Channel coding for satellite mobile channels

The deployment of channel coding and interleaving to enhance the bit-error performance of a satellite mobile radio channel is addressed for speech and data transmissions. Different convolutional codes (CC) using Viterbi decoding with soft decision are examined with inter-block interleaving. Reed-Solomon (RS) codes with Berlekamp-Massey hard decision decoding or soft decision trellis decoding combined with block interleaving are also investigated. A concatenated arrangement employing RS and CC coding as the outer and inner coders, respectively, is used for transmissions via minimum shift keying (MSK) over Gaussian and Rayleigh fading channels. For an interblock interleaving period of 2880 bits, a concatenated arrangement of an RS(48,36). over the Galois field GF(256) and punctured PCC(3,1,7) yielding an overall coding rate of 1/2, provides a coding gain of 42dB for a BER of 10^?6, and an uncorrectable error detection probability of 1–10^?9.     

Treatment of two-phase flow in cathode gas channel for an improved one-dimensional proton exchange membrane fuel cell model

It has been reported recently that water flooding in the cathode gas channel has significant effects on the characteristics of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. A better understanding of this phenomenon with the aid of an accurate model is necessary for improving the water management and performance of fuel cell. However, this phenomenon is often not considered in the previous one-dimensional models where zero or a constant liquid water saturation level is assumed at the interface between gas diffusion layer and gas channel. In view of this, a one-dimensional fuel cell model that includes the effects of two-phase flow in the gas channel is proposed. The liquid water saturation along the cathode gas channel is estimated by adopting Darcy’s law to describe the convective flow of liquid water under various inlet conditions, i.e. air pressure, relative humidity and air stoichiometry. The averaged capillary pressure of gas channel calculated from the liquid water saturation is used as the boundary value at the interface to couple the cathode gas channel model to the membrane electrode assembly model. Through the coupling of the two modeling domains, the water distribution inside the membrane electrode assembly is associated with the inlet conditions. The simulation results, which are verified against experimental data and simulation results from a published computational fluid dynamics model, indicate that the effects of relative humidity and stoichiometry of inlet air are crucial to the overall fuel cell performance. The proposed model gives a more accurate treatment of the water transport in the cathode region, which enables an improved water management through an understanding of the effects of inlet conditions on the fuel cell performance.     

Modelling of Impedance Matching Circuit with Digital Capacitor in Narrowband Power Line Communication

Power line communication technology is used in various applications, from high voltage network to the low voltage network, as it is the only wired communication technology that is comparable with wireless communication network. It works by injecting a modulated carrier wave into the electric cables from one transceiver to another. But still, the noise level and impedance mismatch are still the main concern of this technology, particularly in the low voltage network in residential area. Power line has additive non-white noise and extremely harsh environment for communication. At the same time, there is signal attenuation along the power line caused by the impedance mismatch in the power line network. Even though these problems can be controlled using a band-pass filter and an impedance matching circuit respectively, but the impedances in the power line are time and location variant and it is rather difficult to design a circuit that allows maximum power transfer in the system all the time. Thus in this paper, a new adaptive impedance matching circuits is proposed for narrowband power line communication. This methodology is derived based on the RLC band-pass filter circuit. This concept is designed to achieve simpler configuration and higher matching resolution.     

The acoustoelastic response of a textured material during elastic-plastic deformation

Acoustoelasticity is a technique for the nondestructive evaluation of stress which relates changes in the speeds at which plane waves propagate through a solid to variations in the stress state. In the present work, the acoustoelastic behavior of a polycrystalline aggregate during elasticplastic deformation is investigated. Results are reported for a series of uniaxial tests in which the velocities of longitudinal and shear waves were monitored during elastic-plastic deformation of aluminum 5086-H32. A specific microstructural mechanism—the reorientation of grains due to plastic deformation—is investigated as a cause for the observed changes in acoustoelastic response which occur during elastic-plastic deformation. The Taylor theory analysis of the grain reorientation predicts velocity changes that are of the same sign and order of magnitude as the experimental results for shear waves but not for longitudinal waves.     

Investigations of fluid dynamics in mechanically stirred aerated slurry reactors

The fluid dynamics of stirred aerated slurry reactors with A-310® propeller, 4-blade 45° pitch turbine and 6-blade Rushton disc turbine were studied over a wide range of gas flow rates. With respect to power consumption, gas hold-up, and fluid dynamically limiting cases, viz., suspension and flooding, the Rushton disc turbine was found to be the best in stirred aerated slurry reactors. The influence of particle density, shape and mass fraction and of liquid properties on gassed critical stirrer speed, N_jsg, and of gassed power input per unit volume, P_jsg, on particle suspension and gas dispersion, were investigated. Empircal correlations in combination with that of Zwietering were established for scale-up design in three-phase slurry reactors.     

Use of a sex attractant and an inhibitor for monitoring winter moth and bruce spanworm populations

A single sex pherormone component was isolated from abdominal tip extracts of female Bruce spanworm.Operophtera bruceata (Hulst). This was identified as (Z,Z,Z)-1,3,6,9-nonadecatetraene by capillary gas chromatography (GC), electroantennography, and mass spectrometry. In addition, hexane extracts of female abdominal tips from Bruce spanworm and the winter moth.O. brumata L., were analyzed by GC coupled to an electroantennographic detector (GC-EAD). The extracts ofO. bruceata andO. brumata females elicited only a single response, at the same retention time, from antennae of their conspecific and reciprocal males. In field tests conducted in Saskatchewan, traps baited with the synthetic tetraene captured Bruce spanworm males. In tests carried out on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where the two species coexist, both Bruce spanworm and winter moth males were captured. The attractancy of lures containing the synthetic pheromone alone and in combination with several structurally related analogs was field tested at both locations. One of these, an isomer of the natural pheromone, (E,Z,Z)-1,3,6,9-nonadecatetraene, inhibited the capture of Bruce spanworm males but had no effect upon the number of winter moth males which were taken. Thus, populations of these two very similar species can be distinguished by employing traps baited with pheromone ± the inhibitor. Coneorifice Hara traps were found useful for field trapping males of both species.Issued as NRCC No. 26107     

Analysis of playout strategies for voice transmission using packet switching techniques

Due to variations in network delay, a stream of voice packets with deterministic interarrival times to a data network may not have deterministic interdeparture times at the destination. Two playout schemes which are designed to remove such variations in delay are considered. Analytic results for the performance of these two schemes are obtained. Numerical examples showing the effect of coefficient of variation of interdeparture time on performance are presented.