This study investigates the role of mechanical layering and fractures on flood-related erosional undercutting resulting rapid spillway recession. In summer 2002, 86 cm rain fell in an 8-day period across Guadalupe River drainage basin central Texas, causing Canyon Lake reservoir to completely fill overtop emergency for first time. The flood incised a gorge into mechanically layered Glen Rose Fo...

Abstract Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use make decisions is correct; are epistemically dependent on system. We argue that this leads problems when wrong, namely bad and violations norm practical reasoning. To prevent from occurring we suggest implementation defeaters: information a unreliable in specific case (und...

To understand the effect of fiscal policy on the private sector we have to comprehend how expectations about fiscal variables are formed. However, little is known about the way people form expectations about fiscal variables: no undercutting theory exists, not to say empirical evidence. The problem is that “expectations are unobservable” (Bertola and Drazen [BD93, p.16]). We generate observable...

Resonators serve as essential components in radio-frequency (RF) electronics, forming the backbone of filters and tuned amplifiers. However, traditional solid state or mechanic implementations of resonators and filters tend to be bulky and power hungry, limiting the versatility of communications, guidance, and avionics systems. Microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are promising replacements f...

Spiral inductors fabricated in a 0.18μm 6-level Cu interconnect low-K dielectric process suspended 100μm above the substrate with sidewall oxide removed are described. A maskless post-CMOS micromachining process has been developed for the low-K dielectric copper interconnect process. Post-CMOS process enhancements of inductors provide higher quality factors and self-resonant frequencies by unde...

Amorphous metallic alloys, or metallic glasses, are lucrative engineering materials owing to their superior mechanical properties such as high strength and large elastic strain. However, their main drawback is their propensity for highly catastrophic failure through rapid shear banding, significantly undercutting their structural applications. Here, we show that when reduced to 100 nm, Zr-based...

PDMS films of 10 μm thickness can be patterned within 30 min by combining dry etching to achieve substantially vertical sidewalls with wet etching to achieve high etch rates and to protect the underlying substrate from attack. Dry etching alone would have taken 5 h, and wet etching alone would produce severe undercutting. In addition, using either technique alone produces undesirable surface mo...

Properties of GaN surfaces etched by bias-assisted photoenhanced electrochemical (PEC) oxidation in deionized water and subsequent removal of the oxidized material are investigated using Schottky diodes fabricated on etched surfaces. It is demonstrated that with a short anneal at 700 C after removal of the oxide, it is possible to obtain a low damage surface with near ideal breakdown and capaci...

An abstract framework for structured arguments is presented that instantiates Dung’s (1995) abstract argumentation frameworks. Arguments are defined as inference trees formed by applying two kinds of inference rules: strict and defeasible rules. This naturally leads to three ways of attacking an argument: attacking a premise, attacking a conclusion and attacking an inference. To resolve such at...