations in LCL heights and midlevel lapse rates are somewhat limited. Based on the soundings assigned to them, the SOM nodes are characterized in terms of their associated hazards, their relationship with storm mode and mesocyclone strength, and their spatial and temporal variability. Potential applications of the SOMs in severe weather forecasting and idealized numerical simulations are also highlighted.

During 2013, multiple tornadoes occurred across Australia, leading to 147 injuries and considerable damage. This prompted speculation as to the frequency of these events in Australia, and whether 2013 constituted a record year. Leveraging media reports, public accounts, and the Bureau of Meteorology observational record, 69 tornadoes were identified for the year in comparison to the official count of 37 events. This identified set and the existing historical record were used to establish that, in terms of spatial distribution, 2013 was not abnormal relative to the existing climatology, but numerically exceeded any year in the bureau’s record. Evaluation of the environments in which these tornadoes formed illustrated that these conditions included tornado environments found elsewhere globally, but generally had a stronger dependence on shear magnitude than direction, and lower lifting condensation levels. Relative to local environment climatology, 2013 was also not anomalous. These results illustrate a range of tornadoes associated with cool season, tropical cyclone, east coast low, supercell tornado, and low shear/storm merger environments. Using this baseline, the spatial climatology from 1980 to 2019 as derived from the nonconditional frequency of favorable significant tornado parameter environments for the year is used to highlight that observations are likely an underestimation. Applying the results, discussion is made of the need to expand observing practices, climatology, forecasting guidelines for operational prediction, and improve the warning system. This highlights a need to ensure that the general public is appropriately informed of the tornado hazard in Australia, and provide them with the understanding to respond accordingly.

National meteorological and hydrological services provide severe weather warning information to inform decision-making by emergency management organisations. Such information also helps communities to take defensive and mitigating actions prior to and during severe weather events. Globally, warning information issued by meteorological and hydrological services varies widely. This can range from solely hazard-based to impact-based forecasting encompassing the exposure and vulnerability of communities to severe weather. The most advanced of these systems explicitly and quantitatively model the impacts of hazards on affected assets or infrastructure such as vehicle traffic or housing. Incorporating impact information into severe weather warnings contextualises and personalises the warning information, increasing the likelihood that individuals and communities will take preparatory action. However, providing useful and detailed impact information remains a challenge. This paper reviews a selection of current severe weather warnings and impact forecasting capabilities globally and highlights uncertainties that limit the forecasting and modelling of multi-hazard events.

This paper reports on the status of a comprehensive ten-year research and development effort toward hybrid system-in-foil (HySiF). In HySiF, the merits of high-performance integrated circuits on ultra-thin chips and of large-area and discrete electronic component implementation are combined in a complementary fashion in and on a flexible carrier substrate. HySiF paves the way to entirely new applications of electronic products where form factor, form adaptivity and form flexibility are key enablers. In this review paper the various aspects of thin-chip fabrication and embedding, device and circuit design under impact of unknown or variable mechanical stress, and the on- and off-chip implementation of sensor, actuator, microwave, and energy supply components are addressed.

In this paper, a rigorous methodology for extracting the thermal compact model parameters of packaged chips is presented. The methodology is based on using a custom-designed test chip with multiple heating and temperature sensing elements in order to predict the temperature distribution in packaged chips after packaging. The technique involves measurement of various chips with different thicknesses, different packages, and for different power dissipation scenarios through which the thermal model parameters can be extracted. The results show that ultrathin chips with a total thickness below $20~\mu \text{m}$ experience a dramatically increased temperature for localized heat dissipation. In addition to this, the measurements conducted in time domain and frequency domain show that at high enough frequencies of heat pulsing, the temperature variations become independent of the thermal boundary conditions of the chip. The measurement results are compared to the finite-element method simulation data. The simulations together with the measurement methodology serve as a technique to extract the thermal compact model parameters of packaged chips after being fabricated and packaged in an accurate and efficient way.

This paper presents the design, fabrication and characterization of digital logic gates, flip-flops and shift registers based on low-voltage organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) on flexible plastic substrates. The organic transistors are based on the p-channel organic semiconductor dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3′-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) and have channel lengths as short as 5 μ m and gate-to-contact overlaps of 20 μ m. The organic TFT is modeled which allows us to simulate different logic gate architectures prior to the fabrication process. In this study, the zero-VGS, biased-load and pseudo-CMOS logic families are investigated, where their static and dynamic operations are modeled and measured. The inverter and NAND gates use channel length of 5 μ m and operate with a supply voltage of 3 V. Static and dynamic master-slave flip-flops based on biased-load and pseudo-CMOS logic are designed, fabricated and characterized. A new design for biased-load dynamic flip-flops is proposed, where transmission gate switches are implemented using only p-channel transistors. 1-stage shift registers based on the new design and fabricated using TFTs with a channel length of 20 μ m operate with a maximum frequency of about 3 kHz.

Boundary layer evolution in response to diurnal forcing is manifested at the mesobeta and smaller scales of the atmosphere. Because this variability resides on subsynoptic scales, the potential influence upon convective storm environments is often not captured in coarse observational and modeling datasets, particularly for complex physical settings such as coastal regions. A detailed observational analysis of diurnally forced preconditioning for convective storm environments of South East Queensland, Australia (SEQ), during the Coastal Convective Interactions Experiment (2013–15) is presented. The observations used include surface-based measurements, aerological soundings, and dual-polarization Doppler radar. The sea-breeze circulation was found to be the dominant influence; however, profile modification by the coastward advection of the continental boundary layer was found to be an essential mechanism for favorable preconditioning of deep convection. This includes 1) enhanced moisture in the city of Brisbane, potentiality due to an urban heat island–enhanced land–sea thermal contrast, 2) significant afternoon warming and moistening above the sea breeze resulting from the advection of the inland convective boundary layer coastward under prevailing westerly flow coupled with the sea-breeze return flow, and 3) substantial variations in near-surface moisture likely associated with topography and land use. For the 27 November 2014 Brisbane hailstorm, which caused damages exceeding $1.5 billion Australian dollars (AUD), the three introduced diurnal preconditioning processes are shown to favor a mesoscale convective environment supportive of large hailstone growth. The hybrid high-precipitation supercell storm mode noted for this event and previous similar events in SEQ is hypothesized to be more sensitive to variations in near-surface and boundary layer instability in contrast to contemporary supercell storms.

It has previously been suggested, based on limited observations, that vertical wind shear in the upper troposphere is a key control on supercell morphology, with the low-precipitation, high-precipitation, and classic archetypes favored under strong, weak, and moderate shear, respectively. The idea is that, with increasing upper-level shear (ULS), hydrometeors are transported farther from the updraft by stronger storm-relative anvil-level winds, limiting their growth and thereby reducing precipitation intensity. The present study represents the first attempt to test this hypothesis, using idealized simulations of supercells performed across a range of 6–12-km shear profiles. Contrary to expectations, there is a significant increase in surface precipitation and an associated strengthening of outflow winds as ULS magnitude is increased from 0 to 20 m s−1. These changes result from an increase in storm motion, which drives stronger low-level inflow, a wider updraft, and enhanced condensation. A further increase in ULS magnitude to 30 m s−1 promotes a slight reduction in storm intensity associated with surging rear-flank outflow. However, this transition in behavior is found to be sensitive to other factors that influence cold-pool strength, such as mixed-layer depth and model microphysics. Variations in the vertical distribution and direction of ULS are also considered, but are found to have a much smaller impact on storm intensity than variations in ULS magnitude. Suggestions for the disparity between the current results and the aforementioned observations are offered and the need for further research on supercell morphology—in particular, simulations in drier environments—is emphasized.

The southeast Queensland (SEQ) region of Australia is recognised for frequent thunderstorms documented through numerous studies including high-impact severe thunderstorm cases which have caused insured losses exceeding $1 billion AUD. Despite a modest body of scientific literature, basic questions regarding the role of climate, synoptic and local-scale (

Zusammenfassung Der Begriff „Gemeinde“ wird fast durchgangig als Synonym fur die parochiale Ortsgemeinde verwendet. Der Autor wirbt am Beispiel der Krankenhausseelsorge (KHS) aus phanomenologischer wie theologischer Sicht fur ein breiteres Verstandnis. Dabei wird KHS als eigenstandige Form der Gemeinde vor Ort beschrieben. Dies will zur besseren innerkirchlichen Wahrnehmung der KHS beitragen und Impulse zu ihrer konzeptionellen Weiterentwicklung geben.

Flexible electronics combined with new materials and fabrication processes offer unique characteristics such as mechanical flexibility, thin-form factor, large area scaling feasibility, and adaptability to irregular surfaces. In this work, a smart electronic skin adopting the hybrid system-in-foil concept is designed to monitor the uniaxial bending of a robotic gripper. The newly designed smart skin contains an array of printed strain gauges, organic thin-film transistor (TFT) addressing circuits and a 20 μm ultra-thin silicon readout chip, all integrated on the same polymeric foil. The silver-ink printed strain gauges achieve a relative resistance sensitivity ΔR/R of 2% and a gauge factor of 2. In addition, the organic TFT multiplexer containing a three-stage shift register and analogue switches operate at a frequency of 100 Hz and a supply voltage of 3 V. The ultra-thin silicon chip provides the functions of system control, strain gauge readout, analogue-to-digital conversion and serial communication.

Current electronic systems and circuits possess approximately 80 % of passive components. Thus, high performance integrated silicon-based passive components with high density are required to reduce the overall cost and bulkiness of the systems. This paper presents the development of high-density ultra-thin 3D capacitors in silicon, one of the important passive components exploited in approximately all the circuits for SiP, 3D-integration and flexible systems. The 3D structure is achieved by using deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process. The substrate and the polysilicon act as the two electrode plates with silicon dioxide as the dielectric. Two designs with different pitches are investigated with successful back-grinding of the substrate to 50$\mu$ m thin and 22$\mu$ m ultra-thin singulated capacitors. Capacitive densities of 36.25 nF/mm 2 and 28.75 nF/mm 2 over a frequency bandwidth of 100 KHz are presented. The reduced thickness and flexible nature of these ultra-thin capacitors (

Complex simulations are rarely performed in clouds because of huge overheads and latencies that occur in a virtual environment. Also, in many cases, standard communication channels based on TCP/IP could not bring any performance gains if a multi-VM setup is engaged. Therefore, clouds have to be tuned and modified in order to be used as HPC computing tools. In this paper, we present a rebuild of Magpar, a perspective micromagnetic solver that became broken with recent Linux updates. We have restored it to the original version and further updated its obsolete MPI communication libraries with the latest MPI-3 standard at the time. However, in order to achieve significant performance improvements, we had to break the existing VM isolation by engaging inter-VM shared-memory or ivshmem, which comes in a form of a PCI device. For this purpose, we have used free MVAPICH2-virt software that has built-in support for ivshmem and then integrated it into Magpar. As a result, we have achieved that Magpar is run for the first time in OpenStack cloud using ivshmem as a shared memory channel. Furthermore, we have shown the relation between the number of processing elements and initial problem size with respect to the saturation of computing time speedup. Finally, our measurements showed improvements in execution time between factors of 1.6 - 6, depending on the number of vCPUs and VMs engaged, compared with the standard TCP/IP communication channel.

Hybrid System-in-Foil exploits the complementary benefits of integrating embedded silicon chips with on-foil passive and active electronic components. In this work, the design, fabrication and characterization of three on-foil components, namely a humidity sensor, near field communication antenna and organic thin-film transistors, are investigated.

Thunderstorm-affected communities develop an awareness of “hotspot” regions that historically experience more frequent or intense storm activity across many years. A scientifically based understanding of this localized variability has significant implications for both the public and industry; however, a lack of sufficiently long and robust observational datasets has limited prior research at the mesogamma spatial scale (2–20 km). This is particularly true for coastal environments, where hotspot activity has been documented in very few locales (e.g., Florida, southern Appalachian coastal plains, and the Iberian Peninsula), despite 45% of the global population living within 150 km of the coast. The Coastal Convective Interactions Experiment (CCIE) focuses on quantifying hailstorm hotspot activity for the coastal South East Queensland (SEQ) region of Australia and understanding the meteorological conditions that result in the spatial clustering of hailstorm activity. An automated thunderstorm identification and tracking technique applied to 18 years of radar data identifies not only the hailstorm hotpots well known to experienced local forecasters but an apparent link between localized maxima and the presence of sea-breeze activity. These climatological findings provided the motivation and guidance for a two-season field campaign to investigate the role of the sea breeze in thunderstorm development. Details of the experiment strategy and equipment specifications are presented alongside preliminary results. Significant complexities were observed within sea-breeze and thunderstorms circulations, limiting the application of standard concepts for idealized gravity current interactions. Furthermore, a multi-instrument case study of a sea-breeze–thunderstorm cold pool interaction identifies the comparatively low sea-breeze buoyancy as the primary contributor toward inhibiting new convective initiation, despite the vorticity balance argument favoring deeper updrafts.

An ultra-thin ( $20\;\bm{\upmu} {\bf m}$ ), flexible CMOS stress sensor for hybrid systems-in-foil (HySiF) is presented. The system is designed for Fin Ray® grippers in order to measure the emerging stress on the gripper in operation, enabling the extraction of object shape and operation status. In-plane stress is linearly converted to electrical signals proportional to shear stress and normal stress difference using two sensing elements. Each stress signal is processed and digitized by an integrator and a 10-bit SAR ADC. In contrast to rigid chips, the stress cannot be avoided in the sensitive blocks, such as the signal processing chain and digital controller, when an ultra-thin chip is under deformation. The influence of stress levels, up to 350 MPa, is minimized by using stress-insensitive components, design measures, and layout techniques. This work represents the first demonstration of stress-aware top-to-bottom CMOS design on an ultra-thin chip.

This paper reports on the status of a comprehensive ten-year research and development effort towards Hybrid System-in-Foil (HySiF). In HySiF, the merits of high-performance integrated circuits on ultra-thin chips and of large-area and discrete electronic component implementation are combined in a complementary fashion attached on or laminated in a flexible carrier substrate. HySiF paves the way to entirely new applications of electronic products where form factor, form adaptivity or form flexibility are key enablers. In this review paper the various aspects of thin-chip fabrication and embedding, device and circuit design under impact of unknown or variable mechanical stress, and the on- and off-chip implementation of sensor, actuator, microwave and energy supply components are discussed.

High-Performance computing (HPC) is scarcely attempted in clouds because of slow and inefficient Inter-VM communication on the same server as well as huge latency between remote units. This was changed by introduction of ivshmem, a PCI device-based shared memory between VMs on the same server, but unfortunately, this mechanism became broken with Linux update few years ago. We have restored this shared memory system and made, for the first time, full cloud integration using latest versions of OpenStack, Linux, QEMU, libvirt and MPICH. Also, the analyses of different factors influencing both TCP/IP and ivshmem communication is presented along with tuning techniques that could significantly increase performance. Finally, we have created ivshmem communication channel that can replace standard Neutron TCP/IP network, resulting three to six times performance improvement.

This paper presents relative humidity sensors based on electrochemical and capacitive principles. The sensors are fabricated on flexible polymer substrates, which are used for ultra-thin chip embedding. The electrochemical sensor consists of spin-coated nanosheets, which shown huge range (about 5 orders of magnitude) and fast response (< 2 s). The sensor film thickness as well as ionic conductivity change upon moisture absorption. The measured sensor relative conductance change on the flexible substrate is 368%. In addition, a 3-pm thick conventional capacitive sensor is fabricated on the polymer substrate, together with a humidity-insensitive reference capacitor. The measured sensor relative sensitivity is about 75% with a response time of about 6 s. Finally, a sensor system-in-foil is demonstrated using discrete components of the ultra-thin capacitive sensor and a 30-pm thick capacitance-to-digital readout chip.

During the late afternoon on 16 November 2008 the Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) suburb of “The Gap” experienced extensive wind damage caused by an intense local thunderstorm. The CP2 research radar nearby detected near-surface radial velocities exceeding 43 m s−1 above The Gap while hail size reports did not exceed golf ball size, and no tornadoes were reported. The storm environment was characterized by a layer of very moist near-surface air and strong storm-relative low-level flow, whereas the storm-relative winds aloft were weak. While the thermodynamic storm environment contained a range of downdraft-promoting ingredients such as a ~4-km-high melting level above a ~2-km-deep layer with nearly dry-adiabatic lapse rates mostly collocated with dry ambient air, a ~1-km-deep stable layer near the ground would generally lower expectations of destructive surface winds based on the downburst mechanism. Once observed reflectivities exceed 70 dBZ, downdraft cooling due to hail melting and downdraft acceleration based on hail loading are found to likely become nonnegligible forcing mechanisms. The event featured the close proximity of a hydrostatically and dynamically driven mesohigh at the base of the downdraft to a dynamically driven mesolow associated with a low-level circulation. This proximity was instrumental in the anisotropic horizontal acceleration of the near-ground outflow and the ultimate strength of the Gap storm surface winds. Weak storm-relative midlevel winds are speculated to have allowed the downdraft to descend close to the low-level circulation, which set up this strong horizontal perturbation pressure gradient.

This paper presents analysis of the charge storage behavior in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) by means of admittance characterization, compact modeling, and 2-D device simulation. The measurements are performed for frequencies ranging from 100 Hz to 1 MHz and bias potentials from zero to -3 V on top-contact OTFTs that employ air-stable and high-mobility dinaphtho-thieno-thiophene as the organic semiconductor. It is demonstrated that the dependence of the intrinsic OTFT gate-source and gate-drain capacitances on the applied voltages agrees very well with Meyer's capacitance model. Furthermore, the impact of parasitic elements, including fringe current and contact impedance, is investigated. The parameters used for the simulation and modeling of all the dynamic characteristics correspond closely to those extracted from static measurements. Finally, the implications of the admittance measurements are also discussed relating to the OTFTs dynamic performance, particularly the cutoff frequency and the charge response time.

Bottom-gate, top-contact (inverted staggered) organic thin-film transistors with a channel length of 1 μm have been fabricated on flexible plastic substrates using the vacuum-deposited small-molecule semiconductor 2,9-didecyl-dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3′-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (C10-DNTT). The transistors have an effective field-effect mobility of 1.2 cm2/V s, an on/off ratio of 107, a width-normalized transconductance of 1.2 S/m (with a standard deviation of 6%), and a signal propagation delay (measured in 11-stage ring oscillators) of 420 ns per stage at a supply voltage of 3 V. To our knowledge, this is the first time that megahertz operation has been achieved in flexible organic transistors at supply voltages of less than 10 V.

This paper presents S-parameter characterization and a corresponding physics-based small-signal equivalent circuit for organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). Furthermore, the impact of misalignment between the source/drain contacts and the patterned gate on the dynamic TFT performance is explored and a simple method to estimate the misalignment from the measured S-parameters is proposed. An excellent fit between theoretical and experimental S-parameters is demonstrated. For this study, OTFTs based on the air-stable organic semiconductor dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3′-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) having a channel length of 1 μm and a gate-to-contact overlap of 5 or 20 μm and being operated at a supply voltage of 3 V are utilized. The intentional asymmetry between gate-to-source and gate-to-drain overlaps is precisely controlled by the use of high-resolution silicon stencil masks.

Zusammenfassung Welchen Beitrag kann Seelsorge im Kontext stationarer psychosomatischer Medizin und Psychotherapie leisten und wie nutzen Patientinnen und Patienten ein entsprechendes Angebot? Der Artikel beschreibt Konzeption, Praxis und Erfahrungen einer funfzehnjahrigen Kooperation von Okumenischer Klinikseelsorge und Psychosomatischer Klinik in Bad Neustadt/Saale. Dabei werden vor allem Grundstrukturen der Arbeit sowie Ergebnisse einer dreijahrigen Studie vorgestellt, die die seelsorglichen Gesprache in diesem Feld genauer untersuchte.

The micro-hybrid system in foil (HySiF) involves ultra-thin chips embedded and interconnected in polymer foil for diverse flexible electronic applications. In this paper, the concepts and results of wafer level embedding and interconnection of ultra-thin dies in polymers are presented. The significant achievement of the presented HySiF is the accurate interconnection between a pair of functional chips at wafer level based on an adaptive interconnect layout, thus allowing for a small wire pitch on and off the chip. As a result, contact pads can be abandoned from the chip, which leads to reduced silicon area and, thus, lower cost. In addition, misalignment of embedded chips can be compensated by the adaptive layout, thus allowing for far higher I/O count. In this paper, this novel embedding technique is demonstrated with a metal pitch less than 108 µm and for a pair of functional chips spaced in the range of 200–1000 µm.

In the following, RePowerBuf is presented, which is a new concept for filtering and backing electric power to counteract fluctuations from renewables. It can also be used as system-relevant residual power plant in the 100 MW/16.8 GWh range for the transition to renewable energies. It provides for a controlling power range in time scales of one week to 10 ms, operates in all four quadrants of the complex Gaussian plane, filters harmonic components of the line frequency by the mass inertia of its generator and by fuel cells and Li-Ion accumulators as backing systems, augments the short-circuit capacity of the grid, reduces thus its internal resistance, and contributes to its frequency stability. This is accomplished without consuming fuel or polluting the environment by means of closed Power-to-Gas-To-Power Loops.

Cloud computing has become the ubiquitous computing and storage paradigm. It is also attractive for scientists, because they do not have to care any more for their own IT infrastructure, but can outsource it to a Cloud Service Provider of their choice. However, for the case of High-Performance Computing (HPC) in a cloud, as it is needed in simulations or for Big Data analysis, things are getting more intricate, because HPC codes must stay highly efficient, even when executed by many virtual cores (vCPUs). Older clouds or new standard clouds can fulfil this only under special precautions, which are given in this article. The results can be extrapolated to other cloud OSes than OpenStack and to other codes than OpenFOAM, which were used as examples., Comment: 10 pages

A 3.3 V 6-bit binary-weighted current-steering digital-to-converter converter (DAC) using low-voltage organic p-type thin-film transistors (OTFTs) is presented. The converter marks records in speed and compactness owing to an OTFT fabrication process that is based on high-resolution silicon stencil masks. The chip has been fabricated on a glass substrate and consumes an area of 2.6× 4.6 mm2. The converter has a maximum update rate of 100 kS/s and a maximum output voltage swing of 2 V. The measured DNL and INL at an update rate of 1 kS/s are - 0.69 and 1.16 LSB, respectively. A spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 32 dB has been measured for output sinusoids at 31 Hz (update rate of 1 kS/s) and 3.1 kHz (update rate of 100 kS/s).

As a response to extreme water shortages in southeast Queensland, Australia, brought about by reduced rainfall and increasing population, the Queensland government decided to explore the potential for cloud seeding to enhance rainfall. The Queensland Cloud Seeding Research Program (QCSRP) was conducted in the southeast Queensland region near Brisbane during the 2008/09 wet seasons. In addition to conducting an initial exploratory, randomized (statistical) cloud seeding study, multiparameter radar measurements and in situ aircraft microphysical data were collected. This comprehensive set of observational platforms was designed to improve the physical understanding of the effects of both ambient aerosols and seeding material on precipitation formation in southeast Queensland clouds. This focus on gaining physical understanding, along with the unique combination of modern observational platforms utilized in the program, set it apart from previous cloud seeding research programs. The overarching goals of the ...

This work presents a compact wide-range fully integrated sinusoidal signal generator for in vivo Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy applications. The circuit is based on a novel architecture combining aspects of direct digital synthesis and interpolation digital to analog conversion. The signal generator demonstrates very precise frequency tuning and high spectral purity, while offering a simple architecture and an uncomplicated clocking scheme. The circuit is fabricated using a 0.5µm sea of transistors CMOS process and occupies 0.32mm2 of active die area. Consuming 110µA at a 3V supply, the circuit covers eight decades of frequency from 1mHz to 100kHz and meets the necessary low energy and high precision requirements for implantable bio-diagnostics.

Electroencephalographic abnormalities in the absence of any other major laboratory or imaging findings are a frequently encountered phenomenon in many psychiatric disorders. In some cases, clear-cut interictal epileptiform EEG abnormalities in patients with classic primary psychiatric disorders lead to referrals to epilepsy departments for diagnostic evaluation. Although video/EEG telemetry in these cases generally proves that there is no direct temporal link between the EEG pathologies and psychiatric symptoms, and therefore the psychiatric syndrome cannot be regarded as epilepsy, the relevance of the EEG abnormalities remains open to discussion. In this article we put forward the model of a paraepileptic pathomechanism, which might explain the pathogenetic role of such EEG pathologies, at least in subgroups of such patients. We propose that ictal or nonictal epileptic neurophysiological activity can lead to local area neuronal network inhibition (LANI). In this model clinical symptoms are related not to the excitatory epileptiform abnormalities themselves, but to the extent, site, and dynamics of the resulting local neuronal network inhibition. The LANI hypothesis is capable of explaining the complex relationship between EEG abnormalities and clinical symptoms in different neuropsychiatric syndromes and can be verified and falsified in empirical research.

This paper presents a novel implementation of variable uniaxial mechanical stress model to be used with DC circuit simulation, e.g. using BSIM3v3 transistor model. Based on transistor measurements under various uniaxial stress conditions two stress-dependent parameters are identified, namely the carriers mobility and to a lesser extend the carrier saturation velocity. The effect of the parasitic source/drain resistance on the piezoresistive coefficient determination is addressed in detail. Using the fundamental piezoresistive coefficients, the model has implemented a general relation to calculate the coefficients for arbitrary directions of current and stress in the (0 0 1) silicon (Si) plane. The extended transistor model allows for simulating the effect of uniaxial stress on any MOSFET geometry, under different operation conditions and for any combination of the drain current and stress orientations in the (0 0 1) silicon (Si) plane. The method proposed in this paper is validated by static and dynamic stress-dependent simulations and comparison with experimental data. The method is simulator-independent and can be adapted to other bulk CMOS technologies including SOI processes.

Ultra-thin chip technology has potential to provide solutions for overcoming bottlenecks in silicon technology and for leading to new applications. This, however, requires new techniques in fabricating very thin wafers or chips, in applying them to device integration processes and in assembly and packaging. Therefore, ultra-thin chips and the related applications represent a new paradigm in silicon technology. The paper highlights the prominent applications of ultra-thin chips, alerts to the related technological issues and compares the candidate enabling technologies.

High-Performance computing (HPC) is rarely accomplished via virtual machines (VMs). In this paper, we present a remake of ivshmem which can change this. Ivshmem was a shared memory (SHM) between virtual machines on the same server, with SHM-access synchronization included, until about 5 years ago when newer versions of Linux and its virtualization library libvirt evolved. We restored that SHM-access synchronization feature because it is indispensable for HPC and made ivshmem runnable with contemporary versions of Linux, libvirt, KVM, QEMU and especially MPICH, which is an implementation of MPI - the standard HPC communication library. Additionally, MPICH was transparently modified by us to get ivshmem included, resulting in a three to ten times performance improvement compared to TCP/IP. Furthermore, we have transparently replaced MPI_PUT, a single-side MPICH communication mechanism, by an own MPI_PUT wrapper. As a result, our ivshmem even surpasses non-virtualized SHM data transfers for block lengths greater than 512 KBytes, showing the benefits of virtualization. All improvements were possible without using SR-IOV.

System-in-Foil (SiF) is an emerging field of large-area polymer electronics that employs new materials such as conductive polymers and electrophoretic micro-capsules (E-Ink) along with ultra-thin and thus flexible chips. In flexible displays, the integration of gate and source drivers onto the flexible part increases the yield and enhances the reliability of the system. In this work we propose a high-voltage ChipfilmTM lateral diffused MOS transistor (LDMOS) structure on ultra-thin single-crystalline silicon chips. The fabrication process is compatible with CMOS standard processing. This LDMOS structure proves to be well suited for providing adequately large switching voltages in spite of the thin (

In past years, researchers from many domains have discovered Grid technology which opens up new possibilities in solving problems that are difficult to handle with traditional cluster computing. With the rapidly increasing number of partially or completely sequenced genomes, computational genome annotation is a particularly challenging task in computational biology. In this paper, we describe how we adapted the gene-finding tool AUGUSTUS to Grid computing in the context of the German MediGRID project. The gridification process starts with providing security requirements and running the application manually using Grid middleware. Afterwards, the application is described as a workflow of successive program executions, which are automatically distributed to appropriate Grid resources by a workflow engine. Finally, we show how a convenient graphical user interface for end users is created by means of a portal framework.

Apart from the ongoing debate about using CMOS active pixel sensors (APS) or CCD imagers for today's consumer and commercial applications the emerging biomedical market presents new opportunities to CMOS APS. Logarithmic response high-dynamic range CMOS (HDRC) cells are the preferred photosensitive circuits for building sensors with contrast and not with illumination dominated outputs. Prominent examples addressing distinct issues in life style and health care are the possibilities to restore vision through a sub-retinal CMOS imager implant and to fabricate a low-cost intracorporeal video probe through a miniature CMOS imager. The sub-retinal imager chip presented here is the first implanted into the eye of a blind human patient with partial restoring of vision.

Steht im Chemieunterricht der Sekundarstufe 2 das Thema Reaktionskinetik an, dann sollten auch Konkurrenzreaktionen in die Unterrichtsgestaltung einbezogen werden. Zum Einstieg in dieses Thema empfiehlt es sich, an einen gangigen (meist bereits in der Sekundarstufe 1 eingefuhrten) Sprachgebrauch zu erinnern: „Es gibt ungesattigte Kohlenwasserstoffe, die durch vollstandige Addition von Wasserstoff oder Brom gesattigt werden.” Bei einer verstandlichen Planung der Lehrkrafte konnen die animistischen Hintergrunde dieser Redensart Schuler und Schulerinnen motivieren, die Reaktivitaten von zwei verschiedenen Alkenen bei einer Konkurrenzreaktion mit Spannung zu betrachten.

Objective: Shame is considered to be a central emotion in borderline personality disorder and to be related to self-injurious behavior, chronic suicidality, and anger-hostility. However, its level and impact on people with borderline personality disorder are largely unknown. The authors examined levels of self-reported shame, guilt, anxiety, and implicit shame-related self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder and assessed the association of shame with self-esteem, quality of life, and anger-hostility. Method: Sixty women with borderline personality disorder completed self-report measures of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, quality of life, and clinical symptoms. Comparison groups consisted of 30 women with social phobia and 60 healthy women. Implicit shame-related self-concept (relative to anxiety) was assessed by the Implicit Association Test. Results: Women with borderline personality disorder reported higher levels of shame- and guilt-proneness, state shame, and anxiety than women with social phobia and healthy comparison subjects. The implicit self-concept in women with borderline personality disorder was more shame-prone (relative to anxiety-prone) than in women in the comparison groups. After depression was controlled for, shameproneness was negatively correlated with self-esteem and quality of life and positively correlated with anger-hostility. Conclusions: Shame, an emotion that is prominent in women with borderline personality disorder, is associated with the implicit self-concept as well as with poorer quality of life and self-esteem and greater anger-hostility. Psychotherapeutic approaches to borderline personality disorder need to address explicit and implicit aspects of shame.

A process for the fabrication of integrated circuits based on bottom-gate, top-contact organic thin-film transistors (TFTs) with channel lengths as short as 1 µm on flexible plastic substrates has been developed. In this process, all TFT layers (gate electrodes, organic semiconductors, source/drain contacts) are patterned with the help of high-resolution silicon stencil masks, thus eliminating the need for subtractive patterning and avoiding the exposure of the organic semiconductors to potentially harmful organic solvents or resists. The TFTs employ a low-temperature-processed gate dielectric that is sufficiently thin to allow the TFTs and circuits to operate with voltages of about 3 V. Using the vacuum-deposited small-molecule organic semiconductor 2,9-didecyl-dinaphtho[2,3-b:2’,3’-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (C10 DNTT), TFTs with an effective field-effect mobility of 1.2 cm2/Vs, an on/off current ratio of 107, a width-normalized transconductance of 1.2 S/m (with a standard deviation of 6%), and a signal propagation delay (measured in 11-stage ring oscillators) of 420 nsec per stage at a supply voltage of 3 V have been obtained. To our knowledge, this is the first time that megahertz operation has been achieved in flexible organic transistors at supply voltages of less than 10 V. In addition to flexible ring oscillators, we have also demonstrated a 6-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in a binary-weighted current-steering architecture, based on TFTs with a channel length of 4 µm and fabricated on a glass substrate. This DAC has a supply voltage of 3.3 V, a circuit area of 2.6 × 4.6 mm2, and a maximum sampling rate of 100 kS/s.

CarRing 4 (CR4) allows to save cables in wiring harnesses by multiplexing heterogeneous field buses as well as LANs such as Ethernet onto one high-speed, low latency backbone that implements both, hard and isochronous real-time. All existing as well as future field buses and LANs are potentially connectable to CR4, and they do not notice their intermediate backbone. This is called by us ‘transparent’ operation. The maximum source-to-target bandwidth of one CR ‘ring’ is 1.8 Gbps, and its smallest elapsed time for transferring a data frame is 243 ns. The maximum distance of a ring is 40 m, while a whole CR4 system of up to 256 rings can reach 10 km. Applications for CR4 are in real-time communication-systems for buildings and vehicles for land, sea, air and space, as well as for process and factory automation.

Hybrid Systems-in-Foil (HySiF) are becoming important for wearable electronics, medical diagnostics and flexible displays, which require mechanical flexibility or adaptivity as well as large area [1]. Ultra-thin chips are an essential part of HySiF as they allow for analog signal processing or complex digital controllers using well established CMOS technology. However, the effect of mechanical stress on the signal processing circuitry (piezoresistivity) has to be considered during the top-to-bottom design in order to realize stress insensitive analog and digital operation. On the other hand, for sensing mechanical stress on the same substrate, the stress effect needs to be maximized [2], thus leading to conflicting design requirements.

Observations of dry-season north Australian cloud lines (NACLs) that form in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia and the sea-breeze circulations that initiate them are described. The observations were made during the 2002 Gulf Lines Experiment (GLEX) and include measurements made by an instrumented research aircraft. The observations are compared with numerical simulations made from a two-dimensional cloud-scale model. Particular emphasis is placed on the interaction between the east coast and west coast sea breezes near the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. The sea breezes are highly asymmetric due to the low-level easterly synoptic flow over the peninsula. The west coast sea breeze is well defined with a sharp leading edge since the opposing flow limits its inland penetration, keeping it close to its source of cold air. In contrast, the east coast sea breeze is poorly defined since it is aided by the easterly flow and becomes highly modified by daytime convective mixing as it crosses over the peninsula. Both the observations and the numerical model show that, in the early morning hours, the mature NACL forms at the leading edge of a gravity current. The numerical model simulations show that this gravity current arises as a westward-moving land breeze from Cape York Peninsula. Convergence at the leading edge of this land breeze is accompanied by ascent, which when strong enough produces cloud. Observations show that the decay of the NACL is associated with a decline in the low-level convergence and a weakening of the ascent.

Observations of northward-moving borelike convergence lines over the southern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia are described. Eleven such disturbances were documented during the 45-day period of the 2002 Gulf Lines Experiment. Of these, six were classified as major and five as minor, depending on their coherence throughout the region. The mean synoptic conditions leading to the two types of events were found to differ. The data for the events provide further insight into the structure and origin of borelike disturbances in the region. Two of the major events, those of 28–29 September and 9 October, are particularly noteworthy. The first of these had a clear double-change structure at all surface stations in the southeastern gulf region with an undular borelike wave preceding and separating from an airmass change in the form of a dryline. It is probably one of the best documented cases of its type. The second, which was documented in unprecedented detail by an instrumented research aircraft, consisted of three separate disturbances: one moving from the southeast, one from the south, and one from the northeast, all of which collided over the gulf. It is believed that the aircraft measurements are the first of their kind anywhere in the world. The aircraft made two long low-level transects through the disturbances and a higher-level transect where they were colliding. Various soundings were also made. The aircraft data showed clearly the undular borelike nature of the southeasterly disturbance. Measured vertical velocities in the waves were as high as 3 m s−1 at a mean altitude of about 230 m. Vertical velocities as high as 5 m s−1 were measured in the region of the collision at an altitude of about 1 km. The longevity of the bores is not explained by the vertical structure of the Scorer parameter, which indicates a leaky waveguide.