A modified rain attenuation prediction model for tropical V‐band satellite earth link

Radio wave propagation plays a very important part in the design and eventually dictates performance of space communication systems. Over time, the requirements of satellite communication have grown extensively where higher capacity communications systems are needed. Escalating demands of microwave and millimetre wave communications are causing frequency spectrum congestion. Hence, existing and future satellite system operators are planning to employ frequency bands well above 10 GHz. The challenge in operating at such high frequencies for communication purposes is that there exists stronger electromagnetic interaction between the radio signals and atmospheric hydrometeors. Such instances will degrade the performance of such high frequency satellite communication systems. The development of a revised model for a better‐improved rain fade prediction of signal propagations in tropical region is considered very important. Researchers and engineers can employ the model to accurately plan the future high frequencies satellite services. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of the Substrate Concentration Profiles in Petroleum Pipelines Containing Biofilms

In industrial systems, the formation of biofilms can cause many problems, such as an increase in the flow resistance of pipelines, energy losses in fluid transport and heat exchangers, product contamination, materials deterioration, and biocorrosion. As a result, biofilms contribute substantially to economic losses in the industry. Corrosion is particularly an issue in the petroleum industry and its implications range from down-hole completion through petroleum processing units. Much of this corrosion is attributed to microbial activities. This paper proposes a mathematical model for predicting substrate concentration for such microbial growth. Substrate concentrations in the system and near the biofilm surface are one of the parameters that has a great effect in determining the extent of the problems associated with biofilms. In this study, a convective-diffusion model under various flow conditions (stagnant, laminar, and turbulent) has been solved using the finite difference technique, employing the alternating direction implicit (ADI) method. The model assumes that a liquid containing substrate and bacteria is flowing in a pipeline with known concentrations at the inlet and then predicts the variation of the transient (as a function of time) substrate concentration along the pipeline and as a function of the pipe radius. The model is then used to predict and estimate the substrate concentration profiles on the biofilm surface under different environmental conditions. A parametric study was also conducted to study the effect of the different parameters influencing the substrate concentration profiles in the system and on the biofilm surface.     

A framework for harmonizing internet of things (IoT) in cloud: analyses and implementation

Internet of Things (IoT) refers to uniquely identifiable entities. Its vision is the world of connected objects. Due to its connected nature the data produced by IoT is being used for different purposes. Since IoT generates huge amount of data, we need some scalable storage to store and compute the data sensed from the sensors. To overcome this issue, we need the integration of cloud and IoT, so that the data might be stored and computed in a scalable environment. Harmonization of IoT in Cloud might be a novel solution in this regard. IoT devices will interact with each other using Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). In this paper, we have implemented harmonizing IoT in Cloud. We have used CoAP to get things connected to each other through the Internet. For the implementation we have used two sensors, fire detector and the sensor attached with the door which is responsible for opening it. Thus our implementation will be storing and retrieving the sensed data from the cloud. We have also compared our implementation with different parameters. The comparison shows that our implementation significantly improves the performance compared to the existing system.

     

Novel Near‐Infrared Squaraine Sensitizers for Stable and Efficient Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

A new molecular design strategy for tuning the energy levels of cis‐configured squaraine sensitizers for dye‐sensitized solar cells is described. The Hammett substituent constant and the π‐conjugation length are used as quantitative indicators to modify the central squarate moiety of the sensitizer dyes; specifically, novel near‐infrared squaraine dyes HSQ3 and HSQ4 are synthesized by incorporation of an electron‐withdrawing and π‐extending ethyl cyanoacetate unit on the central squarate moiety. The solution absorption maximum of HSQ4 occurs at 703 nm, and the energy levels of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and the highest occupied molecular orbital are in the ideal range for energetically efficient electron injection and regeneration of the oxidized dye. A solar cell sensitized with HSQ4 exhibits a broad incident photo­n‐to‐current conversion efficiency spectrum, extending into the near‐infrared region with a maximum value of 80% at 720 nm, which is is the highest value reported for a squaraine dye–based dye‐sensitized solar cell. The HSQ4‐sensitized solar cell also exhibits excellent durability during light soaking, owing to the double anchors attaching the dye to the TiO₂ surface and to the long alkyl chains extending outward from the surface.     

The growth and characterization of AlGaAs double heterostructures for the evaluation of reactor and source quality

AlGaAs double heterostructures are grown by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition to evaluate the level of oxygen contamination in different trimethylaluminum sources. Effects of arsine purifiers, misoriented substrates, atmospheric exposure of the growth chamber, and possible phosphorus contamination are also studied. Extensive characterization is performed on these films by a variety of methods, including high-resolution x-ray diffraction, photoluminescence (PL), time-resolved photoluminescence, and secondary-ion mass spectrometry. The PL intensities for structures grown with the low-alkoxide grade are reproducibly much greater than those grown with the regular-grade TMA1. The use of AsH₃ purification improves the PL intensity.     

On the cooperative MIMO communication for energy-efficient cluster-to-cluster transmission at wireless sensor network

Energy-efficient data transmission is one of the key factors for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks (WSN). Cooperative multiple input multiple output (MIMO) explores the wireless communication schemes between multiple sensors emphasizing the MIMO structure. In this paper, an energy-efficient cooperative technique is proposed for a WSN where selected numbers of sensors at the transmitting end are used to form a MIMO structure wirelessly connected with a selected number of sensors at the receiving end. The selection of nodes in the transmitting end is based on a selection function, which is a combination of channel condition, residual energy, inter-sensor distance in a cluster, and geographical location, whereas the selection in the receiving side is performed on the basis of channel condition. Data are sent by the sensors in a cluster to a data-gathering node (DGN) using a multihop transmission. We are concentrating our design on the intermediate hop, where sensors in a cluster transmit their data to the sensors in another cluster with MIMO communication. Energy models are evaluated for both correlated and uncorrelated scenarios. The delay model of the proposed cooperative MIMO is also derived. Experimental results show that the selected MIMO structure outperforms the unselected MIMO in terms of total energy consumption. They also show energy-efficient performance by around 20% over unselected MIMO when they are compared with single-input-single-output structure. Also, the proposed approach takes around 50 more rounds than the geographically selected approach before dying at distance d?>?20 m.     

A new design approach for dual‐band patch antenna serving Ku/K band satellite communications

A printed planar antenna with simple and intelligent geometrical structure has been proposed for Ku/K band satellite communication systems. The radiating patch of the antenna is formed by cutting rectangular slots and extending the radiating element to some extent. The final design of the antenna with optimized parameters is fabricated on ceramic–polytetrafluoroethylene substrate materials of dielectric constant ε_r = 10.2. The antenna is excited through a microstrip feed line and has reduced ground plane that covers only the non‐radiating portion of the antenna. The reduced complexity of the antenna is easy to fabricate and has overall dimension of 40 × 35 × 1.905 mm³. The results from experimental analysis show that the proposed antenna can guarantee a wide bandwidth of 12.0 to 16.4 GHz at lower band, and the upper band covers the frequency in the range of 17.53 to 19.5 GHz. The antenna has achieved appreciable gain in the range of 3.14 to 4.68 dBi for lower band and 2.03 to 3.65 dBi for upper band. The proposed antenna has offered almost symmetrical and directional radiation pattern that is essentially suitable for serving Ku/K band satellite applications. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Novel Engineered Ion Channel Provides Controllable Ion Permeability for Polyelectrolyte Microcapsules Coated with a Lipid Membrane

The development of nanostructured microcapsules based on a biomimetic lipid bilayer membrane (BLM) coating of poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) (PSS)/poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH) polyelectrolyte hollow microcapsules is reported. A novel engineered ion channel, gramicidin (bis‐gA), incorporated into the lipid membrane coating provides a functional capability to control transport across the microcapsule wall. The microcapsules provide transport and permeation for drug‐analog neutral species, as well as positively and negatively charged ionic species. This controlled transport can be tuned for selective release biomimetically by controlling the gating of incorporated bis‐gA ion channels. This system provides a platform for the creation of “smart” biomimetic delivery vessels for the effective and selective therapeutic delivery and targeting of drugs.     

Design and analysis of an improved smartcard‐based remote user password authentication scheme

With the fast development of the Internet and the telecommunication technologies, internet users are carrying out various electronic transactions over internet by means of the authentication protocols. To ensure efficient and robust online transaction, security of authentication protocol turns out to be a great concern nowadays. As a result, smartcard‐based password authentication and session key agreement scheme receives significant attention in recent years. In the literature, various authentication schemes have been proposed by the cryptographic research community. Recently, Li et al. analyze some security weaknesses of the authentication scheme of Chen et al. and propose an enhancement based on the discrete logarithm problem and computational Diffie–Hellman problem. This paper further cryptanalyzes the scheme of Li et al. and identifies various security loopholes and then constructs a modified authentication scheme as a remedy. The security and efficiency evaluations demonstrate that our scheme has more security features and low computation costs than the related schemes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.