PAPR reduction in mobile WiMAX: a novel DST precoding based random interleaved OFDMA uplink system

Mobile WiMAX is a 3rd generation broadband wireless technology that enables the convergence of mobile and fixed broadband networks through a wide area radio-access. Since January 2007, the IEEE 802.16 working group has been developing a new amendment the IEEE 802.16 standard i.e. IEEE 802.16 m as an advanced air interface to meet the requirements of ITU-R/IMT-Advanced for 4G systems. The mobile WiMAX air interface adopts orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) as multiple access technique for its uplink and downlink to improve signal performance affected by multipath distortion. All OFDMA based networks, including mobile WiMAX, experience the problem of high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). This paper presents a discrete-sine-transform precoding technique based random-interleaved OFDMA (RI-OFDMA) uplink system for PAPR reduction in mobile WiMAX. The PAPR of proposed system is analyzed with root-raised-cosine pulse shaping filter to keep out of band radiation low and to fulfill the spectrum mask requirements. Simulation results show that, the proposed system has low PAPR compared to the Hadamard transform precoded RI-OFDMA uplink systems and the conventional RI-OFDMA uplink systems.     

Enhancing ionic conductivity and flexibility in solid polymer electrolytes with rainforest honey as a green plasticizer

Solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) play a pivotal role in advancing electrochemical devices, such as proton batteries and supercapacitors, owing to their potential for enhancing safety and flexibility. In this work, employs a solution casting technique to prepare SPEs, utilizing chitosan-dextran blends as the polymer matrix. Ammonium thiocyanate (NH₄SCN) is incorporated as a charge carrier, while honey is introduced as a plasticizer. The interaction between these materials is confirmed through Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveals that the addition of 10 wt.% honey (H10) to the polymer blend results in the lowest degree of crystallinity (15.24%), emphasizing the pivotal role of plasticizers in modulating the structural properties of SPEs. Furthermore, by incorporating 40 wt.% NH₄SCN (SN40) into the plasticizer-polymer host (H10), the ambient temperature conductivity obtains its maximum value of (1.08 ± 0.19 × 10⁻³ S cm⁻¹) with the lowest degree of crystallinity of 10.44%, verify it is the most amorphous electrolyte. The observed trend in conductivity is influenced by the diffusion coefficient (D), ion density (n), and mobility of the ions (μ). Complementing these findings, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) is employed to investigate the surface morphology and cross section of the SPEs, providing a comprehensive understanding of their structural characteristics. From linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), SN40 is electrochemically stable up to 2.2 V and the t_ion is 0.97 indicating that the ions are the dominant charge carriers.     

Characterization of vanadyl phthalocyanine based surface-type capacitive humidity sensors

This study presents the fabrication and characterization of novel surface-type capacitive humidity sensors using vanadyl phthalocyanine (VOPc) as the active material. The devices, which comprise three different thicknesses,have been fabricated using the thermal evaporation technique. A thin film of VOPc is deposited on thoroughly cleaned glass substrates with pre-pattemed Ag electrodes. The capacitive effect of the samples under humidity has been in-vestigated. Comparison of the samples with different thicknesses shows that the thinnest device seems more sensitive towards humidity. The humidity dependent capacitance properties of the sensor make it beneficial for use in commercial hygrometers.     

Fabrication of Mn–ZnO photoanodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting applications

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - A photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting ability of pure ZnO and manganese-incorporated ZnO thin films fabricated via a simple...     

Biologically‐synthesised ZnO/CuO/Ag nanocomposite using propolis extract and coated on the gauze for wound healing applications

Wound healing has long been recognised as a major clinical challenge for which stablishing more effective wound therapies is necessary. The generation of metallic nanocomposites using biological compounds is emerging as a new promising strategy for this purpose. In this study, four metallic nanoparticles (NPs) with propolis extract (Ext) and one without propolis including ZnO/Ext, ZnO/Ag/Ext, ZnO/CuO/Ext, ZnO/Ag/CuO/Ext and ZnO/W were prepared by microwave method and assessed for their wound healing activity on excision experimental model of wounds in rats. The developed nanocomposites have been characterised by physico‐chemical methods such as X‐ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, diffuse reflectance UV–vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analyses. The wounded animals treated with the NPs/Ext in five groups for 18 days. Every 6 days, for measuring wound closure rate, three samples of each group were examined for histopathological analysis. The prepared tissue sections were investigated by haematoxylin and Eosin stainings for the formation of epidermis, dermis and muscular and Masson''s trichrome staining for the formation of collagen fibres. These findings toughly support the probability of using this new ZnO/Ag/Ext materials dressing for a wound care performance with significant effect compared to other NPs.Inspec keywords: nanomedicine, X‐ray diffraction, II‐VI semiconductors, visible spectra, ultraviolet spectra, nanocomposites, biomedical materials, proteins, wounds, nanoparticles, scanning electron microscopy, nanofabrication, skin, zinc compounds, silver, antibacterial activity, Fourier transform infrared spectra, copper compounds, molecular biophysicsOther keywords: propolis, wound healing applications, effective wound, metallic nanocomposites, biological compounds, metallic nanoparticles, microwave method, wound healing activity, physico‐chemical methods, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance UV‐vis spectroscopy, Brunauer‐Emmett‐Teller analyses, wounded animals, wound closure rate, wound care performance, histopathological analysis, scanning electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, haematoxylin, Eosin stainings, Masson trichrome, epidermis, muscular trichrome, collagen fibres, time 18.0 d, time 6.0 d, ZnO‐CuO‐Ag     

SAT-Solving the Coverability Problem for Petri Nets

Net unfoldings have attracted great attention as a powerful technique for combating state space explosion in model checking, and have been applied to verification of finite state systems including 1-safe (finite) Petri nets and synchronous products of finite transition systems. Given that net unfoldings represent the state space in a distributed, implicit manner the verification algorithm is necessarily a two step process: generation of the unfolding and reasoning about it. In his seminal work McMillan (K.L. McMillan, Symbolic Model Checking. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993) showed that deadlock detection on unfoldings of 1-safe Petri nets is NP-complete. Since the deadlock problem on Petri nets is PSPACE-hard it is generally accepted that the two step process will yield savings (in time and space) provided the unfoldings are small.In this paper we show how unfoldings can be extended to the context of infinite-state systems. More precisely, we show how unfoldings can be constructed to represent sets of backward reachable states of unbounded Petri nets in a symbolic fashion. Furthermore, based on unfoldings, we show how to solve the coverability problem for unbounded Petri nets using a SAT-solver. Our experiments show that the use of unfoldings, in spite of the two-step process for solving coverability, has better time and space characteristics compared to a traditional reachability based implementation that considers all interleavings for solving the coverability problem.     

Atomistic features of the amorphous–crystal interface in silicon

We simulate the amorphous–crystal interface in silicon using a combination of interatomic potential molecular-dynamics and tight- binding conjugate-gradient relaxation. The samples we create have high quality crystalline and amorphous portions. We develop some localized measures of order to characterize the interface, including a missing neighbor vector and the bond angle deviation. We find that the measures of order interpolate smoothly from a bulk crystal value to a bulk amorphous value across a 7 Å thick interface region. The interface structures exhibit a number of interesting features. The crystal planes near the interface are nearly perfect, with a few dimer defects similar to the Si(100) 2×1 reconstruction. Interfaces produced with one constant temperature simulation method are rough, with several layers of atoms forming <110> chains and (111) facets. A different simulation method produces more planar interfaces with only a few <110> chains.     

The effect of priming with vecuronium and rocuronium on young and elderly patients

The priming principle consists of administering a subparalyzing dose of nondepolarizing neuromuscular blocking drug 3-6 min before giving a second dose for tracheal intubation. This study was performed to observe the effects of priming doses of vecuronium and rocuronium on pulmonary function tests and muscular weaknesses in young (25-35 yr of age) and elderly (65-73 yr of age) patients. Ten young and 10 elderly patients were each placed in vecuronium and rocuronium groups. Oxygen saturation and train-of-four (TOF) ratio were determined, and pulmonary function tests were performed. Then 20% of the 95% effective dose (ED95) of the muscle relaxants was given intravenously. All tests were performed again 4 min after vecuronium and 3 min after rocuronium. Other signs of muscular weaknesses were also recorded. Elderly patients showed more signs of muscle weakness in both groups. The TOF ratio was 0.77 and 0.79 in the elderly rocuronium and vecuronium groups, respectively, and 0.89 and 0.90 in the young rocuronium and vecuronium groups, respectively. Dynamic spirometry revealed decreases in forced expiratory volume in 1 s and forced vital capacity in both groups, and no significant changes in peak expiratory flow rate. The expiratory reserve volume was reduced more in the elderly groups. Oxygen saturation decreased in both groups. We conclude that oxygen saturation, pulmonary function, and muscle strength decrease more in the elderly than in their younger counterparts from priming doses of vecuronium or rocuronium. IMPLICATIONS: The priming principle consists of giving a subparalyzing dose of muscle relaxant 3-6 min before giving a second dose for tracheal intubation. We found that priming doses of vecuronium and rocuronium produced greater decreases in oxygen saturation and pulmonary function in the elderly (aged 65-73 yr) than their younger (aged 25-35 yr) counterparts. Priming may not be a safe approach in elderly patients.     

TRANSPORT PROPERTIES AND SECOND VIRIAL COEFFICIENTS FOR XENON

An accurate potential of The Hartree-Fock Dispersion (HFD) form for xenon was constructed (Dham, Meath, Allnatt, Aziz and Slaman, 1990) by a multiproperty fit to several sets of experimental data. Along with the data to which it was fitted, the potential accurately reproduces a wide range ofother bulk and microscopic data, and appears to be the best available characterization of the xenon interaction. Based on this potential, second virial coefficients and transport properties of dilute xenon gas are tabulated from 100 to 6,200 K, and empirical functions are presented for interpolating between the tabulated values.     

Flame development characteristics at variable swirl level inductions in a stratified CNG direct injection combustion engine

The study of flame development characteristics is crucial in the study of flame propagation, extinction, and for the investigation of combustion cyclic variability in SI engine. The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of flame development in a lean-stratified combustion of Natural Gas Engine （CNG） in a single cylinder direct injection （DI） engine at a specific motor speed, and fixed injection timing and air-fuel ratio by varying only the swirl level at the intake. The engine was set to run at 1800 rpm with half-load throttled. The ignition advance was set at 21.5 BTDC, and to create an overall lean and stratified mixture, injection timing was set at 61 BTDC with an air-fuel-ratio of 40.5 （λ=2.35）. Variable turbulent flow conditions near spark-plug were created by positioning the swirl control valves （SCV） at the intake port just before the two intake valves. This was done by setting one of the valves at full open position and the other one at 0% closed, 50% closed and 100% closed positions in order to achieve medium tumble （no swirl）, medium swirl and high swirl flows in the cylinder, respectively. An endoscope and CCD camera assembly was utilized to capture the flame images from the tumble plane at the intake side of the engine ever）, 2 CA degrees after ignition timing （AIT） for 40 CAs. It was observed that flame growth rate and flame convection velocity are increasing with increasing the swirl level. The total combustion duration is, thus, shorter in swirl induced combustion than without. However, COV in IMEP is greater in swirl induced flow cases than the medium tumble.