A Multi-Criteria Route Selection Method for Vehicles Using Genetic Algorithms Based on Driver’s Preference

Wireless Personal Communications - Finding the best path between a given source and a destination in a road network is an important problem. It has its applications in various map services and...     

Modulated Triple‐Material Nano‐Heterostructures: Where Gold Influenced the Chemical Activity of Silver in Nanocrystals

For efficient charge separations, multimaterial hetero‐nanostructures are being extensively studied as photocatalysts. While materials with one heterojunction are widely established, the chemistry of formation of multijunction heterostructures is not explored. This needs a more sophisticated approach and modulations. To achieve these, a generic multistep seed mediated growth following controlled ion diffusion and ion exchange is reported which successfully leads to triple‐material hetero‐nanostructures with bimetallic‐binary alloy‐binary/ternary semiconductors arrangements. Ag₂S nanocrystals are used as primary seeds for obtaining AuAg‐AuAgS bimetallic‐binary alloyed metal–semiconductor heterostructures via partial reduction of Ag(I) using Au(III) ions. These are again explored as secondary seeds for obtaining a series of triple‐materials heterostructures, AuAg‐AuAgS‐CdS (or ZnS or AgInS₂), with introduction of different divalent and trivalent ions. Chemistry of each step of the gold ion–induced changes in the rate of diffusion and/or ion exchanges are investigated and the formation mechanism for these nearly monodisperse triple material heterostructures are proposed. Reactions without gold are also performed, and the change in the reaction chemistry and growth mechanism in presence of Au is also discussed.     

A query model to synthesize answer intervals from indexed videounits

While a query result in a traditional database is a subset of the database, in a video database, it is a set of subintervals extracted from the raw video sequence. It is very hard, if not impossible, to predetermine all the queries that will be issued in the future, and all the subintervals that will become necessary to answer them. As a result, conventional query frameworks are not applicable to video databases. We propose a new video query model that computes query results by dynamically synthesizing needed subintervals from fragmentary indexed intervals in the database. We introduce new interval operations required for that computation. We also propose methods to compute relative relevance of synthesized intervals to a given query. A query result is a list of synthesized intervals sorted in the order of their degree of relevance     

Structural features of evaporated nickel films on oxide supports

Nickel was vacuum-deposited at high temperature (1000–1600°C) on alumina and at room temperature on Hiflosupercel (diatomaceous earth). Light microscopy/Scanning electron microscopy/Energy Dispersive x-ray analysis investigations on the coated materials indicate structural features such as uniform dispersal and firm binding of nickel crystallites on the oxide surfaces and suggests that the feasibility of vacuum technology may offer certain advantages over the conventional processes for making dispersed metal catalysts.     

Job scheduling in mesh multicomputers

A new approach for dynamic job scheduling in mesh-connected multiprocessor systems, which supports a multiuser environment, is proposed in this paper. Our approach combines a submesh reservation policy with a priority-based scheduling policy to obtain high performance in terms of high throughput, high utilization, and low turn-around times for jobs. This high performance is achieved at the expense of scheduling jobs in a strictly fair, FCFS fashion; in fact, the algorithm is parameterized to allow trade-offs between performance and (short-term) POPS fairness. The proposed scheduler can be used with any submesh allocation policy. A fast and efficient implementation of the proposed scheduler has also been presented. The performance of the proposed scheme has been compared with the FCFS policy, the only existing scheduling strategy for meshes, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Simulation results indicate that our scheduling strategy outperforms the FCFS policy significantly. Specifically, our strategy significantly reduces the average waiting delay of jobs over the FCFS policy. The fast implementation of the proposed scheduler results in low allocation and deallocation time overhead, as well as low space overhead     

Effect of synthesis temperature on density and microstructure of MgB2 superconductor at ambient pressure

The experimental thermodynamic of MgB₂ synthesis process and phase compositions have been investigated by diffraction thermal analysis (DTA) technology and X-ray diffraction. The fabrication of MgB₂ bulks and superconducting properties at the temperatures range from 600 to 800°C were reported. And microstructure of MgB₂ bulks were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). A method was developed to determine the porosity of MgB₂ and the highest density can be obtained in MgB₂ prepared at 650°C at ambient pressure. It is found that the vapor pressure of Mg increases remarkably at high temperature, leading to the high porosity in MgB₂ samples. MgB₂ bulk with good superconducting property and fine microstructure was synthesized at 750°C.     

Error Detecting Dual Basis Bit Parallel Systolic Multiplication Architecture over GF（2^m）

An error tolerant hardware efficient verylarge scale integration （VLSI） architecture for bitparallel systolic multiplication over dual base, which canbe pipelined, is presented. Since this architecture has thefeatures of regularity, modularity and unidirectionaldata flow, this structure is well suited to VLSIimplementations. The length of the largest delay pathand area of this architecture are less compared to the bitparallel systolic multiplication architectures reportedearlier. The architecture is implemented using Austria Micro System＇s 0.35 μm CMOS （complementary metaloxide semiconductor） technology. This architecture canalso operate over both the dual-base and polynomialbase.     

Rebar corrosion in chloride environment

Chloride induced reinforcement corrosion in concrete is a serious durability problem. Different sources of chloride, i.e. chloride introduced at the fresh stage of concrete (i.e. internal chloride) and chloride entered during the hardened state (i.e. external chloride) may affect the performance of concrete in different ways. For the performance evaluation of reinforced concrete in chloride environment (i.e. both internal and external chloride), there is a need for performing different electrochemical tests to obtain various corrosion parameters that will specify the possibility and the magnitude of corrosion in concrete. In the present study, the results of an experimental investigation that includes different corrosion tests namely potential measurement, corrosion rate measurement and potentiodynamic polarization test have been presented and analyzed to evaluate the performance of concrete both in internal chloride and external chloride exposure conditions. In addition an attempt is made to correlate the corrosion parameters obtained from internal and external chloride exposure conditions. From the results it was observed that, dropped half-cell potential value obtained from external chloride exposure mostly lie in the active zone obtained from internal chloride exposure. In addition it was observed that there was significant difference in corrosion current values obtained from both internal and external chloride exposure conditions. Further on the basis of overall ranking obtained from the results of critical parameters from different exposure conditions, the performance of different cement–steel combinations against chloride induced rebar corrosion has been evaluated.