Operating Penalties in Single-Fiber Operation 10-Gb/s, 1024-Way Split, 110-km Long-Reach Optical Access Networks

We report for the first time optical signal-to-noise penalties which lead to performance degradations in single-fiber long-reach optical access networks when compared to identical dual-fiber systems. A simplified architecture, with reduced optical amplifier count compared to previous work, for single-fiber operation of a symmetrical 10-Gb/s, 1024-way split, 110-km long-reach optical access network is presented and demonstrated. In addition, a possible solution to remove the optical signal-to-noise penalty is suggested     

Multi-level attention model for tracking and segmentation of objects under complex occlusion

A multi-level attention framework for tracking and segmentation of humans and objects under complex occlusions is investigated, featuring an effective probabilistic appearance-based technique for pixel reclassification during object grouping and splitting. A novel ’spatial-depth affinity metric’ is introduced in the conventional likelihood function, utilising information of both spatial locations of pixels and dynamic depth ordering of the component objects in grouping. Depth ordering estimation is achieved through a combination of top-down and bottom-up approach. Experiments on some realworld difficult scenarios of low quality and highly compressed videos demonstrate the very promising results achieved.     

Co-digestion of manure and biowaste according to the EC animal by-products regulation and Finnish national regulations.

The objective of this study was to compare methane production and characteristics of digested material in anaerobic digestion concepts according to the Animal By-Products Regulation (ABP-Regulation) of the EC (hygienisation of biowaste for 1 hour at 70 degrees C, particle size < 12 mm) and Finnish national regulations (treatment temperature 55 degrees C, feeding interval 24 h, hydraulic retention time (HRT) 20 d, particle size < 40 mm) and with small variations in treatment methods for treating manure and biowaste. Moreover, the survival of three different salmonella bacteria in these processes was studied. Hygienisation of biowaste prior to digestion at 35 degrees C enhanced methane production by 14-18% compared to similar treatment without hygienisation. The differences in treatment temperature, HRT and hygienisation of biowaste prior to digestion did not significantly affect the characteristics of digested material. The concepts according to the ABP-Regulation and Finnish national regulations were effective in destroying salmonella bacteria to an undetectable level.     

Pathogenicity of three species of entomopathogenic nematodes to some major stored-product insect pests

Entomopathogenic nematodes (Nematoda: Heterorhabditidae and Steinernematidae) are commonly used biological control agents of insects in cryptic habitats, but their potential for suppressing stored-product insects in these habitats has not been explored previously. Here, we provide data from the first step in a program to evaluate entomopathogenic nematodes in the genus Steinernema as biological control agents of stored-product pests by determining their pathogenicity to some of the major stored-product pest species. When evaluated against larvae, pupae and adults of six pest species (Plodia interpunctella, Ephestia kuehniella, Oryzaephilus surinamensis, Tenebrio molitor, Tribolium castaneum, and Trogoderma variabile), and the adults of two additional pest species (Sitophilus oryzae and Rhyzopertha dominica), Steinernema riobrave was either the most pathogenic or of similar pathogenicity compared to S. carpocapsae and S. feltiae. A dose of 10 infective juveniles of S. riobrave caused 80% or higher mortality against larvae of P. interpunctella, E. kuehniella, T. castaneum, and O. surinamensis, pupae of T. castaneum and T. molitor, and adults of T. molitor and the two moth species. All stages of Trogoderma variabile exhibited 70% or higher mortality. Adults of S. oryzae and R. dominica exhibited low susceptibility with 15% and 35% mortality, respectively. On the basis of these results, S. riobrave was selected for further evaluation under more field-like conditions.     

Quasi-static stress fields for a crack inclined to the property gradation in functionally graded materials

Summary.  Quasi-static stress fields for a crack inclined to the direction of property gradation in functionally graded materials (FGMs) are obtained through an asymptotic analysis coupled with Westergaard's stress function approach. The elastic modulus of the FGM is assumed to vary exponentially along the gradation direction. The mode mixity due to the inclination of the property gradient is accommodated in the analysis through superposition of opening and shear modes. The first four terms in the expansion of the stress field are derived to explicitly bring out the influence of nonhomogeneity on the structure of the stress field. Using these stress field contours of constant maximum shear stress, constant maximum principal stress, constant first stress invariant and constant out of plane displacement are generated, and the effect of inclination of the property gradation direction on these contours is discussed. Received September 22, 2002 Published online: May 20, 2003 The financial support of National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant no. CMS 99000138 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Electrical Properties of GeO2–NiO Materials Containing Ni2GeO4

The GeO₂–NiO system is studied in the stability range of Ni₂GeO₄ by temperature-dependent resistivity measurements, in combination with x-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis, and thermogravimetry. The resistivity of the starting mixtures and heat-treated samples is measured in the composition range 55–90 mol % NiO. The effect of air humidity on the resistivity of the samples is examined.     

A multigrid accelerated hybrid unstructured mesh method for 3D compressible turbulent flow

 A cell vertex finite volume method for the solution of steady compressible turbulent flow problems on unstructured hybrid meshes of tetrahedra, prisms, pyramids and hexahedra is described. These hybrid meshes are constructed by firstly discretising the computational domain using tetrahedral elements and then by merging certain tetrahedra. A one equation turbulence model is employed and the solution of the steady flow equations is obtained by explicit relaxation. The solution process is accelerated by the addition of a multigrid method, in which the coarse meshes are generated by agglomeration, and by parallelisation. The approach is shown to be effective for the simulation of a number of 3D flows of current practical interest. Sponsored by The Research Council of Norway, project number 125676/410 Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Mike Crisfield, a respected colleague     

Sequential testing of sorted and transformed data as an efficient way to implement long GLRTs

It is often required to detect a long weak signal in Gaussian noise, and frequently, the exact form of that signal is parameterized but not known. A bank of matched filters provides an appropriate detector. However, in some practical applications, there are very many matched filters, and most are quite long. The consequent computational needs may render the classical bank-of-filters approach infeasibly expensive. One example, and our original motivation, is the detection of chirp gravitational waves by an Earth-based interferometer. In this paper, we provide a computational approach to this problem via sequential testing. Since the sequential tests to be used are not for constant signals, we develop the theory in terms of average sample number (ASN) for this case. Specifically, we propose two easily calculable expressions for the ASN: one a bound and the other an approximation. The sequential approach does yield moderate computational savings, but we find that by preprocessing the data using short/medium fast Fourier transforms (FFTs) and an appropriate sorting of these FFT outputs such that the most informative samples are entered to a sequential test first, quite high numerical efficiency can be realized. The idea is simple but appears to be quite successful: Examples are presented in which the computational load is reduced by several orders of magnitude. The FFT is an example of an energy-agglomerating transform, but of course, there are many others. The point here is that the transform need not match the sought signal exactly in the sense that all energy becomes confined to a single sample; it is enough that the energy becomes concentrated, and the more concentrated the better.     

Nonlinearity analysis and optimization of HBTs for optical mixer designs

Two types of photo heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) to directly down-convert optical signals to electronic signals have been reported in the literature: a conventional photo-HBT in which light penetrates through the area of the base-collector junction and an HBT where light shines through the base-collector edge for higher conversion efficiency. Although the performance in relation to bias conditions has been published, the detailed analyses for identifying the parameters and bias conditions that provide optimum direct down-conversion have not been examined. This paper provides a full explanation of the operation of the down-conversion for both HBT configurations based on low-frequency analyses. Such information is useful for both understanding the nonlinear mechanisms involved and designing for maximum efficiency. In addition, a new circuit has been developed from the basic HBT down-conversion circuit that provides improved performance.