Compact triband slotted printed monopole antenna for WLAN and WiMAX applications

This work presents a triband antenna, which is compact, low profile, and covers the bandwidth requirements for WLAN and WiMAX applications. The proposed design is a modified and miniaturized printed monopole antenna. It consists of beveling rectangular patch, a Pi‐shape slot element, and an inverted‐L slot element to achieve resonance in three bands. The physical size of the antenna is 27.5 × 20 mm² while the electrical size is 0.26 λ₀ × 0.23 λ₀ at the lower operating frequency which is very compact as compared to other triband designs. It works in three bands, that is, 2.37 to 2.52 GHz, 3.35 to 3.90 GHz, and 4.97 to 7.85 GHz with |S₁₁| < ? 10 dB within these operating bands. The prototype of the proposed miniaturized antenna has been fabricated and the measured results are provided for validation. Antenna performance is studied in terms of input match, gain, radiation efficiency, surface current distributions, and radiation pattern. The antenna shows a nearly omnidirectional radiation pattern with peak efficiency of 90% and acceptable gain of 4 dBi over the three operating bands of WLAN and WiMAX. The prototype of the antenna is fabricated, and simulated results have been verified through measurements.     

An Improved Harmonic Load Flow Formulation

Abstract

The paper contributes an improved harmonic load flow formulation with fewer convergence problems but the same accurate results as traditional formulations. The proposed formulation approaches the harmonic load flow problem as a single nonlinear equation system where the harmonic bus voltage influence on nonlinear load behavior is considered and harmonic bus voltages at linear buses are not included as unknowns. This formulation allows any sort of nonlinear load to be considered and uses the Newton-Raphson method with true Jacobian matrix to reduce the inherent increase in the number of iterations caused by the presence of highly distorted bus voltages. The numerical results obtained when solving a three-bus network operating under highly distorted bus voltages using traditional harmonic load flow formulations and the improved formulation are comparatively discussed.     

UKI-03 device for checking the generator water-cooled stator winding insulation

Conclusion A diagnostic microprocessor device for checking the generator water-cooled stator winding insulation, realizing semiautomatic measuring of the level of resistance and absorption coefficient of the stator winding insulation, in which case the shunting effect of the water hoses is eliminated, was developed and is operating successfully. Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 3, pp. 31–33, March, 1996.     

Estimating WCET using prediction models to compute fitness function of a genetic algorithm

Real-Time Systems - Genetic algorithms can be used to generate input data in a real-time system that produce the worst-case execution time of a task. While generating the test data, the fitness...     

A systematic review and meta-analysis of artificial neural network application in geotechnical engineering: theory and applications

Artificial neural network (ANN) aimed to simulate the behavior of the nervous system as well as the human brain. Neural network models are mathematical computing systems inspired by the biological neural network in which try to constitute animal brains. ANNs recently extended, presented, and applied by many research scholars in the area of geotechnical engineering. After a comprehensive review of the published studies, there is a shortage of classification of study and research regarding systematic literature review about these approaches. A review of the literature reveals that artificial neural networks is well established in modeling retaining walls deflection, excavation, soil behavior, earth retaining structures, site characterization, pile bearing capacity (both skin friction and end-bearing) prediction, settlement of structures, liquefaction assessment, slope stability, landslide susceptibility mapping, and classification of soils. Therefore, the present study aimed to provide a systematic review of methodologies and applications with recent ANN developments in the subject of geotechnical engineering. Regarding this, a major database of the web of science has been selected. Furthermore, meta-analysis and systematic method which called PRISMA has been used. In this regard, the selected papers were classified according to the technique and method used, the year of publication, the authors, journals and conference names, research objectives, results and findings, and lastly solution and modeling. The outcome of the presented review will contribute to the knowledge of civil and/or geotechnical designers/practitioners in managing information in order to solve most types of geotechnical engineering problems. The methods discussed here help the geotechnical practitioner to be familiar with the limitations and strengths of ANN compared with alternative conventional mathematical modeling methods.

     

Interventions for long-term software security: Creating a lightweight program of assurance techniques for developers

Though some software development teams are highly effective at delivering security, others either do not care or do not have access to security experts to teach them how. Unfortunately, these latter teams are still responsible for the security of the systems they build: systems that are ever more important to ever more people. We propose that a series of lightweight interventions, six hours of facilitated workshops delivered over three months, can improve a team's motivation to consider security and awareness of assurance techniques, changing its security culture even when no security experts are involved. The interventions were developed after an Appreciative Inquiry and Grounded Theory survey of security professionals to find out what approaches work best. We tested the interventions in a participatory action research field study where we delivered the workshops to three software development organizations and evaluated their effectiveness through interviews beforehand, immediately afterwards, and after twelve months. We found that the interventions can be effective with teams with limited or no security experience and that improvement is long-lasting. This approach and the learning points arising from the work here have the potential to be applied in many development teams, improving the security of software worldwide.     

Developing a hybrid PSO–ANN model for estimating the ultimate bearing capacity of rock-socketed piles

Neural Computing and Applications - Rock-socketed piles are commonly used in foundations built in soft ground, and thus, their bearing capacity is a key issue of universal concern in research,...     

Model-based design verification for embedded systems through SVOCL: an OCL extension for SystemVerilog

Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) is a renowned approach in the context of embedded systems development. It is frequently used to deal with the structural and behavioral aspects of system design. However, the verification of system design is generally performed in isolation. It is particularly true in the context of assertion based verification. Consequently, there is a huge gap between system design and its verification that seriously effects the productivity and time-to market objectives. Therefore, in this research, we target to reduce this gap by exploiting the features of MBSE and SystemVerilog assertions (SVA’s). This article introduces a novel MBSE approach to model the design verification aspects of embedded systems, along with the system design (structural and behavioral aspects). We propose SystemVerilog in Object Constraint Language (SVOCL), an OCL temporal extension for SystemVerilog, to represent the design verification requirements by means of SVA’s. As a part of research, SVOCL transformation engine has been developed to generate SVA’s code in order to automate the design verification of embedded systems. The application of SVOCL has been validated through four case studies.