Crosstalk-aware dynamic spectrum management algorithm for green DSL systems

Dynamic spectrum management (DSM) techniques mitigate crosstalk in digital subscriber line (DSL) networks by adapting the transmit spectra to the actual noise and channel conditions. Conventional DSM schemes are designed based on single-objective optimization, either belonging to the rate-adaptive or margin-adaptive category. In this paper, an efficient crosstalk-aware DSM (CA-DSM) algorithm which jointly considers both the data rate and power is proposed to search for the best rate-power tradeoff solution based on the network conditions. The crosstalk-aware power strategy prevents transmitters which contribute excessive crosstalk from being allocated high power, thereby reducing the aggregate crosstalk noise in the system. A convex cost function is used to formulate the DSM optimization problem wherein two coefficients are introduced to make the CA-DSM algorithm adaptive to different network conditions. An iterative power update strategy is proposed for the CA-DSM algorithm to minimize the cost function. Convergence properties of the CA-DSM algorithm along with existence and uniqueness of optimal power solutions are examined analytically and illustrated graphically. Simulation results show that the proposed CA-DSM algorithm can provide a significantly better rate-power tradeoff performance compared to existing spectrum management schemes.     

Enhanced hydrogen and volatile fatty acid production from sweet sorghum stalks by two-steps dark fermentation with dilute acid treatment in between

This study investigated the potential of hydrogen and volatile fatty acid coproduction from two steps dark fermentation with dilute acid treatments of the residual slurry after 1st step fermentation. Sweet sorghum stalks (SS) was used as substrate along with Clostridium thermosaccharolyticum as production microbe. Residual lignocelluloses after 1st step fermentation were treated for 1 h by sulfuric acid concentration of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5% (w/v) with different reaction temperature of 120, 90 and 60 °C were studied. The optimum severity conditions for the highest yield of products found from the treatment acid concentration of 1.5% (w/v) at 120 °C for 10 g/L of substrate concentration. Experimental data showed that two-step fermentation increased 76% hydrogen, 84% acetic acid and 113% of butyric acid production from single step. Maximum yields of hydrogen, acetic acid and butyric acid were 5.77 mmol/g-substrate, 2.17 g/L and 2.07 g/L respectively. This two-step fermentation for hydrogen and VFA production using the whole slurry would be a promising approach to SS biorefinery.     

A review on recent status and challenges of yttria stabilized zirconia modification to lowering the temperature of solid oxide fuel cells operation

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are an electrochemical energy converter that receives the world's attention as a power generation system of the future owing to its flexibility to consume various types of fuels, low emission of greenhouses gases, and having high efficiency reaching over 70%. A conventional SOFCs operates at high temperature, typically ranges between 800 to 1000°C. SOFCs use yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as the electrolyte, which exhibits excellent oxide ion conductivity in this temperature range. However, this temperature range poses an issue to SOFCs durability, as it leads to the degradation of the cell components. In addition, SOFCs application is limited and difficult to implement for the transportation sector and portable appliance. A viable solution is to lower the SOFCs operating temperature to intermediate (600 to 800°C) or low (<600°C) operating temperature. The benefit of this way, cell durability will improve, as well as other advantages such as facilitates handling, assembling, dismantling, cost reduction, and expanded the SOFCs application. Nonetheless, the key challenge for the issue is finding suitable electrolyte, as YSZ have lower ionic conductivity at low and intermediate temperature range. The aim of this paper is to review the status and challenges in the attempts made to modify YSZ electrolyte within the past decade. The resulting ionic conductivity, microstructure, and densification, mechanical and thermal properties of these 'new' electrolytes critically reviewed. The targeted conductivity of modification of YSZ electrolyte must be exceeded >0.1 S cm^–1 to enable high performance of SOFCs power generation systems to be realized for transportation and portable applications. Based on our knowledge, this paper is the first review which focused on the recent status and challenges of YSZ electrolyte towards lowering the operating temperature.     

Germinated brown rice (GBR) reduces the incidence of aberrant crypt foci with the involvement of β-catenin and COX-2 in azoxymethane-induced colon cancer in rats

Chemoprevention has become an important area in cancer research due to the failure of current therapeutic modalities. Epidemiological and preclinical studies have demonstrated that nutrition plays a vital role in the etiology of cancer. This study was conducted to determine the chemopreventive effects of germinated brown rice (GBR) in rats induced with colon cancer. GBR is brown rice that has been claimed to be richer in nutrients compared to the common white rice. The male Sprague Dawley rats (6 weeks of age) were randomly divided into 5 groups: (G1) positive control (with colon cancer, unfed with GBR), (G2) fed with 2.5 g/kg of GBR (GBR (g)/weight of rat (kg)), (G3) fed with 5 g/kg of GBR, (G4) fed with 10 g/kg of GBR and (G5) negative control (without colon cancer, unfed with GBR). GBR was administered orally once daily via gavage after injection of 15 mg/kg of body weight of azoxymethane (AOM) once a week for two weeks, intraperitonially. After 8 weeks of treatment, animals were sacrificed and colons were removed. Colonic aberrant crypt foci (ACF) were evaluated histopathologically. Total number of ACF and AC, and multicrypt of ACF, and the expression of β-catenin and COX-2 reduced significantly (p < 0.05) in all the groups treated with GBR (G2, G3 and G4) compared to the control group (G1). Spearman rank correlation test showed significant positive linear relationship between total β-catenin and COX-2 score (Spearman's rho = 0.616, p = 0.0001). It is demonstrated that GBR inhibits the development of total number of ACF and AC, and multicrypt of ACF, reduces the expression of β-catenin and COX-2, and thus can be a promising dietary supplement in prevention of colon cancer.     

Minimum fatigue striation spacing and its stress amplitude dependence in a commercially pure titanium

We report the fatigue striation spacing of commercially pure titanium with respect to stress amplitude. Rotating bending fatigue tests were performed at 150, 175, 200 and 227 MPa in which samples did not fail at 150 MPa. No fatigue striation up to a certain crack length is observed for the studied conditions. For each condition, a minimum striation spacing value is found that decreases from 0.45 to 0.36 to 0.24 μm with increasing stress from 175 to 200 to 227 MPa, respectively. The minimum striation spacing remains constant up to a certain crack length for each condition. Thereafter, it starts increasing with crack length. It is quite understandable that the constant striation spacing over a certain crack length may not represent the macroscopic fatigue crack growth rate. The fatigue crack growth mechanism during the constant striation spacing region has been discussed in detail.     

Layered LaSrGa3O7‐Based Oxide‐Ion Conductors: Cooperative Transport Mechanisms and Flexible Structures

Novel melilite‐type gallium‐oxides are attracting attention as promising new oxide‐ion conductors with potential use in clean energy devices such as solid oxide fuel cells. Here, an atomic‐scale investigation of the LaSrGa₃O₇‐based system using advanced simulation techniques provides valuable insights into the defect chemistry and oxide ion conduction mechanisms, and includes comparison with the available experimental data. The simulation model reproduces the observed complex structure composed of layers of corner‐sharing GaO₄ tetrahedra. A major finding is the first indication that oxide‐ion conduction in La_1.54Sr_0.46Ga₃O_7.27 occurs through an interstitialcy or cooperative‐type mechanism involving the concerted knock‐on motion of interstitial and lattice oxide ions. A key feature for the transport mechanism and high ionic conductivity is the intrinsic flexibility of the structure, which allows considerable local relaxation and changes in Ga coordination.     

Effect of an essential input on isoquants and substitution elasticities

The second law of thermodynamics requires that any process which takes place at non-zero speed must consume a minimum finite amount of exergy. In this case production isoquants cannot be of the Cobb–Douglas type.     

Know your customer: computing <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-most promising products for targeted marketing

The advancement of World Wide Web has revolutionized the way the manufacturers can do business. The manufacturers can collect customer preferences for products and product features from their sales and other product-related Web sites to enter and sustain in the global market. For example, the manufactures can make intelligent use of these customer preference data to decide on which products should be selected for targeted marketing. However, the selected products must attract as many customers as possible to increase the possibility of selling more than their respective competitors. This paper addresses this kind of product selection problem. That is, given a database of existing products P from the competitors, a set of company’s own products Q, a dataset C of customer preferences and a positive integer k, we want to find k-most promising products (k-MPP) from Q with maximum expected number of total customers for targeted marketing. We model k-MPP query and propose an algorithmic framework for processing such query and its variants. Our framework utilizes grid-based data partitioning scheme and parallel computing techniques to realize k-MPP query. The effectiveness and efficiency of the framework are demonstrated by conducting extensive experiments with real and synthetic datasets.