Cryptosporidium Log-inactivation with Ozone Using Effluent CT10, Geometric Mean CT10, Extended Integrated CT10 and Extended CSTR Calculations

The draft Long-Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (LT2ESWTR) contains Cryptosporidium log-inactivation CT tables (ozone-in-water concentration [residual], “C” times contact time, T). Depending on water temperature, Cryptosporidium CT values that are listed are 15 to 25 times greater than CT values for equivalent Giardia log-inactivation credit. The elevated operating dose required for Cryptosporidium log-inactivation credit has the potential to increase disinfection by-product (DBP) formation (e.g., bromate). Calculating CT value accurately will minimize ozone dose, which will decrease operating cost and lower DBP formation, and at the same time maintain disinfection protection through implementation of scientifically based safety factors. Various methods are available for calculating CT value. The method chosen depends largely on the available information concerning ozone residual characteristics and hydrodynamic features of the ozone contactor, plus local regulatory requirements. Four methods are discussed in this paper. Each method can be used to calculate Giardia, virus, and Cryptosporidium log-inactivation credit.     

Use of Warranties on Highway Projects: A Real Option Perspective

Since the introduction of warranty provisions in federal highway jobs, more and more state departments of transportation (DOTs) have considered the use of such provisions to protect their initial investment. This paper describes the pros and cons of warranty contracting in highway construction based on a survey of warranty practices in the United States. In particular, the need for state DOTs to buy a warranty for a well-built project is questioned. As an alternative, this paper introduces the warranty option, which gives the DOT the right to buy a warranty only if it becomes necessary at the end of construction. This option is exercised if the performance on site warrants it. This paper describes the mechanics of the warranty option and its advantages over the conventional warranty. A bid evaluation model is also developed for the warranty option approach.     

RF MEMS continuous reversible variable inductor based on a microfluidic network

In this work, RF MEMS continuous reversible variable inductor has been fabricated by using microelectronic technology and lamination process. We review, evaluate and compare this variable inductor with other work. The proposed inductor is a dual circular coil and has an inductance of few nH. The fundamental idea is to place a liquid droplet between the metal turns of a coil in order to modify the capacitive/resistive coupling between metal tracks and hence to change the stored magnetic energy. The SU-8 resin was used to realize the microfluidic channels and Au as metallic tracks. To prove the reversibility of the inductor, two cases were studied: filling and emptying of channels. The tuning range of the inductance is approximately 107 % at 1.6 GHz, making these devices very suitable as building blocks in many RF applications.     

A simplified fuzzy multivariable structure in a manufacturing environment

Applications of fuzzy control to industrial processes are mainly of multivariable structure. Using the traditional Zadeh principle would require a multidimensional relation to be developed representing a fuzzy model of the system. Such a multidimensional relation would result in memory overload to most industrial computers. Moreover, it would result in a highly complex compositional rule of inference to achieve the final output(s) of the system. This paper proposes a new simplified technique that avoids such complexity as well as memory overload for multivariable structure. Section 2 describes the proposed simplified multivariable technique to avoid memory overload. Section 3 demonstrates these techniques in the form of a robotic welding example where the objective is to control the speed of a robotic arm following an irregular path of weld. The speed value is dependent on the cavity size and determined by the cavity width and cavity depth as inputs. Section 4 describes an experimental application of the technique applied to an industrial process in the manufacture of force transducers termed as the cornering process. This application is composed of a two-inputs-two-outputs system.     

Trust Management and Admission Control for Host-Based Collaborative Intrusion Detection

The accuracy of detecting an intrusion within a network of intrusion detection systems (IDSes) depends on the efficiency of collaboration between member IDSes. The security itself within this network is an additional concern that needs to be addressed. In this paper, we present a trust-based framework for secure and effective collaboration within an intrusion detection network (IDN). In particular, we design a trust model that allows each IDS to evaluate the trustworthiness of other IDSes based on its personal experience. We also propose an admission control algorithm for the IDS to manage the acquaintances it approaches for advice about intrusions. We discuss the effectiveness of our approach in protecting the IDN against common attacks. Additionally, experimental results demonstrate that our system yields significant improvement in detecting intrusions. The trust model further improves the robustness of the collaborative system against malicious attacks. The experimental results also support that our admission control algorithm is effective and fair, and creates incentives for collaboration.     

Bubble hydrodynamic influence on oxygen transfer rate at presence of cationic and anionic surfactants in electroflotation proces

In this work, the effects of the presence of surfactants in the liquid phase and the hydrodynamic regime of the bubble flow on the oxygen transfer rate were investigated in an electroflotation process in batch mode. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient KLα and the oxygenation capacity were evaluated to improve the performances of the electroflotation process in terms of oxygenation. In order to evaluate the liquid-side mass transfer coefficient KLα the volumetric mass transfer coefficient KLα was dissociated into KL and the specific interracial area （a） since the last one was obtained from the gas hold-up and the bubble diameter. The effect of Reynolds number which define the hydrodynamic of the bubble flow has been also studied. Models of KLa and KL have been established to show the effects of the hydrodynamic parameters and liquid phase characteristics on the oxygen transfer rate.     

Two-Phase Bidirectional Dual-Relay Selection Strategy for Wireless Relay Networks

In this article, we introduce a new bi-directional dual-relay selection strategy with its bit error rate (BER) performance analysis. During the first step of the proposed strategy, two relays out of a set of N relay-nodes are selected in a way to optimize the system performance in terms of BER, based on the suggested algorithm which checks if the selected relays using the max-min criterion are the best ones. In the second step, the chosen relay-nodes perform an orthogonal space-time coding scheme using the two-phase relaying protocol to establish a bi-directional communication between the communicating terminals, leading to a significant improvement in the achievable coding and diversity gain. To further improve the overall system performance, the selected relay-nodes apply also a digital network coding scheme. Furthermore, this paper discusses the analytical approximation of the BER performance of the proposed strategy, where we prove that the analytical results match almost perfectly the simulated ones. Finally, our simulation results show that the proposed strategy outperforms the current state-of-the-art ones.     

A power‐area‐efficient, 3‐band, 2‐RX MIMO,TD‐LTE receiver with direct‐coupled ADC

In this work, a power‐area‐efficient, 3‐band, 2‐RX MIMO, and TD‐LTE (backward compatible with the HSPA+, HSUPA, HSDPA, and TD‐SCDMA) CMOS receiver is presented and implemented in 0.13‐μm CMOS technology. The continuous‐time delta‐sigma A/D converters (CT ?Σ ADCs) are directly coupled to the outputs of the transimpedance amplifiers, eliminating the need of analog anti‐aliasing filters between RX front‐end and ADCs in conventional structures. The strong adjacent channel interference without low‐pass filter attenuation is handled by proper gain control. A low‐power small‐area solution for excess loop delay compensation is implemented in the CT ?Σ ADC. At 20 MHz bandwidth, the CT ?Σ ADC achieves 66 dB dynamic range and 3.5 dB RX chip noise figure is measured. A maximum of 2.4 dB signal‐to‐noise ratio degradation is measured in all the adjacent channel selectivity (ACS) and blocking tests, demonstrating the effectiveness of the strategy against the low‐pass filter removal from the conventional architecture. The receiver dissipates a maximum of 171 mW at 2‐RX MIMO mode. To our best knowledge, it is the first research paper on the design of fully integrated commercial TD‐LTE receiver. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.