Energy-optimized cluster head selection based on enhanced remora optimization algorithm in underwater wireless sensor network

With the technological advancements, wireless sensor network (WSN) has played an impeccable role in monitoring the underwater applications. Underwater WSN (UWSN) is supported by WSN but subjected to data dissemination in an acoustic medium. Due to challenging conditions in underwater scenario, the limited battery resources of these sensor nodes stem to a crucial research problem that needs to address the energy-efficient routing in UWSN. In this research work, we intend to propose an energy-optimized cluster head (CH) selection based on enhanced remora optimization algorithm (ECERO) in UWSN. Since CH devours the maximum energy among the nodes, we perform selection of CH based on EROA while considering energy, Euclidean distance from sink, node density, network's average energy, acoustic path loss model and lastly, the adaptive quantity of CHs in the network. Further, to reduce the load on CH node, we introduce the concept of sleep scheduling among the closely located cluster nodes. The proposed work improves the performance of recently proposed EOCSR algorithm by great magnitude which claims to mitigate hot-spot problem, but EOCSR still suffers from the same due to relaying a large magnitude of data.     

Unified BER and optimum threshold analysis of binary modulations in simple and cascaded Rayleigh fading channels with switched combining

Following a unified analytical framework, the bit error rate (BER) of several coherent and non‐coherent binary modulation schemes is derived for a switched diversity system. The two variants of switched combining that have been investigated are switch and stay combining and switch and examine combining. For channel modelling, at first a simple slow flat fading channel is assumed, where the amplitude attenuation obeys the Rayleigh distribution. Later the BER calculations are repeated for cascaded Rayleigh fading channel case. Rayleigh fading is the most popular model for electromagnetic signal propagation in wireless media when both or either of the transmitter/receiver is fixed. On the other hand, when both the transmitter and the receiver are mobile, a cascaded (or double) Rayleigh fading model is better suited. The applicability of these two models, namely simple and cascaded Rayleigh model, has been indicated by several theoretical studies and their suitability is established by various field measurements. In our paper, simple closed‐form BER expressions as a function of switching threshold have been found and optimum switching thresholds have been computed for both these models as well as for both types of diversity combining described earlier. The results presented in this paper can be very useful for communication system designers to analyze link quality of switched diversity assisted systems in various wireless environments. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Precious‐Metal‐Free Electrocatalysts for Activation of Hydrogen Evolution with Nonmetallic Electron Donor: Chemical Composition Controllable Phosphorous Doped Vanadium Carbide MXene

The insufficient strategies to improve electronic transport, the poor intrinsic chemical activities, and limited active site densities are all factors inhibiting MXenes from their electrocatalytic applications in terms of hydrogen production. Herein, these limitations are overcome by tunable interfacial chemical doping with a nonmetallic electron donor, i.e., phosphorization through simple heat‐treatment with triphenyl phosphine (TPP) as a phosphorous source in 2D vanadium carbide MXene. Through this process, substitution, and/or doping of phosphorous occurs at the basal plane with controllable chemical compositions (3.83–4.84 at%). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate that the P? C bonding shows the lowest surface formation energy (ΔG_Surf) of 0.027 eV Å^?2 and Gibbs free energy (ΔG_H) of –0.02 eV, whereas others such as P‐oxide and P? V (phosphide) show highly positive ΔG_H. The P3–V₂CT_x treated at 500 °C shows the highest concentration of P? C bonds, and exhibits the lowest onset overpotential of –28 mV, Tafel slope of 74 mV dec^?1, and the smallest overpotential of ‐163 mV at 10 mA cm^?2 in 0.5 m H₂SO₄. The first strategy for electrocatalytically accelerating hydrogen evolution activity of V₂CT_x MXene by simple interfacial doping will open the possibility of manipulating the catalytic performance of various MXenes.     

A class of tests for testing an increasing failure-rate-averagedistribution with randomly right-censored data

For testing exponentiality versus (nonexponential) increasing failure rate average (IFRA) alternatives (which are nonexponential) using the randomly right censored data, a class of test statistics based on a functional of the Kaplan-Meier estimator is proposed. The asymptotic relative efficiencies of tests from this class with respect to other test statistics are derived. The efficiency loss due to censoring is studied. The proposed tests are applied to published survival data     

A monolithically integrated high‐efficiency Cu(In,Ga)Se2 mini‐module structured solely by laser

Monolithically integrated Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ mini‐modules were fabricated in order to reduce the width of patterning related dead area. The Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ layers were prepared on soda‐lime glasses using the multistage process at low substrate temperature below 500 °C. A picosecond laser with a wavelength of 532 nm was used for all of the structuring processes (P1, P2, and P3) for the monolithic integration. A “lift‐off” type structuring was applied for P1 and P3, and an “ablation” type was for P2. The laser structuring was optimized to be minimizing the dead area width, and the width of about 70 µm was successfully achieved. A mini‐module, in which the optimized structuring processes were applied for the integration, demonstrated a certified efficiency of 16.6%. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physical Layer Development Framework for OsmocomBB

The open source GSM protocol stack of the OsmocomBB project offers a versatile development environment regarding the data link and network layer. There is no solution available for developing physical layer baseband algorithms in combination with the data link and network layer. In this paper, a baseband development framework architecture with a suitable interface to the protocol stack of OsmocomBB is presented. With the proposed framework, a complete GSM protocol stack can be run and baseband algorithms can be evaluated in a closed system. It closes the gap between physical layer signal processing implementations in Matlab and the upper layers of the OsmocomBB GSM protocol stack. An embedded version of the system has been realized with FPGA and PowerPC to enable real-time operation. The functionality of the system has been verified with a testbed comprising an OpenBTS base-station emulator, a receiver board with RF transceiver and our developed physical layer signal processing system.     

Provable secure proxy signature scheme without bilinear pairings

Proxy signature is an active research area in cryptography. A proxy signature scheme allows an entity to delegate his or her signing capability to another entity in such a way that the latter can sign messages on behalf of the former. Many proxy signature schemes using bilinear pairings have been proposed. But the relative computation cost of the pairing is more than 10 times of the scalar multiplication over elliptic curve group. In order to save the running time and the size of the signature, we propose a proxy signature scheme without bilinear pairings and prove its security against adaptive chosen‐message attack in random oracle model. The security of our scheme is based on the hardness of the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. With the running time being saved greatly, our scheme is more practical than the previous related scheme for practical applications. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A passive auxiliary circuit achieves zero-voltage-switching in full-bridge converter over entire conversion range

A passive auxiliary circuit is proposed to achieve zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) over the entire conversion range in a full-bridge (FB) pulse-width modulated (PWM) converter (FBZVS converter) with minimum conduction loss penalty. The stored energy in the auxiliary circuit is minimal under the full-load condition. It increases progressively as the load current decreases. The proposed auxiliary circuit is passive, simple and can be viewed as an add-on to the conventional FBZVS converter. The principle of operation is described and the performance is demonstrated on a 100 kHz, 500 W prototype.