TUTWLAN – QoS Supporting Wireless Network

Quality of Service (QoS) support has generally been lacking from WPAN and WLAN technologies, which has motivated the research of TUTWLAN. Design objectives have been relatively simple network architecture and capability to support real time services ranging from sensor data to multimedia streaming. The main TUTWLAN entities for QoS support are the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol called TUTMAC and TUTWLAN Access Point (AP). The channel access is based on dynamic reservation Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). TUTWLAN is shown to be suitable for wireless home and office applications. It provides flexibility, interoperability and availability of services exceeding the recent QoS proposals that has been accounted at the standardisation bodies for standard wireless technologies. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Showing asymmetries in knowledge creation and learning through proactive vision

Communicating with personnel is difficult if the concept in hand is complex, hard to perceive, has characteristics that are fuzzy in nature and that need a long-term perspective to show the results of them as a real benefit and advantage. Knowledge creation and learning concepts both belong to these kinds of management objects. Both have characteristics that are difficult to manage and lead, and that are difficult to articulate in detail to the organisation. Knowledge creation has long been one of the key concepts in modern management science and research. Learning, however, has not achieved that high a status. Many contemporary scientists like to bring in new constructs to better understand the mechanisms behind knowledge creation and learning; however, measuring these kinds of abstract concepts needs support from theory as well as methodology, so that communication to personnel can be objective and, from a management point view, effective. In this research, we have used Internet-based computer applications to measure current knowledge creation and learning levels, and to gain insight into how members of organisations are willing to show their proactive vision, as well as priorities in knowledge creation and learning concepts, inside their organisation. Practical asymmetries can be shown with test subjects, which are important to understand from a leadership and management point of view. The dataset used for this article contains academic and private organisations.     

Inkjet-printed gold electrodes on paper: characterization and functionalization

Gold nanoparticles were synthesized and inkjet-printed on a paper substrate and IR-sintered to produce conductive electrodes. The electrodes were further functionalised by using self-assembled octadecanethiol monolayers (SAMs). The effect of sintering, print quality, and SAM formation were examined by topographical, chemical and electrical methods. With optimised printing parameters, a volume resistivity of ~1.6 × 10(-7) Ω m was attained by a single print layer.     

Solar-Powered Interfacial Evaporation and Deicing Based on a 3D-Printed Multiscale Hierarchical Design

Solar-powered interfacial heating has emerged as a sustainable technology for hybrid applications with minimal carbon footprints. Aerogels, hydrogels, and sponges/foams are the main building blocks for state-of-the-art photothermal materials. However, these conventional three-dimensional (3D) structures and related fabrication technologies intrinsically fail to maximize important performance-enhancing strategies and this technology still faces several performance roadblocks. Herein, monolithic, self-standing, and durable aerogel matrices are developed based on composite photothermal inks and ink-extrusion 3D printing, delivering all-in-one interfacial steam generators (SGs). Rapid prototyping of multiscale hierarchical structures synergistically reduce the energy demand for evaporation, expand actual evaporation areas, generate massive environmental energy input, and improve mass flows. Under 1 sun, high water evaporation rates of 3.74 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ in calm air and 25.3 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ at a gentle breeze of 2 m s⁻¹ are achieved, ranking among the best-performing solar-powered interfacial SGs. 3D-printed microchannels and hydrophobic modification deliver an icephobic surface of the aerogels, leading to self-propelled and rapid removal of ice droplets. This work shines light on rational fabrication of hierarchical photothermal materials, not merely breaking through the constraints of solar-powered interfacial evaporation and clean water production, but also discovering new functions for photothermal interfacial deicing.     

Versatile Macroscale Concentration Gradients of Nanoparticles in Soft Nanocomposites

Nanocomposite materials benefit from the diverse physicochemical properties featured by nanoparticles, and the presence of nanoparticle concentration gradients can lend functions to macroscopic materials beyond the realm of classical nanocomposites. It is shown here that linearity and time‐shift invariance obtained via the synergism of two independent physical phenomena—translational self‐diffusion and shear‐driven dispersion—may give access to an exceptionally high degree of flexibility in the design of scalable and programmable long‐range concentration gradients of nanoparticles in solidifiable liquid matrices.     

Structural geometry effect on the size-scaling of strength

The sensitivity of the empirical exponent of Bazant's size-effect scaling law on structural geometry is clarified through numerical experiments. For large centre- cracked tension panels, made of a linearly softening material, the best-fitting exponent is 0.90, whereas for large edge-cracked panels it is 0.75. For edge-cracked panels, the value of the exponent increases as a function of increasing crack-length-to-width-ratio. The results indicate that with structures of brittleness numbers below unity, reliable predictions of strength require the size-effect scaling law to be fitted for any particular structural geometry.     

Bending response of web-core sandwich beams

This paper presents a new analytical solution for the bending response of a web-core sandwich beam. The beam is a transverse cut from the sandwich plate. The method is based on the plane frame analysis, where the response of the beam is divided into local and global components. The Clebsch’s method is used to calculate the deflection of the face plates. The validation of the plane frame method is carried out with FE-analyses based on the shell element formulation. Also a comparison is made with the method based on homogenized beam. Periodic stress distributions in the face plates are revealed with the plane frame analysis and are supported by the FE-analysis. The existing methods based on homogenized beam are not able to predict these stresses. The plane frame analysis can benefit the development of the theory related to web-core sandwich plate.     

Design optimization of laminated composite structures using distributed grid resources

Parameter studies, genetic algorithms and Monte Carlo type calculations are examples of pleasantly parallel computational tasks. Pleasantly parallel computational tasks can be effectively calculated in computer clusters or grids. In this work, we consider a weight minimization problem of a laminated composite structure in the post-buckling region. The design variables are the number of layers and the layer orientations given in a discrete set of allowable angles for layer orientations. Optimization is carried out using a deterministic search process, where the lay-up configurations are generated iteratively in the design space from the selected design points of the population at the preceding cycle. Computation is performed using NorduGrid grid computing platform. In this work, we briefly go through some general grid concepts and the use of grid in optimization of laminated composite structures.