Creation of Ultra-precision Microstructures with High Aspect Ratios

In recent years, ultra-precision micromachining technology has been used in a variety of fields such as optical instruments, electronic devices, medical equipments, etc. At present, it is essential to meet the requirement of producing various shapes, one of which is a structure with a high aspect ratio. Such structures are applied, for example, to a shaft of micro robot, a long part of microactuator and micromachine, a microneedle for syringe, etc. However, due to its fragile nature, it is extremely difficult to fabricate the structure with a high aspect ratio since it is easily damaged during cutting. It is intended to produce micro towers with high aspect ratios by applying the ultra-precision milling technology using a single crystal diamond cutting tool. The method enables accurate creation of a variety of microstructures with high aspect ratios. In addition, the study also proposes a new machining method to create microneedle arrays, avoiding the contact of cutting edge with already machined parts again. As a result, it is concluded that the proposed method has the potential of producing a variety of microstructures with high aspect ratios.     

Efficient Group-Based Multimedia-on-Demand Service Delivery in Wireless Networks

Recently, an upsurge of interest has been observed in providing multimedia on-demand (MoD) services to mobile users over wireless networks. Nevertheless, due to the rapidly varying nature of mobile networks and the scarcity of radio resources, the commercial implementation is still limited. This paper presents an efficient group-based multimedia-on-demand (GMoD) service model over multicast-enabled wireless infrastructures, where users requesting the same content are grouped and served simultaneously with a single multicast stream. The grouping is fulfilled through a process named "batching". An analytical model is derived to analyse a timeout-based batching scheme with respect to the tradeoff between user blocking probability and reneging probability. Based on the deduced analytical model, an optimal timeout-based batching scheme is proposed to dynamically identify the optimal tradeoff point that maximizes the system satisfaction ratio given a particular system status. The proposed scheme is evaluated by means of simulation and compared with two basic batching schemes (timeout-based, size-based), and two hybrid ones (combined-for-profit, combined-for-loss). The simulation results demonstrate the proposed approach can ensure significant gains in terms of user satisfaction ratio, with low reneging and blocking probabilities     

Quantification and genotyping of Cryptosporidium spp. in river water by quenching probe PCR and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis.

A new detection method was developed for the simultaneous quantification and genotyping of Cryptosporidium spp. in river water. Several modifications made to the US EPA Method 1623 enabled high and stable recovery of Cryptosporidium from 40 L of river water (geometric mean = 35%, standard deviation = 8.7%). Quenching probe PCR (QProbe PCR) was used to quantify the 18S rRNA gene of Cryptosporidium spp. This method could successfully detect single oocysts in a sample, and the lower quantitation limit was as low as 2.5 oocysts/sample. In addition, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) followed by DNA sequencing was used to identify the genotypes. These methods were applied to detect Cryptosporidium spp. in the Koyama River, Japan. The positive ratio was 69% (11/16) with the maximum concentration of 59 oocysts/100 L. Seven genotypes including two novel ones were identified. These results showed that this detection method could provide valuable information on Cryptosporidium in river water, both in the concentration and in the genotypes, which is essential for the precise assessment of waterborne risk to human health.     

Optimal control and operation of drum granulation processes

Process optimisation and optimal control of batch and continuous drum granulation processes are studied in this paper. The main focus of the current research has been: (i) construction of optimisation and control relevant, population balance models through the incorporation of moisture content, drum rotation rate and bed depth into the coalescence kernels; (ii) investigation of optimal operational conditions using constrained optimisation techniques; (iii) development of optimal control algorithms based on discretized population balance equations; and (iv) comprehensive simulation studies on optimal control of both batch and continuous granulation processes. The objective of steady state optimisation is to minimise the recycle rate with minimum cost for continuous processes. It has been identified that the drum rotation-rate, bed depth (material charge), and moisture content of solids are practical decision (design) parameters for system optimisation. The objective for the optimal control of batch granulation processes is to maximize the mass of product-sized particles with minimum time and binder consumption. The objective for the optimal control of the continuous process is to drive the process from one steady state to another in a minimum time with minimum binder consumption, which is also known as the state-driving problem. It has been known for some time that the binder spray-rate is the most effective control (manipulative) variable. Although other possible manipulative variables, such as feed flow-rate and additional powder flow-rate have been investigated in the complete research project, only the single input problem with the binder spray rate as the manipulative variable is addressed in the paper to demonstrate the methodology. It can be shown from simulation results that the proposed models are suitable for control and optimisation studies, and the optimisation algorithms connected with either steady state or dynamic models are successful for the determination of optimal operational conditions and dynamic trajectories with good convergence properties.     

Application-aware buffer management: new metrics and techniques

An important issue for video transmission over IP networks is preservation of perceived video quality despite packet loss. Packet loss can be detrimental to compressed video. However, reducing packet loss to a very low level is difficult with current loss control techniques. Furthermore, even a very low objective loss probability can still seriously distort perceived video quality. This paper presents two buffer management schemes using video characteristics. They increase maximum loss tolerance for a desired level of video quality, providing better quality at equal loss ratios, when compared to a conventional buffer management scheme. Meanwhile, service fairness and network efficiency are also improved.     

Analysis of time-frequency duality of MC and DS CDMA for multiantenna systems on highly time-varying and wide-band channels

Direct sequence (DS) and multicarrier (MC) are code-division multiple-access (CDMA) schemes based on single-carrier and MC modulations, respectively. While in DS CDMA, spreading is performed by increasing the transmission rate, or in the time domain, in MC CDMA, spreading is performed using several subcarriers, or in the frequency domain. In this paper, it is shown that MC and DS CDMA are time-frequency dual systems. Their analysis in time- and frequency-dispersive multiple-input multiple-output channels revealed that they can be described equally in terms of dual-channel functions, therefore exhibiting the same performance on dual channels. Furthermore, the duality property is used to derive matched filters for highly time-variant and wide-band channels. Finally, other issues involved in the comparison of DS and MC, namely spreading-sequence design and multiuser detection, are addressed.     

Dynamic responses and damages of water-filled pre-pressurized metal tube impacted by mass

An account is given of some principal observations made from a series of experiments in which three-span pipe beams were subjected to central impact by indenters with different nose shapes. These pipes were filled and pre-pressurized with water in order to identify the main effects produced by the fluid–structure interaction. In comparison, the impact experiments of the pipes with no water were also carried out. The perforation failure modes and corresponding critical impact energies were obtained in different test conditions. The experimental results indicated that the critical perforation energy and the deformation of the wall of the pipe were significantly influenced by the presence of the water and the pressure.     

Efficient fine granularity scalability using adaptive leaky factor

Fine Granularity Scalability (FGS) video coding has been adopted by the MPEG-4 standard for video streaming applications. In this paper, we propose a novel FGS coding scheme, which applied adaptive leaky factors for the enhancement layer prediction to further improve the coding efficiency of FGS. A flexible method that can dynamically determine the leaky factors according to the network conditions is also presented. With the proposed method, a better trade-off between the coding efficiency and drifting reduction can be achieved, and the coding performance is further improved compared with using a fixed leaky factor. Experimental results show that the proposed method can further improve the coding efficiency over a wide range of bitrate and packet loss ratio, and still keep the original characteristics, such as fine granularity, and bandwidth adaptation.