An approach for stability analysis of a single-bit high-order digital sigma-delta modulator

In this work we considered the stability of a single-bit high-order sigma-delta modulator under dc input. A new approach for stability analysis is proposed. A nonlinear circle map is suggested to model the dynamics of the modulator. An analogy between the dynamics of the sigma-delta modulator and the sinusoidal digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) is studied and an approximate fixed point solution is presented with stability criteria. Suggestions for designing stabilized high-order systems are presented.     

Optical Burst Switching Router With 40-,10-Gb/s Bit-Rate Transparent Contention Resolution

We report a bit-rate transparent optical burst switching (OBS) router prototype using a fast 5 times 5 PLZT [(Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O₃ ] optical matrix switch. Dynamic switching in a two-wavelength, 2 times 2 OBS switch is demonstrated. Contention resolution using a tunable Mach-Zehnder interferometer wavelength converter for both 40- and 10-Gb/s bursts is demonstrated for the first time. Error-free operation was achieved for both bit rates under the same settings, as required in autonomous networks     

Area-efficient high-speed carry chain

An improved carry chain circuit with carry-skip capability is described. The carry-skip logic allows an arbitrarily long carry chain without the need for intermediate buffers for signal restoration, leading to an implementation that is both fast and area-efficient. The chain can flexibly accommodate technology-imposed maximum depth of NMOS transistor pull-down stack.     

Sorption of Mo(VI) on zirconium molybdosilicate gel and potential application as a <Superscript>99</Superscript>Mo/<Superscript>99<Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis> </Superscript>Tc generator

Sorption of Mo(VI) from aqueous nitrate solutions onto zirconium molybdosilicate (ZrMoSi) gel was studied using ⁹⁹Mo radiotracer. The acid–base titration curve showed that the prepared ZrMoSi gel was an amphoteric material with the point of zero charge (PZC) at pH 2.5. The highest distribution coefficient (600 mL g^–1) of ⁹⁹Mo(VI) on ZrMoSi from nitrate media was achieved at pH 2.1. The sorption kinetics of ⁹⁹Mo(VI) onto ZrMoSi obeyed the pseudo-second-order model. The breakthrough sorption capacity of ZrMoSi gel was found to be 4.25 × 10^–2 [mmol Mo(VI)] g^–1. The prepared ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc chromatographic column generator showed a good performance: The ^99mTc elution yield was 87.7%, pH of the eluate ranged from 5.6 to 7.2, and the radionuclidic purity of the eluted ^99mTc was >99.99% with a radiochemical purity of 98.31% (as ^99mTcO₄^–).     

Production planning and worker training in dynamic manufacturing systems

Production planning is a vital activity in any manufacturing system, and naturally implies assigning the available resources to the required operations. This paper develops and analyzes a comprehensive mathematical model for dynamic manufacturing systems. The proposed model integrates production planning and worker training considering machine and worker time availability, operation sequence and multi-period planning horizon. The objective is to minimize machine maintenance and overhead, system reconfiguration, backorder and inventory holding, training and salary of worker costs. Computational results are presented to verify the proposed model.     

Comparison of spectral and spatial windows for local anomaly detection in hyperspectral imagery

A new way of implementing two local anomaly detectors in a hyperspectral image is presented in this study. Generally, most local anomaly detector implementations are carried out on the spatial windows of images, because the local area of the image scene is more suitable for a single statistical model than for global data. These detectors are applied by using linear projections. However, these detectors are quite improper if the hyperspectral dataset is adopted as the nonlinear manifolds in spectral space. As multivariate data, the hyperspectral image datasets can be considered to be low-dimensional manifolds embedded in the high-dimensional spectral space. In real environments, the nonlinear spectral mixture occurs more frequently, and these manifolds could be nonlinear. In this case, traditional local anomaly detectors are based on linear projections and cannot distinguish weak anomalies from background data. In this article, local linear manifold learning concepts have been adopted, and anomaly detection algorithms have used spectral space windows with respect to the linear projection. Output performance is determined by comparison between the proposed detectors and the classic spatial local detectors accompanied by the hyperspectral remote-sensing images. The result demonstrates that the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is promising to improve detection of weak anomalies and to decrease false alarms.     

Structural controllability of multi-agent networks: Robustness against simultaneous failures

In this paper, structural controllability of a leader–follower multi-agent system with multiple leaders is studied from a graph-theoretic point of view. The problem of preservation of structural controllability under simultaneous failures in both the communication links and the agents is investigated. The effects of the loss of agents and communication links on the controllability of an information flow graph are previously studied. In this work, the corresponding results are exploited to introduce some useful indices and importance measures that help characterize and quantify the role of individual links and agents in the controllability of the overall network. Existing results are then extended by considering the effects of losses in both links and agents at the same time. To this end, the concepts of joint (r,s)$(r,s)$-controllability and joint t$t$-controllability are introduced as quantitative measures of reliability for a multi-agent system, and their important properties are investigated. Lastly, the class of jointly critical digraphs is introduced, and it is stated that if a digraph is jointly critical, then joint t$t$-controllability is a necessary and sufficient condition for remaining controllable following the failure of any set of links and agents, with cardinality less than t$t$. Various examples are exploited throughout the paper to elaborate on the analytical findings.