Effects of pre-treatment with magnetic ion exchange resins on coagulation/flocculation process.

A new Magnetic Ion EXchange resin for DOC (Dissolved Organic Carbon) removal (MIEX DOC Resin) has been evaluated as water pre-treatment at the Drinking Water Treatment Plant (DWTP) of Florence in order to reduce the oxidant demand and disinfection by-products (DBPs) formation potential. This pre-treatment leads to several effects on downstream treatment processes. In this experimental study the effects of MIEX pre-treatment on clariflocculation process were evaluated with respect to coagulant demand reduction and characteristics of flocs formed. The analysis was conducted using traditional jar test procedures and a Photometric Dispersion Analyser (PDA2000) which provided continuous information about the aggregation state of particles during the jar tests.For a fixed turbidity goal in clarified water, ion exchange pre-treatment led to coagulant dosage reduction up to 60% and PDA results shown that flocs formed in pre-treated water were bigger and more resistant to shearing effects than those formed by conventional clariflocculation.     

Spectroscopic analysis and diode-pumped laser results of Nd:BaY/sub 2/F/sub 8/

Single crystals of monoclinic BaY/sub 2/F/sub 8/, doped with different Nd/sup 3+/ concentrations, were successfully grown by means of the Czochralski method. Here, we present a polarized infrared (IR) spectroscopic investigation and diode-pumped continuous-wave laser results in the 1 /spl mu/m wavelength region. Moreover for the first time 1.3 /spl mu/m laser emission has been characterized. Q-switching results in the 1-/spl mu/m region are also presented.     

Fast Interconnect and Gate Timing Analysis for Performance Optimization

Static timing analysis is a key step in the physical design optimization of VLSI designs. The lumped capacitance model for gate delay and the Elmore model for wire delay have been shown to be inadequate for wire-dominated designs. Using the effective capacitance model for the gate delay calculation and model-order reduction techniques for wire delay calculation is prohibitively expensive. In this paper, we present sufficiently accurate and highly efficient filtering algorithms for interconnect timing as well as gate timing analysis. The key idea is to partition the circuit into low and high complexity circuits, whereby low complexity circuits are handled with efficient algorithms such as total capacitance algorithm for gate delay and the Elmore metric for wire delay and high complexity circuits are handled with sign-off algorithms. Experimental results on microprocessor designs show accuracies that are quite comparable with sign-off delay calculators with more than of 65% reduction in the computation times     

TOPVISOR: Two‐level controller‐based approach for service advertisement and discovery in vehicular cloud network

Vehicular cloud is a kind of mobile cloud in which vehicles share their resources and provide services for each other. The first step in establishing a vehicular cloud network is the service advertisement and discovery. Due to the dynamic nature of vehicular cloud networks, services are not continuous and the service location may vary at any time depending on the vehicle location. Therefore, higher network traffic is generated to access the consistent and up‐to‐date information. In this paper, a two‐level hierarchical approach is proposed for service advertisement and discovery in vehicular cloud networks. To register the services' specification in this approach, the distributed directories in RSUs and central controllers are used. Moreover, a method is used to avoid extra update packets by localizing the updates. The simulation results show improvement in the packet delivery rate as well as a reduction in transmission bandwidth preventing the network congestion.     

Trade‐offs in integer data envelopment analysis

If production trade‐offs—which represent simultaneously feasible exchanges in the inputs and outputs of decision‐making units (DMUs)—are added to an integer production possibility set (IPPS), a new IPPS is produced; conventional axioms of production do not generate a new IPPS, however. This paper develops the axiomatic foundation for data envelopment analysis (DEA) for integer‐value inputs and outputs in the presence of production trade‐offs by introducing a new axiom of “natural trade‐offs.” First, a mixed‐integer linear programming formula called an integer DEA trade‐off (IDEA‐TO) is presented for computing efficiency scores and reference points. The numeration algorithm (NA) method presented in this concept is improved, and an improved numeration algorithm (INA) method for solving integer DEA (IDEA) models is developed. Finally, comparison between the two methods and a generalized INA method for solving the IDEA‐TO model are presented.     

Efficient Resource Allocation with Improved Interference Mitigation in FFR-Aided OFDMA Heterogeneous Networks

Fractional frequency reuse (FFR) has recently emerged as an efficient inter-cell interference coordination technique for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) based multi-tier cellular networks due to its low complexity, minimal signaling over-head, and coverage improvement. In this work, an intermediary region (IR) at the border of the center region (CR) and edge region (ER) is defined, which prevents severe cross-tier interference and is usually ignored by other schemes. Furthermore, a strategic resource allocation scheme is proposed, which allows macro users in this new region to be served more resources due to their good channel conditions close to the serving base station (BS), while femto users are assigned resource blocks from sub-bands that receive the least net interference from a set of usable sub-bands in any region. We find by analysis and simulation the optimal threshold for IR, which minimizes the cross-tier interference, and show that the femto throughput is also maximized for this threshold. Numerical results show the proposed scheme outperforms other notable schemes in terms of throughput and outage performances.     

A combined approach for the analysis of support groups on Facebook - the case of patients of hidradenitis suppurativa

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), also known as Acne Inversa, is a chronic, underdiagnosed, often debilitating and painful disease that affects the folds of the...