Outage Performance and Cooperative Diversity Under Amplify and Forward Relaying in Cognitive Radio Networks

This paper investigates the outage and diversity performance in a cognitive radio (CR) network, in which data are transmitted through amplify-and-forward protocol. A fixed CR node is selected as relay to combat fading effect. The CR user transmits or relays data when the result of cooperative spectrum sensing indicates that primary user (PU) channel is free and the relay node stops performing the protocol as soon as the PU is detected to be active. A closed-form expression of outage probability for the CR network is calculated based on which diversity order is derived. The results show that the proposed scheme suffers a loss in diversity order. To compensate for this loss, a repetition-based scheme is proposed in a delay-insensitive system at the cost of the challenge in implementation. In this case, we evaluate the outage performance and the average transmit duration and then compare them with the ones in the delay-sensitive system. Asymptotic analysis is also presented to show the outage performance advantage of using a relay over the one without using it. The numerical results presented in the paper verify our analysis.     

Electrically Activated Paper Actuators

This paper describes the design and fabrication of electrically controlled paper actuators that operate based on the dimensional changes that occur in paper when the moisture absorbed on the surface of the cellulose fibers changes. These actuators are called “Hygroexpansive Electrothermal Paper Actuators” (HEPAs). The actuators are made from paper, conducting polymer, and adhesive tape. They are lightweight, inexpensive, and can be fabricated using simple printing techniques. The central element of the HEPAs is a porous conducting path (used to provide electrothermal heating) that changes the moisture content of the paper and causes actuation. This conducting path is made by embedding a conducting polymer (PEDOT:PSS) within the paper, and thus making a paper/polymer composite that retains the porosity and hydrophilicity of paper. Different types of HEPAs (straight, precurved, and creased) achieved different types of motions (e.g., bending motion, accordion type motion). A theoretical model for their behavior is proposed. These actuators have been used for the manipulation of liquids and for the fabrication of an optical shutter.     

Ice‐Templated Scaffolds with Microridged Pores Direct DRG Neurite Growth

Successful spinal cord repair is thought to be promoted with hierarchically structured scaffolds. These should combine aligned porosity with additional linear features on the micrometer scale to guide axons across multiple length scales. Such scaffolds are generated through the carefully controlled directional solidification of an aqueous biopolymer solution, followed by lyophilization. Under specific freezing conditions this yields a highly regular and aligned lamellar architecture. This architecture exhibits uniform ridges of controlled height and width on the lamellar surface. These ridges run parallel to the pore axis, serving as secondary guidance features. The ridges are capable of linearly aligning 62.4% of chick dorsal root ganglia neurites to within ±10° of the ridge direction. Notably, neurites sprouting perpendicular to the ridge are guided into alignment with these microridged features.     

将RF信号转换为数字信号的CMOS转换器

从频率计数与合成到传感器信号调整等很多应用都需要将RF信号转换为数字逻辑电平。在这些情况下,设计者一般采用一个高速电压比较器完成RF到数字信号的转换工作。由于电压比较器具有高增益,它们一般有很好的灵敏度,但也会带来一些问题。高速比较器价格高,很难找到现成的商品,并且易于被快速淘汰。     

MnO2-Based Electrochemical Supercapacitors on Flexible Carbon Substrates

Manganese dioxide films were grown on large area flexible carbon aerogel substrates. Characterization by x-ray diffraction confirmed α-MnO₂ growth. Three types of films were compared as a function of hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) concentration during growth. The highest concentration of HM TA produced MnO₂ flower-like films, as observed by scanning electron microscopy, whose thickness and surface coverage lead to both a higher specific capacitance and higher series resistance. Specific capacitance was measured to be 64 F/g using a galvanostatic setup, compared to the 47 F/g-specific capacitance of the carbon aerogel substrate. Such supercapacitor devices can be fabricated on large area sheets of carbon aerogel to achieve high total capacitance.     

A Tree-Based Data Collecting Network Structure for Wireless Sensor Networks

In a sensor network with a large number of densely populated sensor nodes, a single target of interest may be detected by multiple sensor nodes simultaneously. Data collected from the sensor nodes are usually highly correlated, and hence energy saving using in-network data fusion becomes possible. A traditional data fusion scheme starts with dividing the network into clusters, followed by electing a sensor node as cluster head in each cluster. A cluster head is responsible for collecting data from all its cluster members, performing data fusion on these data and transmitting the fused data to the base station. Assuming that a sensor node is only capable of handling a single node-to-node transmission at a time and each transmission takes T time-slots, a cluster head with n cluster members will take at least nT time-slots to collect data from all its cluster members. In this paper, a tree-based network structure and its formation algorithms are proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed network structure can greatly reduce the delay in data collection.     

A comprehensive compact-modeling methodology for spiral inductors in silicon-based RFICs

A new comprehensive wide-band compact-modeling methodology for on-chip spiral inductors is presented. The new modeling methodology creates an equivalent-circuit model consisting of frequency-independent circuit elements. A fast automated extraction procedure is developed for determining the circuit element values from two-port S-parameter measurement data. The methodology is extremely flexible in allowing for accurate modeling of general classes of spiral inductors on high- or low-resistivity substrate and for large spirals exhibiting distributed trends. The new modeling methodology is applied to general classes of spirals with various sizes and substrate parameters. The extracted models show excellent agreement with the measured data sets over the frequency range of 0.1-10 GHz.     

Effect of mixed solvents on PCDTBT:PC70BM based solar cells

We investigated the effect of solvents on the morphology, charge transport and device performance of poly[N-9″-hepta-decanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4′,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3′-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT) and [6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₀BM) based solar cells. To carry out this investigation, chloroform and 1,2-dichlorobenzene were chosen as good solvents of the two compounds. Films prepared with chloroform exhibit larger domains than those prepared with 1,2-dichlorobenzene and their size increases with the amount of PC₇₀BM. Fine tuning of the domain size was realized by using a solvent of mixed chloroform and 1,2-dichlorobenzene. At a mixing ratio of 50%:50%, a power conversion efficiency of 6.1% was achieved on PCDTBT:PC₇₀BM (1:3) devices with an active area of 1 cm², under air mass 1.5 global (AM 1.5 G) irradiation at 100 mW/cm².