IPS-MAC: an informative preamble sampling MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

Radio transceivers are the main source of energy consumption in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) where the source of energy supply is non-rechargeable battery. Several MAC protocols have been proposed in order to efficiently conserve energy in the link layer via duty-cycling. Low power listening (LPL) methods have been shown to outperform other schemes in lightly loaded situations which are common in environment monitoring applications. Nonetheless, as the network becomes dense, in LPL protocols such as BMAC a large number of nodes stay awake for each transmission, resulting in high levels of energy consumption. This paper introduces the informative preamble sampling (IPS) protocol in which a transmitter implicitly embeds information about its intended receiver via the power at which the preamble is transmitted. This results in far fewer nodes staying awake for each preamble. Upon hearing the preamble, a receiver executes a decision-making algorithm to decide whether to stay awake. If the decision-making algorithm is too lax, then more nodes stay awake following the preamble. On the other hand if the algorithm is too strict, it is likely that the intended receiver misses the preamble. In this paper we derive the optimal operating points for the IPS protocol. We show analytically that the IPS protocol can achieve a gain in energy by at least a factor of 2 over BMAC. We also conduct extensive simulations to show that IPS can achieve significant energy gains compared to BMAC.     

Investigation of pointed domes—II. Experiment

The aim of the experiment was to study the behavior of pointed domes subjected to point loading at the vertex. A concrete dome reinforceed with 1 mm bars running both in the meridional and parallel circular direction was constructed. Electrical resistance strain gages were mounted at several locations along the meridional and parallel direction of the shell both inside and outside. The structure was loaded within the elastic limit.The experimental values of membrane stress field are calculated and compared with the theoretical values as is described in part I of this report. (see pp. 81–85). These results are in close agreement in regions some distance away from the lower boundary and the pointed apex. But the difference between the two results becomes noticeable near the lower boundary and the vertex of the dome. Further analysis of the experiment findings indicates that the bending strain field is slight at regions that are some distance away from the lower boundary and to the apex of the dome.     

Fractional-order unstable pole-zero cancellation in linear feedback systems

As a very well-known classical fact, non-minimum phase zeros of the process put some limitations on the performance of the feedback system. The source of these limitations is that non-minimum phase zeros cannot be cancelled by unstable poles of the controller since such a cancellation leads to internal instability. The aim of this paper is to propose a method for fractional-order cancellation of non-minimum phase zeros of the process and studying its properties. It is specially shown that the proposed cancellation strategy increases the phase and gain margin without leading to internal instability. Since the systems with higher gain and phase margin are easier to control, the proposed method can be used to arrive at more effective controls, which is also verified by the simulation results.     

Ignite-GPU: a GPU-enabled in-memory computing architecture on clusters

The Journal of Supercomputing - During recent years, big data explosion and the increase in main memory capacity, on the one hand, and the need for faster data processing, on the other hand, have...     

Statistical optimization of process conditions for photocatalytic degradation of phenol with immobilization of nano TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> on perlite granules

Response surface methodology (RSM) using D-optimal design was applied to optimization of photocatalytic degradation of phenol by new composite nano-catalyst (TiO₂/Perlite). Effects of seven factors (initial pH, initial phenol concentration, reaction temperature, UV irradiation time, UV light intensity, catalyst calcination temperature, and dosage of TiO₂/perlite) on phenol conversion efficiency were studied and optimized by using the statistical software MODDE 8.02. On statistical analysis of the results from the experimental studies, the optimum process conditions were as follows: initial pH, 10.7; initial phenol concentration, 0.5 mM; reaction temperature, 27 °C; UV irradiation time, 6.5 h; UV light intensity, 250 W; catalyst calcination temperature, 600 °C; and TiO₂/perlite dosage, 6 g/L. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a high coefficient of determination (R²) of 91.8%.     

PBSVM: Partitioning and biased support vector machine for vocal fold pathology assessment using labeled and unlabeled data sets

Most of the existing classification methods, used for voice pathology assessment, are built based on labeled pathological and normal voice signals. This paper studies the problem of building a classifier using labeled and unlabeled data. We propose a novel learning technique, called Partitioning and Biased Support Vector Machine Classification (PBSVM), which tries to utilize all the available data in two steps: (1) a new heuristically partition-based algorithm, which extracts high quality pathological and normal samples from an unlabeled set, and (2) a more principle approach based on biased formulation of support vector machine, which is fairly robust to mislabeling and unbalance data problem. Experiments with wavelet-based energy features extracted from sustained vowels show that the new recognition scheme is highly feasible and significantly outperform the baseline classical SVM classifier, especially in the situation where the labeled training data is small.     

Concurrent impact of chipping and pitting damages in a locomotive power transmission system

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The reliability of power transmission systems in locomotives directly impacts trains’ availability and running safety. The failure of gears,...     

TAMER: an adaptive task allocation method for aging reduction in multi-core embedded real-time systems

The Journal of Supercomputing - Technology scaling has exacerbated the aging impact on the performance and reliability of integrated circuits. By entering into nanotechnology era in recent years,...     

The characteristics of hot mixed asphalt modified by nanosilica

The objective of this research is to investigate the characteristics of the hot mixed asphalt modified by 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8% nanosilica by weight of binder. Marshall stability, dynamic creep, and indirect tensile tests were used to study effects of nanosilica on performance characteristics of the mixtures. Results showed that nanosilica can improve Marshall stability, resilient modulus, indirect tensile strength, and fatigue life compared to unmodified mixtures. However, the tensile strength ratio parameter in the moisture sensitivity tests indicated a decrease in the resistance of the modified mixtures against moisture damage.