Real-Time Receiver Clock Jump Detection for Code Absolute Positioning with Kalman Filter

In global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) navigation the receiver and satellite clocks play a key role. The receivers are usually equipped with inaccurate quartz clocks, which experiment large drift relative to system time and consequently offset growing very fast; receiver manufactures bound the magnitude of the receiver clock offset to prevent it becomes too large and the actual bounding procedures vary from one manufacturer to another. The most common approach consists of introducing discrete jumps when the offset exceeds a threshold (usually 1 ms). This method is common in low-cost GNSS receivers and influences several applications as differential positioning, cycle-slip detection, precise point positioning technique, absolute positioning with Kalman filter. In this work some techniques to detect and account for millisecond clock jump, suitable for code positioning of a single receiver with Kalman filter, are proposed. Two deterministic algorithms to detect receiver clock jumps are shown: in measurement and parameter domain. The technique in measurement domain uses current pseudorange measurements compared with pseudorange and Doppler measurements at previous epoch; the technique in parameter domain compares current and previous least squares estimations of receiver clock bias, considering the clock drift. Two different approaches are described to account for the clock jumps, once detected, a deterministic one, consisting of fixing the pseudorange discontinuities, and a statistic one, consisting of suitably varying the Kalman filter settings. A static GNSS data set is processed with and without the proposed algorithms to demonstrate their efficiency.     

A Symbolic Pole/Zero Extraction Methodology Based on Analysis of Circuit Time-Constants

This paper introduces a methodology for symbolic pole/zero extraction based on the formulation of the time-constant matrix of the circuits. This methodology incorporates approximation techniques specifically devoted to achieve an optimum trade-off between accuracy and complexity of the symbolic root expressions. The capability to efficiently handle even large circuits will be demonstrated through several practical circuits.     

Generation of Technology-Independent Retargetable Analog Blocks

This paper introduces a complete methodology for retargeting of analog cells to different sets of specifications. This methodology is technology-independent, thus allowing the migration, from one technology to another, of the circuit under retargeting. Careful integration of the device sizing and layout generation tasks via the incorporation of layout constraints during the sizing process allows to generate fully functional designs in a few minutes. The methodology is illustrated via the retargeting of a fully-differential Miller-compensated two-stage operational amplifier for a new set of specifications and two different technological processes.An erratum to this article can be found at     

Fish silage prepared from fish species of shrimp by-catch. II. Biological test in broilers

The purpose of this study was the nutritional evaluation of proteins in fish silage. A biological test was conducted in chicks (broilers) to evaluate two levels of inclusion of fish silage (2.5% and 5%, respectively) in diets normally used for feeding them. Chicks were evaluated in weight gain, food consumption, and feeding conversion index. Finally, flavor and acceptability tests of meat from broilers fed the experimental diet were conducted. Results of the biological assay indicated that the best biological response was that of the animals fed the 5% fish silage diet. Sensory tests revealed that the meat of chicks fed the experimental diets had favorable acceptance by the consumers.     

Compressive Creep of SiC-Whisker-Reinforced Al2O3

Compressive creep of SiC-whisker-reinforced Al₂O₃ composites (0, 5, 15, and 25 wt% SiC) was measured in the temperature range of 1300° to 1500°C in air and argon. The creep resistance increased with increasing whisker concentration. The results indicated that the whiskers degraded in air, increasing strain rates compared to those in argon. Stress exponents between 1.0 and 2.0 and an activation energy of 620 ± 100 kJ/mol were measured. Transmission electron microscopy observations indicated that cavitation was minimal and that the deformed composites had the same dislocation structure as did the as-received samples.     

Binary monkey algorithm for approximate packing non-congruent circles in a rectangular container

A Packing problem consists in the best arrangement of several objects inside a bounded area named as the container. This arrangement must fulfill with technological constraints, for example, objects should not be overlapping. Some packing models for circular objects are typically formulated as non-convex optimization problems; where the continuous variables are the coordinates of the objects, so they are limited to not finding optimal solutions. Due to the combinatorial nature in the arrangement of such objects, heuristic methods are being used extensively which combine methods of global search and methods of local exhaustive search of local minima or their approximations. In this paper, we will address the packing problem for non-congruent (different size) circles with the binary version of the monkey algorithm which incorporates a cooperation process and a greedy strategy. We use a rectangular grid for covering the container. Every node in the grid represent potential positions for a circle. In this sense, binary monkey algorithm for the knapsack problem, can be used to solve de 0–1 approximate packing problem for non-congruet circles. The binary monkey problem uses two additional processes of the original monkey algorithm, these two processes are a greedy process and a cooperation processes.

     

Molds and Resists Studies for Nanoimprint Lithography of Electrodes in Low-Voltage Polymer Thin-Film Transistors

A low-cost patterning of electrodes was investigated looking forward to replacing conventional photolithography for the processing of low-operating voltage polymeric thin-film transistors. Hard silicon, etched by sulfur hexafluoride and oxygen gas mixture, and flexible polydimethylsiloxane imprinting molds were studied through atomic force microscopy (AFM) and field emission gun scanning electron microscopy. The higher the concentration of oxygen in reactive ion etching, the lower the etch rate, sidewall angle, and surface roughness. A concentration around 30 % at 100 mTorr, 65 W and 70 sccm was demonstrated as adequate for submicrometric channels, presenting a reduced etch rate of 176 nm/min. Imprinting with positive photoresist AZ1518 was compared to negative SU-8 2002 by optical microscopy and AFM. Conformal results were obtained only with the last resist by hot embossing at 120 °C and 1 kgf/cm² for 2 min, followed by a 10 min post-baking at 100 °C. The patterning procedure was applied to define gold source and drain electrodes on oxide-covered substrates to produce bottom-gate bottom-contact transistors. Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) devices were processed on high-κ titanium oxynitride (TiO _x N _y ) deposited by radiofrequency magnetron sputtering over indium tin oxide-covered glass to achieve low-voltage operation. Hole mobility on micrometric imprinted channels may approach amorphous silicon (～0.01 cm²/V s) and, since these devices operated at less than 5 V, they are not only suitable for electronic applications but also as sensors in aqueous media.     

Effect of autoclaving on dietary fibre content of beetroot (Beta vulgaris). Evaluation by different methods

Modifications of dietary fibre in beetroot during autoclaving have been evaluated by different methods: acid detergent (raw=1.45%; processed=1.17%) and neutral detergent (raw=2.30%; processed=2.00%), the enzymatic-gravimetric method of Asp (raw=3.35%; processed=3.34%), HPLC (raw=1.42%; processed=1.60%) and 3,5-dimethylphenol (raw=0.36; processed=0.28%). The correlation between different methodologies was studied. Autoclaving was carried out at 121°C under pressure for 15 min. Variance analysis indicated that quantitative variations originating in the thermic treatment were not statistically significant (P>0.05).     

Lone‐Pair‐Induced Covalency as the Cause of Temperature‐ and Field‐Induced Instabilities in Bismuth Sodium Titanate

Bismuth sodium titanate (BNT)‐derived materials have seen a flurry of research interest in recent years because of the existence of extended strain under applied electric fields, surpassing that of lead zirconate titanate (PZT), the most commonly used piezoelectric. The underlying physical and chemical mechanisms responsible for such extraordinary strain levels in BNT are still poorly understood, as is the nature of the successive phase transitions. A comprehensive explanation is proposed here, combining the short‐range chemical and structural sensitivity of in situ Raman spectroscopy (under an applied electric field and temperature) with macroscopic electrical measurements. The results presented clarify the causes for the extended strain, as well as the peculiar temperature‐dependent properties encountered in this system. The underlying cause is determined to be mediated by the complex‐like bonding of the octahedra at the center of the perovskite: a loss of hybridization of the 6s² bismuth lone pair interacting with the oxygen p‐orbitals occurs, which triggers both the field‐induced phase transition and the loss of macroscopic ferroelectric order at the depolarization temperature.     

An efficiently implementable maximum likelihood decoding algorithm for tailbiting codes

Convolutional tailbiting codes are widely used in mobile systems to perform error-correcting strategies of data and control information. Unlike zero tail codes, tailbiting codes do not reset the encoder memory at the end of each data block, improving the code efficiency for short block lengths. The objective of this work is to propose a low-complexity maximum likelihood decoding algorithm for convolutional tailbiting codes based on the Viterbi algorithm. The performance of the proposed solution is compared to that of another maximum likelihood decoding strategy which is based on the A* algorithm. The computational load and the memory requirements of both algorithms are also analysed in order to perform a fair comparison between them. Numerical results considering realistic transmission conditions show the lower memory requirements of the proposed solution, which makes its implementation more suitable for devices with limited resources.