A new device for measuring the real area of contact of polymeric material by the perturbation of total internal reflection

An optical device has been developed to measure precisely and directly the real area of contact (RAC) between a glass prism and a machined polymeric surface. It is based on the perturbation of total internal reflection of a light beam in the region of contact between the two solid surfaces. The optical and electronic components of equipment intended for the measurement of the RAC, given in terms of percentage of the apparent surface of contact, were selected to provide improvements in the way of using this method and have permitted to reach a precision of about 1.5%, and a resolution of 0.05%, for finishes rougher than 1.0m centre line average roughness value (CLA). These components also ensure measurements with a calibration factor independent of the material considered and its colouration. The design concepts are outlined, and typical experimental results for a thermoplastic material are presented, which show a good performance of repeatability. The variation of RAC with normal load was investigated with a large range of surface roughness of polymeric specimens. The results are included, and show that the real area of contact varies as 0.88 power of the normal load, with a proportionality constant dependent on the roughness of the contacting polymer surface.     

A frame-based approach for capturing semantics from Arabic text for text-to-sign language MT

This paper describes the design and implementation of a computational model for Arabic natural language semantics, a semantic parser for capturing the deep semantic representation of Arabic text. The parser represents a major part of an Interlingua-based machine translation system for translating Arabic text into Sign Language. The parser follows a frame-based analysis to capture the overall meaning of Arabic text into a formal representation suitable for NLP applications that need for deep semantics representation, such as language generation and machine translation. We will show the representational power of this theory for the semantic analysis of texts in Arabic, a language which differs substantially from English in several ways. We will also show that the integration of WordNet and FrameNet in a single unified knowledge resource can improve disambiguation accuracy. Furthermore, we will propose a rule based algorithm to generate an equivalent Arabic FrameNet, using a lexical resource alignment of FrameNet1.3 LUs and WordNet3.0 synsets for English Language. A pilot study of motion and location verbs was carried out in order to test our system. Our corpus is made up of more than 2000 Arabic sentences in the domain of motion events collected from Algerian first level educational Arabic books and other relevant Arabic corpora.     

Effect of stepped‐impedance resonators on rectangular metamaterial unit cells

In this article, effect of the stepped‐impedance resonator (SIR) miniaturization technique on rectangular metamaterial unit cells is investigated and the influence of the method's structural parameters on the characteristic impedance and the distance between higher resonance modes is discussed. According to the results, the ideal unit cell for this method should be thick enough and have an impedance ratio greater than one. Furthermore, the SIR technique is applied on a conventional two‐turn spiral metamaterial unit cell and a new compact spiral unit cell is introduced. The effect of this method on the unit cell parameters is investigated and the new unit cell is compared to the conventional spiral. According to the results, a miniaturization factor of 0.75 can be achieved with the new unit cell. To validate the results, a two dimensional array of the unit cell is fabricated and its S‐parameters are measured using the free space method. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 25:582–590, 2015.     

Using I2P (Invisible Internet Protocol) Encrypted Virtual Tunnels for a Secure and Anonymous Communication in VANets: I2P Vehicular Protocol (IVP)

Wireless Personal Communications - The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) as a secure protocol uses robust mechanisms and strong algorithms to reinforce the security and the anonymity of the...     

Investigations on mode-division multiplexed free-space optical transmission for inter-satellite communication link

Wireless Networks - Inter-satellite data transmission links are very crucial for providing global inter-connectivity. We report designing and investigations on high date rate inter-satellite...     

Ultra‐wideband slot antenna for wireless communication systems

In this article, a new ultra‐wideband rectangular‐slot antenna is proposed and developed for multiband wireless communication systems. The radiating slot is fed by a microstrip line with a microstrip fork‐shaped tuning stub. The frequency characteristic and radiation performance of the proposed antenna are successfully optimized, and a prototype is fabricated and tested. The measured results show that the impedance bandwidth can cover the band from 1.85 to 6.1 GHz with return loss of better than 10 dB, and the corresponding radiation displays omnidirectional patterns across the interested bands. With these frequencies, the proposed structure is especially suitable for applications in wireless communication systems, where a single antenna is needed to operate simultaneously at different bands, such as PCS (1.85–1.99 GHz), UMTS (1.92–2.17 GHz) and all WLAN bands (2.4–2.48 GHz and IEEE802.11a WLAN applications at 5.15–5.35 GHz and 5.725–5.825 GHz). © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2006.     

Concept and prototype of a spatial decision support system for integrated water management applied to Ichkeul Basin,Tunisia

In this study, we develop a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for water management in a basin characterised by existing and projected dams to satisfy freshwater demand while preserving a particular ecosystem. The territorial and functional interests along with management scenarios were integrated into consistent stages of the SDSS. The developed prototype allowed comparisons of multiple water allocation options to competing users in the catchment by two aggregation methods. Through a simulation modelling exercise and stakeholder's involvement, the main outputs are the development of water management options and a set of criteria/subcriteria to evaluate these options related to socio‐economic, water availability and ecological factors. Both aggregation methods reveal the positive effect of water transfer on overall evaluations. New dam construction would cause an increase in the overall evaluation from the SDSS by at best 34% when water availability criteria are favoured, while a decrease in overall evaluation by at worst 75% is indicated when ecological criteria are favoured.     

Acoustic Emission and Its Relationship with Friction and Wear for Sliding Contact

Further investigation of the relationships between friction and wear properties and the characteristics of acoustic emission was conducted in the case of dry and grease-lubricated sliding contact using a ball-on-cylinder testing apparatus. The effect of contamination simulated by the inclusion of glass bead particles was also explored. Experiments were performed at sliding speeds ranging from 0.09 m/s to 1.47 m/s, while maintaining a fixed load and duration. As a first observation and contrary to what could be expected, the higher speed did not contribute to the decrease in friction interpreted by a worsening of the starved regime that had a consequence of increasing wear. However, the results revealed a good correlation between the friction coefficient and acoustic emission (AE) rms voltage for dry sliding. Such a relationship may allow the prediction of a reasonable friction coefficient μ from an AE signal. It was also determined that the friction work correlated well with the corresponding integrated AE voltage over time, intRMS. The detection of the sliding speed threshold beyond which accelerated wear would occur was possible from the intRMS variation. Proportionality between the theoretically determined grease film thickness and the intRMS was observed.     

Indentation of poly(formaldehyde), reinforced nylons and poly(ethyl terephthalate)

Indentation tests were performed on flat coupons of poly(formaldehyde), three types of reinforced nylon and reinforced poly(ethyl terephthalate) using a device developed for a typical universal tensile testing machine. Spherical, conical and cylindrical indenters were selected for this study and the effects of indenter shape combined with the rate of indentation on the behavior of these materials were examined. The load‐depth relationship during the indentation process revealed the emergence of step‐like transitions at high indentation rates. The effects of the assessed parameters on the indentation resistance, as defined in this study, were analyzed. Interest was also focused on the investigation of the deformation work as well as the plastic work taking place for a total depth that incorporated both the skin and part of the bulk of the material. The modeling of the data was based on a previously developed approach and the introduction of a modified parameter that took not only the geometrical characteristics of the indenter into account but also the indentation depth. The proposed method has proven to be useful since a steady state of the indentation pressure was observed for all materials after a certain depth of indentation. This was valid for the results obtained using both conical and cylindrical indenters. Polym. Eng. Sci. 44:1439–1447, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.