Royal Crown Shaped Polarization Insensitive Perfect Metamaterial Absorber for C-, X-, and Ku-Band Applications

This study proposed a new royal crown-shaped polarisation insensitive double negative triple band microwave range electromagnetic metamaterial absorber (MA). The primary purpose of this study is to utilise the exotic characteristics of this perfect metamaterial absorber (PMA) for microwave wireless communications. The fundamental unit cell of the proposed MA consists of two pentagonal-shaped resonators and two inverse C-shaped metallic components surrounded by a split ring resonator (SRR). The bottom thin copper deposit and upper metallic resonator surface are disjoined by an FR-4 dielectric substrate with 1.6 mm thickness. The CST MW studio, a high-frequency electromagnetic simulator has been deployed for numerical simulation of the unit cell in the frequency range of 4 to 14 GHz. In the TE mode, the offered MA structure demonstrated three different absorption peaks at 6.85 GHz (C-band), 8.87 GHz (X-band), and 12.03 GHz (Ku-band), with 96.82%, 99.24%, and 99.43% absorptivity, respectively. The electric field, magnetic field, and surface current distribution were analysed using Maxwell’s-Curl equations, whereas the angle sensitivity was investigated to comprehend the absorption mechanism of the proposed absorber. The numerical results were verified using the Ansys HFSS (high-frequency structure simulator) and ADS (advanced design system) for equivalent circuit models. Moreover, the proposed MA is polarisation and incident angle independent. Hence, the application of this MA can be extended to a great extent, including airborne radar applications, defence, and stealth-coating technology.     

An Efficient Path Planning and Control Algorithm for RUAV’s in Unknown and Cluttered Environments

This paper presents an efficient planning and execution algorithm for the navigation of an autonomous rotary wing UAV (RUAV) manoeuvering in an unknown and cluttered environment. A Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) variant is used for the generation of a collision free path and linear Model Predictive Control(MPC) is applied to follow this path. The guidance errors are mapped to the states of the linear MPC structure by using the nonlinear kinematic equations. The proposed path planning algorithm considers the run time of the planning stage explicitly and generates a continuous curvature path whenever replanning occurs. Simulation results show that the RUAV with the proposed methodology successfully achieves autonomous navigation regardless of its lack of prior information about the environment.     

A novel composite model approach to improve software quality prediction

Context:How can quality of software systems be predicted before deployment? In attempting to answer this question, prediction models are advocated in several studies. The performance of such models drops dramatically, with very low accuracy, when they are used in new software development environments or in new circumstances.ObjectiveThe main objective of this work is to circumvent the model generalizability problem. We propose a new approach that substitutes traditional ways of building prediction models which use historical data and machine learning techniques.MethodIn this paper, existing models are decision trees built to predict module fault-proneness within the NASA Critical Mission Software. A genetic algorithm is developed to combine and adapt expertise extracted from existing models in order to derive a “composite” model that performs accurately in a given context of software development. Experimental evaluation of the approach is carried out in three different software development circumstances.ResultsThe results show that derived prediction models work more accurately not only for a particular state of a software organization but also for evolving and modified ones.ConclusionOur approach is considered suitable for software data nature and at the same time superior to model selection and data combination approaches. It is then concluded that learning from existing software models (i.e., software expertise) has two immediate advantages; circumventing model generalizability and alleviating the lack of data in software-engineering.     

Selective determination of urea using urease immobilized on ZnO nanowires

Well-aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire arrays were fabricated on gold-coated plastic substrates using a low-temperature aqueous chemical growth (ACG) method. The ZnO nanowire arrays with 50–130 nm diameters and ∼1 μm in lengths were used in an enzyme-based urea sensor through immobilization of the enzyme urease that was found to be sensitive to urea concentrations from 0.1 mM to 100 mM. Two linear sensitivity regions were observed when the electrochemical responses (EMF) of the sensors were plotted vs. the logarithmic concentration range of urea from 0.1 mM to 100 mM. The proposed sensor showed a sensitivity of 52.8 mV/decade for 0.1–40 mM urea and a fast response time less than 4 s was achieved with good selectivity, reproducibility and negligible response to common interferents such as ascorbic acid and uric acid, glucose, K⁺ and Na⁺ ions.     

Implementation and experimental performance evaluation of a hybrid interrupt-handling scheme

The performance of network hosts can be severely degraded when subjected to heavy traffic of today’s Gigabit networks. This degradation occurs as a result of the interrupt overhead associated with the high rate of packet arrivals. NAPI, a packet reception mechanism integrated into the latest version of Linux networking subsystem, was designed to improve Linux performance to suit today’s Gigabit traffic. NAPI is definitely a major step up from earlier reception mechanisms; however, NAPI has shortcomings and its performance can be further enhanced. A hybrid interrupt-handling scheme, which was recently proposed in Salah et al. [K. Salah, K. El-Badawi, F. Haidari, Performance Analysis and Comparison of Interrupt-Handling Schemes in Gigabit Networks, International Journal of Computer Communications, Elsevier, Amsterdam 30 (17) (2007) 3425–3441], can better improve the performance of Gigabit network hosts. The hybrid scheme switches between interrupt disabling–enabling (DE) and polling (NAPI). In this paper, we present and discuss major changes required to implement such a hybrid scheme in the latest version of Linux kernel 2.6.15. We prove experimentally that the hybrid scheme can significantly improve the performance of general-purpose network desktops or servers running network I/O-bound applications, when subjecting such network hosts to both light and heavy traffic load conditions. The performance is measured and analyzed in terms of throughput, packet loss, latency, and CPU availability.     

Assessing readiness of IP networks to support desktop videoconferencing using OPNET

OPNET is a powerful network design and simulation tool that has gained popularity in industry and academia. However, there exists no known simulation approach on how to deploy a popular real-time network service such as videoconferencing. This paper demonstrates how OPNET can be leveraged to assess the readiness of existing IP networks to support desktop videoconference. To date, OPNET does not have built-in features to support videoconferencing or its deployment. The paper offers remarkable details on how to model and configure OPNET for such a purpose. The paper considers two types of video traffic (viz. fixed and empirical video packet sizes). Empirical video packet sizes are collected from well-known Internet traffic traces. The paper presents in-depth analysis and interpretation of simulation results and shows how to draw proper engineering conclusions.     

Compositional characteristics and aromatic profile of date palm seeds from seven varieties grown in Tunisia

This paper reports a discrimination study based on the physico‐chemical characteristics, fatty acids and profile of volatile compounds of the seeds from seven date palm varieties (Phoenix dactylifera L.) grown in Tunisia. Date seeds contained 10.49–14.76% moisture; 6.28–11.2% fat (on a dry weight basis); 2.67–12.85% protein; 0.91–6.06% reducing sugar; 0.61–2.98% sucrose and 0.97–1.17% ash. Gas liquid chromatography revealed that the oil fraction of the date palm seeds contained eighteen fatty acids, with oleic acid (30.77–42.50%) and lauric acid (18.51–27.48%) as the main unsaturated and saturated ones. Volatile profile showed differences among varieties. In total, forty‐five compounds were identified, mainly alcohols, aldehydes and unsaturated hydrocarbons ones. This study provides evidence that the seeds of date may be a potential source of valuable nutrients with interesting functionality.     

An enhanced symbiosis organisms search algorithm: an empirical study

Many nature-inspired optimization algorithms have recently been proposed to solve difficult optimization problems where the mathematical gradient-based approaches could not be used. However, those approaches were often not tested on a proper set of problems. Moreover, statistical tests are sometimes not used to validate the conclusions. Therefore, empirical analyses of such approaches are needed. In this paper, a very recent nature-inspired approach, symbiosis organisms search (SOS), is investigated. A set of unbiased and characteristically different problems are used to study the performance of SOS. In addition, a comparison with some recent optimization methods is conducted. Then, the effect of SOS only parameter, eco_size, is studied, and the use of different random distributions is also explored. Finally, three simple SOS variants are proposed and compared to the original SOS. Conclusions are validated using nonparametric statistical tests.

     

Microscopic details of asphaltenes aggregation onset during waterflooding

We report detailed microscopic studies of asphaltenes aggregation onset during waterflooding of petroleum reservoirs. To achieve this objective, a series of simulations are performed on asphaltenic-oil miscibilized with water at high pressure and temperature through molecular dynamics. Results of this simulation onset are applicable to asphaltenes behavior in real crude oils. Our simulation results illustrate that the aggregation onset in waterflooding generally follows three sequential steps: (i) Asphaltene-water interaction; (ii) Water bridging; (iii) Face-to-face stacking. Then, asphaltene-water and water-water hydrogen-bonding network surround every aggregate boosting the intensity of aggregation onset. We intend to utilize such understanding of these details in our predictive and preventive measures of arterial blockage in oil reservoirs during waterflooding.     

Theoretical calculation simulation studies of ABV nuclear reactor coupled with desalination system

In this paper, research has been conducted on the floating type nuclear power plant named as ABV reactor which is designed for district heating, power, and sea water desalination by OKBM facility at Russia. This reactor was tested under different thermal loads during the designing phase, and three modules have been investigated. Theoretical calculations and simulation studies have been performed on these three modules having specifications as ABV‐6M with 47MW_th, ABV‐6 with 38MW_th, and ABV‐3 with 18MW_th.The results obtained from these modules have been calculated mathematically and verified by simulation. We have compared the originally derived data of ABV desalination system with our theoretical and simulation analysis. The results from two desalination techniques including RO and RO + MED have been calculated and are presented in this paper with details. The results obtained from both analysis show that the efficiency of ABV nuclear reactor desalination system increases with the decrease in corresponding water cost ratio. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.