Editorial: Security and Privacy Protection for Mobile Applications and Platforms

Mobile Networks and Applications -     

Computation offloading balance in small cell networks with mobile edge computing

Wireless Networks - As a promising way to offset the low computation capacity of user equipments (UEs), mobile edge computing (MEC) has attracted great attention of academy and industrial recently....     

Programmable CMOS CNN Cell Based on Floating-gate Inverter Unit

At present, the Cellular Neural Network (CNN) is a potential parallel structure able to perform image processing tasks in real-time when is effectively implemented in CMOS technology. The CNN silicon integration success is due mainly to the local connectivity of processing cells. In this work, an alternative design based on floating-gate MOS inverters is presented, which uses unipolar signals for solving binary tasks. The approach brings a fast response in a reduced silicon area, as shown through electrical simulations. A prototype cell in CMOS technology (AMI, 1.2 micron) was fabricated and tested for eight image processing tasks.

Metal silicide/poly-Si Schottky diodes for uncooled microbolometers

Nickel silicide Schottky diodes formed on polycrystalline Si 〈P〉 films are proposed as temperature sensors of monolithic uncooled microbolometer infrared focal plane arrays. The structure and composition of nickel silicide/polycrystalline silicon films synthesized in a low-temperature process are examined by means of transmission electron microscopy. The Ni silicide is identified as a multi-phase compound composed of 20% to 40% of Ni₃Si, 30% to 60% of Ni₂Si, and 10% to 30% of NiSi with probable minor content of NiSi₂ at the silicide/poly-Si interface. Rectification ratios of the Schottky diodes vary from about 100 to about 20 for the temperature increasing from 22℃ to 70℃; they exceed 1,000 at 80 K. A barrier of around 0.95 eV is found to control the photovoltage spectra at room temperature. A set of barriers is observed in photo-electromotive force spectra at 80 K and attributed to the Ni silicide/poly-Si interface. Absolute values of temperature coefficients of voltage and current are found to vary from 0.3%℃ to 0.6%/℃ for forward bias and around 2.5%/℃ for reverse bias of the diodes.     

Autogenous healing of engineered cementitious composites at early age

Autogenous healing of early ages (3 days) ECC damaged by tensile preloading was investigated after exposure to different conditioning regimes: water/air cycles, water/high temperature air cycles, 90%RH/air cycles, and submersion in water. Resonant frequency measurements and uniaxial tensile tests were used to assess the rate and extent of self-healing. The test results show that ECC, tailored for high tensile ductility up to several percent and with self-controlled crack width below 60 μm, experiences autogenous healing under environmental exposures in the presence of water. However, the recovery for these early age specimens is not as efficient as the recovery for more mature specimen, for the same amount of pre-damage and exposure to the same environment. Even so, the self-healing for these early age specimens demonstrates high robustness when the preloading strain is limited to 0.3%. This conclusion is supported by the evidence of resonant frequency and stiffness recovery of the healed ECC materials.     

Bacterial Catabolism of Biphenyls: Synthesis and Evaluation of Analogues

A series of alkylated 2,3‐dihydroxybiphenyls has been prepared on the gram scale by using an effective Directed ortho Metalation–Suzuki–Miyaura cross‐coupling strategy. These compounds have been used to investigate the substrate specificity of the meta‐cleavage dioxygenase BphC, a key enzyme in the microbial catabolism of biphenyl. Isolation and characterization of the meta‐cleavage products will allow further study of related processes, including the catabolism of lignin‐derived biphenyls.     

Self-diffusion in Solutions of Carboxylated Acrylic Polymers as Studied by Pulsed Field Gradient NMR. 1. Solvent Diffusion Studies

The diffusion constants of solvent in solutions of carboxylated acrylic random copolymers in isopropanol (IPA) have been investigated using the PFG NMR technique. The copolymers are composed of butyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid with a range of molar ratios (BMA/MAA 100/0 through to 60/40 in 10 mol% steps). It was found that the echo attenuation function depended on the diffusion time, and experiments with short and long diffusion times have been analysed separately. Two questions are addressed: the first concerns the influence of concentration on the polymer aggregation in solution, and the second concerns the influence of the BMA/MAA molar ratio on the diffusion constants of the solvent. The data obtained have been discussed using established physical models for diffusion. Using the model of Wang gave the relative mass of bound solvent per mass of polymer which increased with the mol% of MAA in the copolymer.     

Human Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Progenitor Cells Engraft into Rabbit Articular Cartilage

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are known to have the potential for articular cartilage regeneration, and are suggested for the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA). Here, we investigated whether intra-articular injection of xenogeneic human adipose-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells (haMPCs) promoted articular cartilage repair in rabbit OA model and engrafted into rabbit articular cartilage. The haMPCs were cultured in vitro, and phenotypes and differentiation characteristics of cells were evaluated. OA was induced surgically by anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) and medical meniscectomy of knee joints. At six weeks following surgery, hyaluronic acid (HA) or haMPCs was injected into the knee joints, the contralateral knee served as normal control. All animals were sacrificed at the 16th week post-surgery. Assessments were carried out by macroscopic examination, hematoxylin/eosin (HE) and Safranin-O/Fast green stainings and immunohistochemistry. The data showed that haMPC treatment promoted cartilage repair. Signals of human mitochondrial can be directly detected in haMPC treated cartilage. The haMPCs expressed human leukocyte antigen I (HLA-I) but not HLA-II-DR in vivo. These results suggest that intra-articular injection of haMPCs promotes regeneration of articular cartilage in rabbit OA model, and support the notion that MPCs are transplantable between HLA-incompatible individuals.     

Kinetic mobility and connectivity in nanopore networks

Experimental results for methane and carbon dioxide diffusion in coal, as reported in the literature, often lead to diffusion rates of CO₂ appearing to be much greater than that of CH₄. The interpretation sometimes offered that the diffusion coefficient for CO₂ is 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than that of CH₄, violates fundamental principles. Nevertheless, the experimental observations require explanation. In this article, we: (a) Develop simplified models for the fast estimation of transport coefficients. These are compared with comprehensive grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, collectively defined as molecular simulations (MS), which provide theoretical adsorption isotherms and various transport coefficients based on multicenter potential energy equations. The simplified models are shown to have acceptable accuracies. (b) Use the simplified models to compare diffusivities of CO₂ and CH₄ in carbon nanopores. For all cases examined, the diffusivity of CH₄ is always larger than that of CO₂. (c) Offer two explanations for the apparently contradictory experimental observations (that CO₂ sometimes appears to diffuse much faster than the CH₄ molecule, even though CH₄ is lighter and has smaller adsorption affinity): (i) CH₄ mobility could be significantly reduced by directional forces resulting from irregular pore geometries; and (ii) if pores contain throats with sizes close to the CH₄ molecular diameter, the energy barrier that the methane molecules must overcome to proceed through is much larger than that required for CO₂. (d) Demonstrate that both mobility and connectivity issues can be addressed using kinetic theory in association with percolation analysis. Furthermore, this method of understanding pore networks provides a number of important quantitative measures including percolation threshold, size of largest cluster, shortest path and tortuosity. Separating different transport mechanisms, as we propose here, provides improved insights into the complex transport phenomena that occur in carbonaceous porous media. In many cases, diffusivities reported in the literature with mixed mechanisms are better named “apparent transport coefficients,” because they lump in other unrelated phenomena, violating the fundamental basis of, or mathematical assumptions imposed on, the definition of diffusion. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012