For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

ABSTRACT Passively rising diapirs generate seabed relief, controlling deep-water sediment dispersal and the resultant stratigraphic architecture of synkinematic (growth) strata. Near-diapir deformation of these growth strata result in the deposition of unconformity-bounded packages known as halokinetic sequences (HS), which stack to form composite halokinetic sequences (CHS). Although the general geometry and halokinetic significance of CHS are well known, the way in which deep-water sediments are distributed and deformed in these packages is more poorly constrained. We integrate 3-D seismic reflection, core, and petrophysical data from the Pierce Field, East Central Graben, North Sea, offshore UK, to examine the stratigraphic and structural development of deep-water CHS developed adjacent to passively rising diapirs. Seismic reflection data imaged four tapered CHS in Unit 6 (Ekofisk Formation), Unit 5 (Sele, Lista, and Maureen formations), Unit 4 (Horda and Balder formations), and Unit 3 (lower Lark Formation), which record protracted passive diapirism and, more specifically, periods when sediment-accumulation rate was rapid relative to diapir-rise rate. At the sub-seismic scale, core data reveal fractures, veins, and stylolites in the Ekofisk Formation (i.e., Unit 6), reflecting drape-fold-induced brittle deformation of carbonate that was lithified during the very earliest stages of burial. In contrast, in the younger, turbidite-rich Forties Sandstone Member (Sele Formation; i.e., lower Unit 5), fractures are absent, whereas zones of bedding-parallel slip and debrite-dominated intervals are relatively common, the latter inferred to record reworking of sediment from the crest and most proximal flanks of the rising diapir. The absence of fractures within these clastic-dominated units, unlike their carbonate counterparts, when constrained by core and petrophysical data, reveals stratigraphic thinning and onlap of deep-water deposits towards the diapirs. This depositional geometry is consistent with observations from seismic reflection data, and indicates that salt diapirism generated syndepositional relief. More specifically, turbidite-rich deep-water lobes pinch out in bounding mudstones towards, and are inferred to be absent immediately adjacent to, the diapir flanks. Our study demonstrates the value of using an integrated, multi-scale dataset to understand near-diapir stratigraphy and deformation in deep-water sequences.

Demand for the development of deposition strategies of well-defined metal thin films with good chemical and physical characteristics has been rapidly growing in the field of various electronics applications. For example, copper electro- or electroless deposition has been widely utilized and investigated in microelectronics industry due to its low electrical resistivity and high electromigration resistance, as compared with aluminum. The conventional plating bath for electro- or electrolless copper deposition involves various chemical reagents such as deposition promoter (or inhibiter), brightening and smoothing agent, etc. These additives, typically organic molecules, sometimes cause mechanical problems due to inclusion of such additives during deposition process, and the discharge from the deposition bath can be a serious environmental issue. Therefore, the development of a facile process that enables additive-free deposition of metallic thin films as well as low environmental toxicity is an important challenge for the fabrication of microelectronic elements. In order to sustain the demand for generating multichip packaging systems for future electronic devices, it would be exceedingly useful to develop novel electrochemical deposition strategy with high-throughput capability that would allow stability of electrochemical reaction at higher deposition rate from plating bath without organic additives. In this context, direct metal deposition processes though ion conducting films have been investigated, such as the fabrication of metallic patterns on polymer substrates using ion-doped precursor films. A variety of direct deposition techniques have been introduced by several groups, including ours,1,2) based on photoinduced chemistry, thermal treatment, and selective chemical reduction for polyimide and other functional polymers. We have also reported a chemical metallization strategy that utilizes electrochemical constructive lithography with post lift-off process, which enables the fabrication of metal patterns on the polyimide substrate.3) The use of ion-doped precursors has triggered the development of new concept for electrochemical deposition. Herein we report for the first time that metallic thin films can be deposited through polyelectrolyte thin layers placed on the cathode electrode by the diffusion of metallic ions from the interior of polyelectrolyte, which is essentially different to conventional solution-phase electrodeposition processes (Fig. 1). By taking advantage of the cation-exchangeable nature of polyelectrolyte layers used for creation of solid interface, we demonstrate in this study how it is possible to merge the electrochemical deposition at cathode-polyelectrolyte interface and diffusion of cations through polyelectrolytes for development of novel solid electrodeposition (SED) process. As a proof of concept study, we herein present the successful electrochemical deposition of copper and nickel thin films at the interface between an electrode and ion-doped polyelectrolyte layers from the baths containing only metal salts (without any additives). The effect of cation concentration, temperature, and electrochemical deposition conditions on the deposition rate, growth process and morphology of the films has been investigated. Several electrochemical, microscopic and quantitative analysis revealed that the metallic films have been successfully deposited at the cathode-polyelectrolyte interface through ion exchange reaction in the polyelectrolyte layers, the deposition rate of which are determined by ion exchange rate of cations. This strategy offers an opportunity to translate solution-phase electrochemical deposition into a high-throughput, cost-effective, environmentally-friendly process for the fabrication of metal thin films on substrates. 1) Matsumura, Y. Enomoto, T. Tsuruoka, K. Akamatsu, H. Nawafune, Langmuir, 26, 12448-12454 (2010). 2) S. Ikeda, H. Yanagimoto, K. Akamatsu, H. Nawafune, Adv. Funct. Mater., 17, 889-897 (2007). 3) K. Akamatsu, Y. Fukumoto, T. Taniyama, T. Tsuruoka, H. Yanagimoto, H. Nawafune, Langmuir, 27, 11761-11766 (2011). Figure 1

In modern computer games-like action, adventure, role-playing, strategy, simulation and sports games-artificial intelligence (AI) techniques play an important role. However, the requirements of such games are very different from those of the games normally studied in AI. This article discusses which approaches and fields of research are relevant to achieve a sophisticated goal-directed behavior for modern computer games’nonplayer characters. It also presents a classification of approaches for autonomous agents and gives an overview of a solution developed in the Excalibur project.

The Abstract State Machine (ASM) [16] approach has already proven to be suitable for large-scale specifications of realistic systems [18,9,22,34]. Due to the fact that the ASM approach defines a notion of executing specifications, it provides a perfect basis for a language, which can be used as a specification language as well as a high-level programming language. However, in order to upgrade to a realistic programming language, such a language must — besides other features — add a modularization concept to the core ASM constructs in order to provide the possibility to structure large-scale ASM-formalizations and to flexibly define reusable specification units. In this paper, the language Xasm, which stands for Extensible ASM, is presented. Xasm realizes a component-based modularization concept based on the notion of external functions as defined in ASMs. This paper also briefly describes the support environment of Xasm consisting of the Xasm-compiler translating Xasm programs to C source code, and the graphical debugging and animation tool.

Programming a distributed memory parallel machine generally entails a high degree of complexity. Load balancing in particular is a demanding task. If high efficiency is to be maintained, this task cannot be solved by a distributed operating system alone, but must involve the application programmer. Instead of the underlying message passing architecture being shielded from the programmer, it should be explicitly modeled. Three key concepts of a parallel operating system-dual, mobile and reactive objects-are presented. They provide simple but efficient mechanisms that can be easily utilized for such complex tasks as load balancing, i.e., initial placement and migration of application entities. To illustrate the applicability of these concepts, a simple VR application-geoview-was implemented on a message passing architecture, and serves as an example throughout the paper.

The problem of predicting time series originating from mixtures of signals from independent dynamical systems is considered. We show that the problem of finding representations for the dynamics of such systems is hard if the mixing structure of the system is not taken into account. If, on the contrary, the sources can be unmixed in a preprocessing step the complexity of system identification may be drastically reduced. This is demonstrated using chaotic maps. It is shown that applications of methods for blind separation of sources can substantially improve both: prediction performance and prediction horizon.