Energy efficient and QoS aware routing protocol for Clustered Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, a protocol called Energy Efficient and QoS aware Routing (EEQR) protocol for Clustered Wireless Sensor Network is proposed. To ensure QoS for different traffic types, prioritization of data is done based on message type and content. To address energy efficiency (hotspot problem) and high end-to-end delay problem, a combination of mobile and static sink is used for data gathering. Delay sensitive message are sent through the static sink and delay tolerant message are send through the mobile sink. Consequently, EEQR incurs less end-to-end delay, is energy efficient as well as able to ensure QoS. To evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy, intensive simulations are carried out. Performance of the proposed strategy is compared with the static sink and mobile sinks strategies. The results demonstrated that EEQR has prolonged the network and coverage lifetime, as well as has improved the other QoS routing parameters, such as delay, packet loss ratio, and throughput.     

Effects of silica aerogel particle sizes on the thermal–mechanical properties of silica aerogel – unsaturated polyester composites

Silica aerogels with a surface area as high as 773?m²?g^?1 and a density of 0.077?g?cm^?3 were produced from rice husk via sol–gel process and ambient pressure drying. A particulate composite material was prepared by adding silica aerogel particles of three different particle sizes (powder, granules and bead) to unsaturated polyester resin with a fixed volume fraction of 30%. Thermogravimetric and thermal conductivity studies revealed that silica aerogel composites were having higher thermal stability and thermal insulation than the neat resin. It was suggested that the preservation of aerogel pores from resin intrusion is important for better thermal properties. Larger silica aerogel particles have more porous area (unwetted region) which results in a lower degradation rate and lower thermal conductivity of the base polymer. However, the addition of silica aerogel into resin has reduced the tensile modulus of the polymer matrix where smaller particle size displayed higher toughness than those with bigger particle size.     

Charge distribution in nano‐scale grains of magnesium aluminate spinel

Charge distribution in magnesium aluminate spinel (MAS) results in the formation of a space‐charge region that plays a critical role in assigning functional properties. Significant theoretical advances explaining this phenomenon have been accomplished, even though quantitative experimental support from nano‐scale granular MAS is only indirect. In this work, the electrostatic potential distribution in nano‐scale grains of nonstoichiometric MAS (MgO·0.95Al₂O₃ and MgO·1.07Al₂O₃) was measured by off‐axis electron holography (OAEH) and compared to the distribution of cations and defects in this material as measured by electron energy‐loss spectroscopy (EELS). In this manner, we studied the roles of composition, grain size, and applied electric field (EF) on the formation of a space‐charge region. We quantitatively demonstrated that regardless of grain size, the vicinity of MgO·0.95Al₂O₃ grain boundaries presented an excess of Mg⁺² cations, whereas the vicinity of MgO·1.07Al₂O₃ grain boundaries included an excess of Al⁺³ cations. The degree of structural disorder (ie, the inversion parameter, i) indicated that as‐synthesized MAS were significantly disordered (i between 0.37 and 0.41), with values decreasing toward equilibrium ordering values following annealing (i between 0.27 and 0.31). The application of an external ~150 V/cm EF during annealing further enhanced lattice ordering (i between 0.16 and 0.19). Such variations in the distribution of cations and defects should determine the space‐charged potential (SCP). However, using these measurements to calculate the SCP was not possible due to the wide range of values reported for formation energies of defects (0.82‐8.78 eV). Consequently, we correlated local ionic ordering with electrostatic potential in nonstoichiometric MAS. The magnitudes of the SCP in both MgO·0.95Al₂O₃ and MgO·1.07Al₂O₃ decreased following annealing from ?3.4 ± 0.3 V and 2.0 ± 0.2 V to ?2.0 ± 0.2 V and 1.6 ± 0.1 V, respectively.     

Effects of electron radiation on commercial power MOSFET with buck converter application

Microelectronic power converters such as buck and boost converter are required to be tolerant to radiations including electron radiation. This paper examines electron radiation effects on the Ⅰ-Ⅴ characteristics of VDMOSFET and its corresponding effects in buck converter. Analysis of the electrical characteristics shows that after irradiation the threshold voltage and drain current for all VDMOSFETs degraded more than two orders of magnitude. The impact of this electrical degradation has been investigated in an application of typical buck converter circuit. The buck converter with n-channel switching transistor shows that after irradiation its output voltage increased with the drain current in the n-channel ZVN4424 A VDMOSFET, while the buck converter with p-channel switching transistor shows its output voltage decreased with the drain current in the p-channel ZVP4424 A VDMOSFET after irradiation.     

Iron oxide nanoparticles improved biocompatibility and removal of middle molecule uremic toxin of polysulfone hollow fiber membranes

Middle molecule uremic toxins constitute to a quarter of uremic toxins present in human blood. In a condition where these uremic toxins accumulate in bloodstream due to renal failure, blood purification process using a high performance membrane is required. Here, we develop biocompatible mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) made up of polysulfone (PSf) and iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe₂O₃ NPs) with the focus to remove middle molecule uremic toxin effectively. The MMMs were evaluated in terms of their biocompatibility and separation performance. At higher Fe₂O₃ NPs loading, the MMM displayed a huge reduction of protein adsorption and platelet adhesion while maintaining normal blood coagulation time and acceptable complement activation. The optimized MMM exhibited high permeability (110.47 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹), protein retention (99.9%) and demonstrated excellent clearance of urea (82%) and lysozyme (46.7%). The PSf/Fe₂O₃ MMM is proven to have promising attributes for hemodialysis application. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 48234.     

Hierarchical routing and traffic grooming in IP/MPLS-based ASON/GMPLS multi-domain networks

Routing, connection setup, and path computation are well-known problems in multi-domain networks, which have been largely analyzed in pure IP (packet) networks. In circuit-switched optical multi-domain networks, there remain, however, a number of routing and path computation challenges. Traffic grooming means combining a number of low-speed traffic streams so that the high capacity of each lightpath may be used as efficiently as possible, as path computation implements the core of the grooming function, it is obvious that solutions for the traffic grooming problem in optical multi-domain networks are still not sufficiently investigated. In this study we propose a methodology to address the problems of routing, connection setup, and traffic grooming in optical multi-domain networks, which adapts a two-level hierarchical routing scheme and full-mesh topology abstraction algorithm to improve routing scalability and lower inter-domain blocking probabilities; additionally our proposed methodology adapts a scheme for traffic grooming in DWDM multi-domain networks to improve the resources usage. To test our proposed methodology we propose a detailed IP/MPLS-based ASON/GMPLS multi-domain multilayer test framework.     

Endourologic complication: endourologic resolution

OBJECTIVES: To report an uncommon endourological complication that was also resolved by endourological methods. METHODS/RESULTS: We report on a patient with a right solitary kidney, radiolucent renal stone and an indwelling double-J catheter. While removing the double-J catheter after ESWL, it broke at the level of its distal third. The proximal two thirds remaining in the ureter were successfully removed by ureteroscopy after several attempts by ureteroscopy and percutaneous nephroscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Except for special circumstances, most of the endourological complications can be resolved by an endourological procedure.     

Chip morphology study in high speed drilling of Al�CSi alloy

Chip formation during drilling operation is greatly influenced by the cutting parameters such as cutting speed, feed rate, and drill geometry. However, not many studies have focused on the direct observation of the chip formation during high speed drilling. This paper investigates the effect of cutting speed and feed rate on the chip morphology during high speed drilling of aluminum?Csilicon alloys using carbide drill. Observation on the multiview characterization of the chips was carried out which includes free surface, back surface, and cross-section of top surface. Structure and shape alterations of the free and back surfaces were analyzed using a scanning electron microscope. Finally, different geometrical parameters of chip cross-section were measured in order to study the effect of cutting parameters on chip compression ratio and thrust force. It was found that increase in cutting speed significantly affects the chip morphology especially on the structure of free surface and cross-section of the chips. Results also showed that built-up edge on the rake face of tool played an important role on the formation of irregular pattern on the chip back surface.     

Dynamic relay management protocol for efficient inter-piconet scheduling in Bluetooth scatternet

Bluetooth is a low power, short range and inexpensive wireless technology that has limited resources. Therefore, the performance of a scatternet is highly dependent on the number of relays and their degree. The existence of unnecessary relays may increase scheduling overhead and consume system resources. In another instance, a large number of links that pass through a single relay may also decrease the system performance. Therefore, an optimum number of relays must be obtained for an efficient scatternet performance, while the system works with limited resources. The dynamic relay management (DRM) protocol is proposed to achieve the said objective and the solutions will be based on relay reduction and load balancing strategies. Through the DRM, a master reduces unnecessary relays to an optimum number and subsequently assigns them the special role as backup relays. In the event when a large number of links pass through a single relay, the master activates one of the backup relays to resolve the bottleneck, by which the load is balanced over a number of relays. Using this relay management technique, analytically the DRM protocol has reduced control overhead from O(n²) to O(1). Empirically, through simulation of the DRM protocol, the backup relay activation has reduced delay and improved throughput (between 40% and 60%). Also, the simulation results have demonstrated an improvement on network lifetime and packet loss. All these results are evidence that the DRM has outperformed the RVM and LORP protocols for the same issue. Hence, the inefficiency of the inter-piconet scheduling in a scatternet of a Bluetooth network can be resolved by implementing the DRM protocol.