Development of a Profit-Based Air Cargo Loading Information System

In today's competitive logistics business environment, airfreight forwarders need to optimize every aspect of their logistics operations. However, forwarders still heavily rely on human brain and working experiences for calculating complex cargo packing and scheduling problems. Although recent research studies related to cargo packing and scheduling problems have resulted in the development of a number of advanced techniques of cargo planning, it can be seen that most of the research work is focused on the optimization of space in order to achieve the maximum possible amount of cargo to be packed in the minimum of space. After numerous site evaluation and end-user feedbacks, it is found that space optimization does not necessarily cause profit optimization, which is the ultimate aim of logistics providers. A study of contemporary research publications indicates that there are inadequate research studies related to profit-based optimization in cargo packing areas. This paper presents a profit-based air cargo loading information system (ACLIS) that embeds an innovative technology known as heuristics iterative reasoning technology (HIRT) that supports loading plan generation, focusing on maximization of the profit margin. In general, the proposed system is meant to maximize the profit in the airfreight forwarding business. It adopts an objective function governed by a list of constraints together with rule-based reasoning to provide expert advice to support the generation of appropriate loading plans     

Equalization digital on-channel repeater in the single frequency networks

Digital On-Channel Repeater (DOCR) can be used for Single Frequency Networks (SFN's). It is much simple and low cost compared to Distributed Transmitter which needs Studio to Transmitter Link (STL). However, traditional DOCR has one of those defects such as a power limit, a long time system processing delay or a poor output signal quality. In order to overcome all of those defects, we introduce Equalization DOCR (EDOCR) which regenerates the original 8-VSB output signal with relatively short time system processing delay. Lab. and Field test results show that the EDOCR can eliminate the loop-back signal up to 5.5 dB with 5.5 /spl mu/s system processing delay. By using EDOCR, we can save spectrum resources and extend coverage areas.     

Minimum time control of conductive heating systems formicroelectronics processing

A minimum time control scheme is designed to improve repeatability by minimizing the loading effects induced by the common processing condition of placement of a semiconductor wafer at ambient temperature on a large thermal-mass bake plate at processing temperature. The minimum time control strategy provides an optimal solution for minimizing the worst case deviation from a nominal temperature set-point during the load disturbance condition. This results in a predictive controller that performs a predetermined heating sequence prior to the arrival of the wafer as part of the resulting feedforward/feedback strategy to eliminate the load disturbance. The controller is easy to design and implement and makes it more suitable for online implementation such as automatic online tuning of a feedforward controller. Experimental results depict an order-of-magnitude improvement in the settling time and the integral-square temperature error between the optimal predictive controller and a feedback controller for a typical load disturbance     

Blind adaptive multiuser detection for DS/SSMA communications withgeneralized random spreading

A new spreading scheme and an accompanying blind adaptive receiver structure are proposed for direct-sequence spread-spectrum multiple-access communications in a slowly-varying, frequency-selective fading channel. Each user's spreading sequence is given by the Kronecker product of a long-period pseudonoise (PN) sequence, which is accurately modeled by a random sequence, and a short-length deterministic signature code. This spreading scheme bridges the gap between pure PN spreading and pure short-code spreading schemes. It is shown that with this spreading scheme, the channel response to the desired signal component is easily estimated without relying on the spectral decomposition of the signal correlation matrix. With the estimate of the channel response, the receiver suppresses interference based on the maximum signal-to-interference ratio criterion. The blind adaptive receiver requires only coarse timing information and a priori knowledge of the desired user's PN sequence for adaptation. Numerical results show that the adaptive receiver significantly suppresses interference by successfully estimating the channel response and the interference statistics with a low computational complexity. An extension to spatio-temporal processing using an array antenna is also discussed     

Numerical Simulation of scattering of electromagnetic waves from traveling and/or vibrating perfect conducting planes

This paper presents the one-dimensional computational results for electromagnetic waves scattered from traveling and/or vibrating perfect conducting planes via the application of the characteristic-based method. Relativistic boundary conditions combined with the characteristic variable boundary conditions are employed to account for relativistic effects due to the very high-speed motion of the conductor. The variations in both magnitude and frequency of the reflected electric field were investigated by comparing the computational results with the theoretical double-Doppler shift values. A maximum error percentage of less than 0.50% was found. It is also concluded that when the perfect conducting plane travels and vibrates simultaneously, the Doppler effects in frequency that are impressed on the reflected fields can be predicted, on the basis of computational results, simply dividing the vibrating frequency of perfect conducting plane by the factor (1+/spl beta//sub t/) where /spl beta//sub t/ is the ratio of the traveling velocity to the speed of light.     

Estimation of an Initial Condition of Sigma–Delta Modulators via Projection Onto Convex Sets

In this paper, an initial condition of strictly causal rational interpolative sigma-delta modulators (SDMs) is estimated based on quantizer output bit streams and an input signal. A set of initial conditions generating bounded trajectories is characterized. It is found that a set of initial conditions generating bounded trajectories but not necessarily corresponding to quantizer output bit streams is convex. Also, it is found that a set of initial conditions corresponding to quantizer output bit streams but not necessarily generating bounded trajectories is convex too. Moreover, it is found that an initial condition both corresponding to quantizer output bit streams and generating bounded trajectories is uniquely defined if the loop filter is unstable (Here, an unstable loop filter refers to that with at least one of its poles being strictly outside the unit circle). To estimate that unique initial condition, a projection onto convex set approach is employed. Numerical computer simulations show that the employed method can estimate the initial condition effectively     

Circuit-limited oscillations at the onset of impurity breakdown in ultrapure p-Ge with an S-shaped current-field characteristic

Ultrapure p-Ge with doping concentration as low as 10¹¹ cm⁻³ is considered to investigate self-pulsating oscillations at the onset of impurity breakdown with respect to an S-shaped current-field characteristic. The associated nonlinear dynamics is computed within the two-impurity-level model with more convincing parameterization. The system undergoes a single Hopf bifurcation in the presence of a sufficiently large circuitry capacitance. As the operating point is controlled towards the breakdown threshold, no further bifurcations but a changeover of the periodic oscillation occurs from being sinusoidal to pulsating. Our approach also obtains agreeable results for n-GaAs with typically higher doping.     

200-nm-bandwidth fiber optical amplifier combining parametric andRaman gain

Theory shows that the gain bandwidth of a one-pump fiber optical parametric amplifier (OPA) using highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) could be more than 200 nm. Under these circumstances, the OPA gain would overlap the pump-induced Raman gain. We have studied the combined effects of OPA and Raman gain theoretically and experimentally. The experimental results demonstrate a 200-nm bandwidth from a single fiber-optical amplifier and also verify that the influence of the Raman effect is relatively small, as predicted by the theory     

Disclosing the Role of Defect-Engineered Metal–Organic Frameworks in Mixed Matrix Membranes for Efficient CO2 Separation: A Joint Experimental-Computational Exploration

Incorporation of defects in metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) offers new opportunities for manipulating their microporosity and functionalities. The so-called “defect engineering” has great potential to tailor the mass transport properties in MOF/polymer mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for challenging separation applications, for example, CO₂ capture. This study first investigates the impact of MOF defects on the membrane properties of the resultant MOF/polymer MMMs for CO₂ separation. Highly porous defect-engineered UiO-66 nanoparticles are successfully synthesized and incorporated into a CO₂-philic crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) matrix. A thorough joint experimental/simulation characterization reveals that defect-engineered UiO-66/PEGDA MMMs exhibit nearly identical filler–matrix interfacial properties regardless of the defect concentrations of their parental UiO-66 filler. In addition, non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations in tandem with gas transport studies disclose that the defects in MOFs provide the MMMs with ultrafast transport pathways mainly governed by diffusivity selectivity. Ultimately, MMMs containing the most defective UiO-66 show the most enhanced CO₂/N₂ separation performance—CO₂ permeability = 470 Barrer (four times higher than pure PEGDA) and maintains CO₂/N₂ selectivity = 41—which overcomes the trade-off limitation in pure polymers. The results emphasize that defect engineering in MOFs would mark a new milestone for the future development of optimized MMMs.     

Trend change in mean residual life

The authors consider a life distribution which shows a trend change in its mean residual life (MRL). The problem of testing such a trend change has been of great interest in reliability analysis. The authors propose a new procedure for testing the exponentiality against IDMRL or DMIRL, assuming that the proportion of the population, p, that dies at or before the change point of MRL is known. Their test provides a new competitor to the known test procedures, such as the Guess, Hollander, Proschan test and the Aly test. Based on the empirical powers of these tests against lognormal alternatives, their test outperforms the others for most sample sizes and most values of p and that all three tests achieve high power in detecting the trend change of MRL when p is very small and very large