Highly effective junction isolation structures for PICs based on standard CMOS Process

This paper presents novel and highly effective junction isolation structures for power integrated circuits. The negative feedback-activated junction isolation is presented and it is proven to be very effective in blocking substrate current from reaching the logic circuitry (orders of magnitude more effective than standard junction isolation techniques). Additionally, in an attempt to further improve the blocking capabilities of junction isolations the use of multiple or combined structures is investigated whilst keeping the surface area used for isolation device in the same range as for the single structures. All isolation structures presented here are based on a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS technology.     

NS-2 based simulation framework for cognitive radio sensor networks

In this paper, we propose a simulation model for cognitive radio sensor networks (CRSNs) which is an attempt to combine the useful properties of wireless sensor networks and cognitive radio networks. The existing simulation models for cognitive radios cannot be extended for this purpose as they do not consider the strict energy constraint in wireless sensor networks. Our proposed model considers the limited energy available for wireless sensor nodes that constrain the spectrum sensing process—an unavoidable operation in cognitive radios. Our model has been thoroughly tested by performing experiments in different scenarios of CRSNs. The results generated by the model have been found accurate which can be considered for realization of CRSNs.     

Security analysis of pure DDP-based cipher proper for multimedia and ubiquitous device

DDP-64, based on various controlled operations, is a 64-bit Feistel-like block cipher consisting of 10 rounds with a 128-bit key. It was designed to attempt to have a high security level and a high speed performance in hardware on ubiquitous computing systems and multimedia. In this paper, however, we show that DDP-64 doesn’t have a high security level, more precisely, we show that it is vulnerable to related-key differential attack. This attack, which is much faster than the key exhaustive search, requires about 2⁵⁴ data and 2⁵⁴ time complexities. This work is the first known cryptanalytic result on DDP-64 so far.     

Industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks in industry 4.0: Exploring requirements,protocols, and challenges—A MAC survey

The vision to connect everyday physical objects to the Internet promises to create the Internet of Things (IoT), which is expected to integrate the diverse technologies such as sensors, actuators, radio frequency identification, communication technologies, and Internet protocols. Thus, IoT promises to transfer traditional industry to advance digital industry known as the Industry 4.0. At the core of the Industry 4.0 are the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) that led to the development of industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) and industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks (IWSANs). These networks play a central role of connecting machines, parts, products, and humans and create a diverse set of new applications to support intelligent and autonomous decision making. The IWSAN is a promising technology for numerous industrial applications because of their several potential benefits such as simple deployment, low cost, less complexity, and mobility support. However, despite such benefits, they impose several unique challenges at different layers of the protocol stack when deploying them for various monitoring and control applications in the Industry 4.0. In this article, we explore IWSAN, its applications, requirements, challenges, and solutions in the context of industrial control applications. Our main focus is on the medium access control (MAC) layer that can be exploited to satisfy such requirements. Our discussion presents extensive background study of the MAC schemes and it reviews the MAC protocols of the existing wireless standards and technologies. A number of application‐specific MAC protocols developed to support industrial applications, which are not part of these standards, are also elaborated. We rationalize to what extent the existing standards and protocols help in solving such requirements as laid down by the Industry 4.0. In the end, we emphasize on existing challenges and present important future directions.     

Performance analysis of selective cooperation in amplify‐and‐forward relay networks over identical Nakagami‐m channels

In cooperative communications, multiple relays between a source and a destination can increase the diversity gain. Because all the nodes must use orthogonal channels, multiple‐relay cooperation becomes spectrally inefficient. Therefore, a bestrelay selection scheme was recently proposed. In this paper, we analyzed the performance of this scheme for a system with the relays operating in amplify‐and‐forward mode over identical Nakagami‐m channels using an exact source–relay–destination signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR).We derived accurate closed‐form expressions for various system parameters including the probability density function of end‐to‐end SNR, the average output SNR, the bit error probability, and the channel capacity. The analytical results were verified through Monte Carlo simulations. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An infobutton for Web 2.0 clinical discussions: the knowledge linkage framework

This paper aims to develop an infobutton to automatically retrieve published papers corresponding to a topic-specific online clinical discussion. The knowledge linkages infobutton is designed to supplement online clinical conversations with pertinent medical literature from Pubmed. The project involves three distinct steps: 1) Clinical messages around a specific problem are grouped together into a thread. 2) These threads are processed using Metamap to link the conversations to keywords from the MeSH lexicon. 3) These keywords are used in a novel search strategy to retrieve a set of papers from Pubmed, which are then returned to the user. A pilot study using the messages from 2007 and 2008, was conducted to compare the knowledge linkage search strategy to a vector space model and extended Boolean model. The knowledge linkage model proved to be significantly better in terms of precision ( p = 0.013 and 0.003, respectively) and recall ( p = 0.351 and 0.013). Pertinent papers were returned to over 55% of the threads. This approach has demonstrated how clinicians can supplement their peer communications with evidence based research. Future work should focus on how to improve the threading and keyword-mapping strategies.     

Automatic facial expression recognition: feature extraction and selection

In this paper, we investigate feature extraction and feature selection methods as well as classification methods for automatic facial expression recognition (FER) system. The FER system is fully automatic and consists of the following modules: face detection, facial detection, feature extraction, selection of optimal features, and classification. Face detection is based on AdaBoost algorithm and is followed by the extraction of frame with the maximum intensity of emotion using the inter-frame mutual information criterion. The selected frames are then processed to generate characteristic features using different methods including: Gabor filters, log Gabor filter, local binary pattern (LBP) operator, higher-order local autocorrelation (HLAC) and a recent proposed method called HLAC-like features (HLACLF). The most informative features are selected based on both wrapper and filter feature selection methods. Experiments on several facial expression databases show comparisons of different methods.     

Fast and Ultraclean Approach for Measuring the Transport Properties of Carbon Nanotubes

In this work, a fast approach for the fabrication of hundreds of ultraclean field‐effect transistors (FETs) is introduced, using single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). The synthesis of the nanomaterial is performed by floating‐catalyst chemical vapor deposition, which is employed to fabricate high‐performance thin‐film transistors. Combined with palladium metal bottom contacts, the transport properties of individual SWCNTs are directly unveiled. The resulting SWCNT‐based FETs exhibit a mean field‐effect mobility, which is 3.3 times higher than that of high‐quality solution‐processed CNTs. This demonstrates that the hereby used SWCNTs are superior to comparable materials in terms of their transport properties. In particular, the on–off current ratios reach over 30 million. Thus, this method enables a fast, detailed, and reliable characterization of intrinsic properties of nanomaterials. The obtained ultraclean SWCNT‐based FETs shed light on further study of contamination‐free SWCNTs on various metal contacts and substrates.     

Characterization and Studies on Hydro Dynamically Stable Operation of an Angular Jet SOG for COIL

Chemical oxygen-iodine Laser (COIL) is one of the fast emerging high power laser source for near Infrared (λ=1.315μm) laser generation. The heart of the system is the singlet oxygen generator (SOG) which is a pumping source for this laser. A Jet type SOG with a novel approach was designed and fabricated. Singlet oxygen was taken out of the SOG at an angle of 40° thus avoiding the carry over of droplets, which is one of the major drawbacks of horizontal system. The preliminary results have been reported in our earlier publication. The present paper discusses the performance of this generator for various operational conditions viz. diluent's gas nitrogen / helium, basic hydrogen peroxide composition, generator pressure and gas velocity. Further, conditions for the stable operation from generator as well as chlorine injection point of view have been identified.     

A packet scheduling scheme for 4G wireless access systems aiming to maximize revenue for the telecom carriers

Efficient utilization of network resources is a key goal for emerging BWAS. This is a complex goal to achieve due to the heterogeneous service nature and diverse QoS requirements of various applications that BWAS support. Packet scheduling is an important activity that affects BWAS QoS outcomes. This paper proposes a new packet scheduling mechanism that improves QoS in mobile wireless networks which exploit IP as a transport technology for data transfer between BWAS base stations and mobile users at the radio transmission layer. In order to improve BWAS QoS the new packet algorithm makes changes at both the IP and the radio layers. The new algorithm exploits handoff priority scheduling principles and takes into account buffer occupancy and channel conditions. The packet scheduling mechanism also incorporates the concept of fairness. The algorithm offers an opportunity to maximize the carriers’ revenue at various traffic situations. Simulation results were compared to well-known algorithms which demonstrated the new packet scheduling algorithm is able to provide a low handoff packet drop rate, low packet forwarding rate, low packet delay, ensure fairness amongst the users of different services and generates higher revenue. Furthermore this research proposes a new and novel measure named “Satisfaction Factor” to measure the efficacy of various scheduling schemes and finally proposes four performance metrics for NodeB’s of in Next Generation Wireless Networks.