Estimation of Travel Times on Signalized Arterials

This paper describes procedure for estimation of travel time on signalized arterial roads based on multiple data sources with application of dimensionality reduction. Travel time estimation approach incorporates forecast of transportation nodes impendence and travel time on network links. Forecasting period is two hours and the estimation is based on historical data and real time data on traffic conditions. Travel time estimation combines multivariate regression, principal component analysis, KNN （k-nearest neighbours）, cross validation and EWMA （exponentially weighted moving average） methods. When comparing estimation methodologies, relevantly better results were achieved by KNN method than with EWMA method. This is true for every time interval considered except for evening time interval when signalized arterial roads were uncongested.     

Minimizing FPGA interconnect delays

Optimizing FPGA routing architectures for speed performance also involves improving the CAD tools for mapping circuits. We provide a detailed example of how to design FPGA architectures by examining several important issues associated with interconnect resources for FPGAs that use SRAM programming technology. Our experiments examine two important metrics: the speed performance of implemented circuits and the effective use of available interconnect resources. The goal is to improve upon FPGA speed performance by decreasing delays associated with the interconnect. Our results are most directly applicable to FPGA architectures similar in style to the Xilinx XC4000 series. However, some significant results are of a more general nature and perhaps applicable to other styles of FPGAs as well. In addition to routing architectures, we address the CAD tools that allocate these routing resources to implement circuits     

The course of tissue permeabilization studied on a mathematical model of a subcutaneous tumor in small animals

One of the ways to potentiate antitumor effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs is by local application of short intense electric pulses. This causes an increase of the cell membrane permeability and is called electropermeabilization. In order to study the course of tissue permeabilization of a subcutaneous tumor in small animals, a mathematical model was built with the commercial program EMAS, which uses the finite element method. The model is based on the tissue specific conductivity values found in literature, experimentally determined electric field threshold values of reversible and irreversible tissue permeabilization, and conductivity changes in the tissues. The results obtained with the model were then compared to experimental results from the treatment of subcutaneous tumors in mice and a good agreement was obtained. Our results and the reversible and irreversible thresholds used coincide well with the effectiveness of the electrochemotherapy in real tumors where experiments show antitumor effectiveness for amplitudes higher than 900 V/cm ratio and pronounced antitumor effects at 1300 V/cm ratio.     

Quantitative metallographic assessment of the electromagnetic casting influence on the microstructure of 7075 Al alloy

This study presents an attempt to obtain the better quality of an aluminum super-high strength alloy by application of electromagnetic field during the casting process. The conventional continuous casting process of aluminum alloys causes many defects, such as surface imperfections, grain boundary segregation, non-uniform grain size, and porosity. The better ingot surface along with the homogeneous fine-grained microstructure, and hence the better mechanical properties of the ingot, can be achieved by applying the electromagnetic casting process. The microstructure characterization, accompanied by quantitative metallographic assessment, reveals that it is possible to avoid or decrease many defects of as cast ingots during electromagnetic casting process. In this article, the microstructure of the samples of as cast 7075 aluminum alloy, obtained with and without electromagnetic field influence, was analyzed by optical microscope and the variation of key alloying elements content, i.e., Zn and Mg, through the ingot cross section was examined by chemical analysis. Besides, the microstructural parameters such as dendrite arm spacing, interdendritic space width, as well as eutecticum and intermetallic phases volume fraction, were measured using linear method. The electromagnetic field influence on the microstructure of the as cast 7075 Al alloy was evaluated based on measured quantitative metallographic data.     

Scalable cache consistency for hierarchically structured multiprocessors

This paper presents a new cache consistency scheme for hierarchically structured shared-memory multiprocessors. The scheme is simple, fast and efficient, and it does not require a large amount of state information to be maintained. The scheme exploits the broadcast capability of these systems, but limits the extent of the broadcasts by means of a novel filtering mechanism. As a specific example, it is shown how the proposed cache consistency scheme can be implemented on the Hector multiprocessor architecture. Using trace-driven simulations, we demonstrate that the scheme is scalable and performs well for common applications.     

Liquid entrainment in regular packings

A model of liquid entrainment by vapor in separation columns with regular packings is presented. A method to evaluate the information and to obtain prediction correlations of the quantity of entrained liquid is proposed. The data of vacuum distillation in Sulzer packings type BX have been taken both from bibliography and personal sources.