Push &; Pull: autonomous deployment of mobile sensors for a complete coverage

Mobile sensor networks are important for several strategic applications devoted to monitoring critical areas. In such hostile scenarios, sensors cannot be deployed manually and are either sent from a safe location or dropped from an aircraft. Mobile devices permit a dynamic deployment reconfiguration that improves the coverage in terms of completeness and uniformity. In this paper we propose a distributed algorithm for the autonomous deployment of mobile sensors called Push & Pull. According to our proposal, movement decisions are made by each sensor on the basis of locally available information and do not require any prior knowledge of the operating conditions or any manual tuning of key parameters. We formally prove that, when a sufficient number of sensors are available, our approach guarantees a complete and uniform coverage. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the algorithm execution always terminates preventing movement oscillations. Numerous simulations show that our algorithm reaches a complete coverage within reasonable time with moderate energy consumption, even when the target area has irregular shapes. Performance comparisons between Push & Pull and one of the most acknowledged algorithms show how the former one can efficiently reach a more uniform and complete coverage under a wide range of working scenarios.     

Use of native species and biodegradable chelating agents in the phytoremediation of abandoned mining areas

BACKGROUND: The application of phytostabilization and assisted phytoextraction to the remediation of abandoned mining areas can be a valuable method to reclaim these areas without modifying soil and landscape characteristics. An in situ application of a continuous phytoextraction technique was carried out in the area of Campo Pisano (Sardinia, Italy), followed by a laboratory assisted phytoextraction test using the biodegradable chelating agents methylglycine diacetic acid (MGDA) and iminodissuccinic acid (IDSA). The plants used were Scrophularia canina subsp. bicolor, Cistus salviifolius and Teucrium flavum subsp. glaucum. RESULTS: The plant that accumulated more Pb was T. glaucum (353 mg kg^?1) while C. salviifolius demonstrated better ability to accumulate Zn (1560 mg kg^?1). S. bicolor showed a better tolerance to metals but accumulated 119 mg kg^?1 of Pb. Accumulation of metals immediately after chelant application was up to 300 mg kg^?1 of Pb and 3000 mg kg^?1 of Zn which did not further increase during the assisted phytoextraction experiment. CONCLUSION: The plant that demonstrated to be most suitable for phytoremediation application was S. bicolor due to its higher biomass production and tolerance to metals. The low cation exchange capacity and the high concentration of Ca and Mg in soil determined a low chelant effectiveness. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

Controlled filling and external cleaning of multi-wall carbon nanotubes using a wet chemical method

A controlled, material-independent and adaptable cold wet chemical procedure is described. It allows organic and inorganic compounds to be confined inside multi-wall carbon nanotubes. The procedure mainly consists of a lyophilization process to fill multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and a washing method to clean their outer surface without removing the encapsulated material. The technique was tested by synthesizing CdS crystals inside the nanotubes. Morphological and structural studies of the CdS crystals demonstrated a complete control of the synthesis process, and the possibility of maximizing the crystal size and the filling efficiency that approached 70% of open-ended nanotubes.     

LYS2 gene and its mutation in Kluyveromyces lactis

The KlLYS2 gene, encoding the alpha-aminoadipate reductase of Kluyveromyces lactis, was isolated by complementation of a lysA1 mutant. The deduced amino acid sequence shared an identity of 73% with the LYS2 product of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Despite the high sequence homology of the alpha-aminoadipate reductase genes, the two yeast species differently responded to the presence of alpha-aminoadipate in the medium. Wild-type S. cerevisiae is known to be sensitive to alpha-aminoadipate, but becomes resistant when mutated to lys2. In contrast, K. lactis strains were found to be naturally resistant to alpha-aminoadipate. Therefore, the positive selection procedure for the isolation of lys2 mutants on alpha-aminoadipate, as practised in S. cerevisiae, cannot be applied to K. lactis. A possible reason of this difference may be that the catalytic rate of the alpha-aminoadipate reductase differs in the two yeasts. The EMBL/Genbank Accession No. for the KlLYS2 gene is AJ504405.     

Inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus by the synergistic action of charged and reactive plasma particles

In this paper, a low-pressure capacitively coupled plasma discharge sustained in an argonoxygen mixture was studied in order to evaluate its properties in terms of inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus. The plasma parameters as electron temperature and plasma density were measured by the Langmuir probe (N_e ≈ 10¹⁵ m⁻³, T_e ≈ 1.5 eV), while the neutral atom density was in the range of 10²¹ m⁻³. In the plasma phase, oxygen radicals were taken as reference of the reactive species with antimicrobial activity, and oxygen spectral lines, over a range of plasma process parameters, were investigated by the optical emission spectroscopy. Optimal plasma conditions were found, and a count reduction of 4 log in a few minutes of the bacterium proves the potentiality of an industrial grade plasma reactor as a sterilization agent.     

Lightweight coarse-grained coordination: a scalable system-level approach

In this paper, our solution to the problem of modelling functionally complex communication systems at the application level, based on lightweight coordination, is extended to seamlessly capture system-level testing as well. This extension could be realized simply by self-application: the bulk of the work for integrating system-level testing into our development environment, the ABC, concerned domain modelling, which can be done using the ABC. Therefore, the extension of the ABC to cover system-level testing was merely an application development on the basis of the ABC, illustrated here in the domain of Computer Telephony Integration. Here the adoption of a coarse-grained approach to test design, which is central to the scalability of the overall testing environment, is the enabling aspect for system-level test automation. Together with our lightweight coordination approach this induces an understandable modelling paradigm of system-wide test cases that is adequate for the needs and requirements of industrial test engineers. In particular, it enables test engineers to graphically design complex test cases that, in addition, can even be automatically checked for their intended purposes via model checking.     

Conditioning of Rh/α-Al2O3 catalysts for H2 production via CH4 partial oxidation at high space velocity

Experimental evidence and literature indications suggest that the process of methane partial oxidation over Rh catalysts is structure sensitive. Crystal phases and Rh cluster size are thus expected to affect the final catalytic performance. In this work, it is observed that outstanding performances are obtained when the as-prepared catalysts are conditioned through repeated runs at increasing temperature and O₂/CH₄ = 0.56. Catalysts slowly activate, that is CH₄ conversion and synthesis gas selectivity progressively grow with time on stream. On the basis of TPO and CH₄ decomposition measurements, this phenomenon is herein explained as the result of a surface reconstruction driven by the repeated exposition to the reaction at high temperature; it is thought that such reconstruction tends to eliminate defect sites and disfavors C-deposition reactions (extremely fast over steps and kinks). Conditioning with O₂-enriched feed streams makes conditioning faster, since the accumulation of surface C-species is suppressed; however, the catalyst is eventually less active than a catalyst conditioned with standard feed mixtures. As an alternative, accumulation of carbon can be suppressed and surface reconstruction proceeds faster if the catalyst is directly exposed to the reaction at high temperature for several hours.     

Relevant chiroptical and thermal properties in optically active methacrylic copolymers containing carbazole and azoaromatic chromophores in the side-chain

Novel optically active methacrylic copolymers, bearing carbazole and azoaromatic moieties linked to the main chain with a rigid (S)-hydroxysuccinimide residue of one prevailing absolute configuration, have been prepared and characterized with the aim to establish the effects of the chiral group and of the dipolar interactions between the two side-chain chromophores on their properties.In particular, the observed chiroptical properties suggest the presence of ordered chiral conformations at least for chain segments of the macromolecules. Spectroscopic, thermal and chiroptical characterizations of these copolymers demonstrate the occurrence of significant electronic interactions between carbazole chromophores and azobenzene moieties. These interactions are related to the unusual partially alternating structure of the investigated copolymers and the relevant chiroptical and thermal properties. In fact, the polymeric derivates show high glass transition temperatures and good thermal stability, thus opening the way to a variety of potential applications based on photoconductive and optoelectronic properties.     

ESD sensitivity of a GaAs MMIC microwave power amplifier

The EOS/ESD sensitivity of the main circuit blocks of a complete GaAs multi-stage power amplifier for microwave applications was investigated under HBM, MM and TLP regimes. Hard breakdown failure modes were identified due to passive components failure. The high current injection state of active components was also analyzed.