Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Khesari Dhal (Lathyrus sativus): Changes in α-Galactosides,Monosaccharides and Disaccharides during Food Processing

Lathyrus sativus , also known as Khesari dhal in India, is a good source of protein and also desirable from the agricultural point of view as it is drought-resistant and can be grown with low agriculture inputs of fertiliser, irrigation and pesticide. In common with other legume seeds, Lathyrus contains the flatulence causing α-galactosides. This is a study of the physico-chemical properties of four selected Lathyrus sativus lines (Red flower, a high β-ODAP line; EC-242692, a medium β-ODAP line; L-1276, a low β-ODAP line; and Pusa-24, a very low β-ODAP line) to determine the most effective way of removing the flatulence factors by using simple processes such as soaking, dehusking and germination. Physico-chemical properties like swelling and hydration capacity of Lathyrus seeds were higher than other legumes, which suggests higher consumer preference in terms of cooking time and fuel consumption over other beans. Germination was the most effective procedure for removing α-galatosides (85–92%). Dehusking of pre-soaked seeds also achieved a high α-galactoside reduction (61–80%). Soaking in alkaline medium and thereafter boiling for 9 min brought about a lower reduction (33–74%), but these losses were still higher than those obtained by soaking in drinking water or soaking in boiled water for 2 h (11–49% and 7–44%, respectively).     

Correlation between thermoluminescence and mechanoluminescence of gamma-irradiated Dy activated potassium and magnesium mixed sulphate

Thermoluminescene (TL) and mechanoluminescence (ML) properties of gamma-irradiated Dy activated potassium and magnesium mixed sulphate have been studied. (K2Mg2:Dy) (SO4)3 samples having different concentrations of Dy were prepared by solid-state diffusion method. Two distinct peaks, the first approximately 130 degrees C and the second approximately 273 degrees C, are observed in the TL glow curve. It is also observed that TL intensities of both peaks decrease when TL glow curves were recorded after deforming the irradiated samples. Only one peak is observed in the ML intensity vs. time curve and the ML intensity decreases markedly with the post-irradiation annealing (to remove 130 degrees C TL peak) of the sample. Both ML and TL intensities have been observed optimum for 1 mol% of Dy in the mixed sulphate system. It is suggested that the recombination of electrons with the free radicals (anion radicals produced by gamma irradiation) released from the traps during the thermal or mechanical excitation is responsible for luminescence in this system.     

Mapping stereo and image matching algorithms onto parallel architectures

In this paper we present parallel implementations of two vision tasks; stereo matching and image matching. Linear features are used as matching primitives. These implementations are performed on a fixed size mesh array and achieve processor-time optimal performance. For stereo matching, we proposeO(Nn ³/P ²) time algorithm on aP ×P processor mesh array, whereN is the number of line segments in one image,n is the number of line segments in a window determined by the object size, andP ⩽n. The sequential algorithm takesO(Nn ³) time. For image matching, a partitioned parallel implementation is developed.O[((nm/P ²) +P)nm] time performance is achieved on aP ×P processor mesh array, whereP ² ⩽nm. This leads to a processor-time optimal solution forP ⩽ (nm)^1/3. This research was supported in part bynsf under grantiri-9145810 and in part bydarpa andafosr contracts F-49260-89-C-0126 and F-49620-90-C-0078.     

Intelligent beaconless geographical forwarding for urban vehicular environments

A Vehicular Ad hoc Network is a type of wireless ad hoc network that facilitates ubiquitous connectivity between vehicles in the absence of fixed infrastructure. Source based geographical routing has been proven to perform well in unstable vehicular networks. However, these routing protocols leverage beacon messages to update the positional information of all direct neighbour nodes. As a result, high channel congestion or problems with outdated neighbour lists may occur. To this end, we propose a street-aware, Intelligent Beaconless (IB) geographical forwarding protocol based on modified 802.11 Request To Send (RTS)/ Clear To Send frames, for urban vehicular networks. That is, at the intersection, each candidate junction node leverage digital road maps as well as distance to destination, power signal strength of the RTS frame and direction routing metrics to determine if it should elect itself as a next relay node. For packet forwarding between Intersections, on the other hand, the candidate node considers the relative direction to the packet carrier node and power signal strength of the RTS frame as routing metrics to elect itself based on intelligently combined metrics. After designing the IB protocol, we implemented it and compared it with standard protocols. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol can improve average delay and successful packet delivery ratio in realistic wireless channel conditions and urban vehicular scenarios.     

Trust-Based Routing Mechanism in MANET: Design and Implementation

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a self-organizing wireless network for mobile devices. It does not require any fixed infrastructure to be configured which makes it more suitable to be used in environments that require on-the-fly setup. This paper discusses the challenging issues in MANET routing security. It presents FrAODV, a trust-based scheme for securing AODV routing protocol in MANET using the friendship mechanism. The nodes can evaluate the routing paths according to some selected features (such as node reputation and identity information) before forwarding the data through these routes. We have used two types of implementation in our scheme, simulation (using NS2) and real test-bed (using JADHOC). This scheme is believed to provide a robust environment where MANET nodes can trust each other in a secure community.     

CL-MAC: A Cross-Layer MAC protocol for heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

In duty cycled MAC protocols, multi-packet, multi-flow and multi-hop traffic patterns experience significant latencies, which are partially due to duty cycling. Several cross-layer routing/MAC schemes have been proposed to mitigate this latency. However, they utilize routing information from a single flow and/or a single packet perspective, thus limiting their adaptation to varying traffic loads and patterns. In this paper, we propose a novel Cross-Layer MAC protocol (CL-MAC) for WSNs, to efficiently handle multi-packet, multi-hop and multi-flow traffic patterns while adapting to a wide range of traffic loads. CL-MAC’s scheduling is based on a unique structure of flow setup packets that efficiently utilize routing information to transmit multiple data packets over multiple multi-hop flows. Unlike other MAC protocols, supporting construction of multi-hop flows, CL-MAC considers all pending packets in the routing layer buffer and all flow setup requests from neighbors, when setting up a flow. This allows CL-MAC to make more informed scheduling decisions, reflecting the current network status, and dynamically optimize its scheduling mechanism accordingly. We evaluate CL-MAC through extensive ns-2 simulations and compare its performance to the state of the art, over various networks and for a wide variety of traffic loads and patterns. In all our experiments, CL-MAC substantially reduces end-to-end latency, increases delivery ratio while reducing the average energy consumed per packet delivered.     

A fuzzy logic approach to beaconing for vehicular ad hoc networks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is an emerging field of technology that allows vehicles to communicate together in the absence of fixed infrastructure. The basic premise of VANET is that in order for a vehicle detect other vehicles in the vicinity. This cognizance, awareness of other vehicles, can be achieved through beaconing. In the near future, many VANET applications will rely on beaconing to enhance information sharing. Further, the uneven distribution of vehicles, ranging from dense rush hour traffic to sparse late night volumes creates a pressing need for an adaptive beaconing rate control mechanism to enable a compromise between network load and precise awareness between vehicles. To this end, we propose an intelligent Adaptive Beaconing Rate (ABR) approach based on fuzzy logic to control the frequency of beaconing by taking traffic characteristics into consideration. The proposed ABR considers the percentage of vehicles traveling in the same direction, and status of vehicles as inputs of the fuzzy decision making system, in order to tune the beaconing rate according to the vehicular traffic characteristics. To achieve a fair comparison with fixed beaconing schemes, we have implemented ABR approach in JIST/SWANs. Our simulation shows that the proposed ABR approach is able to improve channel load due to beaconing, improve cooperative awareness between vehicles and reduce average packet delay in lossy/lossless urban vehicular scenarios.     

Transform domain inter-block interleaving schemes for robust image and video transmission in ATM networks

Data interleaving schemes have proven to be an important mechanism in reducing the impact of correlated network errors on image/video transmission. Current interleaving schemes fall into two main categories: (a) schemes that interleave pixel intensity values and (b) schemes that interleave JPEG/MPEG transform blocks. The schemes in the first category suffer in terms of lower compression ratio since highly correlated information in the spatial domain is de-correlated prior to compression. The schemes in the second category interleave DCT transformed blocks. In this case, in the absence of ARQ, if a packet is lost, an entire block may be lost thus yielding poor image quality and making the error concealment task difficult. Interleaving transform coefficients is tricky and error concealment in the presence of lost coefficients is challenging. In this paper, we develop three different interleaving schemes, namely Triangular, Quadrant, and Coefficient, that interleave frequency domain transform coefficients. The transform coefficients within each block are divided into small groups and groups are interleaved with the groups from other blocks in the image, hence they are referred to as inter-block interleaving schemes. The proposed schemes differ in terms of group size. In the Triangular interleaving scheme AC coefficients in each block are divided into two triangles and interleaving is performed among triangles from different blocks. In the Quadrant interleaving scheme, coefficients in each block are divided into four quadrants and quadrants are interleaved. In the Coefficient interleaving scheme, each coefficient in a block is a group and it is interleaved with the coefficients in other blocks. The compression ratio 3 of the proposed interleaving schemes is impressive ranging from 90 to 98% of the JPEG standard compression while providing much higher robustness in the presence of correlated losses. We also propose two new variable end-of-block (VEOB) techniques, one based on the number of AC coefficients per block (VAC-EOB) and the other based on the number of bits per block (VB–EOB). Our proposed interleaving techniques combined with VEOB schemes yield significantly better compression ratios compared to JPEG (2–11%) and MPEG-2 (3–6.7%) standards while at the same time improve the resilience of the coded data in the presence of transmission errors.     

Three-Dimensional Analysis of the Effect of Material Randomness on the Damage Behaviour of CFRP Laminates with Stochastic Cohesive-Zone Elements

Laminated carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites are already well established in structural applications where high specific strength and stiffness are required. Damage in these laminates is usually localised and may involve numerous mechanisms, such as matrix cracking, laminate delamination, fibre de-bonding or fibre breakage. Microstructures in CFRPs are non-uniform and irregular, resulting in an element of randomness in the localised damage. This may in turn affect the global properties and failure parameters of components made of CFRPs. This raises the question of whether the inherent stochasticity of localised damage is of significance in terms of the global properties and design methods for such materials. This paper presents a numerical modelling based analysis of the effect of material randomness on delamination damage in CFRP materials by the implementation of a stochastic cohesive-zone model (CZM) within the framework of the finite-element (FE) method. The initiation and propagation of delamination in a unidirectional CFRP double-cantilever beam (DCB) specimen loaded under mode-I was analyzed, accounting for the inherent microstructural stochasticity exhibited by such laminates via the stochastic CZM. Various statistical realizations for a half-scatter of 50 % of fracture energy were performed, with a probability distribution based on Weibull’s two-parameter probability density function. The damaged area and the crack lengths in laminates were analyzed, and the results showed higher values of those parameters for random realizations compared to the uniform case for the same levels of applied displacement. This indicates that deterministic analysis of composites using average properties may be non-conservative and a method based on probability may be more appropriate.     

Heterogeneous computing: challenges and opportunities

The issues and problems posed by heterogeneous computing are discussed. They include design of algorithms for applications, partitioning and mapping of application tasks, interconnection requirements, and the design of programming environments. The use of heterogeneous computing in image understanding is reviewed. An example vision task is presented, and the different types of parallelism used in the example are identified