Adhesion is important in many industrial applications including those in the microelectronics industry. Flip-chip assemblies commonly utilize epoxy underfills to promote reliability and the buried interfacial structure of underfills is crucial to device lifetime. Poor adhesion at this interface can cause premature device failure. One method to increase adhesion strength is to plasma treat the s...

An artificial charge pair buried in the hydrophobic core of staphylococcal nuclease was engineered by making the V23E and L36K substitutions. Buried individually, Glu-23 and Lys-36 both titrate with pKa values near 7. When buried together their pKa values appear to be normal. The ionizable moieties of the buried Glu-Lys pair are 2.6 Å apart. The interaction between them at pH 7 is worth 5 kcal/...

This paper addresses the mechanical behavior of buried steel pipeline crossing subsidence strata. The investigation is based on numerical simulation of the nonlinear response of the pipeline-soil system through finite element method, considering large strain and displacement, inelastic material behavior of buried pipeline and the surrounding soil, as well as contact and friction on the pipeline...

Semi-buried structures are most commonly used at first line of defense along the border between two countries. This demands investigation of their dynamic behaviour under blast loading. Herein, a semi-buried structure with foam sandwiched walls and buttresses to reduce the effect of blast is analysed. The effect of provision of different configurations of buttresses and foam core between two la...

A 16-channel 200 GHz arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) (de)-multiplexer is demonstrated experimentally by utilizing Si3N4 buried optical waveguides, which have 50 nm-thick Si3N4 cores and a 15 μm-thick SiO2 cladding. The structure with an ultra-thin core layer helps to reduce the scattering due to the sidewall roughness and consequently shows very low loss of about 0.4~0.8 dB/m. When using this t...

Reconstructing the evolution of ice sheets is critical to our understanding of the global environmental system, but most detailed palaeo-glaciological reconstructions have hitherto focused on the very recent history of ice sheets. Here, we present a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the changing nature of ice-sheet derived sedimentary architecture through the Quaternary Ice Age of almost...

We present the capabilities of low-frequency radar systems to sound the subsurface for a site located in south-central Egypt, the Bir Safsaf region. This site was already intensively studied since the SIR-A and SIR-B orbital radars revealed buried paleodrainage channels. Our approach is based on the coupling between two complementary radar techniques: the orbital synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ...

Focused MeV ion beams with micrometric resolution are suitable tools for the direct writing of conductive graphitic channels buried in an insulating diamond bulk, as already demonstrated for different device applications. In this work we apply this fabrication method to the electrical excitation of color centers in diamond, demonstrating the potential of electrical stimulation in diamond-based ...

Cells contain numerous enzymes that use molecular oxygen for their reactions. Often, their active sites are buried deeply inside the protein, which raises the question whether there are specific access channels guiding oxygen to the site of catalysis. Choosing 12/15-lipoxygenase as a typical example for such oxygen-dependent enzymes, we determined the oxygen distribution within the protein and ...

The western fl ank of the West Mariana Ridge and the distal Parece Vela Basin have been mapped for the fi rst time using a modern multibeam echosounder. The new data reveal the Ridge to be composed of 82 volcanic peaks, of which 25 have summits with water depths of <1000 m and 11 have summits with depths of <500 m deep. Five of the vol canoes have summit craters, and two are guyots ; the remain...