Future Directions for Mobile Communications Business,Technology and Research

This paper presents a picture of the mobile communications market and expected further development of systems and technologies. This is done with evaluating the market needs and reflecting these to available technology as well as technological opportunities. Despite of apparently advanced state of the technology and business, both market and technical solutions are concluded to likely experience further radical changes. The need for wireless capacity is two orders of magnitude more than what combined 2G and 3G would provide. A meaningful research objective to achieve is not in any single topic but will emerge from combining the needs of market and society with the opportunities offered by plurality of technologies. This opportunity starts form explorations aiming to a deeper understanding of the spatial propagation effects and ways to deploy them.     

Characterizing the generalized lambda distribution by L-moments

The generalized lambda distribution (GLD) is a flexible four parameter distribution with many practical applications. L-moments of the GLD can be expressed in closed form and are good alternatives for the central moments. The L-moments of the GLD up to an arbitrary order are presented, and a study of L-skewness and L-kurtosis that can be achieved by the GLD is provided. The boundaries of L-skewness and L-kurtosis are derived analytically for the symmetric GLD and calculated numerically for the GLD in general. Additionally, the contours of L-skewness and L-kurtosis are presented as functions of the GLD parameters. It is found that with an exception of the smallest values of L-kurtosis, the GLD covers all possible pairs of L-skewness and L-kurtosis and often there are two or more distributions that share the same L-skewness and the same L-kurtosis. Examples that demonstrate situations where there are four GLD members with the same L-skewness and the same L-kurtosis are presented. The estimation of the GLD parameters is studied in a simulation example where method of L-moments compares favorably to more complicated estimation methods. The results increase the knowledge on the distributions that belong to the GLD family and can be utilized in model selection and estimation.     

Sperm Physiological Response to Female Serum—Potential New Insights into the Reproductive Incompatibility Diagnostics

Infertility is assumed to arise exclusively from male- and female-dependent pathological factors. However, recent studies have indicated that reproductive failure may also result from the reproductive incompatibility of the partners. Selection against such incompatibilities likely occurs via female-derived reproductive secretions, including follicular fluid (FF), that mediate gamete-level mate choice towards the sperm of specific males. To facilitate potential development of diagnostic tests for human reproductive incompatibility, we examined whether sperm physiological response to female serum indicate male–female compatibility in the presence of FF. We performed a full-factorial experiment, in which the sperm of 10 males were treated with the FF and serum of 6 healthy females. We found that sperm motility and viability in both biofluids were highly similar and that in 70% of the males, sperm serum treatment predicted male–female compatibility. We also identified male human leucocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and female (FF and serum) anti-HLA antibodies and tested whether the number of allele–antibody matches predict sperm physiological response to female fluids. However, no association was found between measured sperm traits and the number of allele–antibody matches. Overall, the present results may open novel possibilities for the future development of reproductive incompatibility tests and may pave the way towards more accurate infertility diagnostics and treatments.     

Refining visualization reference model for context information

Context-awareness can be used to decrease the need for interaction with a mobile device. This is increasingly important since the functionality of mobile devices and personal digital assistants gets more and more complex while the input and output capabilities remain restricted. An important aspect of context-awareness is to present the current context to the user. We propose a model for visualizing contextual information on the mobile terminal screen. The model is a refinement of a well-known visualization reference model; it takes into account the specific characteristics of mobile use and context information. We present the design of the model in detail, and discuss its applicability for a variety of contexts and tasks by providing a full-fledged use case.     

Purification of Phenolic Wastewater Using Aerobic Bio-oxidation Combined with Activated Carbon Treatment and Ozonation

The combined process – aerobic bio-oxidation with activated carbon addition and ozonation was studied (ABO/AC/O3). The performance of the process was compared with conventional aerobic bio-oxidation (ABO). The studies were carried out in two continuous and periodic reactors to evaluate the purification efficiencies (in terms of COD, BOD and resorcinols removal), excess sludge generation and stability of the bioreactors against shock loadings. The parameters in continuous combined process were as follows: organics loading was 620 mgCOD/(day·L), activated carbon concentration 1g/L and ozone dose 2.45 mgO₃/L (mg ozone per liter of treated water). In periodic reactors the combined process was studied at lower activated carbon concentration and ozone dose (0.3 g/L and 0.57 mg/L respectively).

The results indicated that compared with conventional ABO, the co-effect of AC addition and short-termed (less than 1 week) or intermittent ozonation improved the removal of COD and BOD, while the longer period of ozonation resulted in reduction of excess sludge concentration in the bioreactor. The impact of AC and ozone on the ABO in the combined process did not concern only increased biomass activity, but AC and ozone improved also settleability of activated sludge and enhanced stability of the bioreactor to shock loadings.     

Parent’s self-reported indoor environment-related symptoms and health worry increase symptom reports among their children at school—Study in two independent populations

Little is known whether parent's indoor environment quality (IEQ)-related symptoms or health perceptions influence the risk of self- or parent-reported symptoms in their children. We assessed (i) the association of parents’ IEQ-related symptoms with IEQ-related symptoms in their children at school and (ii) whether parental IEQ-related health worry increases the risk for children's symptoms. We used two Finnish studies: a national, population-based survey of indoor air and related health problems (n = 611 parents) and a subset of survey for all primary school pupils (grade 3–6) and their parents in Helsinki, which also included school IEQ-related symptoms reported by children (n = 1617 parent-child dyads). In the school survey, parent's own symptoms increased strongly their reporting of their children's symptoms at school (aOR 4.0, 95% CI 2.7–6.0 for parents experiencing a lot of symptoms) and also symptoms reported by the child itself (aOR 2.2, 95% CI 1.5–3.1). Similar, but slightly weaker associations were seen with parental IEQ-related health worries. Results remained unchanged when adjusted for the IEQ of school buildings or parental and children's allergic diseases. Similar associations were seen in the national survey between parent's symptoms at work and child's symptoms at school. The results suggest that parents’ health perceptions may increase the reporting of children's IEQ-related symptoms even more than is typically seen for many indoor air contaminants.     

Fe2O3–TiO2 Nano‐heterostructure Photoanodes for Highly Efficient Solar Water Oxidation

Harnessing solar energy for the production of clean hydrogen by photo­electrochemical water splitting represents a very attractive, but challenging approach for sustainable energy generation. In this regard, the fabrication of Fe₂O₃–TiO₂ photoanodes is reported, showing attractive performances [≈2.0 mA cm⁻² at 1.23 V vs. the reversible hydrogen electrode in 1 M NaOH] under simulated one‐sun illumination. This goal, corresponding to a tenfold photoactivity enhancement with respect to bare Fe₂O₃, is achieved by atomic layer deposition of TiO₂ over hematite (α‐Fe₂O₃) nanostructures fabricated by plasma enhanced‐chemical vapor deposition and final annealing at 650 °C. The adopted approach enables an intimate Fe₂O₃–TiO₂ coupling, resulting in an electronic interplay at the Fe₂O₃/TiO₂ interface. The reasons for the photocurrent enhancement determined by TiO₂ overlayers with increasing thickness are unraveled by a detailed chemico‐physical investigation, as well as by the study of photo­generated charge carrier dynamics. Transient absorption spectroscopy shows that the increased photoelectrochemical response of heterostructured photoanodes compared to bare hematite is due to an enhanced separation of photogenerated charge carriers and more favorable hole dynamics for water oxidation. The stable responses obtained even in simulated seawater provides a feasible route in view of the eventual large‐scale generation of renewable energy.